“You do not live in the police station?” asked Rose.
“Got a tidy cottage next door.”
“How old are your children?”
“Let me see, the eldest is Alfred – he’s just finishing school this year. He’s fifteen. Next is Lizzie, fourteen. Then there’s Geraldine. Her’s thirteen. After her comes Maisie at nine years. And then there’s the baby, Frankie, nine months. Frankie was unexpected like, but we ain’t complaining.”
“We will do our best not to put Mrs. Shufflebottom to too much trouble.”
“Oh, nothing bothers my Sally much. Looking forward to some grown-up female company, she is.”
I’m not going to be able to bear this, thought Rose.
They fell silent until, after a few miles, Bert pointed with his whip and said, “That be Drifton, in t’valley.”
Rose looked down the road to a huddle of houses crouched beside a river.
“And that’s the river Drif. Get some good trout there. If Alfred’s lucky with his rod arter school, we’ll have trout for tea. I likes a nice bit o’ trout.”
Rose had expected Sally Shufflebottom to be an apple-cheeked countrywoman, but the woman waiting on the dirt road outside the cottage next to the police station was tall and thin with a severe mouth and grey hair scraped back into a bun.
She came forward to greet them. “I’m Sally,” she said. “I’ve been instructed to call you just Rose and Daisy, not to occasion comment, like. My, my, look at all your luggage!”
“I told them to take out a few things and put the rest in the stables,” said Bert. “T’won’t do to look too fine and grand.”
The cottage was a rabbit warren of small rooms. There was a kitchen-cum-living-room with a great black range along one wall on which two pots were simmering. It was furnished with a horsehair sofa, a long table flanked by upright chairs, and two armchairs on either side of the range. The floor was covered in shiny green linoleum with two hooked rugs.
“I’ll show you your room,” said Sally. She led the way along a stone-flagged passage and threw open a door. There was a double bed covered in a patchwork quilt, a dresser, a marble wash-stand holding a basin and ewer. A little table by the bed held a blue jug of wild flowers.
Daisy, used to poverty, realized that Sally had gone to a lot of trouble. The patchwork quilt was new and the room was clean and aired.
“Thank you,” she said, while Rose stared around her as if visiting a prison cell. “We’ll just sort out a few clothes and take the rest to the stables.”
“I,” said Rose haughtily, “would like a bath.”
“Bath day isn’t until Friday, when we fire up the copper in the wash-house,” said Sally. The copper was a huge copper container with a fire underneath for washing the laundry.
Daisy threw a warning look at Rose. “I hear the river at the back of the house. We’ve got our swimming costumes. That’ll do.”
“I’ll leave you to it. Dinner won’t be long.”
“Dinner?” echoed Rose faintly when Sally had left the room.
“They take dinner in the middle of the day.” Daisy took out a bunch of keys and began to unlock their cases. “I’ll get out our swimming costumes first.”
The water in the river was so cold that they both plunged in and then scrambled out again and ran back into the house. Large coarse towels had been laid out on the bed. They scrubbed themselves down, Rose too cold to be ashamed of standing naked in front of Daisy.
They put on plain wool dresses and had just finished dressing when they heard Sally call, “Dinner!”
The Shufflebottom family were all seated around the table. The girls stared wide-eyed at Rose and Daisy.
“Sit down on those two chairs next to Bert,” said Sally.
Dinner started, after Bert had said grace, with mutton broth followed by lamb stew and then apple crumble. Rose realized she was very hungry and had to admit the food was delicious.
Lizzie found courage to speak first. “Ma says you went swimming.” She stared in awe at the elegant beauty that was Rose.
“One gets very dirty on a train,” said Rose. “Your mother said bath day wasn’t until Friday.”
“You could have waited until then,” said Lizzie. “Ma would have given you first water.”
Maisie piped up. “By the time I get it, it’s awful dirty.”
Rose repressed a shudder and hoped the river would warm up soon.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind us arranging our own baths,” said Daisy, “if we find the wood and fire up the copper.”
“If you’re prepared to do that, lass,” said Sally, “then I’ve no objections.”
I must phone Captain Cathcart, thought Rose, and beg him to let us come back to London. “May I use the telephone in the police station?” she asked Bert.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Superintendent Kerridge said there were to be no further calls from here regarding yourself in case some girl on the exchange listens in.”
When dinner was over and the children had left again for school, Sally told Rose and Daisy to go and lie down and take a rest.
“It’s not too bad,” said Daisy as she lay in the double bed next to Rose. “They’re nice people.”
“I shall go mad here,” said Rose curtly. “Peasants do not amuse me.”
“You rotten snob!”
Rose hunched over on her side. “I am going to sleep. I hope this will all turn out to be a bad dream.”
“How do you think Lady Rose is doing?” Kerridge was asking Harry.
“Probably suffering and blaming me for everything. Lady Rose likes to be radical and think she’s at one with the common people, just so long as she doesn’t have to meet any of them.”
“Then this visit will do her good. We’re no further forward except for one little thing. Well, may not be a little thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The Honourable Cyril Banks proposed to Dolly and was turned down.”
“Let me see, that one has a bad reputation from drinking and gambling. I feel sure Dolly’s parents told her to turn him down. No money there.”
“Anyway, I’m going to interview him.”
“Mind if I come along?” asked Harry.
“Very well. But I’ll get a lecture from Judd over allowing amateurs into a Scotland Yard investigation.”
“What about the gun?”
“We got the bullet. It was embedded in some stupid hat covered in dead birds. Our expert thinks it came from a lady’s purse revolver, maybe a 0.2500 French-Belgian one.”
“Any gun of that type registered to anyone?”
“We’re working on it. Let’s go and see what the Honourable Cyril has to say for himself.”
They tracked Cyril down to The Club in St. James’s. His manservant had told them that was where he had gone. The gloomy Inspector Judd had at last to realize that there was some benefit in bringing Harry along, for The Club would not have allowed policemen, however high-ranking, past the entrance. Since Harry was a member, he was sent it to winkle Cyril out.
Kerridge waited outside until Cyril, protesting volubly that he would have Harry blackballed, emerged at last from The Club and was helped into the police car and they all drove to Scotland Yard.
In Kerridge’s office, a flustered Cyril was still protesting. “It is disgraceful that I should be dragged out of my club like a common criminal. I shall report you to the Home Office.”
“Settle down, Mr. Banks,” said Kerridge. “Only a few questions and then you will be driven back to your club. Now, we believe you proposed marriage to Miss Tremaine and were turned down.”
“So what?” said Cyril. He raised his monocle, screwed it firmly in one eye and glared at Kerridge.
“As you know, we are investigating her murder.”
“Here, now!” exclaimed Cyril. “I’m leaving. You’re trying to pin this murder on me!”