He had got away without telling her much about the case, he congratulated himself. Then it dawned on him that she had not actually asked much, not even the claimed whereabouts of the suspects at the time of the murder. His uneasy suspicion of collusion between Daisy and Tom Tring reawoke. He nearly taxed her with it, but decided on the whole it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.
She remained quiet as he paid the bill and helped her on with her coat. Leaving the Good Intent, they turned down King’s Road, past illuminated shop windows—many displaying artists’ supplies, one or two showing artists’ works—and an extraordinary number of pubs. They were passing a milliner’s, filled with amazingly diverse variations on the basic cloche all women seemed to wear nowadays, when Daisy spoke.
“Alec, how was he killed? I’ve been putting off asking, because part of me doesn’t really want to know.”
“Then I shan’t tell you.”
“Do. Please do, darling. It can’t be worse than the frightful things one imagines.”
“No, maybe not. In effect, it was no different from any stabbing, but it’s quite extraordinary, nonetheless. The pathologist found a sharpened flint in Pettigrew’s chest.”
8
Aflint! Daisy’s first thought was that she should have guessed. The second was, “But how did it get there? I mean, if he was stabbed with it, surely the whole thing couldn’t have disappeared inside him—ugh! But you know what I mean. Enough should have stuck out to hold onto. Could it have been bunged with a sling or something?”
“Unlikely,” Alec said. “Even if it hit hard enough to penetrate, according to our ballistics man, the odds against its striking the right spot point first are astronomical. Well, palæontological, anyway.”
“Biblical, rather. Doubtless David could have done it,” Daisy commented. “So you don’t have to worry about delivery from a distance. Then how … ?”
“There’s a dab of glue at the rounded end of the flint. We think it was stuck onto some sort of shaft to make a spear, or perhaps a dagger. The museum uses every glue known to mankind, but none makes a strong bond between wood and stone, apparently. When the shaft hit the skin—there’s a suggestive bruise—the bond broke. The shaft came away, while the head stuck in the wound and impeded leakage of blood.”
“Ugh!” Daisy said again.
“Sorry, love, but you did ask.”
“Yes, I know. Does it mean Witt and ffinch-Brown are at the top of your list?”
“Not necessarily. Witt was messing about with flints in the work room behind the General Library. Anyone could have picked one up. But Pettigrew himself was experimenting with them, too. He might have brought it with him, perhaps to show Witt.”
“Gosh,” said Daisy, “I wonder if that’s what he was talking about?”
“Talking about?” Alec said sharply. The lamp-post at the corner of Mulberry Place illuminated lowered brows over glinting ice-grey eyes. “When?”
Daisy sighed. The moment of truth was upon her. Confession could no longer be postponed. Besides, Alec would probably go to see Mrs. Ditchley tomorrow, and she was bound to mention Daisy’s visit.
“To start at the beginning, I called on Mrs. Ditchley this afternoon,” she admitted, and crossed her fingers in her coat pocket before fibbing, “just to make sure she and the children had recovered from the shock.”
“I trust they had?” His politeness had a dangerous edge.
“Oh yes,” she said airily. “The children came home from school while I was there, and of course they wanted to talk about it.”
“Of course. Without a single question from you.”
“Do you want to know what they told me or not?”
“If you please.” But leaning back against his Austin Chummy, Alec regarded her with unmistakable grimness. “Go on.”
“It came out that Katy, the littlest, had wandered off from the others toward the arch to the reptiles. She didn’t see anything, but she heard a man say, ‘You fossilized fool, you thinkyou’re so clever, but I know how it was done!’ He might have been referring to a flint he’d chipped himself, don’t you think?”
“Possibly,” Alec conceded. “It hardly seems so inflammatory a claim as to lead to murder, even prefaced by an insult. Are you sure of his words? Is the child?”
“Not exactly,” Daisy conceded in her turn. She explained Jennifer’s part in the reconstruction, and the uncertainty over the precise terms of the insult. “And of course there’s no way to know for absolute certain whether it was in fact Pettigrew Katy heard. But, Alec, ffinch-Brown told me Pettigrew meant to challenge him to distinguish between genuine ancient flints and one he’d chipped himself.”
“He did? Great Scott, Daisy, what else haven’t you revealed yet?”
“‘I tell thee everything I can. I’ve little to relate,’” Daisy misquoted the White Knight’s song.
“I hope you’re not going to produce another ‘aged aged man,’” Alec said somewhat sourly. “Bentworth’s as much as I can cope with. He fell asleep in the middle of our interview.”
