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Authors: Carola Dunn

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“Better than either of us, sir.”
“I'm afraid,” Daisy said slowly, “the professor would have thought it a very good joke, possibly worth sharing. And though I don't believe Mr. Osborne would have killed to protect
himself
, for his family's sake he just might … No, I can't believe it!”
“Just because he's a vicar?” Flagg asked shrewdly. “He's an avowed atheist, remember.”
“It seemed to me it was a relief to him to avow it openly, and a relief to confess to writing the letters. We didn't have the slightest suspicion it was him till he told us. At least I didn't.” Her querying look won rather sheepish shakes of the head from both men. “Even though I knew he'd lost his faith.”
“Daisy, you knew?” Alec demanded, at the same moment as Flagg exclaimed, “You never told us!”
“I didn't have much chance,” Daisy said guiltily. “We were always rushing somewhere and talking about someone else. Besides, he told me in confidence, and it didn't seem relevant.”
“How many times have I told you that you can't judge what may or may not turn out to be relevant?”
“Dozens, darling. But one can't just go around spilling people's inmost secrets on the off chance.”
“In a murder investigation one can,” Alec said grimly. “What else did Osborne tell you?”
Daisy cast her mind back to that rainy afternoon when the Reverend Osbert Osborne had walked with her up the Oakhurst drive. Only three days ago!
“He's been offered a position at Canterbury Cathedral. Mrs. Osborne can't decide whether she'd rather be a small fish at the heart of the Church or a big fish in Rotherden, but he can't accept because he'd be unable to hide his atheism—he'd managed it till then, for her sake and their children's. It was becoming more and more of a strain, though. He hated the hypocrisy. What he really wants to do is teach in the East End, or one of the big industrial cities, but Mrs. Osborne is used to a comfortable life …”
“Why on earth did he tell
you
all this?” Flagg enquired, bemused.
“He said I looked sympathetic.” Daisy frowned at Alec, daring him to mention her “guileless blue eyes.” “He was desperate to talk to someone, and his brother didn't understand because his atheism had a logical basis, whereas he—the vicar—had revolted against religion on purely emotional grounds.”
“So he was desperate,” Alec said thoughtfully, “and his brother was unsympathetic.”
“But killing his brother would leave him with exactly the same problems,” Daisy pointed out, “with the guilt and danger of murder added, whereas being exposed as the Poison Pen would solve the worst, or what he perceived as the worst. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if he wrote those letters hoping to be caught. Unconsciously, at least,” she added defensively when they stared at her.
“It's possible,” Alec admitted, “but that just adds to the proof that he's been in a highly unstable frame of mind.”
“Suicidal?” said Flagg, and the two detectives rose as one.
“You're not coming, Daisy,” said Alec, as they strode out.
Daisy made no move to follow. She refused to believe the kindly gentleman who had rescued Derek from the Oakhurst gate had killed his brother. On the other hand, he had no dearth of other reasons for killing himself. If he had been driven to that point, she did not want to be one of those who found his body.
She wasn't going to bow out of the investigation, though. Finishing her orange squash, she carried plates and glasses out to Mrs. Barton, thanked her again, and asked, “Where does Miss Hendricks live?”
“Third house on the left going down the green, miss. Or is it the fourth? Mafeking, she calls it. There's a silver birch in the front garden.”
“Thanks, I'll find it.”
Mafeking,
Daisy thought as she walked across the corner of the green. Had Miss Hendricks lost her secret lover in the Boer War? Was she what Daisy might have become if she had not found Alec?
Daisy had not been pregnant when Michael drove his Quaker ambulance over a landmine, but all the same, there but for the grace of God …
With more sympathy for the discontented, querulous woman than she had expected to feel, Daisy approached her garden gate.
Constable Barton puffed up the hill from the inn on his bicycle and came to a halt beside Daisy. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgbaston swear Mr. Catterick was with them,” he said, “from ten to one till round about five. Reckon he's out of it, miss.”
“Sounds like it,” she agreed, and told him the detectives had returned to the Vicarage. Then she went on to knock on Miss Hendricks' door.
She had not readied an excuse for calling, but Miss Hendricks did not require one. Opening the door herself, she invited Daisy into a tiny hall, and thence into a small sitting room overcrowded with furniture and knick-knacks. The furniture was good, though. Her circumstances might not be easy, but they were more comfortable than her complaints suggested.
“I've seen you motoring about with the detectives, Miss Dalrymple,” she said. “The chief inspector is your fiancé, I hear.”
“Yes, actually. They have been interviewing people. Mostly those who received those horrid anonymous letters.”
“I suppose I'm not important enough for a Scotland Yard detective to come himself,” said Miss Hendricks resentfully.
“Oh, I'm not here officially. They didn't want me along on their present errand,” Daisy explained with a rueful moue. “I expect they'll want to talk to you later. It must have been a beastly shock when someone started raking up that old trouble.”
“Old trouble?” snapped Miss Hendricks. “What old trouble?”
“Sorry! Someone said … But they must have been mistaken.”
“Who was it? Mrs. Lomax? She's a fine one to talk, with a husband who drinks like a fish and knocks her about.”
“You know about that?”
“No quantity of powder altogether hides a black eye,” Miss Hendricks informed Daisy with a sort of spiteful satisfaction. “Or was it Miss Prothero? That letter-writer has a nerve, lambasting me for malice and evil-speaking when Mabel Prothero is a ten times worse backbiter than anyone else! Or did she write them?” she asked eagerly.
“I believe not.”
“No, I'm sure it's Mrs. Willoughby-Jones. She doesn't care whom she hurts. It wouldn't surprise me if she's written to her own husband, taking him to task for his dishonesty—except that he makes a very good thing of it, so she would suffer if he stopped. I wonder …”
“Gosh, is that the time?” With feigned dismay, Daisy stared at the dainty, flowered porcelain clock on the mantelpiece. She was pretty certain Miss Hendricks hadn't the faintest idea the vicar was the Poison Pen. “I must be getting back, in case they're looking for me.”
Disappointed, Miss Hendricks showed her out. “You can tell the chief inspector there's no truth in that story,” she said, adding complainingly, “It's dreadful the things people say about people.”
“Isn't it?” said Daisy.
Miss Prothero was next on her mental list. To get there she had to pass Mrs. Molesworth's cottage, so she decided to drop in for the sake of thoroughness, although she did not suspect that peaceable, good-natured lady of angel-shoving.
The tiny row-cottage had no front garden and no entrance hall. Stepping from the street into the only downstairs room, Daisy saw that it hadn't much in the way of furniture, either. Everything was shabby but colourful and comfortable. Stairs to the upper room started in one back corner; beneath them a door led to the kitchen in the rear. Through this Mrs. Molesworth vanished with a cheerful: “Tea! Shan't be a minute, it's on the boil.”
Daisy went to look at a photograph in an ornate silver frame, which stood on a bookcase crammed with cheap editions of Dickens, Hardy, Trollope and the like. The plump, pretty bride in the photo was obviously Mrs. Molesworth, wearing an elaborate Victorian wedding dress and pearls, and beaming in
a most unVictorian way. The solemn young man at her side was togged out in morning coat and grey topper, a gardenia in his buttonhole.
“Choccy biccies,” said Mrs. Molesworth, bringing in a tray. “I try to save them for visitors. Chocolate is my downfall, I'm afraid.”
Manfully resisting temptation, Daisy waved away the chocolate biscuits. “Thanks, but I've just had lunch. Do please regard me as an excuse, and indulge. I'd love a cup of tea, though. Would you mind frightfully if I asked you a few questions, about the anonymous letters?”
The stream of amber liquid pouring from the teapot in Mrs. Molesworth's steady hand flowed smoothly on. “Not at all,” she said. “I only received one. These days, I dare say, even a churchman can't work up much enthusiasm for damning the deadly sin of gluttony.” She passed Daisy's cup, took a biscuit and crunched with unapologetic enjoyment.
“So you guessed the vicar was the Poison Pen?”
Mrs. Molesworth laughed. “I couldn't think of anyone else who might regard overeating as worse than a venial weakness. Except the doctor, of course, but he'd write about heart disease, not the body as a temple for the Holy Ghost.”
“Did you speak to Mr. Osborne about it?” Daisy asked.
“Good Lord, no. The poor man has troubles enough, even before his brother met such an unpleasant end. The letter did me no harm—unlike others, I suspect.”
“Some people are very upset,” Daisy admitted, “and afraid their secrets will come out.”
“No secrets here!” Mrs. Molesworth glanced down at her substantial self, which shook again with laughter. “I carry the evidence of my failing for all to see.”
“One thing you may be able to tell me: Is there anything, besides her evident … er … failings, which the vicar might
have written about to Miss Prothero? I'm not asking for details,” she added quickly, “just whether you know of something.”
Mrs. Molesworth shook her head. “If Mabel Prothero has a skeleton in her cupboard, she's a great deal cleverer at keeping the cupboard closed than most people. But I don't want to suggest she has something to hide. I expect her only failings are … er … the evident ones.”
“Believing the worst of people and talking about it,” said Daisy. “Thank you, Mrs. Molesworth. I don't expect the police will want to see you, but they may. I'm not official, you see.”
“Presuming on your fiancé's position?” Mrs. Molesworth's limpid brown eyes twinkled. “Be careful, my dear, curiosity killed the cat.”
“My chief failing is all too evident,” said Daisy, laughing.
A frown creased her forehead, however, as she stood on Mrs. Molesworth's doorstep, gazing across the street at Miss Prothero's ugly bungalow. Apparently the vicar was the only person in the village who knew about the poverty-stricken sister, except, possibly, for Mrs. Osborne. Miss Prothero could easily have guessed that he was the Poison Pen.
On the other hand, meanness towards an indigent relative didn't seem a secret worth killing to keep. It was like Dr. Padgett's worming pills, uncomfortable but not disastrous.
Perhaps whatever the sister had done to earn Miss Prothero's enmity was the real secret. A well-bred lady of her vintage might feel herself utterly disgraced by—Daisy gave her imagination free rein—a sister who ran off to be a model in a Parisian
atelier,
for example; or who married a man drummed out of his regiment, blackballed at his club, perhaps actually convicted of a crime.
Daisy could practically hear Miss Prothero's sharp voice: “She made her bed. Now she must lie in it.”
But murder? Was the old lady even physically capable of pushing over several hundredweight of granite, however top-heavy?
Still staring at the bungalow, Daisy saw a lace curtain twitch. She was dying to go over and talk to Miss Prothero, to study her with an eye to her height and strength. But Alec would be furious if she called alone on someone she strongly suspected of murder.
She didn't want to quarrel with him again, not so soon, though making up was very sweet. And curiosity killed the cat, Mrs. Molesworth had warned her. Yet her besetting sin tugged her towards that twitching curtain.
Daisy dithered.
A
lec was too well brought up to yell after Daisy, when he came out of the police house, glanced to his right, and spotted her crossing the street from the row of cottages. He was too conscious of the necessary dignity of a Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector to race after her. He merely set off at a very fast stride, muttering, “What the dickens is she up to now?”
Inspector Flagg had no such inhibitions. Catching up with Alec, he shouted, “Hi, Miss Dalrymple!”
Daisy looked round, stopping with her hand on the gate of the bungalow next door to Mrs. LeBeau's house. It was one of the houses she had pointed out earlier, Alec remembered.
“Miss Prothero's?”
“That's the name, sir. Do you think Miss Dalrymple's found out something about her?”
“If she hasn't, she's trying to,” Alec said tersely.
“The vicar doesn't care for the way she treats her penniless sister. Nice place she has.” As they approached, Flagg regarded the city-park-like garden with approval for its gaudy precision, mingled with disapproval for its owner's living in comfort while her sister starved.
“Oh, Alec, and Mr. Flagg, I'm so glad you've come,” Daisy said softly.
Her smile of welcome set Alec's heart somersaulting, but he made his face and voice stern. “What are you up to, Daisy?”
“Hush! She's watching from behind the curtains. The windows are open, she'll hear you.”
“We'd better go back to Barton's,” Flagg whispered. “You can tell us there.”
“She'd think it was frightfully fishy if we all arrived at her gate and then dashed off again. All I've discovered is that she seems to be the only person whose secret is known only to the vicar. By the way, I take it you didn't find him trying to kill himself?”
“No,” said Flagg, “and he's given us an alibi. He was visiting the old chap whose seizure kept Dr. Padgett up the night before. Barton's gone to check.”
Alec broke in impatiently. “So you think Miss Prothero has a good motive for the murder, Daisy? And you were going to question her on your own? Sometimes I wonder if you're stark, staring mad!”
“I wasn't going to
question
her,” said Daisy, injured. “I've been jolly careful not even to mention the murder, let alone ask for alibis or anything like that. Just gossiping about the letters, which everyone's dying to talk about. But we can't stand here arguing with her watching. Since you're here, let's go in.” She opened the gate and started up the path.
Alec and Flagg looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.
A neat young maid opened the door, and showed them into a sitting room full of highly glazed chintzes in flowery patterns. The wallpaper was flowered, too. At first sight, Miss Prothero fitted well into this daintily old-fashioned setting, so at odds with the modern exterior of the bungalow. She took Alec by surprise. He hadn't expected the hard-hearted, malicious scandalmonger
of report to look like the epitome of a sweet old dear, with softly waved white hair, bright eyes, pink cheeks.
She was not, however, either short or frail-looking. Alec reckoned that under the impetus of strong emotion she might have been able to topple the angel.
From a rocking chair, a large tabby with a tattered ear fixed the intruders with a disdainful stare, and flexed sharp claws.
Unprepared for this interview, Flagg came straight to the point. “We have reason to believe, ma‘am, that you have received one or more anonymous letters. Do you know who wrote them?”
“I suppose Mrs. Burden gave you a list of people,” said Miss Prothero censoriously. “Really, the woman is quite unreliable! She is a civil servant, and she has no business disclosing what passes through her hands. I've a very good mind to write to the Post Office.”
“Have you any idea who wrote the anonymous letters, ma'am?” Flagg reiterated patiently.
“Mrs. Osborne, I assume,” Miss Prothero announced with apparently sincere resentment. “She must have a finger in every pie, and she expects people always to conduct themselves according to her notions. There was a certain matter raised in the letters—I have no intention of telling you what—which I was once persuaded unwisely to confide in her. No one else knows of it.”
“What makes you sure she has not told anyone?” Flagg asked, his frequently expressive face at its most phlegmatic.
“I cannot be sure, of course, but Mrs. Osborne has never been inclined to pass on gossip, however avidly she listens to it. She likes to know everything about everyone. No doubt it is part of her desire to control. I imagine the letters have the same purpose.”
“You don't think she even passes on what she hears to her husband?”
Alec saw Daisy frown. He guessed she had second thoughts about Miss Prothero's guilt, in view of her vehement denunciation of Mrs. Osborne as the Poison Pen. If she had not killed Professor Osborne in mistake for his brother, it was unnecessary and a pity to let the arch-gossip know of the vicar's misconduct.
For the old lady had at once seen the implications of Flagg's question. Already sitting back-board straight, she became rigid, her face flushed. “Do you mean to tell me,” she demanded with surprised disgust, “the vicar wrote the letters? Disgraceful! I shall most certainly write to the bishop.”
Taken aback, Flagg hesitated.
Alec took over. “The inspector made no such statement, ma‘am. He merely asked whether, in your opinion, Mrs. Osborne might inform her husband of matters pertaining to his parishioners. I take it you consider it possible. Would you be so kind as to tell us where you were between two o'clock and half past three yesterday?”
“Two and half past three? But the professor was killed between half past two and a quarter to three,” said Miss Prothero.
Flagg pounced. “How do you know?”
“My dear man, it's perfectly obvious. At least, it must have been before five to three, at any rate, though I am disposed to set it earlier. I myself passed through the churchyard at two minutes before the half hour—when one lives so close to the Parish Hall, one is liable to set out at the last moment. At that time the angel was in its accustomed place. At five to three, Miss Dalrymple must have been approaching the hall if she intended to arrive on time.” Miss Prothero inclined her head regally in Daisy's direction. “As I am sure she did, being a well-bred young lady, unlike so many these days.”
Alec might have quarreled with this description, but Daisy accepted the encomium with an equally regal inclination of the head.
Miss Prothero continued. “Naturally one cannot conceive of Miss Dalrymple murdering Professor Osborne. She found him already dead. Therefore he died before five to three.”
“But why did you say quarter to?” Flagg burst out.
“Because,” said Miss Prothero gloatingly, “that is when Mrs. Osborne arrived at the Parish Hall, and Mrs. Osborne loathed the man!”
 
“Yes, I knew she didn't like him,” Daisy admitted sheepishly.
They had returned to the police house to discuss Miss Prothero's revelation, not quite trusting that lady's veracity when she so clearly revelled in her story. As Daisy informed them on the way, the old cat had cast utterly unsupported aspersions on the married status of Catterick's visiting friends, Mr. and Mrs. Edgbaston.
“The first day I was here,” Daisy continued, “Mrs. Osborne came to tea at Oakhurst and mentioned that she couldn't bear her brother-in-law's dreadful jokes. She also complained that the brothers held such learned discussions, she couldn't understand a word.”
“Neither's exactly what you might call sufficient motive for murder,” Flagg said doubtfully.
“Ah, but then I found out about the professor being an atheist, and the vicar himself told me it was since his brother arrived that his wife had begun to suspect he was too. If you follow me.”
“I do,” said Alec, frowning. “You think Mrs. Osborne suspected the professor of leading the vicar astray? In that case, she would fear him, fear the loss of her position and everything that goes with it. Motive enough. We don't have to prove motive,
but there's no gainsaying it influences the jury—and the judge—if we can provide one.”
Mrs. Barton bustled in with a tray with a vast teapot flanked by a vast Dundee cake and a plate of jam tarts. No wonder Constable Barton, sitting quietly in the corner listening, was such a fine figure of an officer!
“Don't let me interrupt,” said his wife genially. “I'll leave you to pour, miss, if that's all right.” She departed.
Pouring, Daisy said, “The trouble was, once we knew Mr. Osborne was the Poison Pen, I was sure the murderer had aimed at him. It was fixed in my mind that the vicar was the intended victim, and I didn't know of any motive for Mrs. Osborne to bump off her husband.”
“Rather the opposite,” said Flagg.
“Exactly.” Daisy gave him a grateful smile. “Also, I'd assumed Mrs. Osborne ran the WI meeting. Mrs. Lomax, who's the chairman was bemoaning her officiousness, but now I come to think of it, she carried on about needing support, not about being superseded.”
“You didn't ask whether anyone had arrived late?” Alec enquired, a trifle sceptically.
“No, darling, because I knew you'd be livid if I started asking that sort of question.”
“I would,” he had the grace to admit.
Daisy sighed. “Oh dear, I've really made a bit of a mess of things, haven't I? I've thoroughly misled you about a connection between the letters and the murder.” She nibbled a jam tart, though she had resolved not to touch another bite for hours.
“There could have been a connection,” Flagg consoled her. “In a way there is, seeing both are connected with his being an atheist. Anyway, we'd have found out about Mrs. Osborne
arriving late as soon as we got around to questioning the women.”
“You just got to them before us,” Alec said dryly.
“That's assuming,” Flagg continued, “Miss Prothero's telling the truth, not making it up just to cause trouble.”
“Ask the missus,” Barton put in, and blushed when everyone turned to him. “She went to the meeting, sir.”
“Ask her,” said the inspector, with a long-suffering look.
The constable returned in a moment, shaking his head. “The door being at the back, sir, only them on the platform 'd see when anyone come in. Mrs. Osborne wasn't up there with the committee at the beginning, but that's not to say she weren't in the hall.”
“I never thought of that,” Daisy groaned. “Miss Prothero's on the committee.”
“So she'd be on the platform, I expect,” said Flagg.
“For everyone to see, and with a good view of the door.”
“Who else …?”
“Mrs. Molesworth isn't a committee member, but she might know something.” Daisy jumped up, abandoning the remains of her tart. “She won't spread false rumours. Living just two doors from the Vicarage, she could even have walked to the hall with Mrs. Osborne, if Miss Prothero's story is untrue.”
Rising with his hand outstretched, Alec protested, “Daisy …”
“It's quite all right, truly, darling. I shan't need my hand held. I've already talked to Mrs. Molesworth, and it won't take a minute.” Eager to redeem her errors, she hurried out.
Mrs. Molesworth was about to pop over to the church to freshen the flowers, but she invited Daisy in. “More questions?” she asked cheerfully.
“One or two, I'm afraid. Did you by any chance walk with anyone to the Parish Hall?”
“I wondered why you hadn't asked me for an alibi.” Mrs. Molesworth was amused. “As it happens, Miss Prothero and I met at the lych-gate and walked through the churchyard together.” Sobering, she added, “I'm quite certain we should have noticed had the angel fallen by then.”
“Did you see anyone else? In front, or behind you?”
“I didn't look back. We were often the last to arrive, living so close.”
“Mrs. Osborne lives closer,” Daisy pointed out.
“Mrs. Osborne likes to arrive early,” said Mrs. Molesworth dryly, “to make sure things run as she feels they should.”
“She was already in the Parish Hall when you got there?” Daisy enquired with bated breath. If so, she was innocent, of course. So was Miss Prothero, though, of murder if not malice. Where were they to look next?
But Mrs. Molesworth hesitated.
“If you feel that telling me makes it gossiping, Inspector Flagg can come and ask you officially. A man's been killed, remember.”
“Murder,” murmured Mrs. Molesworth. The persistent twinkle had entirely vanished from her eyes. “Though the mills of God grind fine, yet they grind exceeding slow. Justice must be seen to be done. The truth is, Miss Dalrymple, I didn't see Mrs. Osborne when I reached the hall. That is not to say she wasn't there. It's not as if I saw her arrive late.”

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