Attacked with an oar? An oar-blade could be the flat, smooth weapon Dr. Dewhurst described, though Alec was not wedded to the boat-house theory, as Daisy seemed to be.
What the dickens had got into her to go alone, in the middle of the night, to investigate the conjectured scene of a violent crime? Any ordinary female would have wakened one of the myriad young, strong men in the house to accompany her, or more likely to take her place. But Daisy was not ordinary, which was why he loved her and why she drove him to distraction with her foolhardy, infuriating, but occasionally illuminating meddling in his cases.
An oar, in the boat-house?
Coming to the end of the street, Alec turned right on Station Road. Tom Tring, massive in his robin’s-egg-blue and white check summer suit, and young Piper were waiting on the pavement in front of the station. Alec pulled up the Austin beside them.
“Hullo, Chief!” Piper dropped his Woodbine, ground it out underfoot, and reached for his suitcase.
“Hullo, Tom, Ernie. No, don’t get in just yet,” said Alec,
reaching back behind his seat for his umbrella. With it in hand, he climbed out. “My apologies for wrecking your weekend.”
“All in a day’s work, Chief, though the missus was a bit put out about the steak-and-kidney pud,” rumbled Tom. He took off his pale grey bowler, revealing the vast, hairless dome, now glistening with perspiration, which counterbalanced the walrus moustache flourishing on his upper lip. He fanned himself with the hat while wiping the limitless expanse of his forehead with a blue-spotted handkerchief. “A good job you didn’t make us walk to the local copper-shop.”
Piper pointed to the black, rolled umbrella. “The Chief’s brought his sunshade for you, Sarge.”
“You can have it for a parasol in a minute, Tom,” said Alec, grinning, “but first I want to try a little experiment. Piper, move away a few feet. That’s good enough. Now, pretend this is solid wood and, oh, about ten feet long. Too heavy to catch in your hands when I take a bash at you.” Shifting his grip to the ferrule, he suited action to the words.
As Piper ducked, twisting aside, he turned his face away from the swinging umbrella. Alec stopped the swing just before the handle caught the Detective Constable a whack on the side of his head, towards the upper rear.
“That’s it!”
A stern voice came from behind him. “Awright, awright, awright! Nah then,” the bobby continued for a change as they all turned to face him, “what’s goin’ on ’ere?”
He regarded with equal suspicion their hastily produced Metropolitan Police warrant cards—fortunately Alec carried his both on and off duty—and Alec’s explanation of his experiment. His face cleared, however, when Alec thought to mention
Horace Bott. Miss Hopgood’s landlady’s house was on his beat, he said.
“I’ll see ’em when they comes back, sir, never you fear. But I’d take it kindly, sir, not meanin’ no offence, if you’d do your ’speriments off the street. Gives people ideas, it does, sir. That’s what it does, gives people ideas.”
Properly abashed, Alec apologised. Appeased, the constable saluted and watched them pile into the Austin, which tilted under Tring’s weight.
“Listen,” said Alec, turning right on the Reading Road, which confusingly became Duke Street, then Bell Street as they drove through the town, and then Northfield End just before meeting the Marlow Road. By that time he had given the others a swift resume of the case.
“Cor, Chief,” said Piper admiringly from the back seat, “it doesn’t sound like you need us. You’ve got it taped already.”
“As a matter of fact,” Alec admitted, his cheeks growing warm, “a great deal of my information comes only from Miss Dalrymple. I haven’t had a chance yet to confirm what she’s told me.”
“Ah,” said Tom meaningfully. Alec knew without looking that beneath his moustache was a grin.
“If Miss Dalrymple told you, Chief, it’s as good as seeing it with your own eyes.” Piper’s belief in Daisy was boundless.
“What’s first, Chief?” Tom asked.
“I think I’ll drop in on Lord DeLancey, as we have to pass the gates of Crowswood, where he’s staying. He can confirm quite a number of points, and he wouldn’t take kindly to being summoned to Bulawayo.”
After a short, stunned silence, Tom said cautiously, “Bulawayo? Isn’t that in Africa?”
It was not easy to stun Tom Tring. Alec managed not to smile as he said, “Oh, didn’t I mention it? Miss Dalrymple’s uncle was a colonial administrator. He calls his house ‘Bulawayo.’”
Piper breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“Ernie, you’ll come in with me to take notes. Tom, I want you to drive on to the Cheringhams’—it’s a mile and a half or so—and search the boat-house, inside and out. It shouldn’t take too long. If you have time, take a look at Basil DeLancey’s bedroom.”
“Fosdyke’s the name of the young chappie he shared with? The one Miss Dalrymple said put him to bed?”
“That’s right. I can’t see the lad taking a weapon to a supposedly drunken crew-mate, however obstreperous, but if it was done there, it couldn’t have been anyone but Fosdyke. You needn’t bother with fingerprints in the bedroom, unless you find something which might have been used as a weapon.”
Tom was a stickler where fingerprints were concerned. “I’ll get DeLancey’s dabs off a hairbrush or summat, for elimination,” he said firmly.
“Yes, do. I’ll telephone when I want you to come and pick us up. My questions won’t take all that long, but his lordship will probably keep us waiting as a matter of principle.”
“That sort, eh?” said Tom.
“I suspect so. I may be maligning the man. When I spoke to him, he was in shock over his brother’s death.”
They came to the gates Daisy had pointed out and Alec turned in. Driving along the winding avenue through the wooded park, he elaborated on Tring’s instructions. “You know what to do,” he finished as they emerged from the
woods and drew up before the pillared portico of a substantial mansion.
“Right, Chief.” Tom came round the car, as always surprisingly light on his feet for a man of such bulk. The Chummy tilted the other way as he took his place behind the wheel. “Back in an hour.”
He drove off. Alec and Piper gratefully entered the shade of the portico and rang the bell.
The butler who answered the door looked thoroughly affronted when Alec presented his warrant card and asked for Lord DeLancey.
“Is his lordship expecting you?” he enquired frostily.
“His lordship is aware that I wish to speak to him.”
“Indeed. I shall send a footman to inform his lordship of your arrival, but it will take some time, even should he decide to receive you. Naturally, his lordship is down by the river observing the boat races. You may wait in here.” He opened a door and ushered them into a small anteroom, sparsely and uncomfortably furnished.
On a hot summer day it was pleasantly cool. In winter, Alec thought, it would be icy. “This is where they put unwanted callers,” he said as soon as the door closed behind the butler, “hoping they’ll go away. Well, Ernie, what do you make of it?”
“Watching the races!” The youthful Detective Constable bubbled with indignation. “And his brother a few hours dead!”
“What do you make of it?”
Piper simmered down and thought. “He hasn’t told anybody. Right, Chief? The rest of the nobs’d think it pretty queer if they knew, wouldn’t they? Though you never can tell with nobs.”
“A good point,” Alec said encouragingly, then frowned. He went over to the window, which looked out on the porch under the portico, the view obstructed by pillars. Not that a better view would have helped. They were facing the wrong way.
“I can’t tell just where we are in relation to the river,” he said, sitting down on a cane-bottomed chair with a singularly uncomfortably shaped back, and waving Ernie to a similar seat. “I wonder how far upstream this is from the top of Temple Island, the point where Basil DeLancey died? Less than a mile, I’d guess, but possibly too far for anyone to make out details of what was happening to whom, even with first-rate binoculars.”
“But would he risk it, Chief? I mean, s’posing someone did see what was going on, and Lord DeLancey came back and never said a word, that’d look even queerer.”
“I gather the last thing he would risk is causing talk. Perhaps he knew none of the people here went down to the bank to watch until this afternoon. The morning races were just a few odd heats, I understand. Today’s finals didn’t begin until well past noon.”
“They’d be bound to find out, though, Chief, sooner or later. Maybe he’ll tell ’em he only just found out himself. But why would he want to keep it under his hat? Just because he wants to watch the rest of the Regatta?”
Alec shook his head. “I doubt it. I suspect it’s all due to his morbid fear of being the subject of gossip which might stir up an old scandal. If he’s not thinking very clearly—and when we met he didn’t strike me as a particularly clear thinker, at least not under pressure—he may simply want to postpone as long as possible the tattle his brother’s death is bound to arouse.”
“D’you know what the scandal is, Chief?”
“Miss Dalrymple didn’t specify. She said it wasn’t relevant, and I dare say it’s not.”
“If she says not,” Piper agreed, loyal but disappointed.
Amused, Alec reverted to more relevant matters, giving Piper a bit more detail on the three chief suspects than there had been time for in the car.
“So that’s Bott, Frieth, and Cheringham,” he ended. “Then there’s Fosdyke, whom I think unlikely. Not much more likely than the other four, that is.”
“Leigh, Meredith, Poindexter, and Wells.” Ernie Piper’s memory for numbers was extraordinary, and with experience as a detective his memory for names was rapidly becoming almost as good.
“As far as we know, none of the five had any specific reason to detest DeLancey. They were annoyed that his teasing of Bott made them lose the race, and disgusted with his treatment of Bott afterwards. Any of them might have gone down to the boat-house to check the fours boat, but only Fosdyke was personally concerned with the fours race.”
“So he’s more likely to’ve gone, Chief, as well as sharing DeLancey’s room and putting him to bed when he was in a state.”
“Yes. The others shared two bedrooms, so if one went out in the middle of the night, the other might have heard.” But Alec recalled that Daisy had crept out without disturbing her cousin. No squeaky floors or door-hinges in that well-conducted house. “Dammit, I need to talk to them all. Where the dickens is Lord DeLancey?”
“I ’spect the butler took his time,” Piper suggested. “Sent the slowest footman, I bet. He didn’t approve of us.”
“Butlers never approve of police in the house,” Alec said dryly.
Lord DeLancey came in a few minutes later. He was red-faced, apparently from heat and hurry as drops of perspiration glistened on his brow, less extensive than Tring’s but equally bedewed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Chief Inspector,” he said somewhat breathlessly as the two detectives rose to their feet. “The river is a quarter-mile or so from the house.”
For a moment, Alec wondered why his lordship had decided to be affable, but of course he must be anxious to see his brother’s killer caught. He had been in a state of shock at their last encounter, Alec reminded himself.
“We’ve not been here long, sir,” he said. “This is Detective Constable Piper, who will take notes. As I told you, I have a number of questions to ask you. My apologies for disrupting your afternoon.”
Lord DeLancey, whose colour had receded somewhat, reddened again. “You must think it odd that I should attend the Regatta when Basil … . The fact is, I have told no one. I didn’t wish to ruin the occasion for my host and hostess and the other guests.”
“Most understandable, sir. Most considerate. Won’t you take a seat?”
They all sat down. Ernie produced his notebook and one of the pocketful of well-sharpened pencils he always carried, even now after his hurried departure from home. Proud of the shorthand which had helped him become a detective, he had never yet been caught unprepared.
Alec asked when Lord DeLancey had last seen his brother alive.
“Yesterday, around noon.”
“And was his conduct then in any way out of the ordinary?”
“You may have heard … something of a contretemps … a lamentable show of temper, I’m afraid.”
“So I understand. We’ll get to that in a minute. He didn’t seem confused or incoherent, didn’t complain of a headache, weakness, dizziness, or anything of the sort?”
Lord DeLancey shook his head. “No. He had just rowed a race—if you can call it that when the cox was taken ill in the middle. Since the result was a foregone conclusion, the crew didn’t force the pace and Basil wasn’t even winded when they came in, as they usually are. He was the picture of health when we parted.”
“I realise it will be painful, sir, but please describe the scene when the Ambrose College boat came in.”
“You can find plenty of witnesses,” his lordship said testily.
True enough. Alec decided to let it pass. Before he had formulated a tactful way to phrase his next question, Lord DeLancey continued, “Basil was in a filthy temper and he behaved like a fool. I stopped him as soon as I reached him.”
“Did Mr. DeLancey often—er—fly off the handle like that?”
“Is this really necessary, Chief Inspector?”
“The character of a victim is often extremely significant in explaining the motive of the murderer, which frequently points to who he is. I’m sure you can see that in this case …”
“Yes, yes, I see. I’m sorry to say my brother was abominably overindulged. Basil is—was—the baby of the family, the youngest by several years, the darling of the mater and our sisters,” Lord DeLancey said sourly.
Once again Daisy had hit the nail on the head! “And Lord Bicester?” Alec asked.
“The pater always spent a great deal of time in London as a member of the Government or an active member of the Opposition. He brought business home with him as often as not, and I’m afraid he did little to correct the faults in my brother’s upbringing.”
“In other words, Mr. DeLancey tended to be governed by his impulses?”
“He never learnt to control them.”
“So he would act with little or no consideration of the feelings of others.”
“None!” Lord DeLancey’s bitterness suggested this was not the first time he had suffered from his brother’s shortcomings.
“And he would be unlikely to heed advice?”
“He always did exactly as he pleased.”
“Then it would not surprise you,” Alec suggested, “if he kept vigil in the boat-house at Bulawayo last night in spite of your prohibition?”
Lord DeLancey suddenly turned wary. “I’ve no reason to suppose he did. Is that”—he moistened his lips—“Is that where you think he was struck down?”
“It’s possible. You confirm that he proposed to spend the night there?”
“Yes. He said something to that effect. I didn’t take it very seriously. Basil liked his comforts and a night in a boat-house hardly qualifies.”
“Far from it,” Alec agreed. “I assume you knew why he considered keeping guard over the boat. Were you present when the threat was made against it?”
“Yes, it was just as I persuaded him to leave that the cox swore to get his own back. But he threatened Basil, not the boat. I can’t imagine why Basil decided the fellow was likely to damage the boat. I’d have expected him—Basil, that is—to think better of it pretty quickly since it meant an uncomfortable night.”
“But when you last spoke to him, he was still intending to keep guard?”
“When I spoke to him on the … .” DeLancey stopped and swallowed, perhaps recalling his last contact with his living brother. He pulled himself together and started again. “When I spoke to him on the telephone?”
Alec pricked up his ears. “When was that?”
“Oh, yesterday evening.”
“What time?”
“About a quarter to eleven. I was playing bridge. When I was dealt the dummy, I realised I wasn’t sure what time Ambrose’s race was this morning, so I called him up. Neither of us mentioned his ridiculous plan.”
“How did he sound? Normal?”
“His voice was a bit slurred. I assumed he’d had a whisky or two. You don’t suppose he had already been hit?”
“I’ve no idea at present, sir. Did your brother answer the ’phone himself?”
DeLancey gave him a condescending look. “Lady Cheringham’s butler answered, naturally.”
“Did you receive an impression as to whether anyone else was still up and about?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I believe the crew generally go to bed quite early during the races, but of course four of them—five with the cox—had no race today. Was it the cox who did it?”
“I haven’t enough information to begin to decide, sir. As far as you know, did anyone else have reason to bear him a grudge?”
“A great many people, I dare say. Basil had a damned nasty tongue and he wasn’t shy of using it. It must have been one of the crew, though, don’t you think?”
“They certainly had the best opportunity,” Alec said cautiously. He stood up. “Well, thank you for your cooperation, Lord DeLancey. I mustn’t keep you from your friends any longer.”
With a grimace, his lordship said, “I suppose I’d better tell them about Basil.”
“It’s bound to be in the evening papers, I’m afraid.”
“The papers!” Groaning, Cedric DeLancey buried his head in his hands. “Somehow I’d managed to put the Press out of my mind. Trust Basil to make as much trouble dead as alive!”