“Hard to say,” he said, finally. “Can you show me where her rose garden is?”
“Now? I doubt if I can find it in the dark.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“It might work better if you got Mr. Darby to show you,” I said. “I was lost when I found it. I keep getting lost whenever I try to go somewhere on this place, and I’m not a hundred percent sure I could find my way back.”
We both looked around and spotted Mr. Darby. I was relieved to see that he looked less disheveled than he had earlier. He was standing toward one side of the room near the bar, sipping a glass of water and eyeing the crab croquettes on his plate with distrust. A meat and potatoes man, no doubt.
“You know him better than I do,” Dad said.
“I’ll ask him.”
“Be careful,” Dad said. He looked around as if making sure there was no one near enough to overhear him. “Caroline and your grandfather are very suspicious of Mr. Darby.”
“They think he killed Mrs. Sechrest? Thinking he was killing Mrs. Winkleson, perhaps?”
“Well, no,” he said. “But they’re still mighty concerned about whether there’s some kind of animal neglect or abuse going on.”
“By Mr. Darby?” I shook my head. “If it was just Mrs. Winkleson here, I’d worry about the animals, big time. To her they’re just decorative accessories. But at least she’s hired Mr. Darby and given him free rein, and he seems quite concerned about them.”
“Yes—seems,” Dad said. “Pop and Caroline wonder if he’s really that concerned, or if he’s just pretending because he recognized them. Maybe he suspected they were conducting an investigation into the animals’ welfare.”
“He seems genuine to me,” I said. Of course, I was no expert. And wasn’t it Clarence Rutledge, the animals’ vet, who first suggested Dr. Blake’s investigation?
“Talk to him,” Dad said.
I nodded and strolled across the room toward our suspect, snagging a second glass of champagne as I went. Mr. Darby looked almost pleased to see me.
Chapter 27
“Evening,” Mr. Darby said. “Do you know how much longer this shindig’s going to last?”
No hint of bourbon on his breath any longer, and he wasn’t slurring. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“The party’s only supposed to last until eight,” I said. “The rose exhibitors want to make an early night of it. Most of them will be up before dawn, getting their roses ready. In fact, I only see about half of them here, so maybe a lot of them are planning to work all night and have already started.”
“Nice to have a reason to stay home,” he said. He’d made an effort to dress up for the party, in a slightly more formal version of the clothes I’d seen him in earlier: clean black jeans, a clean white shirt, and a black corduroy jacket. But he was visibly marking time until he could escape. He reminded me of a wild animal who’d found his way into a crowd of humans.
It occurred to me that he was one of the most likely suspects in Mrs. Sechrest’s murder. He had motive— against Mrs. Winkleson, of course— and he’d had enough time after he left me to commit the murder and get clear before I found the body, and he certainly had the strength to commit the stabbing. He could well have had access to the shears if Mrs. Winkleson was the one who’d swiped them.
But instead of feeling suspicious, I felt sorry for him.
“Any chance that you could show my dad where Mrs. Winkleson’s rose beds are tomorrow? I know you can’t let him in or anything, but he seems to think maybe he could learn something useful just from looking at them.”
“If you like,” he said, sounding dubious.
“And does she have any green houses?” I asked. “Dad’s thinking of having a green house built over at the farm, and he’s very keen to look at what other people have done.”
“No green houses,” Mr. Darby said, with a shudder. “Thank goodness you asked me instead of her. I hate it when she gets some new idea that’s going to cause a lot of fuss and bother for everyone.”
Meaning him and the animals, I suspected.
“I know what you mean,” I said aloud. “If I ever find out who gave Dad the idea of building a green house, I’ll give them a piece of my mind.”
He smiled slightly, then took a sip of his water and looked around nervously.
“Hey, if you like, I could think of some urgent job that has to be done to keep the rose show on track,” I said. “Something that would give you an excuse to leave the party early.”
“Thanks,” he said, with a faint smile. “I’ll stick it out, for a while anyway. But there is something you could do for me. If you would.”