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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Dead in the Water
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Alec smiled at her. “Or I might have steered into someone else and upset a couple of boatloads into the river. You were quite right not to trust me, Miss Cheringham.”
“Do call me Tish. After all, we'll be cousins soon. Unless you prefer Patricia.”
Reciprocating, Alec intimated that Tish would do very well. Her suggestion that he might prefer to use her proper name once again made him feel his age. He was beginning to wonder if his hair had greyed overnight without his noticing.
Daisy was five years older than her cousin, he reminded himself. Not that she looked a day over eighteen in her pretty summer frock and daisy-garlanded hat.
Two whole days with nothing to do but enjoy her company.
They reached the opposite bank and disembarked. As they set off along the towpath, Alec and Daisy lagged behind the others, who were anxious not to miss the start of the Ambrose four's heat.
“Your cousin is charming,” Alec said. “Do I gather
her
cousin is rowing? Tell me a bit about this crew I'm to cheer.”
“Yes, Cherry's one of them.” Daisy tucked her hand under
his arm. “He's more like a brother, really. His parents pretty much brought her up, my aunt and uncle being abroad so much. He's engaged to Dottie. They're both brainy types, heading for academic careers. But nice, not a bit condescending to us mortals with merely average minds.”
“Speak for yourself!”
“I do.” Her eyes danced as she glanced up at him. “I'm quite aware of your brilliance, even though you don't toss around ancient Greek quotations like Jove tossing thunderbolts.”
“Zeus. Do they?”
“Rarely, but they can. Rollo Frieth, on the other hand, failed his exams, poor chap. He and Cherry are older than most undergrads, having fought in the War. Rollo's the crew's captain, Cherry's friend, and Tish's young man, in whatever order you prefer. Thoroughly good-natured, and good at smoothing ruffled feathers, which is an excellent qualification for the captain of this crew.”
“A quarrelsome lot?” Alec asked. He waved at the men tramping ahead. “These seem pretty placid.”
“Most of them are, especially young Fosdyke, who lives to row, run, eat, and sleep. A nice, obliging boy, though. He's in the four, too. Then there's the Hon. Basil.”
From her tone, he guessed, “The fly in the ointment?”
“Mosquito.” She rubbed her arm reminiscently, explaining, “I was bitten the other evening. Don't look so horrified: by a real mosquito, not Basil DeLancey. I don't
think
he actually bites, but I wouldn't be prepared to swear to it.”
“A Don Juan?”
She frowned. “No, not exactly. At least, Cherry said he got a shop-girl into trouble, and he's been pestering Tish like
billy-oh, but that's as much to annoy Cherry and Rollo as … . No, it's not even that. He just says exactly what comes into his head, and what comes into his head is rude as often as not, as he seems to despise most people. He was horribly insulting to poor Dottie. I honestly don't believe he realises how obnoxious he is. No one could want to make enemies right and left as he does, could they?”
“I've known a few who don't care.”
“That's it. He doesn't care. Susan Hopgood told me he was the baby of the family and we decided he grew up under the impression everything he said was clever or funny or both.”
“Susan Hopgood?” Alec queried.
“Horace Bott's girl. He's the eight's cox, and DeLancey's principal victim.”
“Don't talk to me of victims! I'm on holiday.”
“All right, I won't,” Daisy promised with a chuckle. “That's Temple Island. Gosh, look at all those people waiting to watch the start! I hope we'll be able to see.”
Concentrating on Daisy, Alec had been only distantly aware of the wooded island in the middle of the river. Now he saw a knot of people ahead, clustered on the bank. Nearby, flags marked the start, beyond which the river was divided by floating booms into two lanes. Officials on board a motor-launch were watching the approach of two fours boats. The oarsmen in the nearer boat wore maroon shorts.
“This side is the Ambrose boat?” Alec asked.
“Yes, the Berks side. The other lane's known as the Bucks side, though by the time they get to the finish it's actually Oxfordshire. Who is it they're racing, Mr. Meredith?” Daisy enquired as they caught up with the others.
“Medway. The Medway Rowing Club. We thought we'd go on a bit farther, Miss Dalrymple, beyond this crowd.”
Miss Carrick looked back. “We'll be past the start but we should get a better view,” she explained.
“We'll come too,” said Daisy.
Poindexter forged ahead, clearing a way along the path with his, “I s-say, excuse us, chaps, do.”
Most of those who had gathered at the start were young fellows, who no doubt had friends rowing in this or later heats. There were one or two older men, perhaps fathers, and a few young ladies. A large, middle-aged police constable stood at ease in the meadow a few yards off, keeping a benevolent eye on the crowd.
Though Alec did his best to ignore the officer, to his annoyance he caught the man's eye. The constable stepped a couple of paces forward and said in a confidential tone, “The young gents sometimes gets a bit excited, sir, if there's a false start called, like, or they mebbe thinks there oughta be.”
Alec smiled and nodded. Moving on, he said to Daisy, “Do I look so like a policeman?”
“You know you don't. I'm sure he didn't guess. It's just that you have a sort of natural air of authority. I expect you looked as if you wondered what he was doing here, so he told you.”
“As long as he doesn't expect me to wade in on his side if fists start flying,” Alec grumbled, hiding his pleasure. She considered he had a natural air of authority, did she?
Then he grimaced at her oblivious back, reminding himself that she had never yet let his authority stop her doing exactly as she saw fit.
Tish, in the lead, had stopped level with the upper end of
the island, a short distance beyond the start. They all gathered around her. They had an excellent view of the boats manoeuvring into position at the start. This appeared to Alec to be an extraordinarily complicated matter.
Poindexter explained. “You s-see, s-sir, the idea is that the s-stern should be on the s-starting line, but that gives a longer boat an advantage since the first bow to cross the finish line wins. S-so if one boat is shorter, as in this case, the other is pulled back to bring the bows level.”
Alec forbore to ask why they did not just start with the bows at the line. Every sport, profession, and trade had its own arcane rules, incomprehensible to outsiders.
One of the officials on the stewards' launch raised his arm. In the ensuing hush, Alec heard a cuckoo call. Daisy hung on his arm, endearingly excited.
The starting pistol cracked out. Oars sliced the river's surface. Men heaved with sudden effort. The boats shot forward. In beautiful unison, with the grace of a heron's wings, the oars rose, swept back, dipped again.
On the third pull, the boats drew past. “That's Cherry in the bow,” said Daisy, “then Rollo, then Fosdyke, then DeLancey at stroke. He has to steer with his feet and count as well as … Gosh, he looks ghastly.”
Even as she spoke, it became apparent that DeLancey was not bending forward for the next stroke but doubling up in pain. He let go his oar, clutched his head, then leant over the gunwale and vomited into the river.
“Oh Lord, just like Bott yesterday,” someone groaned.
The boat was veering out of control as the other three rowers tried desperately to correct their course, though the
race was obviously forfeited. Cheringham shouted orders, but it was impossible to allow for the loss of their steersman as well as one of four oars, not to mention DeLancey's off-centre weight.
The boat wallowed, dead in the water, slipping backwards.
The stroke seemed to make an effort to sit up, but instead he half-rose to his feet with a convulsive jerk, then toppled into the river.
Before the spectators had time to do more than gasp in shock, Cheringham dived in after him. The current swept DeLancey's unresisting body a few feet downstream, then Cheringham reached him and turned him on his back. Swimming strongly, he kicked out for the bank with his burden.
In the few seconds before they reached the near boom, Alec sprang into action.
“Stand back, please, everyone. Give them room. Officer, over here! Poindexter, Wells, give them a hand. You two, help the constable keep people back.”
One of the older men, a solid, prosperous-looking gentleman, pushed through the gaping crowd. “I'm a doctor,” he announced, waving a shooting-stick.
“Excellent. Thank you, sir.” Turning, Alec saw Poindexter and Wells haul DeLancey from the water.
They laid him on the grass and the doctor knelt beside him, reaching for his wrist.
Cheringham pulled himself onto the bank, water streaming from his hair and clothes. “Turn him on his front,” he panted. “I know artificial respiration.” He dropped to his knees beside DeLancey's still form.
The doctor shook his head. “No pulse. I'm sorry, young
man, there's nothing you can do for him. He wasn't in the water long enough to drown. I've an idea … .” He lifted one eyelid and peered at the staring eye.
Cheringham's shoulders slumped.
Alec gave him a hand to rise. “You did your best. Now stand back, please, the three of you.” As Cheringham and the other two moved back, Daisy appeared, pale-faced. “Daisy, please!”
“Just a minute. I think it could be nicotine poisoning,” she said apprehensively.
The doctor looked up and shook his head again. “No. I'm fairly certain it was a subdural haemorrhage. There are contusions on both sides of the skull. In plain English, he's been hit on the head.”
D
aisy stared down at DeLancey's body. Lying there in his sodden crew shorts and shirt, he looked pathetically harmless. His poisonous tongue was stilled, but not, it seemed, by poison.
With a shudder, she turned away. Alec's arm went about her shoulders for a quick squeeze.
Releasing her, he glanced around. Daisy followed his gaze. She picked out faces in the crowd: horrified, curious, excited. Cherry was aghast, the other four Ambrose men pale and frozen in place. Further along the bank, she saw Tish sitting hunched on the grass with her head buried in her hands. Daisy wondered if she should go to her cousin, but Dottie had her arms around her and seemed to be coping admirably.
The constable stood with his mouth open, looking stunned.
Alec sighed. “I'm a police officer,” he announced in a resigned voice. “Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, Scotland Yard. This isn't my pigeon, but I'll take charge till a local man arrives. Constable … ?”
“Rogers, sir.” His relief obvious, the man saluted. “Inspector
Washburn's on duty up by the stands. Will I go fetch 'im?”
“No, I need you here.” Alec turned to the Ambrose crewmen. “Would one of you gentlemen mind going for the Inspector?”
“I'll go.” Leigh stripped off his blazer and handed it to Meredith. “Here, you'd better use this to cover him.” He set off along the towpath at a fast lope.
Meredith stood still with the blazer in his hands. “Dead?” he said in a queer voice. “DeLancey's dead?”
“I'm afraid so.” Daisy took the blazer from him and, trying not to look at the dead face, helped the doctor cover DeLancey's head and torso. The doctor looked vaguely familiar, though she was pretty sure she had never seen him before.
Alec finished talking to Constable Rogers, who started to move the crowd along, dispersing them upstream and downstream. As Alec turned back, Cherry said to him, “If you don't mind, sir, I'll take the ladies home.” Shivering, he gestured towards Tish and Dottie.
“Yes, you'd better go and get changed. Don't go anywhere, please. They'll need to talk to you. By all means take your cousin and Miss Carrick, but I want Daisy here.”
His tone was not such as to give Daisy joy. She wished she had not burst out with her theory about tobacco poisoning. Thank heaven she was wrong. It would have been simply frightful to discover that an antidote administered last night could have saved DeLancey's life.
Alec requested Poindexter, Wells, and Meredith to stay nearby in case they were needed, then he turned to the doctor, only to be interrupted by a hail from the river.
“Hi, there!” The stewards' launch had pulled up to the boom. “What the deuce is going on?”
“Police! We've got a body here.”
“What about the next race?” demanded a purple-faced official in a gold-braided nautical cap.
“Go ahead and row it. He won't mind. But I must remind you—you must have seen with your glasses—you have two men rowing a four-man boat up the course, with the rudder swinging out of control. I imagine they have no choice but to go on to the finish.”
“They can't turn between the booms, nor leave their lane,” another official confirmed. “We'll give them a few minutes more to get clear. Everything under control here?”
“More or less,” Alec said ironically.
“We'll carry on, then. Sorry, and all that, but we can't very well call a halt to things.”
The launch went into reverse and
put-putted
back towards the starting line, where the next two boats waited.
Once again Alec turned to the doctor. “Thank you, Dr … ?”
“Mr. I'm a surgeon. Fosdyke's the name. My boy's one of the two rowing the four-oar boat.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fosdyke. May I ask how sure you are of your diagnosis?”
“I'm not usually concerned with initial diagnoses, but I've operated on a number of patients with subdural haematoma and haemorrhage. Naturally, their physicians discussed their symptoms with me beforehand. This unfortunate young man appeared to suffer from an acute headache, did he not?”
“That's what it looked like,” Alec agreed.
“He vomited, without preceding nausea, one would assume, or he'd not have embarked upon the race. And the pupils of his eyes are of different sizes, a significant indicator. In my view, the contusions on his head virtually clinch the matter. The autopsy—there will be an autopsy, I assume?—will provide definite proof. Or disproof.”
“I see. He couldn't have fallen?”
“Unless he fell twice,” said the doctor quizzically, “landing first on one side of his head and then on the other, I incline to the opinion that he was hit, sufficiently hard to make him fall. I trust I am not unduly influenced by the fact that what my son has told me about the character of the deceased makes such an eventuality not unlikely.”
Alec matched his dryness. “So I gather. I must assume he was not hit since he got into the boat, as he couldn't have fallen after that. So his death was a delayed reaction to a blow. How long ago could it have happened?”
“Weeks, theoretically. From the condition of the contusions, anywhere from four to twenty-four hours. Two to thirty-two, perhaps. I'm no expert. No doubt a police surgeon will be able to narrow the time period.”
“I hope so! Will you be so kind, Mr. Fosdyke, as to wait until the local man arrives?”
“By all means.”
Daisy scarcely heard the doctor's answer. His previous words had just sunk in. Two to thirty-two hours ago!
“Mr. Fosdyke,” she said, her voice trembling with dread, “is mental confusion another symptom? And incoherence, and loss of balance?”
“Yes, indeed, Miss …”
“Dalrymple,” Alec put in, seeing Daisy was incapable of speech.
“And disturbances of vision,” the doctor added. “Symptoms vary according to the areas of the brain affected.”
Daisy sat down rather suddenly on the grass, feeling decidedly queer. “We thought he was drunk,” she said faintly, as Alec crouched beside her and took her hands in a comforting clasp.
“A most natural assumption,” said Mr. Fosdyke.
“But if we had 'phoned for medical help—no, Alec, I must know!—if DeLancey had seen a doctor at once, he would have survived?”
“Time is of the essence. However, the prognosis is poor even in cases where the haemorrhage is stopped by prompt surgery, and in those who survive, full recovery is far from assured. You have no cause to reproach yourself, Miss Dalrymple,” the doctor said kindly. “The symptoms are easy for the layman to confuse with overindulgence in alcoholic beverages.”
Daisy gave a shaky nod. “Alec,” she said urgently, “I'd much rather tell you what happened than a stranger. Then you can tell the detective in charge.”
“You know better than that, my love. If you have significant information, you'll have to repeat it to the local people.”
“I suppose so. But you can tell me what is significant.”
“Now, Watson, you know my methods. Any detail may turn out to be significant. You can't withhold anything from the investigators.”
“All right.” Daisy sighed. “Let me tell you just to help sort out my thoughts. Only I'm afraid, if I'm right, they will probably ask you to take charge.”
“No, this is our weekend!” Alec exploded, rising to his feet and pulling Daisy with him into a bear-hug.
The doctor tactfully turned his back, unfolded his shooting-stick, and sat down to watch the start of the next race.
Revelling in Alec's annoyance at the prospect of their weekend being spoilt, Daisy nonetheless said sadly, “I rather doubt Scotland Yard will agree to send someone else when you're already on the spot and actually witnessed DeLancey's demise. You see, he appears to have died in Berkshire, but I'm pretty sure he was biffed in Buckinghamshire.”
“Damn,” Alec groaned, “if you'll pardon the expression. You're right, they'll probably call in the Met. And with you involved, the A.C. is bound to insist on my handling it.”
“I don't see why your Assistant Commissioner considers me his
bête noire
,” she said with some indignation. “I've given you loads of help.”
He grimaced. “Daisy, how is it you keep falling over bodies? Do people see you coming and promptly decide to do someone in?”
“I can't help it! It's like when one comes across an unfamiliar word, and for the next week, everything one reads—there it is. Or meeting an acquaintance one hasn't seen for years and then one keeps running into them everywhere one goes. It happens to lots of people.”
“Not with bodies, it doesn't, thank heaven! Right-oh, you'd better tell me all.”
“Must we stay here, right on top of
him
?” Though Daisy had her back to DeLancey, whose face was covered, and his eyes closed, she felt his dead, reproachful gaze fixed on her.
“No, just within calling distance. We shan't be interrupted if we move over into the field a bit.”
The towpath was growing busier. The curious stared at the maroon blazer and the bare legs protruding from beneath it, already drying in the sun, but Constable Rogers kept people moving.
“There's been a h'accident,” he repeated stolidly to all questions.
Already a new group of spectators had gathered, somewhat down-river from the start, beyond the constable's range, intent only on a good view of the crews they had come to support.
While Alec had a word with Rogers and asked Meredith, Wells, and Poindexter to move closer and stand guard over DeLancey's body, Daisy moved back into the meadow. The grass had been mowed for hay but already ox-eye daisies and purple knapweed raised their heads. She found a slight bank and sat down.
Alec joined her. “You'd better sit on my jacket,” he said, starting to take it off.
“Keep it on. You'll want to look professional when the local coppers arrive. The ground's quite dry, and anyway it's too late for my frock.”
Sitting down, he left a couple of feet between them. She made a moue at him, and he said, “It won't look professional if we're any closer, and besides, you'll distract me from what you're saying. You are over the worst shock, aren't you?”
“Yes. It was bad enough his dropping dead, but knowing I might have prevented it … .”
He took her hand, distraction or not. “Fosdyke is right,
darling, you couldn't have guessed. You didn't see the lumps on his head, did you?”
“No, but I did think he might have been poisoned with nicotine. If I'd called in a doctor for that … but I couldn't see quite how it could have been done, and it seemed so unlikely, and he
had
been drinking. His breath smelled of whisky.”
“Daisy, what is all this about nicotine poisoning? And when and where did you see DeLancey in his parlous state? And …”
“I'd better begin at the beginning,” said Daisy firmly, “or I shall get muddled. It started with Aunt Cynthia and the aphids. She was spraying the roses with tobacco-water and I worried about nicotine. I read up on poisons after that horrible Albert Hall affair, you see.”
“Just in case?” Alec suggested.
She pulled a face at him. “I'd forgotten the details, so I looked it up later. There's such a long list of symptoms I still couldn't remember them all, but I'm sure DeLancey had some of them. But I'll get to that in a minute. After talking to Aunt Cynthia, I went down to the landing-stage. The eight was just coming in. I talked to Horace Bott while the others put the boat away.”
“The mysterious Bott.”
“He's not at all mysterious, you just haven't seen him because he's the eight's cox and the four is coxless.”
“And he didn't turn out with the rest to cheer the four,” Alec pointed out.
“No, and I can't blame him. The others don't like him … Well, I can't blame them, either. He seems to be in a permanent state of dudgeon. It's a vicious circle, actually. He has a brilliant mind—he won a scholarship to Ambrose and took a
Double First in Physics and Maths, and he's been offered a Cambridge fellowship—but he's the son of a newsagent. From Birmingham.”
“Wrong accent, wrong family,” Alec said wryly.
“Wrong instincts, wrong clothes,” Daisy added. “That's what he told me. I don't doubt he was badly treated, and the result is, he looks for reasons to take offence, and of course he finds them, and so he's permanently up in arms. So even those who'd be willing to take him on his merits can't get past the prickles.”
“And DeLancey was his chief tormentor.”

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