Dead in the Water (11 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Dead in the Water
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Lord DeLancey shook his head. “No. He had just rowed a race—if you can call it that when the cox was taken ill in the middle. Since the result was a foregone conclusion, the crew didn't force the pace and Basil wasn't even winded when they came in, as they usually are. He was the picture of health when we parted.”
“I realise it will be painful, sir, but please describe the scene when the Ambrose College boat came in.”
“You can find plenty of witnesses,” his lordship said testily.
True enough. Alec decided to let it pass. Before he had formulated a tactful way to phrase his next question, Lord DeLancey continued, “Basil was in a filthy temper and he behaved like a fool. I stopped him as soon as I reached him.”
“Did Mr. DeLancey often—er—fly off the handle like that?”
“Is this really necessary, Chief Inspector?”
“The character of a victim is often extremely significant in explaining the motive of the murderer, which frequently points to who he is. I'm sure you can see that in this case …”
“Yes, yes, I see. I'm sorry to say my brother was abominably overindulged. Basil is—was—the baby of the family, the youngest by several years, the darling of the mater and our sisters,” Lord DeLancey said sourly.
Once again Daisy had hit the nail on the head! “And Lord Bicester?” Alec asked.
“The pater always spent a great deal of time in London as a member of the Government or an active member of the Opposition. He brought business home with him as often as not, and I'm afraid he did little to correct the faults in my brother's upbringing.”
“In other words, Mr. DeLancey tended to be governed by his impulses?”
“He never learnt to control them.”
“So he would act with little or no consideration of the feelings of others.”
“None!” Lord DeLancey's bitterness suggested this was not the first time he had suffered from his brother's shortcomings.
“And he would be unlikely to heed advice?”
“He always did exactly as he pleased.”
“Then it would not surprise you,” Alec suggested, “if he kept vigil in the boat-house at Bulawayo last night in spite of your prohibition?”
Lord DeLancey suddenly turned wary. “I've no reason to suppose he did. Is that”—he moistened his lips—“Is that where you think he was struck down?”
“It's possible. You confirm that he proposed to spend the night there?”
“Yes. He said something to that effect. I didn't take it very seriously. Basil liked his comforts and a night in a boat-house hardly qualifies.”
“Far from it,” Alec agreed. “I assume you knew why he considered keeping guard over the boat. Were you present when the threat was made against it?”
“Yes, it was just as I persuaded him to leave that the cox swore to get his own back. But he threatened Basil, not the boat. I can't imagine why Basil decided the fellow was likely to damage the boat. I'd have expected him—Basil, that is—to think better of it pretty quickly since it meant an uncomfortable night.”
“But when you last spoke to him, he was still intending to keep guard?”
“When I spoke to him on the … .” DeLancey stopped and swallowed, perhaps recalling his last contact with his living brother. He pulled himself together and started again. “When I spoke to him on the telephone?”
Alec pricked up his ears. “When was that?”
“Oh, yesterday evening.”
“What time?”
“About a quarter to eleven. I was playing bridge. When I was dealt the dummy, I realised I wasn't sure what time Ambrose's race was this morning, so I called him up. Neither of us mentioned his ridiculous plan.”
“How did he sound? Normal?”
“His voice was a bit slurred. I assumed he'd had a whisky or two. You don't suppose he had already been hit?”
“I've no idea at present, sir. Did your brother answer the 'phone himself?”
DeLancey gave him a condescending look. “Lady Cheringham's butler answered, naturally.”
“Did you receive an impression as to whether anyone else was still up and about?”
“I couldn't tell you. I believe the crew generally go to bed quite early during the races, but of course four of them—five with the cox—had no race today. Was it the cox who did it?”
“I haven't enough information to begin to decide, sir. As far as you know, did anyone else have reason to bear him a grudge?”
“A great many people, I dare say. Basil had a damned nasty tongue and he wasn't shy of using it. It must have been one of the crew, though, don't you think?”
“They certainly had the best opportunity,” Alec said cautiously. He stood up. “Well, thank you for your cooperation, Lord DeLancey. I mustn't keep you from your friends any longer.”
With a grimace, his lordship said, “I suppose I'd better tell them about Basil.”
“It's bound to be in the evening papers, I'm afraid.”
“The papers!” Groaning, Cedric DeLancey buried his head in his hands. “Somehow I'd managed to put the Press out of my mind. Trust Basil to make as much trouble dead as alive!”
“
L
ord DeLancey confirmed a good part of what Miss Dalrymple told me, Tom,” said Alec, stepping out of the shade of the portico into the broiling sun.
“'Course!” Piper said indignantly as he climbed into the Austin's back seat.
“He agreed his brother talked about spending the night in the boat-house?” Tom asked.
“Yes, though he made light of it.” Alec sat down in the passenger seat and closed the door. “He said he didn't think Basil would go through with it.”
“Looks like he did,” said Tom laconically, engaging the clutch. He drove well and carefully, or Alec wouldn't have trusted him with the precious Chummy.
“What did you find?”
Squinting as he negotiated the alternating shadow and brightness of the avenue, Tom said, “Looks like a smear of blood, Chief, and a few dark hairs, on the floor. A cushion hidden away in a back corner, where you wouldn't notice it, or anyone sitting on it, as you was coming in the door. And one o' the young gents told me there was an oar found damaged
when they went to put the boat in the water this morning.”
“Damaged?” Alec frowned. “I'd be surprised if a blow with the flat of the blade, which didn't do much external damage to DeLancey's head, had left a visible mark on the oar.”
“The dent was on the edge of the blade. Like Mr. Cheringham said, it looked like it'd been dropped, which made Mr. Frieth pretty ‘browned off,' he said, him being the Captain.”
Daisy would have noticed an oar lying on the floor, even if she missed a cushion in a back corner. Yet if DeLancey was struck in the boat-house, it must surely have been before he burst into her bedroom.
“Did they find the oar on the floor in the morning?” Alec asked.
“No, it'd been put back in the rack, Chief. Could be whoever hit him dropped it in shock, like, then picked it up again and put it away. I expect it wouldn't be natural for one of these rowing blokes to just leave an oar lying about.”
“Very likely. Dabs?”
“Loads. Seems the oars are all pretty near identical, so anyone might've rowed with it. Then there's the young ladies, Miss Cheringham and Miss Carrick. They often helped carry 'em, Mr. Cheringham said.”
“Mr. Cheringham seems to have been very helpful.”
“Said he was by way of being host, his uncle having buzzed off. He's not Miss Dalrymple's cousin, right, Chief?”
“Right, but he's as close as a brother to Miss Cheringham, who is.” Alec sighed. As Tring and Piper knew very well, Daisy had a tendency to take one or more suspects under her wing. Who more likely than Cherry?
“Ah!” Tom ruminated for a moment. “He told me his dabs are on the oar, him having picked it off the rack to row with this morning afore anyone noticed it'd been bashed.”
“Covering his traces, do you think? If there are so many fingerprints, they won't help much anyway.”
The sergeant disagreed. “Some of the 'em's on top of others. Once I've identified all of'em, I might be able to tell who touched it last, besides Mr. Cheringham, or at least who didn't.”
“True. You'd better get on to that as soon as we get back, Tom. The place is locked up?”
“I got a padlock from Bister, the gardener-handyman chappie. Here's the key, Chief. Seems they don't bother keeping it locked in the summer,” Tom said disapprovingly. “Now, is it likely anyone's going to pinch a boat in the winter, I ask you?”
Alec laughed. “Probably not. You've packed up a sample of the blood smear to send for analysis?”
“Done.”
“Good man. One of the local bobbies can take it into town. No handy footprints outside, I suppose? It's been too dry, and in any case the same applies as with fingerprints—everyone's been there.”
“No handy footprints, Chief, but me and the constable found plenty of snails and earwigs and …”
“Tom!”
“Spiders,” said Tom innocently, “and an old ducks' nest, and cigarette ends, and a tent-peg.”
“A tent-peg?” Why did that sound significant?
“Not polished wood like the oar, so no dabs. No dead
leaves on top, so at a guess it hadn't been there long, but tent-pegs being used outside and stuck in the ground, it's dirty and weathered.”
“DeLancey wasn't bashed with a tent-peg, Sarge,” Ernie Piper pointed out.
“No,” Alec agreed, as the Austin turned into the Cheringhams' drive, “but I have a feeling it means something. Don't lose it, Tom.”
“Me lose evidence!” Tom fulminated. “Have a heart, Chief, when did I ever lose a bit of evidence?”
“Just getting my own back for the earwigs,” said Alec. Piper snickered. “Did you manage to get a look at DeLancey and Fosdyke's bedroom?”
“Just a glimpse, no time for more. I got DeLancey's dabs off his shaving kit. Everything else polished within an inch of its life, including that electric torch on the landing. They took on a couple of extra girls, just tempor'y, what with having the house full to busting, and the housekeeper kept a smart eye on 'em.”
“Talk to the maid who did that room. If there was anything to see,
you'll
get it out of her.”
Alec grinned as Tom, stopping the Austin at the front door, preened his moustache. For all his bulk and his devotion to his wife, the sergeant had a way with female servants in particular, as well as servants in general. He didn't have to be told what to ask when he got around to interviewing the staff—one of the reasons Alec had sent for him.
“But that can wait,” Alec continued. “It looks as if the boat-house was the scene of the crime …”
“Just like Miss Dalrymple said,” Piper put in.
“So your first order of business, Tom, is to take everyone's
fingerprints and check against the dabs on that oar. More interviews for us, Ernie. Got enough sharp pencils?”
“'Course, Chief,” the young Detective Constable assured him.
Although the front door still stood open and he was returning after quite a short absence, Alec rang the door-bell. He doubted that the easy-going Lady Cheringham would be affronted if he just walked in, but the butler might, and the butler might have been the last person to see DeLancey before he was hit. His cooperation could be vital.
Not to mention that a butler's cooperation always smoothed the path of the Law, on the rare occasions when it could be won.
Lady Cheringham's butler was quite different from the supercilious individual employed at Crowswood. For a start, his face was black. Alec had not encountered him before, since Daisy had taken him into the house, and later ensconced him with the telephone in the library, and a maid had brought his lunch. He was momentarily startled, but when he considered that the Cheringhams had lived so long in Africa, it wasn't really surprising that they had brought a competent servant home with them.
Tom had already met him. “This is Mr. Gladstone, sir,” he introduced the tall African to Alec. “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, Mr. Gladstone, and Detective Constable Piper.”
Gladstone bowed with a gravity suited to the occasion and the deference due to Alec as the fiance of the niece of Sir Rupert and Lady Cheringham, of which he was undoubtedly aware. “How may I be of assistance, Chief Inspector?” he enquired in a deep, accentless voice, benignly courteous.
“I shall need a room in which to interview people,” Alec
told him. “The library will serve very well, if we shan't disrupt the household?”
“Not at all, sir. The gentlemen and Miss Carrick are all in the drawing-room or on the lawn under the chestnut tree, I believe, the terrace being without shade.”
“Miss Cheringham hasn't come down yet?”
“I understand Miss Cheringham intends to join her guests for tea, which will be served shortly. I am sure her ladyship would wish me to offer refreshments to you gentlemen.”
“Tea will be very welcome,” Alec assured him.
“Something cold for me, if you please, Mr. Gladstone,” said Tom, blotting his forehead with the spotted handkerchief.
“Certainly, Mr. Tring.”
“And if you've got a scullery I could use for the taking of fingerprints, it'd make things easier. It's a bit of a messy business.”
“The downstairs cloakroom would be more convenient for the gentlemen,” the butler suggested.
“Right you are, and we'll worry about the ladies when we get to 'em. Strickly for elimination,” Tom added hastily as Gladstone gave him a shocked look. “So's we know which ones to disregard.”
“Of course,” said the butler, relieved. “You know your way to the library, Chief Inspector? If you'll come with me, Mr. Tring, I'll show you where to go.”
“I'll take Mr. Leigh first, Sergeant,” Alec said. “Take your pick of the rest. Piper, that's the library there, and that's the drawing-room, with French doors to the terrace and lawn. Fetch Mr. Leigh, please.” He usually started with the least likely suspects. Often he could cross them from his list, and they gave him background for questioning the more likely.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you can send me a couple of the others, laddie,” said Tom.
Alec proceeded to the library. By each of the open windows stood a pair of armchairs. One of these he shifted so that its occupant's face would be well lit, but not in the sun—squinting made the expression hard to read. Sitting slightly sideways at the big desk, Alec would be in a dominant position with an excellent view of his victims. To one side and a little behind the armchair, he set a chair for Piper—suspects often dried up if they could actually observe their every word being written down.
Piper brought Leigh in. The young oarsman seemed to have recovered from the shock of his crew-mate's demise and to be unintimidated by facing a police interrogation.
“Sorry about the shirtsleeves, sir,” he said cheerfully. “It's devilish hot today, even with a bit of a breeze off the river. I suppose you want to know about DeLancey's dust-up with Bott.”
“Among other things, Mr. Leigh.” Alec waved him to the chair and sat down at the desk. “Your Christian name, please, for the record. Detective Constable Piper will be taking notes.”
“Donald. Among other things? You mean you don't think it was Bott who socked him?” Leigh was incredulous. Obviously he, and probably most of the others, considered the case closed.
“I haven't anywhere near enough evidence to decide.”
“But Bott's the only one who scarpered, besides being the one DeLancey bullied and the one who threatened …”
“Hold on!” Sometimes it paid to let a witness or suspect
ramble on in his own way, but this was leading nowhere. “I'd like to ask you a few questions.”
“Yes, of course, sir. Sorry. My hat, you mean we're all of us under … ? Sorry! Not another word, except answers, of course.”
“Thank you.” Alec smiled at him. “What makes you say Horace Bott has decamped?”
Leigh flushed. “Actually, that's what we've all been saying, but it isn't true, is it? I rowed him across myself, this morning, long before DeLancey snuffed out. He was going to spend the day with his girl.”
“Did he take anything with him?”
“Just what he had in his pockets. No bag, or anything like that, if that's what you mean. He was talking of taking a picnic up the river. I suppose he wanted to get well away from the scene of his humiliation, poor chap. Come to think of it, he quite likely wouldn't even hear what happened, would he?”
“No,” said Alec absently. As Leigh spoke he had been half listening, half putting odds and ends together, his memory jogged by his own question and choice of the word “decamped.” “Did he mention his plans for after the Regatta?”
“He was going on a walking tour,” Leigh said promptly. “Camping at night. I don't suppose he could afford to stay in country pubs even.”
“Excuse me a moment. I'll be right back. Piper!” Alec led the way out of the library. In the hall, he said, “Go and find Bott's bedroom.”
“Tent-peg,” said Piper.
“Exactly. There should be a bagful. Take one and match it against Tom's find. Don't let anyone see what you're doing,
Ernie. They're already convinced Bott did it, and even if the tent-peg's his, it's no proof.”
“Right, Chief.”
Alec returned to the library. As he opened a desk-drawer to look for paper and a pencil to make notes—he would not attempt a verbatim report—Leigh watched nervously.
“If it wasn't Bott,” he burst out, “who was it? I didn't hit him. He never bothered me much.”

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