“Hurry, hurry,” urged Daisy. “Don’t want to get caught.”
Rose felt a frisson of fear as she opened the late Mrs Jerry’s bedroom door. Of course the body had been removed, but somehow the air still smelt of the patchouli that Mrs Jerry liked to spray on herself.
Daisy went quickly to the chimney. Again, her searching fingers couldn’t find anything. “Let’s get out of here,” she urged.
Back in their sitting-room, Daisy stripped off her sooty gloves. “Turner will wonder what I’ve been up to.”
“Just tell her you dropped a brooch in the grate and you were looking for it.”
“She’ll wonder why I didn’t just unbutton them at the wrist and peel them back like we do in the dining-room.”
“Forget Turner. Let me think. Of course. The killer would hardly stand in front of her and inject whatever drug it was into the champagne bottle. He, or she, would take the bottle to their room. People don’t normally carry syringes around with them. So whoever it was must have come prepared. But why? Did Mrs Jerry threaten the murderer in London?”
She went to the window and looked out. “If he – let’s assume it’s a he – threw the syringe out of the window it would land in one of the flower-beds below. But I’m not thinking clearly. Whoever it was would not need to get rid of the syringe right away. He would only do it later after Captain Cathcart made his announcement in the dining-room about the champagne bottle. Unless it was actually in his pocket – no, it wouldn’t be there. A servant might find it. So he goes up to his room as soon as he can. He must have had it hidden somewhere very clever because the police had already searched the rooms.”
“He might not have thrown it out of the window,” said Daisy. “If he leaned out, he could hide it in that thick wisteria.”
“Well, we can’t start climbing up ladders to look for it without occasioning comment,” said Rose. “If we got up at dawn, the sun strikes full on the front of the house and we might see the rays shining on the glass of the syringe. I’ll tell Turner that we are leaving for a walk very early and we can dress ourselves.”
There was a knock at the door. Daisy opened it. Harry stood there with Becket.
“I came to see how you were feeling, Lady Rose,” he said.
“Oh, I’m fine now,” said Rose airily. “It was the heat in the dining-room.”
Daisy was disappointed. Rose was obviously not going to tell them about the search for the syringe, so they would not be joining the early-morning hunt.
“As long as you are well,” said Harry. His eyes moved to the sooty pair of gloves Daisy had left on a side table. “Someone been cleaning out the fireplace with evening gloves on?” he asked.
“Silly of me,” said Daisy, not meeting his eye. “I dropped a brooch in the grate and scrabbled about for it.”
Harry’s eyes moved to the grate. Because of the warm weather, the fireplace had been cleaned and was now decorated with leaves and pine cones.
“I found it,” Daisy went on hurriedly.
♦
“They’re up to something,” said Harry as he and Becket walked down the stairs. “Why would Daisy’s gloves be covered in soot?”
“Miss Levine may have been searching up the chimneys looking for the blackmail material. I had forgotten, people sometimes hide things up chimneys when the fires are not being lit.”
“I’ll suggest that to Kerridge tomorrow. But why did she not tell me? Lady Rose will put herself in danger if she decides to detect on her own.”
♦
Rose had a restless night. She was frightened of oversleeping. But as soon as they pale grey light of dawn filtered in through the curtains, she got up and roused Daisy.
They dressed and made their way down the stairs. “I hope there is sun this morning,” whispered Rose. “It was overcast yesterday.”
They stood together on the lawn and waited. The sky was clear, with only a few wisps of cloud, which turned pink in the rays of the rising sun.
Their eyes swept along the thick wisteria which covered the front of the house.
“There!” whispered Rose, clutching Daisy’s arm in excitement. “There’s something sparkling amongst the leaves half-way up. Let’s tell Kerridge.”
“He’s at The Feathers and the policeman at the gate won’t let us past,” said Daisy. “The press are probably still lurking about. He usually comes here at eight in the morning. Not long to wait.”
Daisy suddenly grasped Rose’s arm. “I think someone was watching us, I saw a curtain twitch.”
“Let’s get back inside and wait for Kerridge,” said Rose, looking uneasily up at the windows. “I can’t see anything.”
♦
Harry went in to see Kerridge just after eight o’clock and found Rose and Daisy already there. “These young ladies,” said Kerridge, “had the idea that our murderer may have dropped the syringe into the wisteria. You were right about the drugging. The preliminary autopsy confirms that she was drugged with a powerful sleeping-potion. I’ve sent my men to get ladders. Come with me, Lady Rose, and point out exactly where you think you saw something shining in the leaves.”
Harry was furious. Rose had lied to him. He followed them out, angrily reminding himself that he had never really liked her anyway.
As Harry stood apart from her, his hands behind his back, and his brows down, Rose felt ashamed of herself. She went up to him. “I would have told you the truth but I thought you would think my idea silly.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said curtly. “You wanted to prove that you were better at detecting than I.”
He walked a little way away from her.
“I thought you might have told me,” said Becket to Daisy.
Daisy shrugged. “If she won’t, I can’t.”
Rose pointed to where she had seen something shining. Kerridge told the policemen to put the ladder up against the house at that point and begin the search.
Rose kept glancing at Harry’s set face. She knew in that instant that anything he found out about the case he would keep to himself in future.
The policeman on the ladder gave a shout. “I see it!”
“Lift it with your hankie,” shouted Kerridge. “Don’t want your prints on it. Is it a syringe?”
“Yes.”
Kerridge turned to Rose. “Good work, my lady,” he said. “We should have you on the force.”
Then he turned to Harry. “Let’s go inside. I want to discuss this.”
He waited until the policeman had climbed down the ladder and then he and Harry walked off together, followed by Becket and Inspector Judd.
“Just look at them!” raged Rose. “I find their evidence, but because I’m a woman they never think that I should be part of their rotten discussion. When I return to London I shall contact the suffragettes and support them once more.”
♦
“I’ll get my men to search this place from top to bottom,” Kerridge said to Harry in the estate office. “Then I’ll need to let them all go. Lady Glensheil has tried to help, but I am now being leaned on heavily from above. Oh, yes, they want me to solve the case but without upsetting the nobs. And this old place has so many nooks and crannies.”
Come the revolution, thought Kerridge, this would make a good orphanage and this lot would be out there working in the kitchens and gardens. He had a vision of Lady Glensheil scrubbing the pots in the kitchen with a piece of sackcloth as an apron tied round her waist.
“Mr Kerridge,” said Harry sharply.
“Eh, what? Oh, yes, I don’t suppose there will be prints on that syringe.”
A policeman entered. “Whose window was it under, lad?” asked Kerridge.
“It was under the window on the first-floor landing.”
Kerridge sighed. “So any one of them could have thrown it out as they went up or down the stairs. Blast! Are you sure, Captain Cathcart, that neither Mrs Stockton nor Lord Alfred have been particularly friendly?”