The Winter Garden Mystery (7 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Winter Garden Mystery
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Lady Valeria had returned. Her husband, her children, her husband's secretary, and her unwanted guest were all subdued by the tragedy, but Lady Valeria was angry.
“I met a reporter at the gates,” she announced, as Moody ladled Scotch broth and the tiptoeing maid handed it round. “A man from the local paper. I sent him off with his tail between his legs but doubtless others will follow.”
“My dear,” said Sir Reginald mildly, “would it not be better to make a brief statement? They may invent stories to amuse the public if they don't know the truth.”
“Truth! Those troublemakers don't know the meaning of the word. Give it them and they'll only twist it. I have already told Moody that any servant who speaks to them will be instantly dismissed. Naturally none of us here will pander to their nosiness, except … .” She scowled at Daisy. “Of course I can't stop
you
tattling to your colleagues, Miss Dalrymple.”
“They aren't my colleagues, Lady Valeria,” Daisy said coldly. “I'm not a reporter. I write for a magazine, a most respectable magazine, not a newspaper or scandal sheet. Nor am I in the habit of tattling to anyone. You may be sure that as a guest at Occles Hall I shan't discuss your affairs with the Press.”
Lady Valeria's sour look assured Daisy her words had hit their mark. “As a guest” she'd shun the Press, so her hostess was not likely to continue to press her to cut short her visit.
She found something else to fume about instead. “Our affairs? The fact that it was on our property the silly girl died does not make it any affair of ours.”
From the corner of her eye, Daisy thought she saw Sebastian's hand move in what might be a gesture of protest, but when she glanced at him, he was languidly eating his soup. He seemed apathetic, as if in the aftermath of an emotional storm, though she had no way of knowing if that was the case.
What had his relationship been with the dead girl?
“I have spoken to that little man from the police,” Lady Valeria went on, “Inspector Rennet or whatever his name is. He quite understands that the family have nothing to contribute to his investigation.
I see no need for any of us to attend the inquest, though unfortunately Mr. Goodman and two of the gardeners are required to give evidence.”
“I was told I may be called,” Daisy said, interpreting the sergeant's “Prob'ly not” the way she chose.
“A distressing prospect for any
lady.”
Cheered by this dig, Lady Valeria changed the subject. The steak-and-kidney pie and the apple charlotte which followed were enlivened by a blow-by-blow account of her triumph over her incompetent fellow—committee members.
The rest spoke scarcely a word.
After lunch, Ben Goodman offered to show Daisy over the interior of the house. She thought he still looked tired, and as the sun still shone she wanted to photograph the courtyard and the back of the house, so she declined.
“Tomorrow morning?” she proposed.
His lips quirked. “No hurry, since you've persuaded Lady Valeria to let you stay indefinitely.”
Daisy managed to take her pictures without climbing on any more urns. Last of all, as the sun sank in the west, she returned to the Winter Garden and shot a few more snaps of Boreas. Not ideal conditions but not too bad, she hoped. Even the most respectable magazine in the world might be glad to print a photo of a most respectable statue which happened to stand in a garden where a brutal murder had occurred.
She kept her back to the trench.
When she went in for afternoon tea, only Bobbie was there. They talked about photography. Daisy had the impression that Bobbie was on tenterhooks. Once or twice she seemed on the brink of confiding whatever it was that disturbed her, but she drew back at the last moment.
Daisy suspected she was giving the same impression. She was dying to talk about Grace, but her chief interest was in Sebastian's dealings with the dead girl. It wasn't the sort of subject one could put to a protective sister.
After tea, Bobbie said she had some letters to write. Daisy decided
she ought to write to her mother, her sister, and Lucy in case they were worried by the reports that were bound to be in the newspapers tomorrow. She finished just in time to change for dinner.
When she went down to the drawing room, Ben Goodman was alone there. “I've been notified that the inquest will be tomorrow afternoon,” he told her, “in the Village Hall.”
“They didn't inform me, so I suppose Inspector Dunnett doesn't want my evidence, but I shall go anyway.”
“I'll be glad to escort you, Miss Dalrymple.”
“Daisy, please. Thanks, I'd like to go with you. I've never been to an inquest. It'll be interesting, though I must say I'd have liked to give evidence.”
“What an unusual young lady you are, Daisy!”
“Young woman. I have it on the best authority that any
lady
must find such a prospect distressing.”
Ben smiled. “It's good to see someone who isn't cowed by Lady Valeria.”
“I don't have to live with her,” Daisy said diplomatically.
Now she was on Christian-name terms with him, she considered asking him about Sebastian and Grace. After all, he was an employee, not a member of the family. But Lady Valeria came in just then and the moment passed.
As far as Lady Valeria was concerned, the subject of Grace Moss was closed. Her name was not mentioned once.
 
By the morning Daisy had changed her mind about consulting Ben. It would be unfair to ask him to be disloyal to his employer's family. Also, his anxiety about Sebastian's reaction to Grace's death suggested he was as concerned as Bobbie was to shield her brother—which, in turn, suggested there was a reason to shield him.
Somehow she'd find out, Daisy vowed, since Inspector Dunnett had cravenly relinquished his duty to investigate. Not that she suspected Sebastian of murder, but so brutal a crime must not go unpunished and no clue could safely be neglected.
She neglected the whole affair that morning, however. Ben had dug up enough anecdotes to make the unexciting history of the house entertaining, and she wrote reams of notes. Then after lunch they set off together to walk down to the inquest.
As they passed the smithy, two men hung with equipment were photographing the piles of scrap metal. The Press had arrived. When she saw the crowd around the entrance to the Village Hall, Daisy was glad of Ben's company, but no one took any notice of them. The centre of attention was a burly man, not tall but brawny, in oil-stained mechanic's dungarees. Waving his arms, he was ranting about titled blood-suckers who robbed a man of his livelihood and his children.
“Stan Moss,” murmured Ben.
The blacksmith was surrounded by eager reporters. Village people stood about watching and listening, some scandalized, some nodding agreement, and not a few both. In one group Daisy saw Ted Roper.
Ben and Daisy slipped past and entered the barnlike wooden building with a stage at the far end. The village bobby, P.C. Rudge, directed Ben to the front row and pointed out the public benches to Daisy. She went with Ben anyway and sat beside him on a hard chair not designed for human anatomy. Bligh and Owen Morgan were already there, at the far end of the row. The old man looked stolidly ruminative, Owen forlorn, his face drawn and unhappy. Daisy's heart went out to him. She would have gone to speak to him if it weren't for Sergeant Shaw planted in the middle of the row, his bulk blocking the way.
At a table on the left side of the stage sat a small, grey man in a grey suit, presumably the coroner. He was talking to Inspector Dunnett and a plump gentleman Daisy recognized as Dr. Sedgwick. On the right side of the stage, the jury benches began to fill with a solemn array of villagers, farmers, and tradesmen.
The crowd from outside had been drifting into the gloomy, draughty room. Daisy glanced back and saw the “gentlemen” of the Press rush in to squeeze into the back two rows set aside for them.
Stan Moss came down the aisle as the doctor and Inspector Dunnett descended from the stage, and all three found places at the front. The coroner rapped on the table. The room quieted.
The first witness called was Stan Moss. He identified the deceased as his daughter Grace and admitted he hadn't seen her since the second week in December. No, he hadn't reported her missing.
“Thought she'd gone orf to make ‘er forchin in London, din't I,” he justified himself. “Never satisfied, the young uns these days, allus grumbling. Good luck to 'er, says I. Getchaself out from under them as thinks acos they calls themselves gentry they can … .”
“Thank you, Mr. Moss, that will be all,” said the coroner sharply. The blacksmith sat down, his sullen face resentful. Daisy couldn't blame the coroner for preventing a tirade, yet she wondered if he was as anxious as the police to avoid involving the Parslows. For all she knew, he was their solicitor.
“Arthur Bligh.” He picked up a sheet of paper. “I have here your statement to the police,” he said as the old man rose, shoulders hunched, his hat clutched in rheumatic hands. “You are head gardener at Occles Hall? You ordered your assistant, Owen Morgan, to dig up a border in the Winter Garden? And you were present while he dug and when he unearthed the deceased?”
“Aye, that I wor, your honour, Mr. Crowner, sir. But if your honour pleases, I want for to say … .”
“Thank you, Mr. Bligh.” The coroner was kindly but firm. “Unless you have any specific and hitherto undisclosed evidence to present to the court, or you wish to draw attention to an explicit inaccuracy in your statement, that will be all for now.”
Bligh hesitated, but perplexed by words he didn't understand he made a helpless gesture and sat down.
“Owen Morgan.”
A murmur rose from the public benches as Owen stood. Daisy heard someone behind her mutter, “Furriner,” and a scornful whisper, “Taffy.” A lonely outsider in the close-knit Cheshire community, Owen had good reason to miss his home and family.
“Mr. Morgan, you were ordered by your superior, Arthur Bligh, to dig up the Winter Garden flowerbed?”
“Yes, sir,” Owen responded in a low voice, listlessly.
“You immediately recognized the deceased as Grace Moss?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand you were … er … keeping company with the deceased before her disappearance?”
“Yes, sir.” Almost inaudible.
“How did you account for her sudden absence?”
“I thought she'd run off to London, look you!” His quiet answer was a cry of pain. “Dull she found it here and the bright lights she wanted. Those there were … .”
“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” pronounced the inexorable coroner. Owen slumped into his seat and buried his face in his hands.
Something nagged at Daisy's mind. Something Ted Roper had said? It faded as the coroner called on Ben.
Stony-faced, plainer than ever, he gave his brief evidence. Grace Moss had failed to return after her weekly evening out on Wednesday, December 13. Lady Valeria had instructed him, should she reappear, to pay her whatever was owed and dismiss her. He had not set eyes on her again until he arrived at the Winter Garden yesterday as the body was identified. After arranging for the police to be called, he had stayed to guard the body until they arrived. He sat down.
Inspector Dunnett's impassive report added nothing new. Daisy's name remained unspoken, a delicate attention she did not appreciate. Her evidence was as good as any man's, if not better.
“Dr. Sedgwick.”
The plump doctor revelled in obscure medical terms, but not for nothing had Daisy worked in a hospital office during the War. The deceased had been buried for several weeks, greater precision being impossible after such a passage of time. Because of the cold winter weather and the winding sheet, the body was in an excellent state of preservation.
As Sergeant Shaw had told Daisy, Grace had been hit on the back of the head by a blunt instrument, with enough force to crush her skull. An ordinary fall would be insufficient to produce the effect, and other injuries consonant with a fall from a height were absent. In fact, abrasions and contusions—scrapes and bruises, Daisy translated to herself—on the face, knees, and front of the body suggested that the victim had fallen forward, either immediately before or immediately after death.
Dr. Sedgwick paused for breath and the coroner interrupted to summarize in layman's terms for the jury.
“Is that correct, Doctor? Please continue.”
“The deceased”—this time his pause was clearly for dramatic effect—“was three months pregnant.”
With a wordless roar, Stan Moss jumped to his feet and shook a fist like a ham at the doctor. An excited clamour rose from the public and Press benches. The coroner rapped once on his table, gave up, and crossed the stage to speak to the jury.

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