CHAPTER 20

Mister Halliday went off to send his men out hunting for the drugged lawyer.

Seeing Dr. Jagai’s appalled face, Daisy put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t forget, Braeburn killed Mr. McGowan,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he’d have stayed in the hotel as he was supposed to and he’d just have fallen asleep harmlessly in the bar-parlour.’

‘What made you think he was ready to scarper?’ Alec asked again. ‘How did you know he was one of my two remaining suspects?’

‘Speaking as the other,’ said Raymond, turning to Dr. Fraser, ‘if you’re the police doctor, sir, as I assume, would you mind doing that wretched blood test while Chandra explains? It may look as if Braeburn’s the murderer, but I want proof it wasn’t me, and I’d like to get it out of the way.’

‘Certainly.’ Beckoning him over to the table, Dr. Fraser started taking odds and ends out of his black bag. ‘Go ahead, Dr. Jagai.’

Daisy had no intention of watching the blood-drawing. She kept her gaze on Dr. Jagai. He still looked shaken as he began his story.

‘Belinda told me Mr. Braeburn had frightened her. You, Mr. Fletcher, and Miss Dalrymple obviously took her fears seriously since you asked me not to let her out of my sight. And then Sergeant Tring brought her to me and she said her father was at that moment with Mr. Braeburn. Well, I knew at that point that the Chief Inspector was looking for scratches rather than information . . .

‘Ouch!’ Ray yelped. ‘No, it’s all right, Judith, it didn’t really hurt. Sorry to interrupt.’

‘So it seemed obvious,’ Dr. Jagai continued, ‘that Mr. Braeburn was under suspicion. I was going to ask Miss Dalrymple about him, but Mrs. Bretton bore her off. Belinda and I went into the bar-parlour.’

‘Dr. Jagai bought me ginger beer, Daddy. Miss Dalrymple said I could.’

‘That was kind of him.’ Alec smiled at the doctor.

‘A little later,’ he resumed the tale, ‘Ray and Judith – Mr. Gillespie and Miss Smythe-Pike – joined us. Raymond told me Mr. Fletcher had advised him to consult me about a thorn broken off in his hand which was looking rather nasty. I went upstairs to fetch my bag, taking Belinda along with me, of course. When we returned to the bar-parlour, Kitty was with Ray and Judith.

‘Mummy let me go to Ray and Judith,’ Kitty put in smugly. ‘She didn’t know Dr. Jagai was sitting with them.’

‘Mr. Braeburn was there, too,’ Belinda said. ‘Not with the others, sitting at the bar. I pretended I didn’t see him.’

‘Let Dr. Jagai tell his story, sweetheart,’ Alec admonished.

‘I’d previously offered Kitty a ginger beer, so I went up to the bar to get it. I overheard Mr. Braeburn asking Briggs about ferries to the Continent. You can imagine I pricked up my ears. Briggs said the nearest ferry service was from Leith, Edinburgh’s port, with sailings to Copenhagen. At that, Mr. Braeburn asked about cars for hire and Briggs directed him to the King’s Arms Garage.

‘I suppose I should have run to you, Chief Inspector. I wish I had. But there was my bag, with samples of several common drugs. I took the ginger beer back to Kitty, got out two bromide powders, and returned to the bar. I approached Mr. Braeburn with a request that he’d act for me in the matter of Mr. McGowan’s will. By a stroke of luck, good or ill is yet to be seen, Mr. Bretton heard me. He promptly protested that Mr. Braeburn was the family lawyer while I was . . .’ He hesitated, and Daisy wondered what offensive phrase Harold Bretton had used.

‘I was only too obviously not one of the family,’ Dr. Jagai said ironically. ‘Mr. Braeburn turned towards him to make some response, giving me the opportunity to slip the powders into his whisky. I wish I had not, though as Miss Dalrymple says, had he stayed in the hotel, no harm would have been done.’

‘You couldn’t guess he might go up on the walls,’ Daisy said. ‘In fact, maybe he hasn’t. But if he has, it’s very likely because he knows the way after following Belinda up there.’

‘And trying to kill her, as well as Albert McGowan,’ Alec said grimly, his arm around his daughter.

‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Dr. Fraser. ‘Well, to be sure, I’d not advise any man fuddled with whisky to go out on the city walls. If it comes to an autopsy, I see no need to look for other causes for a fall.’

‘We’re not telling,’ Ray asserted. ‘Judith? Kitty?’

‘Golly no,’ said Kitty, and Judith shook her head.

Everyone looked at Alec.

‘I am a police officer,’ he said slowly, ‘sworn to uphold the Law. But I’m a father, too. Close your ears, Tring and Piper! If Braeburn comes to grief, I’ll do my best to square the Superintendent.’

‘Didn’t hear a thing,’ said Tom Tring, his broad face bland.

‘I also shall have a word with Halliday,’ Dr. Fraser said, turning back to the table. ‘He’s a good fellow. Well, Mr. Gillespie, your blood is of a different group from that found under Mr. McGowan’s fingernails. You are what we call a universal donor. Might I suggest your registering with your nearest hospital to be called upon in case of . . .’

‘Ray, sit down!’ Judith guided her suddenly ashen fiancé to the nearest chair. ‘Put your head down, darling.’

‘I thought’ – he gulped – ‘I was still afraid I might have . . .’

‘Don’t try to talk,’ advised Dr. Jagai, who had sprung to his side. ‘Breathe deeply. Slowly in, hold it, slowly out. That’s right. And again. In . . . hold . . . out. In . . . hold . . . out.’

‘Shouldn’t he sit cross-legged?’ Kitty said critically.

‘Not just now. That’s a long-term affair.’

Daisy’s curiosity reawakened. As a tinge of colour returned to Raymond’s cheeks, she said, ‘You still haven’t told me what you were all doing in Judith and Kitty’s room.’

‘Yoga,’ said Belinda.

‘It’s an Indian thing,’ said Kitty. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell Mummy I was doing it.’

Raymond raised his head. ‘All for my benefit,’ he said wryly. ‘Frankly, Mr. Fletcher had rather upset me, and I was in a bit of a state still after Chandra treated my hand. He decided it was a good moment to teach me his tranquillizing exercise.’

‘Yoga is a complex physical, mental, and religious discipline,’ Dr. Jagai explained. ‘I know very little, just what I’ve learned from an Indian friend in London. This particular exercise, an adaptation and simplification, I have found to be calming to the stressed spirit I hope that regular practice will prove useful to Ray.’ He smiled. ‘And that he’ll let me study the results.’

‘Of course,’ Judith said warmly.

‘Interesting,’ pronounced Dr. Fraser. ‘Well, Chief Inspector, if you’ve nothing more for me to do, I’ll return to my patient patients.’

‘I’d still like Braeburn’s blood tested, sir. If Dr. Jagai is right, they should be bringing him in very shortly’.

‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ He shook his head, looking miserable.

‘I’m glad you did,’ Belinda announced. ‘He was absolutely, awfully horrible. I hope he’s broken his neck like he tried to make me break mine.’

Daisy belatedly bethought herself that the child should have been removed long since. Meeting Alec’s rueful glance, she guessed he felt likewise. She’d better take Belinda away before Braeburn’s insensible body turned up.

‘It must be nearly lunchtime,’ she said. ‘I’m starving. Belinda, let’s go and wash our hands.’

Reluctantly Belinda took her hand. At that moment, heavy footsteps were heard in the hall. Mr. Halliday put his head around the door.

‘Got him!’ he said. ‘Curled up like a dormouse on the steps down from the wall to the tunnel under it, and snoring fit to wake the dead.’

Daisy glanced around the residents’ lounge. Everyone was there, dressed for traveling but eager to hear Alec’s promised announcement before they hurried on to Dunston Castle and the miser’s deathbed.

They all knew the police had taken in Alistair McGowan’s solicitor for questioning.

‘With Braeburn missing, the old man won’t be changing his will after all,’ Jeremy Gillespie pointed out smugly to Harold Bretton. His parents looked equally smug.

‘He’s not dead yet,’ Bretton said, scowling. ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’

Desmond Smythe-Pike stopped groaning about his painful gout to bark testily, ‘I’ve never balked at a fence in my life, by George! We’ll find a lawyer in Edinburgh and take him with us. Any of those fellas can write up a simple will.’

‘Calm down, dear,’ his wife admonished him. ‘You know excitement only makes it worse.’ She turned back to chattering with her sister – she and Madame Pasquier were still catching up on the past thirty years.

Anne was giving Daisy the cold shoulder, offended at her lack of sympathy with the inhumane conditions the children had been forced to suffer for nearly twenty hours. After leaving them upstairs when they could quite well have come down, she now had them with her at a moment when they would surely have been better off with their nurse. She was showing off Baby to Matilda, while Belinda and Kitty entertained Tabitha.

Judith, sitting next to Daisy, glanced over to where Raymond and Dr. Jagai talked seriously together.

‘That little Indian has given Ray hope,’ she said softly, ‘and I don’t mean by failing to inherit the family fortune. He’s a good man.’ Judith pondered a moment. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever met one before. We’re getting married, you know, whether Grandfather leaves his money to Uncle Peter, or Mother, or Aunt Geraldine’s sons, who are, after all, his grandsons, or a home for crippled cats. We’ll manage somehow.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Daisy warmly, glad they weren’t counting on old Alistair’s vast wealth.

Judith resumed her customary drawl. ‘What about you and that gorgeous policeman of yours?’ she asked with a teasing look. ‘I confess to moments when I’ve hated him, but I suppose he was only doing his job. Still, a copper and the Honourable Miss Dalrymple – even these days, it’s not really on . . . or is it?’

Daisy’s cheeks felt red-hot. ‘We’re just friends. I’ve been involved in one or two of his cases.’

‘Aha!’ Judith sobered again. ‘Anne said you lost your fiancée in the War. I’m sorry. What a foul business that was, enough to make a pacifist of one, whatever Daddy says about conchies.’

‘Michael was a conscientious objector.’ There were so few people Daisy could talk to about him with any hope of sympathy. ‘He was a Quaker. He drove a Friends’ ambulance.’

‘I wish Ray had! The worst of his waking nightmares come from having had to kill. That’s part of the reason the possibility that he’d murdered Uncle Albert without being aware of it hit him so hard, even though he knew he’d scratched himself during one of his turns. You won’t let him know I’ve told you, will you? He’s fearfully ashamed of it.’

‘Of course not. So that was it! May I tell Alec, if he swears on his honour never to breathe a word to another soul? I’m sure he’s dying to know what led him astray. Oh, here he is now.’

Alec came into the lounge, flanked by Tring and Piper. As an expectant silence fell, Belinda slipped across to Daisy’s side.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Alec began, ‘I want to thank you all for consenting to break your journey here in Berwick to assist . . .’

‘Didn’t know we had a choice!’ trumpeted Smythe-Pike.

Alec wondered just how forcefully Superintendent Halliday had worded his request for the family to stay. However, he continued smoothly, ‘. . . to assist the police in investigating this heinous crime. In view of your cooperation – some more, some considerably less – I feel it right to confirm formally what I imagine you have already heard informally: Donald Braeburn has been arrested for the murder of Albert McGowan.’

Braeburn was still sleeping off the bromide behind bars. Since he had previously given permission for a blood test, Dr. Fraser had not bothered to wait until he awoke to draw a sample. The lawyer’s blood group, a comparatively rare one, matched the blood under the old man’s fingernails and on the pillow-case.

‘But dash it all, my dear chap,’ said Bretton plaintively, ‘what I can’t see is why the deuce he did it.’

Scanning all the puzzled, curious, expectant faces, Alec decided Braeburn’s plea of confidence no longer held water.

‘He was afraid. Mr. McGowan confided his plans for the fortune he was about to inherit, and Braeburn told him his brother had, in the past few years, squandered the greater part of that fortune.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ roared Smythe-Pike. ‘Dammit, Alistair McGowan wouldn’t know how to squander a penny if he tried.’

Alec raised a hand to still the mounting murmur. ‘So we gathered,’ he said dryly. ‘We surmise that Albert McGowan held the same opinion, and that he accused Braeburn of embezzlement and threatened an audit. In fact, Braeburn’s partners have already called in the accountants. By his own statement to me, it seems probable that there’s nothing left of Alistair McGowan’s fortune but a few thousand. A very few thousand. I don’t know what can be salvaged, but you’d better not count on more.’

Above the ensuing pandemonium rose Enid Gillespie’s screech. ‘A few paltry thousands! Much good that will do us. He counted on your bungling incompetence, Peter. He knew you’d never realize you’d been swindled!’

A quiet voice behind Alec said, ‘Oh dear!’

He swung round. A drab, tired, middle-aged woman had entered the lounge unnoticed. ‘Can I help you, madam?’ he asked.

‘You’re the chief detective?’ she said, flustered. With a doubtful glance at the tumultuous group behind him, she continued, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, but I’m Julia Gillespie.’

‘I’d say my meeting has come to an undignified end, Miss Gillespie. Was your family expecting you?’

‘No. They sent a telegram, but I didn’t have time when the boy brought it from the Post Office to search for the key to Uncle Alistair’s cash-box to get a shilling for an answer. There’s no telephone at Dunston Castle, you see. Uncle Alistair considered them nothing but a new-fangled way to waste money. I knew once I’d left I’d never want to go back, so I brought the news myself.’

Alec could think of only one item of news the miser’s unpaid skivvy might bring. ‘Let me get their attention for you, ma’am,’ he suggested, ‘and you can make your announcement.’

‘Thank you,’ she accepted with a grateful smile.

Turning, Alec clapped his hands and said in a voice which, though nowhere near as loud as Smythe-Pike’s, cut through the babble like a policeman’s whistle. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please!’

‘Julia!’

‘Aunt Julia!’

‘What the . . . ?’

‘Don’t tell me . . . !’

Alec frowned and glared. ‘Go ahead, ma’am.’ He moved aside with Tom and Piper.

Miss Gillespie quailed a little under the barrage of eyes. Clearing her throat, she said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you . . . No! I’m not a bit sorry! I know it’s dreadfully unChristian of me but I’m glad! Uncle Alistair has passed away. He died yesterday, at a few minutes past noon.’

The horrified silence was broken by a shout of laughter from Raymond. He clapped Dr. Jagai on the back. ‘So you get the lot after all, Chandra,’ he cried. ‘What’s left of it, anyway. Congratulations, old chap.’

The sun shone down upon Berwick station. Today it was almost possible to believe Spring was on its way to this most northerly outpost of England.

The relatives of the deceased McGowan twins had already departed for London, with varying degrees of fury, disgruntlement, resignation, amusement and, in Kitty’s case, delight. ‘Now Mummy will have to let me be a writer,’ she had told Daisy, ‘or a nurse. Acksherly, I think I’d like to be a detective, but I don’t s’pose they let girls.’

The detectives from Scotland Yard, accompanied by Belinda, would follow later. In the meantime, Alec and Belinda had come to see off Daisy and Dr. Jagai on the next train to Edinburgh.

Belinda hung on Daisy’s arm. ‘Thank you for looking after me, Miss Dalrymple,’ she said. ‘I wish you were coming back to London with us.’

‘I have work to do, darling. But I’ll only be gone a few days.’

‘Unless you stumble across another body,’ Alec observed ironically.

Daisy laughed. ‘If so, I’ll ignore it, since Scotland Yard doesn’t operate in Scotland. Odd, isn’t it?’

‘Not as odd as your making the acquaintance of the late Albert McGowan shortly before he departed this life. Do you know, I still have no idea how you came to meet him?’

‘Oh, that wasn’t Miss Dalrymple, Daddy, it was me.’

‘Not another female sleuth in the making,’ Alec groaned, ‘as if one wasn’t enough! Here comes the train. Doctor, my hearty thanks for your help. I hope we’ll be seeing you in town.’

He shook Chandra Jagai’s hand and Belinda turned to the Indian to say good-bye.

While his daughter was occupied, Alec said softly to Daisy, ‘I owe you more than I can ever repay.’

‘Bosh,’ said Daisy, holding out her hand. ‘She’s a pet. It’s been a pleasure – when I wasn’t absolutely terrified for her.’

He took her hand as a whistle announced the train approaching across the bridge. A hasty glance at Belinda showed her still absorbed in earnest conversation with Jagai.

The engine puffed into the station. Belinda, her hand on the doctor’s arm, stood on tiptoe and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

‘Did you see?’ she asked joyfully. ‘He kissed her!’