Black Ship (29 page)

It dawned on Daisy that this was exactly what they had intended all along. Doubtless they had watched through their binoculars until they were sure she was alone before they came. Quite a few people found it more comfortable to avoid the official commitment of reporting to the police, by telling Daisy what they wanted the police to know. Usually she was in sympathy with their concerns, but not this time.

Warren was still on duty by the telephone. She could call him in, but a mere detective constable, and one, moreover, without eyebrows, would neither appease the Bennetts nor be able to cope with them.

What would Alec want her to do? It was all very well thinking she ought to put the Bennetts off until he could talk to them, but suppose they refused to see him? On the other hand, did she really want to hear whatever slander they chose to promulgate?

Daisy decided she had better hear them out. She didn’t have to pass on to Alec anything she considered gratuitous twaddle.

“You won’t mind if I write down what you tell me,” she said, with an inward smile at their obvious dismay. “It wouldn’t do to get it wrong when I report to Alec.”

Without waiting for a response, she went off—not hurrying—to fetch her notebook from the office.

Returning through the hall, she met Elsie, breathless and
chilled. “Oh madam, I hope as I haven’t done wrong. I dashed over to my sister and told her to go right away and tell that Sergeant Tring the Bennetts are here pestering you. I know he’s a friend of yours, ‘sides being a policeman.”

Bother!
thought Daisy. If she didn’t get a move on, there would be an official witness to their mischief making, if Tom Tring’s arrival didn’t shut them up altogether.

“That was very thoughtful of you, Elsie. If he comes, show him right in, won’t you?”

“I’m sure he’ll come, madam,” said the parlour maid, shocked. “He wouldn’t leave you alone with the likes of them. Why, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it was them as done that American in. Nasty, they are. Me and Enid don’t believe it was the Jessups, not if it was ever so. I’ll wait right here to let Mr. Tring in quick as can be, madam, so if you need me, just call out.”

“Thank you, Elsie.” Daisy was touched by the Bristow sisters’ loyalty.

She hurried into the drawing room. Mr. Bennett had taken his seat opposite his sister. He made no attempt to rise when Daisy came in, tapping his knee as if to remind her of his rheumatics. She was not impressed. She knew plenty of elderly gentlemen far more rickety who would die rather than not stand up when a lady entered the room.

She sat down, notebook and pencil at the ready. “All right, let’s have your statement. Then I’ll type it up and you can sign it.”

They exchanged a glance. “We’re not signing anything,” said Miss Bennett belligerently.

“That’s for you to decide. Of course, the police won’t take anything you say very seriously if you’re not willing to put your names to it.” Daisy hoped to make them think twice before letting their unpleasant imaginations run riot. “Go ahead.”

“We saw him!” Miss Bennett was eager now.

“Who? When? Where?”

“Patrick Jessup, of course.”

“Everyone knows he came home yesterday,” Daisy said dampeningly.

“We were the first to see him,” Mr. Bennett claimed. “He came out of the passage, right beside our house, a few minutes after half past five.”

“That’s right!”

That’s torn it!
Daisy thought. “How can you be sure it was Patrick? It was dusk on a gloomy evening. He must have been wearing a hat, and very likely a muffler.”

“No muffler. Patrick Jessup has always claimed he doesn’t feel the cold. He goes around without an overcoat in midwinter. Just wait till he starts getting arthritis; that’ll put a stop to him.”

“He had a hat on, one of those newfangled soft felts, a trilby or a homburg, or whatever they’re called. What’s wrong with a bowler, I say. But he always wears his hat on the back of his head.”

“Makes him look like a racecourse tout.”

“Lowers the tone of the neighbourhood.”

“But one can see his face.”

“And he turned his head towards us, speaking to the man with him. It looked as if he was pointing out the Jessups’ house.”

“There was someone with him?” Daisy asked sharply. Did Alec know Patrick had a companion?

“He was wearing an overcoat, and had his hat pulled down over his ears. One of those soft felts, like Patrick’s. If he’d been wearing a nice hard bowler, it wouldn’t have been so easy to knock him out, would it?”

“You saw Patrick hit him over the head?”

“Well, not to say ‘saw.’ I had to go and pack for a night away from home, to be ready to meet my friend Emmeline Lagerquist for the theatre. My brother’s eyesight is not as keen as mine.”

“I had the glasses. I watched them walk up the path. They stopped near the fountain. Aidan—” He stopped, glancing
resentfully at Daisy’s pencil and pad. She allowed herself a smug feeling that she had stymied the worst of his venom—if that was what one did to venom. “There ought to be a lamppost by the fountain. It’s much too dark for safety in the middle of the garden. Someone else came down the slope to meet them. I can’t be sure who it was.”

“Fortunately, I hadn’t quite got around to writing down any name,” Daisy said in that saccharine tone. Then a dismaying memory struck her: Mrs. Jessup saying that neither Patrick nor Aidan had seen Castellano
before.
Before what? She couldn’t think about it now. She had the Bennetts to be put in their place. Firmly, she went on: “I believe juries are awarding quite tremendous damages for slander these days.”

Mr. Bennett blenched and repeated hurriedly, “I can’t be sure who it was.”

Miss Bennett gave him a scornful look but didn’t actually contradict him. “You saw what happened next, though.”

“Not clearly, not clearly at all. It’s shockingly dark in the middle of the garden, and then, my eyes are not what they were. That vulgar statue—”

“Barely half-clothed!”

“It complicates things, too. One can’t be sure how many people one is seeing, when they’re moving about in front of it, and one keeps catching glimpses—”

“You should have called me! I would have gone upstairs and had a much better view.”

“It was over very quickly.”

“What was?” Daisy demanded.

“I saw … what appeared to be … what might have been a struggle. Someone fell down. I’m fairly certain someone fell down. Then suddenly there was no one standing, no one at all.”

“What!” Daisy frowned at him. She couldn’t begin to guess what the police, let alone a coroner, prosecutor, or jury, would make of this farrago. It didn’t make sense.

“It started to rain,” Mr. Bennett said querulously. “I really couldn’t see much at all after that.”

“That’s not what you told me!” his sister snapped.

“You weren’t writing down every word to throw up against me in a court of law. Besides, with you badgering him, how is a man to think straight? What I saw isn’t necessarily what you’d have liked me to see.”

What he had seen was bad enough, Daisy thought. She was glad she had taken notes, and not only because of the dampening effect. If she could quote to Alec their exact words, then any tall story Miss Bennett might persuade her brother to tell, or come up with on her own account, would be belied before uttered.

“Detective Sergeant Tring, madam.”

The Bennetts’ quarrel had covered the sound of Tom’s arrival. Daisy jumped up and went to meet him. Brown eyes twinkling, he raised his eyebrows questioningly at her, with an effect like a pair of woolly bear caterpillars crawling up an egg.

“Mr. Tring! How lucky that you happened to drop in.” She waved her notebook at him and turned back towards the couple by the fireplace. “I believe you haven’t met Mr. and Miss Bennett?”

“I have not had the pleasure.”

Daisy wished she were not far too well brought up to inform him that it was no pleasure. “They came looking for the police. Since you’d all left, they’ve been telling me how the disgracefully bad lighting in the garden prevented their seeing anything much last night. You’ll be glad to hear I wrote down their statements verbatim, so there can’t be any disagreement about what they’ve said.”

His moustache twitched. “Very good, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said gravely. “If you would be so good as to type your notes, the lady and gentleman can sign them immediately and we shan’t have to trouble them again this evening.”

Miss Bennett gave him an affronted glare. “We cannot possibly wait.”

“It won’t take me more than a few minutes.”

“We dine precisely at eight. It is now twelve minutes before the hour.”

“We have to go round by the street,” Mr. Bennett explained, levering himself out of his seat, “what with the steps and my arthritis, and the lighting so poor in the garden.”

“We wouldn’t have come out at all, but unpleasant as it is to have anything to do with the police, we know our duty as citizens, I hope.”

“Very obliging of you,” said Tom as Daisy rang for Elsie, who must have been listening at the door, since she arrived instantly to show the Bennetts out.

They departed, noses in the air.

“Paint themselves into a corner, did they?” Tom enquired.

“Not at all. I painted them into a corner.”

“You didn’t go putting words into their mouths, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Of course not! I just made pointed remarks about slander and
huge
damages, and made sure they realised I was taking down every word they said. Oh Tom, aren’t they awful? And the worst is, the one unshakable thing they agree on is that they both saw Patrick Jessup coming into the Circle at half past five with a companion who sounds just like Castellano.”

Alec’s first
call was to Superintendent Crane.

“You again!” moaned the Super. “What the devil is it now? We’re just sitting down to dinner. I trust your wife has passed on my message?”

“No, sir,” Alec said cautiously. “I’m still at the wine shop. I haven’t spoken to Daisy since I left to come here. Is it urgent?”

“I suppose not, unless you consider a complaint from the Home Secretary urgent. Nothing to be done tonight, at any rate. I haven’t my notes with me, so ask her when you get home.”

“I’m not going home, sir.”

“What! Here, I say, Fletcher, don’t go off the deep end! She means well, you know. She can’t help falling into these scrapes, and you have to admit she’s pulled your irons out of the fire once or—”

“I mean, sir, I’m asking your permission to go to Manchester.”

“Manchester! Filthy dump. What the devil do you want to go there for, eh?”

“The man we’ve been looking for has turned up there—in hospital.”

“He has, has he?” The policeman alter ego took over from the diner interrupted in the middle of his soup. “Don’t suppose you could send that sergeant of yours? No,” he answered his own question, “touchy business questioning a sick man.”

“I really think I should do it myself, sir.”

“Right-oh. Leaving at once, are you?”

“Yes, I’ll just stop by my office to pick up the autopsy report—it should have come in by now—and my bag, and catch the same train Aidan Jessup presumably caught last night. I may find out something from the train staff on the way.”

“You’ll telephone Mrs. Fletcher to tell her you’re off,” Crane said severely.

“Of course, sir. And ask her for your message about the Home Secretary.”

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll deal with him,” the Super promised. “I’ll ring up the Manchester force for you, too. And now, if you have no objection, I’m going to finish my soup before it’s stone-cold.” He hung up.

Alec rang home. Warren answered.

“How is your face?” Alec asked.

“It feels sort of tight, sir, like I was wearing a rubber mask. And hot. But Miss Bristow brought me some more ointment from Mrs. Dobson, and that helps, so could be worse.”

“Good. Anything to report?”

“Mrs. Jessup came round, sir, and had a long talk with Mrs. Fletcher. And then those Bennetts—Miss Bristow fetched DS Tring to give Mrs. Fletcher a hand with them. I dunno what they said. Mr. Tring’s still here.”

“All right, put Mr. Tring on the line, and then you can go home. There’s not likely to be anything else this evening. You can go to your own station tomorrow morning, and you needn’t turn up till noon, unless you’re called in earlier. I’ll make that all right with—Oh, your sergeant’s on his way to the wilds of Lincolnshire.”

“Yes, sir. He was going to ring up when he gets there to find out what’s up here.”

“That’s right. My wife can tell him.” Which meant telling her more than Alec had intended to, but she seemed to know a good deal more than he did of some matters, so he supposed it all came out even. “Off you go, Warren. I suggest you see a doctor in the morning if your face is still uncomfortable.”

A moment later, he heard Tom Tring’s deep rumble. “Chief?”

“Tom, I have to catch a train to Manchester, so let’s keep this as brief as possible. Have you found anything in the Jessups’ house?”

“Nowt, like they say in Manchester. We were nearly done, me and Ardmore, when I was called over here to repel boarders.”

“The Bennetts. Warren told me.”

“Not that Mrs. Fletcher needed help. She’d routed ’em, foot, horse, and artillery, before I got here.”

“She didn’t—”

“Not to worry, Chief. She got their story out of ’em first, and wrote it all down. She’s typing it up now. The bit you need to know is, they’re ready to swear Patrick Jessup reached the Circle at half five.”

Alec whistled. “Did he, now! Six-thirty, he says.”

“And there was a bloke with him, with his hat pulled low.”

“Indeed! The Bennetts are sure they were together?”

“I don’t know about that, Chief. I haven’t read their statement, and you know how Mrs. Fletcher does her best to avoid leading questions.”

“Insofar as she understands the term,” Alec said dryly. “If you have nothing more to report, put her on, would you, please?”

“Have a heart, Chief! At least tell me why you’re off to Manchester.”

“Aidan’s there. In hospital.”

Tom whistled. Alec could imagine his moustache puffing out. “Right, Chief, I won’t ask any more. For now. What do you want me to do tomorrow?”