Murder on the Flying Scotsman (13 page)

‘Aha!’ said Daisy again.

‘Precisely,’ Alec agreed with a smile. ‘Go ahead, please, Daisy.’

‘With the cast of characters? Right-oh, but you may wish for a family tree before I’m done.’

‘I already do, from what you said before. Can you make one out while you talk?’

‘I’ll try.’

Piper presented her with a pencil and a sheet torn from his notebook, while Tom Tring moved a small table to her elbow.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. Now where was I?’

‘We got involved in what your school friend told you about her grandfather’s will. Anne Bretton, was it? Let’s have a thumbnail sketch of each suspect before we go into their
movements.’

‘I’ll start at the top of the family tree, then, not with Anne. It’ll make it easier to work out. First row, Alistair McGowan-the-will-maker, Laird of Dunston Castle; twin
brother Albert-the-victim; and the unknown sister who married a Gillespie.’

‘Still living?’

‘Presumed deceased.’ Daisy wrote them in. ‘Under Alistair there’s his daughter Amelia Smythe-Pike. Kind, fussy, conventional. She wants the best for her family, of
course, but I’d say she was upset more because her husband was raising a dust than because she was truly indignant. She caters to his every whim. I can’t see her as a murderer. Besides,
she’s an elderly lady. I doubt she has the strength.’

‘The victim was her uncle, though, much older and in poor health.’

‘It don’t take much strength to do in a frail old man,’ Tring agreed.

‘On the other hand, she had no guarantee her father would change his will in her favour on Albert’s death,’ Alec said.

‘No. The same applies to her husband, Desmond, of course, but he’s a fire-breather. I can see him simply losing his temper because Albert refused to change his mind about leaving the
family fortune to a stranger. He’s . . .’

‘Hold on a minute, Daisy! Albert’s heir isn’t one of the family? That makes a considerable difference!’

‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you before,’ Daisy pointed out.

‘
Mea culpa.
I most humbly beg your pardon.’

‘How d’you spell that, Chief?’ asked Piper.

‘“Pardon”? Oh,
mea culpa.
Never mind that, Ernie, we don’t want all our trivial comments taken down in black and white.’

‘I wouldn’t’ve put it in the report, Chief, but when I’m taking shorthand it just all flows through, like.’

‘Let’s get back to Smythe-Pike,’ Alec said impatiently. ‘He had a temper and a reason for losing it.’

‘Yes,’ Daisy confirmed, ‘and a pressing need for filthy lucre – that’s money, Mr. Piper – at least according to his son-in-law. Harold Bretton told me
Smythe-Pike’s only interest in the family estate is in the hunting, shooting, and fishing, and the place has gone to rack and ruin. He’ll have to sell up if they don’t get hold of
pots of money pretty quickly.’

‘Ah,’ said Tom Tring, ‘but he hadn’t got no guarantee of a single penny, and a bloke like that’s more likely to hit someone over the head in hot blood than to hold
a piller over his face.’

Daisy nodded. ‘What’s more, he’s fearfully lame from gout. I don’t know if he could have managed it. Whoever did it couldn’t know when someone else might come
along. They must have been desperate to get a move on, and they were lucky at that.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Alec said. ‘Finished with him? Who’s next on your little list?’

‘Oh, she never would be missed, she never would be missed,’ Daisy carolled
à la Mikado.
‘That’s a beastly thing to say, or sing, but Anne Bretton,
née
Smythe-Pike is one of life’s whiners. She moans that her husband has no interest in the children but sends them to their nurse as soon as they’re any
trouble.’

‘More than one child, then.’

‘Yes, there’s Baby,
alias
Alistair McGowan Bretton, and Tabitha, who’s five. Belinda was very good about looking after her, for quite some time. In fact, she was trying
to amuse her just before she went and found Mr. McGowan dead. Anne took Baby back to his nurse and she was with me when Belinda came rushing in.’

‘How long was she gone?’

‘Not very long, and she was quite calm when she returned. She’s not the sort with nerves of steel who could murder someone one minute and scold Tabitha for dirtying her frock the
next. In fact, I can’t see Anne doing anything so positive as murdering someone. She prefers to complain.’

Piper uttered one of his muffled snorts. Tring frankly grinned. ‘The chief was sure you’d taken Mrs. Bretton under your wing, miss,’ the sergeant revealed.

‘Not I. And as for Harold Bretton – well, I wouldn’t so much as pass the time of day if he weren’t her husband. I believe he only married her for the money he thought she
had. A wife from the landed gentry looks attractive to a would-be man-about-town. He’s an out and out cad, rude where he sees no advantage to politeness, disloyal, abusing his father-in-law
to a stranger but not willing to buckle down and try to get the farms in order.’

‘A bounder indeed,’ Alec said dryly, ‘but that doesn’t make him a murderer. He doesn’t benefit directly from Albert McGowan’s demise.’

‘Not directly, no, but he’s a gambler. He told me only an inheritance or a big win on the horses could save the Smythe-Pike estate. So I bet he’d be quite ready to gamble on
Albert’s death turning to his advantage.’

‘Hmm, it seems possible, though risking the loss of a stake, however large, is rather different from risking the hangman’s noose.’

Daisy didn’t care for this reminder of the end result of the investigation. Studying her growing family tree, she hurried on brightly, ‘I don’t imagine you’ll put Tabitha
or Baby on your little list, so Judith’s next.’

‘Judith Smythe-Pike, who was out there with Belinda?’

‘Yes, Anne’s sister. Incidentally, Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Pike and the Brettons are clear where Belinda’s adventure is concerned. I saw them in the lounge just when it must have
been happening. Judith’s clear, too. She was with the doctor.’

‘We can’t be sure that incident had any significance, or any connection with the murder.’

Looking down at Belinda, deep in innocent sleep at her side, Daisy said, ‘Do you think she might have imagined the whole thing?’

‘Alone, in the dusk, in a strange place, she might have, though on the whole she’s not fanciful. More likely she misinterpreted a stranger’s intentions. Yet who can
tell?’

‘She would have told me if she’d seen anything. In the train, I mean. If the murderer went after her be cause he – or she –
believed
Belinda had seen something,
then Judith isn’t the murderer. Which isn’t to say I don’t think she’d be capable of it, for Raymond’s sake.’

‘Raymond Gillespie, her cousin if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Second cousin. They’re unofficially engaged, and I’d say they’re deeply devoted to each other, though on the whole Judith plays the part of a careless flapper most
effectively.’

‘A bright young thing, is she?’ Alec commented.

‘Except when Raymond has one of his turns. He’s badly shell-shocked; I’ll tell you about him later. I gather Judith is the only one who can soothe him when he’s in a
rotten state of nerves.’

‘So she’d do anything for him, and he benefits directly.’

‘From Albert’s death? His father does, at any rate.’ Daisy pulled a long face. ‘Oh dear, it does look black for Judith.’

‘You like her? There’s plenty of others,’ Alec consoled her.

‘All the Gillespies. Oh, I nearly forgot the mysterious Geraldine. She’s old Alistair’s younger daughter, Amelia Smythe-Pike’s sister. All I know is that she ran away
decades ago to avoid getting stuck looking after her father, and she’s suddenly turned up looking frightfully
soignée
and prosperous.’

‘Swunyay, miss?’ Piper asked.

‘Chic. Smart. She and I met at lunch. No one recognized her. She’s lived in France, but I don’t know her surname.’

‘Mr. Halliday gave me a list.’ Sergeant Tring studied a sheet of paper. ‘That’d likely be Madam Pass-queer. That’s P-a-s-q-u-i-e-r, lad,’ he told Piper.

Adding the surname to the family tree, Daisy said, ‘Geraldine Pasquier,
née
McGowan.’

‘Pas-key-ay, eh, miss?’ said Tring. ‘If you ask me, that Frog lingo’s passing queer.’ His mustache quivered with satisfaction at the quip.

‘Well said, Sarge,’ Piper observed, surveying his notes with gloom.

Daisy smiled at the sergeant. ‘I can’t tell you any more about Madame, so let’s get on to the Gillespies. Peter Gillespie is Alistair and Albert’s nephew. According to
Harold Bretton, he inherited a flourishing boot factory but lost it during the War when he was prosecuted for selling the Army shoddy boots.’

‘Whew!’ said Piper disapprovingly.

‘Hard up?’ Alec queried.

‘Not on their beam-ends, I’d say, but income not coming up to expectations. Quite likely living beyond their means. And, as you will have noted, Peter Gillespie has no great respect
for morality or the law.’ Daisy spoke with asperity. Gillespie’s transgression had taken on a new ugliness since she’d come to know his son better. Had Raymond found himself in
the trenches with his father’s boots disintegrating on his feet?

‘Noted,’ said Alec, ‘though you’ve only Bretton’s word for it. What about his wife?’

‘Enid Gillespie. I’ve not seen much of her, and when I did she was mostly scolding Kitty. It wouldn’t surprise me if she frequently scolds her husband, too.’ She
shrugged. ‘Can’t say more. I can tell you even less about their daughter-in-law, Matilda. She’s one of those women pregnancy doesn’t suit, and she’s far too pregnant
to have murdered anyone.’

‘And her husband?’

‘Jeremy, Peter’s eldest. Fancies himself a womaniser, and deeply resents having to earn a living. I wouldn’t put it past him to take drastic measures for the sake of
money.’

‘Would you not! He’s Raymond’s brother, I take it.’

‘Yes. Poor Ray. He’d like nothing better than to earn a living so as to be able to marry Judith, but he can’t keep a job because of his nervous attacks.’

‘Needs money to marry the girl he loves, eh?’ said Tring. ‘That don’t look too good.’

‘What form do his attacks take?’ Alec asked.

‘A blue funk, thinking he’s back in Flanders. And anguish because he’s not fit.’

‘Not violence, then.’

‘No. Oh, he did . . .’ She hesitated.

‘Come on, Daisy, out with it.’

‘It wasn’t really anything. He was holding Judith’s hand and she said he was hurting her, but he let go at once and was desperately sorry.’

‘Suppose something made him believe the old man was a Boche,’ Alec said slowly. ‘He might have killed him without realizing what he was doing.’

Daisy was silent.

‘The courts go easy on blokes like that,’ Tring said.

After a heavy pause, Alec said, ‘Is that the last, then?’

‘There’s Kitty Gillespie. Bother, I haven’t left room on the page. I’ll have to write her in sideways. Anyway, she’s only fifteen and far too liable to blurt out
whatever comes to mind to make a respectable murderer. She’d have told all and sundry by now. That’s all the family.’

‘All right. Now for their movements. Where was your compartment in relation to Albert McGowan’s?’

‘We were next but one, with the lawyer between.’

‘You could see everyone passing along the corridor, then.’

‘As a matter of fact, for the relevant time, I saw nothing.’

‘Nothing! You didn’t dog their every step and note down the exact times?’ Alec teased.

‘By that time I was fed up with their squabbling,’ Daisy said crossly. ‘They’d been arguing over lunch as to who was to tackle Albert first. I heard footsteps coming and
going, but I buried my head in a magazine so they wouldn’t come and talk to me.’

‘Belinda might have seen who passed in the corridor.’

‘She wasn’t with me all the time. She went to see Kitty, and then to Dr. Jagai, in third class.’

‘Dr. Jagai!’

‘She likes him, and I didn’t see she could come to any harm.’

‘But I thought he was just a cooperative stranger, the first medical man to see the cor . . . the deceased.’

‘Gosh, no. Albert McGowan introduced him to us. Chandra Jagai was his protégé and his heir.’

‘His heir! Great Scott, Daisy, why didn’t you tell me sooner? He has the best motive of all.’

‘Oh, bilge! Absolutely the opposite. He stood to inherit the whole family fortune if Albert survived Alistair.’

‘Unless the family succeeded in changing Albert’s mind.’

‘Not much chance of that. He despised them. In fact, he was going to see the lawyer to ask advice about tying up the money for Dr. Jagai so that the family hadn’t a hope of
contesting his will.’

‘That’s what Jagai told you? Hasn’t it crossed your mind that he might have been lying? No, it was a perfect opportunity for him to bump off his benefactor while plenty of
other people with motives were present to divert suspicion. Dr. Jagai goes high on my list.’

Dismayed and disbelieving, all Daisy could think of to say was, ‘Don’t tell Belinda.’

CHAPTER 11

Alec went over to the sofa and gazed down at his little girl. He loved her so much it made his heart hurt, from the skinny legs in muddy black stockings to the ginger hair just
like Joan’s. Curled in the total, trusting relaxation of innocent sleep, she was too young to learn about the beastliness abroad in the world!

What on earth had possessed her to run away from her grandmother, to run to Daisy? She needed a mother. Yet Daisy mustn’t be led to think Alec only wanted to marry her for Belinda’s
sake.

This was no time for thoughts of marriage. Daisy was looking up at him questioningly.

‘Thank you for taking care of Bel.’

‘It was a pleasure. She’s a dear. I only wish we’d had a less eventful journey. She’s had a frightening and exhausting time of it must you question her
tonight?’

‘She might remember things now she’ll have forgotten by the morning. And she’ll probably rouse anyway if I pick her up to carry her upstairs.’ He gathered her in his
arms and turned to sit down with her in his lap. As she stirred to wakefulness, he said over her head, ‘I did hear her say she’s sharing your room, didn’t I?’