Leigh had brought Inspector Washburn, two bobbies, and a tall, lean gentleman he introduced as the Chief Constable of Berkshire. Alec blinked at Sir Amory Brentwood’s brilliant pink blazer, tie, cap, and socks, a startling contrast to the sober police blue surrounding him.
“Everything under control, eh?” said Sir Amory. “Hope you’ve no objection to taking charge, my dear fellow. My men are spread thin, what with the Regatta crowds, and Prince Henry due to pop in this afternoon. Dashing young chappie, wants a bit of watching, what?”
Seeing Daisy lurking not quite beyond earshot, her back tactfully turned as if she was watching the races, but undoubtedly listening, Alec made a last-ditch effort to save their weekend. “Sir, the Assistant Commissioner …”
“I’ll make all right with your A.C., never fear,” Sir Amory assured him. “Spot of luck your being down here. You can call on Inspector Wishbone here for any help you need, of course, but I hope you’ll try not to be too much of a drain on my manpower.”
Alec surrendered. “I’ll send for my own men, sir. There
seems to be a Buckinghamshire connection. I don’t suppose you could advice me how to get in touch with the C.C.?”
“Old Felter? He’ll be at Phyllis Court I expect, old chap, and so will Packington, the Oxfordshire C.C., if you need him. I’m a rowing man myself, you know.” He sighed. “Or used to be. Well, I’ll leave you chaps to get on with it then. Over to you, Wishbone, what?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Inspector resignedly.
Already turning away, Sir Amory swung back. “I say, it is murder, is it? That young fellow wasn’t too sure.”
“Or manslaughter, sir,” Alec temporised, “but that’s up to the courts. For police purposes, all homicides are presumed to be murder.”
“Yes, of course. Homicide, eh? Not a homicidal maniac, I trust?” He laughed nervously. “Er, who … ?” He glanced past Alec at the victim under his temporary maroon shroud.
Alec was glad to see that Poindexter had used his blazer to cover the legs. “The Honourable Basil DeLancey,” he said.
“Honourable … ?” The Chief Constable paled. “Good gad! It couldn’t be a Bolshevik plot, could it?”
“I think it highly unlikely, sir.”
“Good, good. Prince Henry coming and all, what? Be grateful if you could keep it under your hat as much as possible, old chap. Don’t want a lot of fuss with royalty around, eh?”
“I’ll do my best, sir, but I gather Lord DeLancey, the victim’s brother, is in Henley. I can’t expect to keep it from him until the Prince has left.” In fact, Alec began to realise, the case was not only going to disrupt his time with Daisy. One way or another, it was going to land him in a thoroughly invidious position.
Sir Amory shook his head gloomily. “Can’t ask more than your best,” he admitted. “Lord DeLancey, eh?”
Leigh, who had stepped away to join Daisy, returned. “Sorry to butt in, sir,” he said, “but I think that’s Lord DeLancey coming now. There, in the navy blazer.”
The Chief Constable glanced back along the towpath, his eyes popping. “I’m off. Least said, soonest mended, eh, Chief Inspector?”
Alec did not waste time watching him go. “Washburn, isn’t it?” he said to the local Inspector, earning a look of gratitude. “I’d like to keep your two men for the moment, though I’ll return them to you as soon as possible. I won’t detain you, but will you be so good as to telephone the Yard and ask them to send down my men?”
“Of course, sir.” The Inspector took out his notebook.
“Sergeant Tring and Constable Piper. They’d better go to the Henley police station. I’ll leave a message there when I know where to have them contact me.”
“Right you are, sir. I’ve sent for our police surgeon, sir, Dr. Dewhurst, but he has to come from Reading. If you’re going to be working with the Henley force, too, you might want to get hold of their man.”
“Damn!” said Alec. “I need to speak to the Bucks and Oxfordshire C.C.s. Where’s this Phyllis Court?”
“It’s an exclusive club—social, not rowing like Leander—over on the other side of the river, sir.”
“It would be! I’ll have to get to a telephone myself.” He groaned as he saw complications multiplying. The man Leigh had pointed out as Lord DeLancey was about to add to them. “Felter and Packington, was it?”
“Colonel Felter and Mr. James Packington, sir.”
“Thanks, Washburn. Forget about the Henley surgeon for the moment. I’ll send one of these fellows if I need your further help.”
Inspector Washburn, turning to leave, was accosted by the man in the navy blazer. “Hi, you, I’m DeLancey. What’s all this rot about my brother falling out of his boat? Is he ill?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher will assist you, sir,” said the Inspector, and made good his escape.
Lord DeLancey paled. “What’s going on?” he asked uncertainly. “Frieth just said he’d puked and fallen in.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Alec said, “I’m afraid I have bad news. Your brother is dead.”
“Drowned? The damned fool!” DeLancey said savagely, flushed now with anger. “No one drowns at Henley! With half the world looking on, we’ll never manage to keep it quiet.”
So much for brotherly love. Alec had the fewer qualms as he said, “Not drowned. It seems Mr. DeLancey died from the delayed effects of a blow to the head.”
“He fell?” His lordship’s flush faded. “Or do you mean someone hit him?”
“Yes, sir. Presumably in the course of a quarrel.”
“A quarrel?” DeLancey’s pallor almost equalled his dead brother’s. “What do you mean delayed? How long delayed?”
“At present I have very little information. I shall have to ask you when you last saw your brother and his condition at that time, what you know of his movements, and whether you are aware of anyone who … disliked him. However, this is hardly the place.”
For the first time, Lord DeLancey looked beyond him, at the blazers covering Basil DeLancey’s corpse. “This is hardly
the place to let him lie, exposed to every passer-by,” he exclaimed irritably.
Alec agreed. Nor was there any reason not to move the body before the police surgeon saw it; no need to photograph its position; no need to search the ground for clues. The clues would be found wherever DeLancey was hit and fell, not where he died.
In the boat-house? Alec wondered, glancing at Daisy, still pretending not to listen.
“I hesitate to have him carried through the crowds to the town,” he said to Lord DeLancey.
“No, by jingo!”
“Which doesn’t leave much alternative. Daisy!” Alec almost smiled at the alacrity with which she turned. “How upset would your aunt be if we carried the deceased back to the house?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. Not too, I expect. Worse things must have happened in Africa, don’t you think? It … he wouldn’t stay long, would he? Gosh, that sounds awful. I’m sorry, Lord DeLancey. Please accept my condolences.”
DeLancey bowed slightly.
“Just until we can get him to the nearest mortuary,” Alec said. “She won’t mind if I make a few telephone calls?”
“No, not at all, I’m sure.”
“We’ll take him to the Cheringhams’, then. You know the house, Lord DeLancey? ‘Bulawayo,’ on the Marlow Road.”
“I know it.”
“It may be rather awkward managing things in a skiff, but we’ll do it somehow. You can put the stretcher together now, Constable.”
One of Washburn’s men had brought a stretcher, dismantled
and rolled up with a sheet inside. Alec took the sheet while the two constables started to assemble the stretcher.
“I’ll be on my way,” said Lord DeLancey.
“You won’t come with us?” Alec asked, surprised.
“No. I’m going back to Crowswood Place, where I’m staying—you can reach me there. I must try to get in touch with my people. The Earl and Countess of Bicester, you know. They’re on board ship on their way to visit my sister in America.”
One complication the fewer. Alec breathed a silent prayer of gratitude. “As you wish, sir. First, I must ask you to identify the victim. Not that there’s the least doubt he’s your brother, I’m afraid, but the Coroner prefers formal identification by a relative.”
Reluctantly, Lord DeLancey trailed him over to the body. Alec turned back the corner of the blazer from the face. His lordship cast a quick glance, looking sick.
“That’s my brother, Basil DeLancey,” he confirmed, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”
DeLancey departed along the towpath at a walk fast enough to be almost a trot.
With the assistance of Poindexter and Wells, Alec quickly and smoothly replaced the blazers with the sheet. Poindexter and Leigh showed a marked distaste for their returned clothing.
“It doesn’t s-seem quite respectful to put it on,” said Poindexter.
Leigh merely shuddered and held his at arm’s length.
“You might as well wear them,” Daisy said practically, “because
you’ll have to carry them back anyway. You can’t just drop them here.”
“I should rather say not, fellows,” Meredith agreed. “We don’t want a couple of scavenging tramps wandering around in Ambrose blazers.”
“Here come Frieth and Fosdyke,” Leigh announced. “Their need is greater than ours.”
He and Poindexter went to meet Rollo and the younger Fosdyke, whose father turned at the sound of his name. The doctor had not stirred since propping himself on his shooting-stick, but now he folded it.
“Chief Inspector,” he said to Alec, now supervising the constables in lifting the sheet-covered body onto the stretcher, “do you wish me to accompany you to … er … Bulawayo?”
“If it’s not too much of an imposition, Mr. Fosdyke, I’d appreciate it.”
“Not at all. I shall be glad to be with my boy at such a distressing time.” He followed Leigh and Poindexter.
“What about the police surgeon?” Daisy asked Alec. “The man’s coming from Reading, which is Berkshire …”
“I knew you were eavesdropping!”
She grinned at him. “But the body’s going to be in Bucks.”
Alec groaned. “And I suppose the Henley surgeon’s in Oxfordshire.”
“Marlow’s probably the nearest in Buckinghamshire—though it’s not a very big town.”
“The Reading man will have to do the job,” Alec said decisively. “He’s on his way, and after all, DeLancey died in Berkshire. Didn’t he?”
“Possibly,” said Daisy, “but the county boundary runs
down the middle of the river and I’ve no idea exactly where. You see why I said they’d want you to take over?”
“I do indeed!” He turned to Wells and Meredith. “You two won’t mind giving a hand with the stretcher, will you? And rowing over to the Cheringhams’?”
They hastened to assure him that Scotland Yard might count on them. The shock of DeLancey’s death past, Daisy suspected they were beginning to enjoy the drama of the occasion. It wasn’t as if the victim had been beloved of all.
Alec sent one of the constables back to Inspector Washburn with a message for Dr. Dewhurst to proceed to Bulawayo. By then Rollo and young Fosdyke had arrived with their escort. They both looked exhausted and shocked.
“He’s really dead?” Rollo asked Alec. “It’s my fault!”
Everyone stared at him.
“Mr. Frieth,” Alec said gravely, “It is my duty to warn you that …”
“That’s not what he means,” Daisy cried, her own feelings of guilt rushing back. “You didn’t hit him, did you, Rollo?”
“Lord, no!” he exclaimed, aghast. “I saw enough violence in France. Haven’t raised my hand to a soul since. But Mr. Fosdyke says it was probably the stress of sudden exertion which made him keel over. I should never have let him row.”
“Fat choice you had,” Wells snorted. “He insisted he was well enough to go out. And anyway you thought—we all thought—all that ailed him was a hangover.”
“That’s right,” the others agreed.
Mr. Fosdyke started to reassure Rollo, but Daisy didn’t listen as Alec, after glaring at her, set about organising the cortege. The remaining seconded constable led the way at the head of the stretcher, with Wells at the foot. Alec thanked
Constable Rogers for his assistance, then he and Daisy joined the tail end of the procession, behind Mr. Fosdyke and Rollo.
“You shouldn’t have interrupted,” Alec said softly, tight-lipped. “For all you knew, he was going to confess. You made him pull back from the brink.”
“I’m sure he didn’t whack DeLancey. He’s much too peaceable.”
“You can’t be sure. You told me he had a motive, had a hard time restraining his anger at DeLancey’s making eyes at Patricia. You can’t take him under your wing just because he’s your cousin’s suitor.”
“I’m not!” Daisy insisted. “He’s just not the sort to biff someone without immediate provocation. Since Tish wasn’t at the boat-house to be quarrelled over …”
“Ah, the boat-house! Let’s drop Frieth and Tish for the moment while you explain why you keep harping on that. And also how it happened that you and she saw DeLancey in a parlous state when no one else—apparently—did.”
“All right. I told you DeLancey shoved Bott into the river. Bott swore revenge, and DeLancey took it into his head that he was going to sabotage the fours boat. So he—DeLancey—planned to spend the night in the boat-house guarding the boat. Lord DeLancey forbade it, said he’d just make a silly ass of himself and people would talk. Though after his public attack on Bott, a mere vigil would hardly add to the scandal.”
“Lord DeLancey seems to have a strong aversion to being a subject of gossip,” said Alec. “That was his chief emotion on learning his brother was dead.”
Daisy hadn’t actually promised Tish not to pass on the reason. The details were irrelevant, however. “He had rather a poor War record,” she said. “It was hushed up, but of course
some people know, and he’s madly afraid it will come out if there’s talk about the family. Anyway, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Basil DeLancey went down to the boat-house regardless of his brother’s prohibition, should you?”
“Not at all.”
“Especially as he had been drinking, so he very likely wasn’t thinking frightfully clearly.”
“Very likely not. We’ll have to consider the boat-house as a possible scene of the crime, certainly, but there’s nothing to say it wasn’t elsewhere.”
“I suppose not,” said Daisy, crestfallen.
“Cheer up, my love. It’s worth knowing we need to check the place carefully. ‘We,’ I say. I can only hope Tring and Piper turn up, and soon.”
“There are extra trains down to Henley because of the Regatta, and it’s not more than an hour’s journey.”
“True, but it depends whether the Yard can contact them quickly, and how hard they try, based on a request from a Berkshire Inspector. I’d better ring up myself. I’m going to be spending a long time on the telephone, Daisy, so you’d better tell me the rest before we get to the skiffs.”
“There’s not much more. Only that DeLancey woke us up, Tish and me, in the middle of the night. He came stumbling into the bedroom, confused and unsteady on his feet, just as if he were drunk.”
“The middle of the night?” Alec asked sharply. “Can you be more definite?”
“About two. Just past.” Daisy noted that he expressed no concern for her safety. She could not decide whether to be pleased that he believed she could take care of herself, or hurt
by his lack of solicitude. Of course, he could see she had suffered no harm. “I looked at the clock when I turned on the light to see what was going on,” she added.
“It sounds as if DeLancey was hit before two, then, though I’ll have to talk to Mr. Fosdyke and Dr. Dewhurst about the symptoms. They’ll probably want a more precise description from you. What did you do about his intrusion?”
“Tish fetched young Fosdyke—they shared a bedroom—and Fosdyke took him away for us, bless him.”
Alec stopped her with a hand on her arm, so that they fell further behind the next in line, Rollo and Mr. Fosdyke Senior.
“If DeLancey was, in fact, simply drunk at that point,” Alec said in a low voice, “he could have started a dust-up with young Fosdyke after they left you.”
“You mean it could have been Fosdyke who biffed him?”
“Exactly. Though, come to think of it, surely someone would have heard if they had scrapped in the passage or bedroom.”
“Not necessarily. The rowers sleep the sleep of the dead—Ugh! I mean, they sleep like logs. Tish had a frightful struggle to wake Fosdyke. Rowing seems to be a fearfully draining sport,” Daisy remarked in a meditative aside. “They all eat like horses, too.”
“No one heard DeLancey in your room, I assume,” Alec said impatiently, starting off again after the others.
“No. It’s on the other side of the landing from the wing the men are in, and there’s a bathroom opposite, and a dressing-room between Tish’s room and her parents’. Dottie’s opposite Aunt Cynthia’s room, diagonally across the passage from Tish’s.”
“Miss Carrick heard nothing?”
“She might have if DeLancey had kicked up a row, but actually all he did was mumble and moan. Tish was afraid for a minute that he’d come after her, but he wasn’t at all aggressive.”
“He might have become aggressive on being removed. Young Fosdyke has to go on my list. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, I’m afraid our weekend is thoroughly dished!”
“Too maddening,” said Daisy with regret, but she went on philosophically, “Still, no one can say you didn’t warn me about marrying a policeman. And at least you’re here with me, not in the outer reaches of darkest Devon or Derbyshire.”
“Daisy, where’s Tish?” Rollo asked anxiously, dropping back as Mr. Fosdyke moved ahead to join his son.
“Cherry took her and Dottie home, ages ago. She was fearfully upset.”
Rollo frowned. “I didn’t think she liked DeLancey.”
Glancing at Alec, Daisy was sure he had noted this intimation of jealousy. “She didn’t, you chump,” she assured Rollo. “Seeing someone die right in front of you is upsetting even if you loathe him.”
“He wouldn’t stop pestering her!”
“He’s stopped now,” Alec observed.
“Yes,” said Rollo, not troubling to hide his satisfaction. If he was going to be a successful diplomat, Daisy thought, he needed to practise inscrutability. “I can’t say I’m sorry,” he went on, adding earnestly to Alec, “but I didn’t take a whack at him, you know, though I can’t deny I often wanted to.”
Alec’s nod was as inscrutable as a nod can be. “From what I’ve heard, you had cause.”
Rollo stopped in his tracks, an expression of horror crossing
his eloquent features. “Daisy, what’s upsetting Tish isn’t that she thinks I biffed him, is it?”
That notion had not crossed Daisy’s mind before. “Of course not. She knows you too well,” she said hastily, as convincingly as she could, but it seemed more than possible that Tish suspected Rollo, or Cherry, or both.
Tish had another reason for her distress, Daisy recalled. Now that DeLancey was dead, no harm could come of Rollo knowing about his intrusion into their bedroom, so she told him.
“You see, Tish and I have as much cause to reproach ourselves as you did,” she pointed out. “If you hadn’t let him row, if we’d realised he wasn’t drunk but needed a doctor … .”
“Mr. Fosdyke says even if he had not rowed, any exertion could have killed him. And even with medical attention he might have died, or lived on with crippling brain damage. I’ll ask him to talk to Tish.” Rollo hurried after the doctor.
Alec sighed. “He does seem too ingenuous to be lying. What about Cheringham? If I’m not mistaken, you said Frieth once held him back from coming to cuffs with DeLancey.”
“I wish I hadn’t told you!” said Daisy. “Anyway, he pulled DeLancey out of the river.”
“I don’t for a moment imagine whoever struck DeLancey intended his death, or he’d have finished him off there and then. But, as you no doubt heard me tell—remind—Sir Amory, from a police point of view, all unlawful deaths are equivalent. It’s up to the courts to decide between murder and manslaughter. Cheringham’s efforts to save DeLancey would certainly be a mitigating factor.”
“I don’t believe he did it.” But Daisy remembered Cherry’s aghast face when Mr. Fosdyke pronounced DeLancey dead.
“I suppose I can’t expect you to speak ill of your cousin’s cousin. Nonetheless, I’m afraid he and Frieth have to be considered prime suspects.”
“What about Horace Bott?” said Daisy.
“Ah, there you have it,” said Alec, “what about Horace Bott? And, more to the point, where is Horace Bott?”