Styx and Stones (11 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

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“No, miss.” Doris's sullen stolidity had cracked enough to allow a gleam of excitement. “Miss, is it true what they're saying, the professor's been killed stone dead?”
An appropriate way of putting it! “I'm afraid so,” Daisy said. “At least—what was the vicar wearing when he went out?”
“I dunno, miss. Same as always, I ‘spect. I di'n't see neither of 'em leave. Just after lunch it was, and I had to clear the table and help Cook with the washing up. 'S going to be dull around here without the professor,” she sighed. “Livened things up a bit, he did.”
“I'm sure he must have. Do you think Mrs. Osborne would mind if I made a telephone call before I go in there?” Daisy gestured towards the drawing room. “My sister will be wondering where I am.”
“Oh, yes, miss, might as well get the use from it. The master says it's just an unn'essary expense when most people in the parish don't have one, but the mistress says a vicar did ought to be on the telephone. All right by me, saves me legs, running with messages. Here you are, miss.”
As she spoke, she led the way past the stairs to the rear of the hall, to a nook beneath the landing. A straight chair stood beside a small table bearing the telephone apparatus and a notepad and pencil. The pad looked to Daisy exactly like the paper Johnnie's letters were written on.
Unfortunately, it was a sort that anyone could buy at any Woolworth's, sold by the hundred thousands, if not millions. No help there—until she noticed the indentation of the previous message, written in capital letters.
Doris had left. Daisy took the pad out into the more brightly lit hall and slanted it to the light. With difficulty she made out the clumsy writing: KERNLE LOMAK SEZ EEL COM BAK LETTER.
So the brigadier had dropped in when the Osbornes were out, but he could not conceivably have left such an illiterate inscription. No, Doris had written down his message. Looking at the hall table, Daisy saw two or three folded sheets of paper beneath a paperweight on a silver-plated salver, the silver wearing thin in patches.
Doris as Poison Pen? She was in the right place to hear all the gossip.
But Daisy's excitement lasted scarcely a moment. The letters on the pad were heavily impressed and ill-formed, quite unlike the Poison Pen's neat block capitals. And surely no one who
spelt like that could have managed to get “you‘re” and “you've” correct, let alone “folk” or “caught.”
All the same, the police might be able to make something of it. She tore off the top sheet and tucked it into her handbag as she turned back to the telephone.
With Winifred Burden at the exchange in mind, Daisy told Violet nothing that would not already be all over the village. It was lucky her sister was singularly uninquisitive. There was just a chance she and Johnnie might be able to keep the Poison Pen business from Vi even if the murder was connected.
“How are Bel and Derek?” she asked. “Are they frightfully shocked?”
“Not a bit of it, darling. Rather disappointed not to have seen the body—at least, Derek is, the bloodthirsty little monster. They went to inspect their dam, which has suffered from the rain, I gather, and now they're playing piggy-in-the-middle with Peter. Peter would be piggy forever, of course, if Belinda didn't deliberately throw him the ball now and then. What a kind-hearted child! I'm glad she's going to be my boys' cousin, and the baby's.”
“So am I,” said Daisy. “I'll be back long before dinner, Vi, but first I'd like to give my statement to Inspector Flagg, so he doesn't have to come up to Oakhurst. Toodle-oo!”
As she hung up, Daisy was glad to see Doris go past from the nether regions carrying a jug of hot water. She was simply dying for a cup of tea.
Slipping into the drawing room behind the maid, she heard Mrs. Molesworth say encouragingly, “Do drink your tea, Mrs. Osborne. Strong, hot, and sweet, it's quite the best thing for shock.”
“I'm sure my nerves are in tatters,” moaned Miss Hendricks. “No one knows better than I what it is to have delicate nerves. Dear Mrs. Osborne is always so
strong
.”
The vicar's wife was sitting bolt upright, her lips tightly compressed, her hands gripped together in her lap. She was clearly suppressing some strong emotion, though Daisy could not tell what. Was it sick uncertainty, the fear that the body had been misidentified and she was a widow, or was she simply irritated almost beyond bearing by the women fussing about her?
“Do stop clucking like a flock of silly hens!” came Mrs. Willoughby-Jones' strident tones. “Give the woman some peace. Ah, Doris, is that more hot water you've brought? I'll have another cup.”
“Oh, Miss Dalrymple!” Miss Prothero, spotting her, jumped up and advanced upon her with an avid expression. “Perhaps you can tell us what has happened? Poor Mrs. Osborne feels quite unable to give us the details.”
“All we know,” put in Mrs. Lomax, “is that Professor Osborne has met with a
fatal accident.
”
“I can't tell you any more,” Daisy prevaricated, “except that the police are investigating, as I'm sure you're aware is necessary in any sudden death. Don't you think that when the vicar comes home he's going to want peace and quiet to deal with his loss?”
“Oh, but special friends …” Miss Hendricks wailed, wringing her hands. “The dear vicar has done so much for all of us …”
“You're quite right, Miss Dalrymple,” Mrs. Molesworth interrupted in her deep voice. “Mrs. Osborne, if there is anything at all I can do to help you have only to let me know. There, I'm off.”
“But special friends …” said Miss Hendricks weakly.
“You're not one,” Mrs. Willoughby-Jones informed her with brutal candour.
The remaining women all looked at each other sidelong,
then one by one said subdued goodbyes, with promises of assistance as needed, and drifted out. Mrs. Osborne, it appeared, had no special friends.
Daisy certainly did not count herself as a friend, even an ordinary one. She hadn't the vaguest right to stay, as Mrs. Willoughby-Jones' truculent glance in parting made plain. But she had found the body, and talked to the police, and besides, she was Lady John's sister. No one objected aloud.
Was one of them the murderer—the Poison Pen or a victim of the Poison Pen? They had all been in the vicinity.
As chairman of the WI committee, Mrs. Lomax probably could not have arrived at the meeting late without arousing comment—though Mrs. Osborne habitually usurped her functions whether she was present or not. Any of the others might have sneaked into the Parish Hall and sat down at the back unnoticed. How much force had it taken to topple the angel? Mrs. Molesworth and Mrs. Willoughby-Jones were both fairly hefty, and even Miss Prothero, though elderly, was quite vigorous. Miss Hendricks' much vaunted feebleness could be less fact than an excuse to whine, though she did look pretty sickly.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Daisy picked up Mrs. Osborne's nearly full tea-cup. “You prefer it weak, and without milk, don't you? And I expect they have put enough sugar in to make it undrinkable. Two lumps, I seem to remember.”
Preparing a fresh cup to those specifications, she set it beside the vicar's wife, then poured some for herself. Mrs. Osborne drank thirstily.
“I feel as if none of this is real,” she said in a remote voice. “What will Osbert do next?”
“You don't know where he went?” Daisy asked. “I'm sure the police would send someone to fetch him.”
“No!” Mrs. Osborne saw Daisy's surprise at her vehemence
and added with a feverish light in her eye, “Why grieve him sooner than need be? I don't know how I'm going to tell him about his brother!”
“How long has the professor been staying?”
“Since the end of June. Why?”
“Oh, I suppose I wondered how close the brothers are,” Daisy invented hastily. “Mr. Osborne may well see the police before he gets here, in which case he's bound to stop and ask what is going on in his churchyard, isn't he? If not, would you like me to break the news?”
“Would you?” Mrs. Osborne begged eagerly. “You know more than I do, at all events, and to tell the truth I'm not feeling at all well. Will you forgive me if I go and lie down?”
“Of course.” Daisy couldn't blame her cowardice. The vicar knew his wife had not cared for his brother, so any expression of sympathy was bound to strike a false note.
Mrs. Osborne's departure left Daisy in indisputable occupation of the drawing room until Mr. Osborne came in. She went straight to the small hinged-front desk in the far corner. Though the vicar must have a private den with a desk where he produced his sermons, if Professor Osborne had been the Poison Pen, he was quite likely to use this to write his letters. Daisy pulled out the supports and let down the front.
The first thing she saw was a box of blue Basildon Bond, the kind with folded sheets, not a pad. She poked through the pigeon-holes and little drawers, but found no other writing paper of any sort. Closing the top, she opened the top drawer below. At first glance, it was full of receipted bills, old cheque-books, and such.
There was no time for a second glance. Someone knocked on the front door. Daisy hastily shut the drawer and moved away from the corner.
She heard Doris answer the door, then the maid came in.
“It's a p‘liceman, miss. Leastways, he says he is, only he's not in uniform 'cause he's a ‘tective. He's asking for you. Did I ought to go up and tell the mistress?”
“No, leave her in peace until she's needed, Doris. Will you show the policeman in here, please?”
Remembering Alec's custom of making those he interrogated face the light, she took a seat with her back to the window. Not that she intended to withhold essentials from Flagg, but she didn't want him jumping to conclusions based on her expression. Doris ushered the inspector in, and Daisy invited him to sit.
“The vicar hasn't come home yet,” she said.
“Oh, Mr. Osborne turned up just a few minutes ago.”
“Thank heaven!” Daisy exclaimed with feeling. When Flagg gave her an enquiring look, she explained, “It would have been too frightful if it turned out to be Mrs. Osborne's husband when I'd assured her it was her brother-in-law. Where is he? Is he fearfully upset?”
“Shattered, the poor gentleman. He went into the church, to pray, I imagine. Only natural for a parson.”
To pray? To
try
to pray, possibly, or just to try to look as if he was praying, to keep up appearances even in his grief, for his wife's sake.
“I think I'd better tell the maid to let Mrs. Osborne know the vicar has turned up,” Daisy said, going to ring the bell. “She didn't seem to doubt that it was the professor who was killed, but she's in quite a state and it won't hurt to reassure her.”
“Good idea,” Flagg agreed, taking out his notebook. “It'll be half an hour or so before my men and the police surgeon get here. I've done all I can without them, so if you wouldn't mind repeating what you told me about finding the deceased …”
“Of course.” She turned as the maid came in. “Oh Doris, Inspector Flagg says the vicar has come back and is in the church. Would you tell Mrs. Osborne right away?”
“Yes, miss. Was you wanting any more tea or'll I clear?”
Daisy looked at Flagg, who said, “I wouldn't mind a cup.”
“Bring a fresh pot, please, but go to Mrs. Osborne first. Right-oh, Inspector, I'd better explain first that I was on my way to the Parish Hall to give a talk to the Women's Institute.” Pleased to note that her stomach remained calm, she continued with the story of her gruesome discovery and what she did next. She finished with Dr. Padgett's reluctant concession that the angel could not have fallen by chance. “What do you think, Mr. Flagg? Don't you think it must have been pushed?”
“It seems that way to me,” the inspector conceded, almost as reluctantly as the doctor had. “There's no sign of mortar to attach it to the base, so its own weight must've held it there all these years, though we've had a gale or two in my time.”
“There wasn't a breath of wind this afternoon.”
“Nary a whisper. That angel looks top-heavy, with the wings spread and all. I should think a good shove between the shoulder-blades'd topple it. We'll look for fingerprints, of course. The polished stone should hold 'em well if there are any, but if not I expect the super will want to bring in some sort of scientist to say how much force it would have taken.”
“And how high up,” Daisy suggested, running her suspects through her mind. None was particularly short.
“That too,” Flagg agreed. “We'll either have to experiment in the churchyard, or take the angel away. The churchwarden, Brigadier Lomax, wasn't any too pleased when he heard that, I can tell you.”

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