Heirs of the Body(105)

“Better not,” Daisy advised.

“Oh, I didn’t. Yet. At least I’m now allowed out of sight of the house. Lady D, would you mind if I pop down to the Wedge for a pint in a while?”

No longer a suspect, Daisy wondered, or given enough rope to hang himself? No doubt someone would be keeping an eye on him. Tom Tring, perhaps—Tom was as good in pubs as he was with servants, genial, chatty without giving anything away, picking up all sorts of information without upsetting people.

Pepper and Nana arrived, followed by Edgar and the children, all chattering happily about a Purple Emperor that had hatched today in the conservatory. They had released it in the woods, where it flitted straight to the brambles, its caterpillars’ favourite food.

“It’s a butterfly,” Ben told Daisy when she enquired. Carefully he added, “Apatura iris. Is that right, Uncle Edgar?”

“To the letter, my dear boy.” Edgar beamed with fond pride.

Still no sign of Vincent and Laurette. When Ernest brought out more hot water, Daisy drew him aside and asked whether Alec had been to see them in their room. He had.

Alec was being utterly infuriating. He wasn’t usually quite so determined to keep her at arm’s length from his investigations, once she was involved. And this one concerned her own relatives, her family! Or perhaps that was why he was keeping her in the dark, now that he had Tom and Ernie’s help?

Sam arrived. “Your sister’s with Martha,” he told Daisy.

“I’ll go up, then, and see if Violet has any ideas for making Martha more comfortable.”

And while on the subject of comfort, it was past time she changed out of the skirt and blouse she had been wearing all day. She had a sleeveless linen frock, a pretty blue-and-green pattern, that would be cool and suitable for dinner, as they weren’t dressing. It was sure to be creased, though. Changing course, she made for her and Alec’s room, to get it out and ring for a maid to iron it.

The frock was at the back of the wardrobe. As she reached down the coat hanger, she noticed in the corner below it Vincent’s slashed shirt and jacket, roughly folded, where she had deposited them.

Had Alec forgotten them, amidst the flood of information he was collecting? Abandoning the frock, she took them out and draped them over the back of a cane chair. In his haste to go and look for the weapon, he had given them only a cursory examination. Perhaps she could find something significant about them and worm her way back into the case.

She fetched a matching chair and set it side by side with the first, then dressed them, one in the shirt, one in the jacket. She looked. She frowned.

It was no good saying it couldn’t have happened, because clearly it had happened. Therefore it was not impossible. But she couldn’t understand how a single blow could have caused both cuts. The one in the jacket was just under the armpit, barely missing the seam. The rent in the shirt, spotted with blood that Daisy carefully avoided touching, was considerably longer, lower down, and further back, matching the graze on Vincent’s back.

Daisy tried to picture the sequence of events that could have produced this result, and failed. It just wasn’t possible.

She had to tell Alec at once. It was not just a ploy to insinuate herself into the investigation. She took the jacket off the chair—and in doing so noticed a nick in the artificial silk lining, high up inside the front of the sleeve, just where a blade entering from the back would catch it—if no arm was in the way.

With the shirt folded inside the jacket, cuts hidden, down the stairs she trudged again. After all this exercise, she ought to be slim enough to please even Lucy. In the hall she met the ubiquitous Ernest.

“Is Mr. Fletcher still in the study?” she asked. “Is anyone with him at present?”

“Yes, madam, and no, not if you mean any of them you might call suspects. There’s a Dr. Pardoe, him that came to take a look at Mr. Raymond in the garage.” He gave Vincent’s jacket a knowing glance but didn’t comment.

Daisy knocked on the study door and went in without waiting to be invited. Alec, sitting at the desk as usual, looked up in annoyance. Tom, Ernie, and the doctor stood up.

Alec rose likewise, saying, “Daisy, what—”

“Look!” She held up the clothes. “Vincent’s, that he was wearing when—”

“All right, I’d forgotten them,” he admitted. He took the bundle from her. “Tom and Ernie haven’t seen them. We’ll take a look,” he said dismissively. “Thanks.”

“Alec, it simply can’t have happened they way they told us. In fact, it can’t have happened at all. The attack on Vincent, I mean. Their story was cut out of whole cloth, in more senses than one.”