Heirs of the Body(65)

“It’s a reasonable precaution. Even though I can’t work out what’s going on, nor who’s responsible, I’m pretty sure there is something going on.”

“It must be Raymond! Or is it just the thunder that makes me suspect him?”

“The thunder?” Alec asked, astonished.

“I’m not serious. It’s ridiculous. Just because there was thunder when I came to Fairacres to meet him the first time, and then again last night.… It gives me a sort of uneasy feeling. Superstition, I suppose. Nonsense, of course, but when nothing makes sense … Raymond is the most likely. Vincent was attacked.”

“He has a vague impression that he may have been attacked.”

“Ben twice,” Daisy continued.

“I’ve come up with a sort of motive for Frank, though.”

“A motive for wanting his stepson out of the way? It’s not as if Frank can possibly inherit.”

“I said ‘sort of.’ Assuming he hopes to get his hands on some of the loot, a younger child, Ben’s brother, would be more pliable, more easily persuaded, or cheated.”

“Not with Tommy looking out for him. Besides, though it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Frank Crowley is out to feather his nest, I don’t believe for a moment that he’d harm Ben.”

“You’ve probably seen more of the two of them together,” Alec conceded. “It’s worth bearing in mind, though.”

“So after sleeping on it, you believe there’s a plot to do with the inheritance? Although it could well have been Derek who fell? And although the fall was not very likely to be fatal?”

“I don’t know what to believe. What I do know is that I can’t guard all of Edgar’s blasted heirs. If one of them is killed at Fairacres and I’ve done nothing to prevent it, I’m going to be well and truly persona non grata at the Yard, with the county police, and at Fairacres, not to mention your mother.”

“No, please don’t.” Daisy shuddered. “Clearly you need to be seen to be doing something. What?”

“First, I’m going to have a chat with the chief constable.”

“Is it still Sir Nigel?”

“Colonel Sir Nigel Wookleigh himself. Or was, last time I had occasion to lend a hand in Worcestershire.”

“He was very cooperative that time when—”

“Don’t remind me! All the same, that’s why I’m going to tackle him first.”

“You’re going to ask him to send in bobbies to watch everyone? That wouldn’t go down very well.”

“Great Scott, no! The most I can do is advise him that we may have trouble on our hands and ask for prior permission to request aid from the Yard if necessary. What I’d really like is to get Tom and Ernie down here, but the AC would never go for it without far more evidence of wrongdoing than I’ve got. I wouldn’t myself, if I wasn’t in the middle of the situation. All it amounts to as yet is a broken butterfly net. Dammit!” He flung back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. “I should have secured it last night. Was it still there this morning?”

Daisy pulled the covers back up. “Yes. I nearly brought it back with me, but I thought you might want to make a note of the position of the pieces. And splinters on the banisters—that’s what you spotted last night, wasn’t it?”

“Will the housemaids have done that corridor already?” Alec retrieved his notebook from a drawer and shoved it in his dressing-gown pocket.

“Shouldn’t think so. They start on the ground floor and work up, and it’s still quite early.”

“I hope to heaven the boys haven’t mucked about with it,” he flung back at her from the doorway.

“They won’t have dusted the banisters,” she assured the door.





TWENTY





Alec collared his hostess on her way to breakfast. They disappeared into Geraldine’s sitting room. Daisy had just started on her fresh-cooked scrambled eggs when Ernest came in to convey her ladyship’s request that she join them as soon as convenient.

Daisy looked sadly at the steaming, sunshine-yellow eggs.

“I’ll bring you more when you get back,” Ernest promised.

When Daisy entered the sitting room, Geraldine burst into speech. “Daisy, my dear, I want to ask you about this extraordinary story of Alec’s. He’s reminded me more than once that he’s a police officer and therefore inclined to be suspicious of untoward occurrences, so I’d like to hear what your common sense has to say about the subject.”

Daisy was about to point out that she was just as likely to harbour suspicions. Just in time she remembered that Geraldine was unaware of her occasional involvement in criminal matters, other than the goings-on at Fairacres four years ago. “I thought Alec was just going to request the use of the car to go into Worcester,” she temporised.