Hoist by his own petard, Alec ignored the reminder and said, “Ready, Ernie?”
“Course, Chief,” said the detective constable, his notebook and one of his everlasting supply of well-sharpened pencils already in his hands.
With a few nudges away from speculation, Daisy ran through the previous day’s events, from leaving Dr. Smith Woodward’s office to D. C. Ross fetching her to see Tom Tring.
“Who took a very incomplete statement from you,” Alec observed.
“It wasn’t his fault. I was telling him about finding the body and I suddenly felt awfully peculiar. I’m sure he would have gone on questioning me anyway if he hadn’t already known I wasn’t a suspect.”
Piper snorted.
Recalling Tring’s mention of Daisy’s acquaintance with Rudolf Maximilian of Transcarpathia, Alec glanced again at the statement she had made last night. He frowned. No reference to the Grand Duke there, so at what point had they talked about him? After she turned “peculiar,” had Tom let her stay on listening to the rest of the interviews?
If so, he was bloody well going to rap the sergeant’s knuckles—except that Tom and Daisy would never give each other away, and Alec could not stoop to asking Ross. Especially as he himself had more than once been manoeuvred into the same misdemeanour.
“By the way, how is Mr. Tring’s cold today?” Daisy asked, with the innocent expression which always made Alec suspicious.
“Much improved.”
For some reason, she laughed. “Spiffing! Right-oh, Chief, that’s all I have to tell you about yesterday, so now you can leave me to get on with my work.”
“Not so fast,” Alec said reluctantly. “Who was nice to Belinda and Derek may be irrelevant, but as Tom pointed out to me, you’ve been consulting these people for your article. You’d better tell me about them.”
Daisy tried hard not to look smug. “Right-oh, Chief,” she said again.
“Unofficial notes, Ernie. Let’s go through them in theorder in which Tom interviewed them.” He reached for the file he had laid on her desk.
“Dr. Smith Woodward, Chief,” said Piper, who had a phenomenal memory for anything to do with names or numbers, “Keeper of Geology. But he was with Miss Dalrymple when the incident occurred.”
“Yes,” said Daisy, “I can’t see how he can have had anything to do with it. Besides, he’s the epitome of the dedicated scientist, and though Pettigrew was pretty offensive to him, I don’t believe he would waste precious time retaliating, even in words. He’s twice broken limbs because he reads while he walks.”
“Cor, honestly?” interjected Ernie Piper.
“Honestly. I heard it from more than one person. He wouldn’t even go to hospital to …”
“Thank you, Daisy!” Alec cut her off. “Only evidence of some sort of incredibly complicated booby-trap could implicate Dr. Smith Woodward. Piper?”
“Mrs. Ditchley, Chief.”
“Ah, yes, grandmother and ex-nurse. You’re not telling me you knew her, Daisy.”
“Not before. I talked to her quite a bit while we waited. But she’s not a suspect?”
“She was very close to the scene. Tom didn’t ask the children if she stayed with them the entire time, but as he says, we couldn’t rely on their testimony where their grandmother is concerned. We’ll have to investigate whether she had any link with the deceased.”
“I suppose so. I’m pretty sure she didn’t, and still surer that she wouldn’t have killed him there and then, however good a motive she had, not with her grandchildren liable to run after her.”
Daisy was going to argue that he should talk to the childrenanyway. It had dawned on her that she had really only asked the two eldest what they had seen. At least, only they answered, and she was not sure the younger ones were even attending to her questions. They might not have been attending to the toothy Megalosaurus either, so they could have noticed something Arthur and Jennifer missed.
But she doubted they would speak freely to a policeman, especially little Katy, whereas if Daisy just dropped in to ask after … .
“Daisy?” Alec said in his patient voice, dark eyebrows raised. “Are you going to emerge from your trance? What about Miss Fellowes and Mr. Chardford?”
“I’ve never heard of … Oh, the young couple? I didn’t exchange a single word with them. I’d say they were far too wrapped up in each other to care about anything else. Come in,” she called as someone knocked on the door.
Mrs. Potter entered, panting, with cups and teaspoons rattling on a precariously balanced tray. Piper jumped up and took it from her to set it on the desk.
“Ta, ducks. I shoulda put the teapot in the middle. It’s a mite early for elevenses, miss, but I thought you’d want a cuppa while the gentlemen are here. We’re clean out of biscuits,” she said reproachfully.
