Authors: Carola Dunn

Die Laughing (20 page)

BOOK: Die Laughing

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“Of course. And that you police want to talk to her.” Of course. Why should an unsentimental woman who rather disliked her mistress hesitate to give her bad news?

“How did she take it?”

Mrs. Bates shrugged. “How would you expect her to take it? She said to tell you she'll be down in half an hour.”

Alec gave up.

Half an hour later, when Gwen Walker came down, he was ready for her. Mackinnon had orders to search the bedroom as soon as she left it. Ernie Piper sat in an inconspicuous
corner of the sitting room, ready with his notebook and his usual selection of ever-sharp pencils. Tom Tring stood by with his fingerprint kit.

Alec rose as Mrs. Walker came in. Her face was solemn, but not sorrowful. If tears had been shed, immaculate make-up hid the signs. She wore a navy costume with a white silk blouse and a single strand of pearls. Whatever her carelessness about her surroundings, Gwen Walker's person was as always beyond criticism.

She paused in the doorway and Alec moved to meet her. “Allow me to express my condolences,” he said, the formal phrase once more proving its usefulness.

Her lower lip quivered, almost imperceptibly, but she spoke with outward composure. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher.”

“I'm very sorry to trouble you at this time, but there are questions that must be asked. In view of our prior acquaintance, it's perfectly understandable if you prefer to speak to another officer. Also, you're entitled to have your solicitor with you, if you feel the need.”

“No need, and I'd rather answer your questions than a stranger's,” she said with a faint smile.

Alec bowed slightly and gestured towards a chair which would place her with the light from the window on her face, her back towards Piper. “I'm afraid I'll have to have Detective Sergeant Tring take your fingerprints, for elimination purposes.”

Dismay was followed by resignation as Tom stepped forward. “All right.”

“It will only take a moment, ma'am,” Tom rumbled comfortably, “and I have a cloth here to wipe your fingers afterwards.”

He was soon done, and departed with his prize. Alec sat down. “Would you like to tell me what happened last night?” he invited.

Again the faint smile. “No, but I will. We dined outâwith the Robinsons, actually. I understand you and Mrs. Fletcher were invited but were unable to attend.”

“Daisy would have dealt with that,” Alec said hastily.

“Yes, of course. I didn't want to go, but Francis insisted. He â¦ he was always very conscious of what the neighbours would say, and in this case, he chose not to let them say behind our backs that we were afraid to appear.”

“Afraid to appear?”

“Come now, Mr. Fletcher, give us both credit for realizing that you couldn't be hounding everyone who ever sat next to Rayâto Raymond Talmadge at dinner. It was sufficiently obvious for poor Francis to be unable to go on pretending he didn't know about us. He had a genius for not seeing what he didn't want to see, you know.”

“So you dined out. What time did you get home?”

“We left early. The circling vultures were too much for Francis, though when it came to it, I could have faced them down forever. I suppose we reached home about ten-thirty. Needless to say, Francis was spoiling for a row, so we had one. The right was all on his side, of course. I hadn't a word to say in my own defence, except that it was all over, which he could hardly deny.”

“We'll get to that in a minute. How did your ârow' end?”

Gwen Walker's lips tightened momentarily. “With Francis weeping into his Ovaltine. I said I'dâ” She stopped and turned at the sound of the door opening.

Tom Tring looked in. He knew better than to interrupt
an interrogation for anything unimportant, so Alec excused himself and went to the door.

“Her dabs are on the oven gas tap,” Tom said in a low voice. “Also on the handle of the pan and one of the mugs in the sink. And â¦” He beckoned Alec out to the hall, where Mackinnon was gingerly holding a Mauser by the barrel. “And DS Mackinnon found this in the drawer of the bedside table between their beds. It has Mrs. Walker's fingerprints on it too.”

A
lec couldn't for the life of him see where the pistol came in. He would have liked to discuss the matter with Tom and Mackinnon, but Mrs. Walker was talking and she might decide at any moment to stop. She had already admitted to a row with her husband. Whatever the rest of her story, he didn't want to give her too much time to think about it.

Returning to the sitting room, he found her twisting the damp cloth Tom had given her between nervous fingers, though her face remained calm. Her hands stilled as he sat down.

“Go on,” he said.

“Where was I?”

“Ovaltine.”

“Oh yes. I can't say I care for the stuff myself, but Francis always drank it at bedtime. Last night I thought it might calm him down if I had some too. I even went so far as being frightfully wifely and made it for him. I poured half mine down the sink, though. He was still sitting there at the
kitchen table staring gloomily into his mug, so I went up to bed.”

“And straight to sleep?”

“Straight to sleep. It had been a rather exhausting day.” Perhaps alerted by something in Alec's face, she went on, “No, wait, I think I took a powder. I sometimes do. Not a good habit, I know, and they're as bad as too much to drink for wrecking one's memory.”

Brilliant, Alec thought with reluctant admiration. Anything she “forgot” to tell him could be blamed on the Veronal.

“You know the rest,” she said. “I woke up very late, in desperate need of coffee. I rang for Bates, and when she came she told me â¦ about poor Francis. He was pretty cut up last night, but I never for a moment imagined â¦ Did he leave a letter for me?”

“We found nothing addressed to you. Tell me, how do you make Ovaltine?”

“Why, just the same as cocoa. Francis likes â¦ liked it made with milk.”

“Heated in a saucepan on the top of the stove?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then why are your fingerprints on the oven gas tap?”

Her lip-rouged mouth opened but for a moment nothing came out. Then she laughed shakily. “Oh, I suppose I must have touched it when I was trying to find the right one. I'm not at all familiar with the stove. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I can't recall ever having attempted to cook on it before.”

Alec could all too easily picture himself doing exactly the same. He dropped that line, for the moment at least. “Did the major have any other worries?”

“Besides an errant wife whose lover had just been murdered?” This time her laugh was bitter. “I suppose everyone does, but nothing he talked about.”

The fact that she didn't credit her husband with a host of worries, thus making suicide more likely, impressed Alec. Was she clever enough to see that overdoing it might backfire? The Veronal excuse for forgetfulness was clever, but then again, her pathetic alibi for Raymond Talmadge's death suggested the opposite.

“I went to see Miss Jennifer Crouch,” he said.

“So you know I was nowhere near Raymond's house when he died.”

“On the contrary, Miss Crouch said she had not seen you this week.”

“Jenny says I wasn't there? How could she! She must have muddled the day. She has so much on her mind with her mother to care for. Or perhaps it was her pride speaking. I took her out to lunch in the village, and she doesn't like to talk about it because she can't reciprocate.”

“I see,” he said dryly. It was the first outright lie she had told but Alec didn't bother to contradict her. If he kept her much longerâa beautiful bereaved widow with no one to support herâany good barrister would make hay with insinuations of undue pressure, especially as he had not given her the Judges' Rules warning.

There was one more question he simply had to ask, though he couldn't see what it had to do with the case. “My men found a loaded pistol in your bedside table, with your fingerprints on it, Mrs. Walker. Do you have a licence?”

“I've no idea. It's Francis's, of course. He calls it a souvenir of the War.”

“And the fingerprints?”

She hesitated, then shrugged and said with a sigh, “It can't hurt him now. One night last week we were woken in the small hours by a noise. I thought it was a cat knocking something over in the garden, but Francis was sure it was a burglar downstairs. I'm afraid his reaction was to hide his head under the bedclothes. I took the pistol and went down, but no one was there. It must have been a cat outside after all. When I returned to the bedroom, poor Francis was under the bed.”

Shell-shock, Alec assumed. Trying to conceal it might explain the major's excessively military bearing and unwarranted continued use of his rank. It must have been hard on his wife. Plenty of people considered the mental damage caused by the horrors of war to be shameful.

Alec did not presume to judge. His war had been fought far from the mud and blood of the trenches, floating among the clouds in a winged crate made of sailcloth, balsa wood, and piano wire.

“Thank you, Mrs. Walker.” He stood up. “That will be all for now, but I shall probably have some more questions for you.”

She jumped up and clutched his sleeve in a sudden panic. “Don't go! What am I supposed to do? He's not â¦ he's not still in the kitchen, is he? What about the funeral? And his will? I have very little money. I don't know what to do.”

“He's gone,” Alec said gently.

“Yes, of course. Bates made me coffee. How horrible!” She shuddered.

“I suggest you get in touch with his solicitor.”

“I don't know â¦ .”

“DC Piper found his name in the major's desk.”

Ernie Piper, with his phenomenal memory for names and numbers, was already writing down the information. He tore off the sheet and gave it to Mrs. Walker.

“You'd better ring him up right away,” Alec advised.

“I will.” Pulling herself together with a visible effort, she attempted a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. You've been very kind.”

After which, Alec reflected, it was going to be damned difficult to arrest her. The letter with her husband's signature seemed to let her out of that death, but she was still very much in the picture where Talmadge was concerned.

The little Austin staggered as Tom Tring took his seat beside Alec. “I think I got it, Chief,” he announced.

“Got it?” Alec pressed the self-starter, wondering whether the Yard would pay for new springs when they wore out prematurely beneath Tom's weight.

“The missing factor,” said Mackinnon from the back seat, where he and Piper cradled the evidence.

“The something missing from Walker's dressing room?”

“Right, Chief, and not just the dressing room. He don't seem to own a single regimental tie. And there's no photos of army buddies, none of him in his dress uniform, none of the stuff you'd expect someone who still calls himself Major to treasure.”

“Odd!” said Alec. Come to think of it, he'd never seen the major in a regimental tie. Not that many men wore them, but as Tom said, Walker still called himself Major six years after the end of the War.

“No discharge papers in the desk,” said Piper, “I didn't notice when I was looking, but I'd remember if I'd seen 'em. And no licence for the Mauser, though lots of exservicemen don't have one, seeing they think of it as a souvenir, not a weapon.”

“If in fact he was a serviceman,” Alec mused. “Damned if I can see what it means, or whether it has anything to do with our investigation.”

“It ties in, though, doesn't it, Chief?” Piper said eagerly. “I mean, with what she was telling you about him hiding under the bed.”

“What?” asked the two sergeants in chorus.

“Tell 'em, Ernie,” said Alec, negotiating his way past a slow-moving brewer's dray pulled by four massive cart horses.

“The chief asked Mrs. Walker about her dabs on the pistol, and she said she went downstairs with it last week when they thought they heard a burglar, because the major hid under the bed.”

“Shows she has the nerve for anything,” Mackinnon opined.

“Ah.” Tom ruminated. “What it could be is her making up a story to account for a military man putting his head in the oven instead of shooting himself.”

“Or maybe she just made up the story to account for the dabs, Sarge. She might've picked up the Mauser thinking she'd shoot him, and Talmadge too maybe, but didn't know how to fire it, or decided it'd be too messy.”

“Now that's an idea, laddie,” said Tom.

“Yes, we mustn't lose sight of her as a suspect in Talmadge's death.” Alec pulled into the forecourt of Marylebone
Station and stopped. “It seems more likely than that she killed her husband, given that letter. Let me see it again.”

Piper passed over the suicide note along with the papers for comparison. Alec and Tom contemplated them.

“It's his signature all right,” said Tom. “The rest looks kind of shaky. She could've found a blank sheet with his signature on it.”

“Possibly. But a man's handwriting may well be shaky when he's contemplating putting an end to his existence, whereas his signature comes so naturally as to be firm in spite of it. Barring evidence to the contrary from the experts, I'm inclined to think he wrote this and killed himself. On the other hand, I know she's lying about her whereabouts when Talmadge died.” Alec took an envelope from his pocket. “Ernie, here's the typed statement of what Miss Crouch told me. Hop on a train and get it signed.”

“Right, Chief.” Piper opened the car door.

“Charm her, Ernie. If that fails, you can ask her to accompany you to Scotland Yard.”

Piper grinned. “That'll do the trick, Chief.” He disappeared into the crowds that constantly swarmed around even the smallest of the great London termini.

“Right-oh,” said Alec, “let's get that stuff to the fellows who can tell us what it all means.”

Daisy regarded the laden tea table with dismay. Expecting the ladies this time, Mrs. Dobson had done them proud: thin-sliced brown bread and butter, crustless; three kinds of
biscuits besides Daisy's favourite macaroons; a Dundee cake and a jam sponge. How was she supposed to resist?

The girls had their own spread in the dining room, and the leftovers from both would keep reappearing for days. The fashionable figure of her dreams receded ever further before her.

Once again Sakari picked up Melanie and fetched the three girls from school in her chauffeured car, so they all arrived together. Greetings over and the children settled at the table, Daisy and her friends retired to the sitting room. Daisy poured the tea, China with lemon for Melanie, Indian with milk for herself and Sakari, and passed the bread and butter.

“Thank you,” said Sakari, to whom she had hinted on the 'phone about her intention of pumping Mel for information. “Are we to pretend this is an ordinary social occasion? Shall we talk about the weather, or the children?”

“Has Alec discovered something new?” Mel asked, looking unhappy. “Something connecting â¦ someone with Talmadge's death, I mean.”

“Loads of things, I'm sure, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about, darling. Haven't you heard about Major Walker?”

Mel gasped. “No! I've been busy all day.”

“I heard that the police were at the Walkers' house this morning,” Sakari said, “but I was in town this afternoon. They are known to be suspects. Has the major been arrested?”

“No. If you two haven't heard perhaps it isn't generally known. You'd better not say anything unless someone else mentions it first.”

“I, for one, cannot say anything, Daisy, because you have told us nothing. Speak, before I expire from curiosity. What has happened?”

“Major Walker was found this morning with his head in the gas oven.”

“Dead?” whispered Melanie, very pale.

Sakari reached over and took her hand in a comforting clasp. “The major killed himself to escape prosecution for killing Talmadge?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Daisy admitted. “I haven't seen or heard from Alec since he left this morning. But I do think, Mel, that he needs to know whatever it is that Robert told you about Gwen Walker.”

“I can't see why. It can't have anything to do with what's happened.”

“You can't be sure. Even if it's just a contributing factor to his decision to commit suicide, Alec ought to know.”

“Surely having murdered Talmadge is reason enough for that!” Mel exclaimed.

BOOK: Die Laughing

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