Gunpowder Plot (7 page)

“Jack! What’s wrong?”

“It’s . . . it’s Father.” He sounded as shocked and confused as he looked. “He’s shot Mrs. Gooch. And himself.”

7

M
iller walked in on the stunned silence. “We met Lady Tyndall’s personal maid on the stairs,” he said. “One of the parlour maids had told her Lady Tyndall wasn’t well and she— What’s going on?”

Daisy recovered her wits. “Gwen, go and fetch Colonel Wook-leigh,” she commanded. “No, ask him to come here at once, and then send Dr. Whatsisname— Prentice? Don’t explain; just tell them they’re urgently needed. You can collapse when you’ve done that.” As Gwen went out, walking like an automaton, Daisy turned to Jack.

“Come and sit down before
you
collapse.”

Jack dropped onto a chair and buried his face in shaking hands.

“What’s going on?” Miller repeated, totally bewildered.

Beginning to feel somewhat shaky herself, Daisy said, “Jack found Sir Harold and Mrs. Gooch. Apparently, Sir Harold shot Mrs. Gooch and then himself.”

“Mrs.
Gooch
? But why the blazes? Here, you’d better come and sit down, Mrs. Fletcher. Jack, are they both dead?”

“I . . . I think so. Father . . .” He shuddered, eyes closed. “Father is.”

“We’ve got to stop anyone going in there. In the study? That’s up the stairs from the billiard room?”

“That’s right,” said Daisy, who had followed his advice to sit down. “But there’s another door upstairs, at the end of the passage.”

“You’ll see anyone coming through here. I’d better go and check upstairs, lock the door if possible.”

“I’ll go,” said Jack. He stood up, his colour slightly improved.

“I’m all right.”

Daisy was about to warn him not to touch the doorknob or key with his bare fingers, when she had second thoughts. The only reason for such a precaution was the possibility that Sir Harold had not, in fact, killed himself but had been murdered. Both Jack and Miller had clashed with the baronet.

But Mrs. Gooch? Why should either shoot Mrs. Gooch?

Come to that, why should Sir Harold shoot Mrs. Gooch?

“I think you’d better wait for Sir Nigel.”

“Colonel Wookleigh?” Miller asked with a frown.

“He’s Chief Constable. He can take charge. Here he is now.”

The tall, thin colonel entered with a short, chubby man, whom Daisy presumed to be the doctor. His frizzy gingerish hair stood out in a Struwwelpeter-like aureole that made his head as round as his body. Close behind came another man, considerably younger, and Gwen, who still looked stunned, as if her brother’s report hadn’t yet sunk in properly.

“What’s up, Tyndall?” Wookleigh asked sharply.

Miller stepped forward to explain, but Jack said, “I’m all right, I tell you. It’s my father, sir. He . . . Up in the study . . . It looks as if he’s shot one of our guests, and himself.”

“Dead?” demanded the younger man, pushing forward.

“I think so, Doctor.”

“Think so! Don’t stand around thinking. Show me the way!”

Jack paled. “Miller?” he said appealing to his friend.

“This way, Doctor.” The engineer led the way towards the billiard room.

“Don’t touch or move anything you don’t absolutely have to!”

Daisy called after them.

“That’s right, by Jove!” Wookleigh exclaimed. “Don’t disturb the evidence, unless to save a life. You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Fletcher. I may not have police training, but I’ve learnt that much, only it skipped my mind in the press of the moment. I’d better go with them, hadn’t I, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“I say, old chap,” bleated Struwwelpeter, “not your county, you know. Chief Constable of Worcestershire, and Edge Manor is in Gloucestershire. My county, old chap, don’t you know.”

“My dear fellow, you’re Lord Lieutenant, a purely ceremonial post, nothing to do with the police. At least I have some experience with police investigations.”

“Not your county,” the other persisted. “Got a perfectly good Chief Constable of our own. What’s his name, now? Helot, Hazlitt, Harrington—”

“Herriott. We’ll ring him up, of course, but in the meantime, someone needs to keep an eye on things, eh, Mrs. Fletcher? From a police perspective.”

“No offence to the lady, but what the deuce d’ye mean by consulting her, Wookleigh? The name’s Dryden-Jones, madam.” He bowed slightly. “No offence, I say, but you’re not one of these newfangled policewomen, are you? Course not. See you’re a lady with both eyes closed. No more police experience than I have!”

“On the contrary, my dear fellow. Mrs. Fletcher’s husband is a detective, a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, no less. I dare say she knows more about police investigations than the two of us put together.”

“I know a bit,” Daisy interjected before Dryden-Jones had recovered from his surprise. “And I do agree, Sir Nigel, that you’d better go up and keep an eye on things.”

“I’m on my way,” said Wookleigh triumphantly, and his long legs carried him rapidly to the billiard room’s door, where he stopped and turned. “It is your county, Dryden-Jones,” he admitted with an air of making a great concession. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go and ring up Herriott and tell him to ask the Yard to send Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher down to take charge? Dashed good fellow, Fletcher. He knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

Dryden-Jones glanced at Jack and Gwen. Close together, they were clasping each other’s hands and talking quietly. Tears poured down Gwen’s face. Jack led her to a chair and made her sit.

Turning to Daisy, Dryden-Jones said rather sourly, “You seem to be our expert, Mrs. Fletcher. Should I advise Herriott to call in your husband?”

“It’s up to the Chief Constable, of course, but if he wants Scotland Yard involved, Alec may be available. He’s just winding up a case in Birmingham and he was going to pick me up tomorrow to go home, but he might be able to get here tonight.”
Please, please let him get here tonight,
she thought. She badly wanted the comfort of his presence. “The sooner investigators are on the scene, the better.”

Jack came over. He was still pale, but he had pulled himself together in the best tradition of the stiff upper lip. “Mrs. Fletcher, Gwen tells me your husband is a detective, and since we’re going to have to have the police in the house, she’d rather he came than anyone else.”

“It’s not up to me, Jack.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Dryden-Jones gruffly. “Needn’t say I’m devilish sorry, Tyndall. I’ll need a telephone.”

“In Father’s— Oh Lord! You’d better use the one in the butler’s pantry, sir. It’s more private than the one in the hall. I’ll show you.”

They both went out into the passage. Daisy sat down beside Gwen. She was searching for words when the door to the drawing room opened again and Gooch came in, still carrying his plate, looking disconsolate. Daisy’s heart sank.

“I can’t find Ellie anywhere. Have you seen—” Realizing Gwen was weeping into a hankie, he came to a halt. “What’s up? Here, Mrs. Fletcher, what’s the matter?”

Daisy did not want to be the one to tell him. Reluctantly, she started to stand up, but Gwen stopped her.

“No, it’s my responsibility.” She swallowed a sob. “But how?”

“An accident,” Daisy whispered. “Tell him there’s been an accident and the doctor is with her.”

Gooch took a step towards them. “Ellie?” he asked pleadingly.

Gwen went to him. “I’m sorry, I have bad news, Mr. Gooch. Dr. Prentice is with your wife now.”

“She’s crook? Been took ill?”

“There’s been an”— she stumbled over the word—“an accident.”

But could it have been an accident? Daisy wondered. Suppose Sir Harold had been showing one of his antique pistols to Mrs. Gooch and it had fired accidentally. Having killed her through sheer carelessness, he might have thought to atone by blowing out his own brains.

Daisy felt sick. Till now, she’d managed to hold at bay the image suggested by Jack’s announcement. Now she fought to dismiss it from her mind, to distract herself with speculation. Why should Sir Harold take Mrs. Gooch up to his study to show her a pistol, instead of staying downstairs in the billiard room? Why, horrified as he had looked when she and her husband arrived, should he have gone to any trouble for her in the first place?

Was she blackmailing him? But she had seemed such a pleasant person!

Jack returned. Seeing Gooch, he turned bright red. He rushed up to the Australian. “Sir, I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world! I liked Mrs. Gooch so much. If only I hadn’t invited—”

“Liked!” Gooch’s face turned a horrid clayey colour. “She’s not—”

“The doctor’s with her,” Gwen reminded him apprehensively.

“Where is she? I gotta see her!”

Miller came back just in time to hear the Australian’s desperate plea. His grim expression offered no hope that Jack had misinterpreted the gravity of the situation. Gwen, Jack, and Gooch all turned to him.

“I’m afraid it won’t be possible for you to see your wife, sir,” he said. “This is a police matter and nothing can be done until they arrive.”

“Ellie’s dead.” Gooch’s shoulders slumped as the certainty sank in.

“If only I’d put me foot down . . . !”

“Tyndall!” The Lord Lieutenant bustled in from the passage. “I have Herriott on the line. Chief Constable, don’t you know. Dashed officious fellow— wants to speak to someone who’s actually seen the scene, so to speak.”

Jack blenched. “Must I?”

Dryden-Jones gave him a look of surprised disgust, as if describing over the telephone the gruesome scene of his father’s death ought to be taken in his stride. Daisy sympathized. It wasn’t as if Jack had been through the bloody hell of the trenches and become inured to slaughter— though for some men those memories made things harder.

Again Miller came to his rescue. “I’ve seen. I’ll go.”

“Who the deuce are you?” Dryden-Jones barked.

“Martin Miller,” Gwen told him. “A friend of the family. Martin, this is Mr. Dryden-Jones, Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire.”

“I’ll speak to Mr. Herriott, sir.” Miller went out before Dryden Jones could start an argument.

Dryden-Jones followed him, tut-tutting.

Gwen and Jack returned their attention to Gooch. His colour was slightly improved, but his face revealed his hopeless misery. He stood with his arms hanging, as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

“How’m I going to tell the boys?”

He didn’t know yet that Sir Harold was also dead, Daisy realized. She couldn’t leave it to Gwen and Jack to break that bit of news to him. But they were going to have to rally round. Babs undoubtedly needed their help with the guests, who mustn’t be allowed to leave without giving details of their whereabouts for the next couple of days. Gooch needed somewhere private to sit down, and he probably could do with a drink before he spoke to the doctor.

Someone had to start getting things organized. Miller appeared to be willing and competent, but he was otherwise occupied just now and presumably inexperienced in police investigations.

Daisy was unwilling, and Alec would doubtless question her competence, but she was on the spot and more experienced than even Wookleigh might guess. Wearily, she gathered her remaining energy and stood up.

Detective Sergeant Tring, enormous in his bottle green and maroon check suit, hoisted his pint in the direction of Detective Constable Piper. Light gleamed equally on the glistening tankard and the shiny dome of his bald head. “Well done, laddie!”

“Cor, Sarge, you feeling all right?”

“Never better.” He wiped froth from his luxuriant moustache.

“It’s back to the Smoke and the old woman’s steak and kidney pud tomorrow.”

“I mean,” Piper said, appealing to Alec, “how often d’you hear him giving me any credit, Chief?”

“Rarely.” Alec smiled and sipped the whisky he’d treated himself to after the conclusion of a difficult and exhausting case.

“Don’t want him getting too big for his boots, do we, Chief?”

“Heaven forbid. But there’s credit enough for both of you in this one.”

Ernie Piper’s eye for detail had discerned a pattern in the string of pawnshop robberies, and Tom, much speedier on his feet than his bulk suggested, had bagged the villain on the brink of escape. The Birmingham Chief Superintendent was duly grateful. Favours were owed, to be called in at need.

And tomorrow Alec would see Daisy. He hadn’t been keen on her going off on one of her writing outings in her condition, but he knew better than to say so. The timing had worked out very neatly. Tom and Ernie would hop on the London express in the morning, and he’d drive his Austin Chummy via Didmarsh-under-Edge to pick her up on the way home. The weather forecast looked set fair for at least another day, promising a pleasant journey.

In the meantime, he was enjoying his whisky and the easygoing teasing between his men.

“Telephone for Mr. Fletcher!” The Buttons hurried straight across the hotel lounge towards their table. He had somehow penetrated their incognito, and the name of Scotland Yard was a potent one to a fourteen-year-old. “Trunk call for Mr. Fletcher!” Arriving, slightly out of breath, he added in a conspiratorial whisper, “It’s from Lunnon, sir. The Yard, I bet!”

Piper groaned. “Where to now? Timbuktoo?”

At the words “trunk call,” Alec’s first thought was that something had gone wrong with the pregnancy. Relieved that the call came from London, not Didmarsh, he overtipped the boy a florin and went to the telephone cubby in the lobby.

“Fletcher here.”

“London, I have your party,” said the girl. “Go ahead, please.”

“Fletcher, you there?” Superintendent Crane’s ire sizzled down the wire in spite of a bad connection. “How the deuce does she do it ?That’s what I want to know! You’d better get over there right away.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Your wife, man, your wife! Murder-suicide at Edge Manor, where I gather Mrs. Fletcher is a guest. The Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire personally instructed Herriott, the CC, to ask the AC for you. Also present is the CC of Worcestershire, who was acquainted with Mrs. Fletcher’s late father.”

“Sir Nigel Wookleigh?” That gentleman’s friendship with the late Lord Dalrymple had been responsible for saving Alec’s bacon. Wookleigh had been remarkably forgiving last year when Alec, dragged in by Daisy, had operated in a flagrantly unofficial manner in his jurisdiction.