Heirs of the Body (4 page)

“I don’t want to hear about sugar tariffs,” Daisy said firmly. “Just tell me about the earliest records of the family you’ve discovered. If any. Just a minute, I want to write this down.” She took out her notebook.

“The earliest official record is a ship’s crew list of 1882: James Dalrymple, aged seventeen; then his marriage in Kingston in 1891; James, aged twenty-six, son of Alfred Dalrymple, who may have been Julian’s son. Alfred died in 1900, age unknown. James was lost at sea in 1917, his ship sunk. Torpedoed. His son—” A knock on the door interrupted. “Come in. Yes, what is it, Miss Watt?”

“It’s twelve o’clock, Mr. Pearson. You have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Liston and they have arrived.”

“Thank you. I’ll be with them in just a moment,” said Tommy. Miss Watt withdrew.

The sound of church clocks far and near chiming the hour wafted in through the window, a multitude of different tones, unsynchronised so that the ringing seemed to go on and on.

Daisy asked, “James’s son?”

“Samuel. Also a sailor.” Tommy looked and sounded evasive. “He’s at sea, his present whereabouts uncertain. Sorry, I can’t give you any further information now, but I’ll be in touch.” He stood up.

Daisy wrote down
Samuel
and regarded with dissatisfaction her very sketchy family tree:

Julian Dalrymple m. Marie-Claire Vallier

                 
?

        
Alfred d. 1900

        
James d. 1917

             
Samuel

Putting away her notebook and gathering her gloves and handbag, she said, “Just one more thing, Tommy. Geraldine’s house party. She said—or implied, I can’t remember exactly—that she’s going to invite all the claimants. She’s not thinking of gathering them together and then revealing the heir, is she?”

“Good lord no. If we have an heir by then, prospective guests will be told who he is beforehand. Then they can attend or not, as they choose. If we still haven’t confirmed the heir, it’ll be a further opportunity to sound them out.” As he spoke, he came round the desk and opened the door.

“And about…?”

“I’ll let you know in due course, Mrs. Fletcher.”

Too well brought up to stay put and insist on an answer when people were waiting, Daisy meekly let herself be shepherded through to the outer office.

Miss Watt gave her a cool, professional smile and a nod that could have meant anything. “The Liston file, Mr. Pearson?” Laden with a deed box, efficiently ready to hand on her desk, she followed the elderly, expensively dressed Mr. and Mrs. Liston and Tommy into his office. The door closed.

Daisy, thwarted, thought furiously. Tommy said it would be “most irregular” for any member of the family other than its head to be present at his interviews. What if she posed as his secretary, sitting in a corner taking notes? She had done it often enough for Alec, when the men he had available were needed elsewhere. Unorthodox and not according to police procedure, but he couldn’t deny that she had been useful. She might as well at least propose it to Tommy.

Was taking notes at interviews part of Miss Watt’s duties? Daisy decided to wait a few minutes to see if the secretary reappeared and was willing to chat.

She glanced about the room, looking for something that could conceivably have held her attention enough to delay her departure. A couple of chairs were provided for clients forced to wait, and on a table between them was a selection of magazines, including an issue of
Town and Country
containing one of her articles. It might provide a subject of conversation but she could hardly pretend to be reading it. Studying the names on the shelved deed boxes would just look nosy. The desk … Aha! On the desk was a shiny new typewriter.

Daisy stared at it with genuine envy. She didn’t like to go closer to examine it properly lest Miss Watt should pop out and assume she was inquisitive about the document protruding from the roller. How long would be reasonable to linger to ask a few questions about it?

Luckily, Miss Watt appeared after only a few moments. Seeing Daisy still there, she raised her eyebrows. “Is there something I can help you with, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“I was wondering … I see you have a new typewriter. I’m thinking of buying one—mine is ancient and rather creaky—but I can’t decide which model to get. The salesmen are all so very persuasive. May I ask, are you satisfied with this one?”

“Very. It’s the new Imperial 50. You’re a writer, aren’t you? I’ve read some of your articles, and enjoyed them. I didn’t realise you type them yourself.”

“Oh yes. Some writers prefer longhand, but having learnt to type I find it much faster, and publishers like it better, of course. Do you do a lot of typing? I noticed two typists downstairs.”

“They deal mostly with correspondence, for all our partners. One of them deals with the telephones, as well, and the other acts as receptionist. Each partner has his own secretary. I type Mr. Pearson’s legal documents and any of his letters that include confidential information.”

“I should think the legal terminology must get pretty complicated.”

“Much of it is standard wording, conveyances and wills and trusts, sometimes partnership agreements, though we don’t touch company law, let alone criminal, I’m glad to say. Most of our clients are professionals and businessmen. In any case, I don’t have to understand it, just get it right. No mistakes permitted in legal documents! One misplaced comma can ruin everything.”

“Goodness, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about every comma. I write shorthand, too, when I interview people.”

“I take shorthand dictation sometimes, but generally I work from Mr. Pearson’s notes. Most clients don’t much like a secretary listening to their business, even though it’s obvious I’m going to deal with the results of their consultations.”

Blast!
thought Daisy. Not much chance that Tommy would be willing to try to pass her off as an unremarkable part of his office routine.

*   *   *

The last post brought a brief letter from Tommy.

Full of misgivings, Alec watched Daisy as she read it. “Well?”

“He’s decided to ask each claimant whether he’d have any objection to the presence of a representative member of the family, without mentioning beforehand that said representative will be a junior female member. Junior female! What a revolting description!”

Alec couldn’t help laughing. “Accurate, love, you must admit. It sounds like a reasonable compromise.”

“And he says their responses could be revealing. True; what reason could a legitimate claimant have for refusing?”

“None that I can think of,” he said obligingly.

“So, unless they’re too stupid to realise it would look suspicious, I’ll be there.”

He grinned at her. “I never doubted it for a moment.”

FOUR

Ten days
passed before Daisy next heard from Tommy. He had an appointment with a Mr. Vincent Dalrymple, who was willing to allow a representative of the family to be present at the interview. He hoped the date and time were convenient, though, Daisy noted, he didn’t offer to change them if not.

She gladly rescheduled a visit to the dentist.

Vincent Dalrymple was fortyish, of medium height, slender, and sleek, with fair hair receding at the temples. He wore a formal dark suit, well cut, with a white shirt and a green-and-white striped bow tie. Daisy thought he looked like either a Harley Street consultant or a high-class maître d’hôtel. He displayed a professional charm that would be of service to either. “Smarmy” was the word that sprang to mind.

“How do you do, Mrs. Fletcher.” With a smile, he bowed slightly over her hand. “May I say how pleased I am to meet a relative on my father’s side, however distant.”

Tommy invited them to sit down. Vincent held Daisy’s chair for her, then took his seat, careful to preserve the creases in his trousers. They both looked expectantly at Tommy.

“Mrs. Fletcher, Mr. Vincent Dalrymple has provided me with certain documents and information which indicate, though they do not prove, that he may well be descended from your great-great-grandfather.”

“That’s a start,” said Daisy, smiling encouragingly at Vincent.

“I suggest,” Tommy continued, “that he himself tell you his story.”

“What a good idea.” Daisy turned towards her presumed distant cousin.

“Should I start from the present and work back, or start with my grandfather? Which would you prefer, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“Why don’t you try chronological order. But don’t worry if you get sidetracked, or skip about a bit.” She knew from experience how difficult it was to recount a straightforward narrative. Whenever she found herself mixed up in one of Alec’s cases, he was forever chiding her for wandering or for missing out important details. She took out her notebook.

“Thank you. Well, let’s see.” Vincent frowned in concentration. “My grandfather told us—”

“You knew him? Sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt.”

“No, please do, if anything isn’t clear. I was sixteen when he died. Mr. Pearson has a copy of his death certificate.”

Tommy consulted one of the documents on his desk. “February 1901, in Scarborough, North Riding. Timothy George Dalrymple. Unfortunately, his age at time of death was omitted.”

“Because my father didn’t know it. The family never did much in the way of celebrating the birthdays of adults, and my grandmother died before him.”

“What about his marriage certificate? I remember ours has my husband’s age and mine.”

“Dai—Mrs. Fletcher, could we leave the question of legal papers till the end? I’ll show you what I have then, with Mr. Dalrymple’s permission, of course.”

“Granted.” Vincent glanced from Tommy to Daisy and back, his eyes sharp. He’d obviously caught Tommy’s slip of the tongue and was wondering what, if anything, it portended for him. However, he continued smoothly, “Maybe I’d better start again. My grandfather was born in Jamaica, date unknown. He knew his father was the younger son of a lord, though if my grandfather was aware of the precise rank he never mentioned it, as far as I recall.”

“What was his name?” Daisy asked. Unlike some noble lineages, her family had never gone in for repeating christian names generation after generation, but she was creating another family tree, probably as partial as the first.

“My grandfather was Timothy. His father—I have a vague impression he was Julius, or Julian. I may have dreamt that.”

“Julian,” Tommy said drily. “Son of Julius, Viscount Dalrymple. It’s easily checked in
Burke’s Peerage
. An unsatisfactory offspring can be struck out in the family bible but not in Burke, though his descendants can be lost track of.”

“
Burke’s Peerage
, did you say?” He took out a pocket diary and a gold fountain pen. “I’ll make a note of that. I’d better look up my illustrious ancestry, eh?”

Daisy couldn’t tell whether he was being disingenuous or had genuinely never heard of Burke before. “Do go on,” she urged. “I’m dying to hear why Timothy Dalrymple left Jamaica and went to Paris.”

“He left to escape the cholera. There was an epidemic in the island around the middle of the last century. Several of the family fell ill. For safety, he was sent to his mother’s family in France.”

“Oh, that’s right, I keep forgetting she was French. Timothy was the only one sent to France?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure of that.”

“Eldest? Youngest? Favourite? Only one not ill?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t talk about it. Not to me, at least. I wasn’t particularly interested in my grandfather’s early life. Not till now.”

“Did any of the others survive?”

Vincent spread his hands and shrugged, a very French gesture. “By the time I was old enough to wonder, the old man had lost touch. His mother died of the cholera, that much I know.”

“So there must have been some correspondence, at least to inform her family.”

“Presumably. Even before the epidemic, times were hard in Jamaica, he told us. I suppose they had other priorities than writing letters. My grandfather settled in with the Vallier family, worked in the family business—”

“What was that? I beg your pardon, I’m insatiably curious. You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s no secret. They’re hoteliers, as I am.”

Tommy ostentatiously consulted his wristwatch. “Mrs. Fletcher, if you want time to look at the papers…”

“Not another word, I promise.”

Vincent gave her a look of sympathy. “To make a long story short, my grandfather married. My father, George, was born in 1861. In 1870 the Germans invaded and when their army approached Paris, my grandfather brought his wife and children to England. He still had a British passport, you see. The Valliers had friends in the business, in Scarborough, who helped him find work. In fact…” He hesitated. “This may not please you, Mrs. Fletcher. He changed his name to Vallier. Not legally, but in everyday use.”

Daisy pondered. “I can’t see why I should have any objection. Because of his mother being rejected by the Dalrymples? Wait a bit.” She glanced at her notes. “This is Timothy we’re talking about, not George?”

Tommy cleared his throat meaningly.

“He asked me!” said Daisy, indignant. By implication, at least.

“Indeed I did.” Vincent sounded like a maître d’hôtel discreetly smoothing over a minor dispute between guests. “Yes, Timothy, my grandfather, Mrs. Fletcher. Exactly what was in his mind I can’t say, but a French name can be an advantage in the trade. Besides, he’d been well taught by the Valliers. He obtained a position as undermanager of one of the finest hotels in Scarborough, rose quickly to manager, and then became a partner. My father married his partner’s daughter, his only child, and eventually they inherited both shares of the Castle Cliff Hotel. My parents left it to me, so I’m now the sole owner, with a hired manager responsible for day-to-day business.”

Daisy was touched by his obvious pride in being not merely manager but proprietor of a good hotel in a seaside resort. It was, indeed, a notable accomplishment on the part of his immediate forebears. Timothy had presumably arrived in Paris with little more than the clothes on his back. Then the refugee from cholera had become a refugee from war, yet he had built a prosperous life for his family.