Buttercup made some kind of echoing murmur.
‘Two things,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Mrs Dudgeon was very keen to get Robert’s body home with her, and she’ll need to be told there’s no chance of that until tomorrow at least. She’ll need to be told about the post-mortem and it will all be better coming from you, Mrs de Cassilis, than from one of my men, don’t you think?’
Buttercup looked quite stricken at the thought and shook her head slightly. I felt a little irritation. After all, running a place was not all playing at castles and had it been our estate carpenter at Gilverton I should not have relished the task but I should not have shirked it.
‘And the other thing?’ said Daisy.
‘Yes, well, as I say,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘My guess is that Rennick will find natural causes, but just in case he doesn’t, I might as well get ahead of the game while I can.’ This did not quite ring true, I thought, and looking at him closely I wondered just how sure he really was. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘I believe Robert Dudgeon came to speak to you yesterday night, Mr de Cassilis. What can you tell me about that?’ A surreptitious sound from the corner drew my attention and I saw the constable flicking open a notebook and drawing out a pencil he had threaded into its spring.
‘He seemed very well,’ said Cadwallader. ‘In good health, you know. No signs of any illness. So it must have been terrifically sudden.’
‘And how was he in himself?’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘In his spirits?’ Cad shrugged as though to suggest he had nothing to add and I stared at him, shocked. The senseless guilty conscience act was one thing but he could not seriously intend to lie to a policeman. I blushed inwardly at my own moral outrage (after all, lying to policemen was not unknown to me) but this was different.
‘He was troubled,’ I said in a loud, clear voice. Cadwallader could say what he liked to me later; there was no point in making this any worse than it was. Inspector Cruickshank cocked an eye at me and waited for more.
‘He didn’t want to do the Burry Man,’ I said. ‘I was there too, you see, Inspector. He didn’t want to do it one little bit, but he wouldn’t say why.’
‘And how did you persuade him in the end?’ said Inspector Cruickshank. I thought about this for a moment before answering.
‘I can’t honestly say,’ I told him. ‘I can’t quite remember what I said that made the difference.’ I looked towards Cad, before remembering that he had left by the time it came to that. But came to what? ‘I made a little joke about Mr de Cassilis taking over, but he knew I didn’t mean that. Then he just seemed, all of a sudden, to change his mind.’
‘Interesting,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Would you say he seemed frightened of the job?’
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘Cad, did he seem frightened to you when he first turned up?’
Cadwallader shook his head. ‘He seemed exactly the same as when I was up on the roof with him earlier. Quite himself and perfectly calm, only absolutely determined not to dress as the Burry Man.’
‘Until he changed his mind,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘And when you were with him earlier in the day, sir, he said nothing about these misgivings?’
‘Not a word,’ said Cad. ‘That’s a curious thing now that you mention it, Inspector. Why would he not?’
‘Perhaps looking for an opening and not finding it?’ I suggested. This would be absolutely up my street, I was sure – spending an hour with a person I had to tell something to and funking it completely so that I had to summon twice as much courage, pay a special visit and blurt it out standing on the carpet twisting my hat.
‘No, that wasn’t it,’ said Cadwallader, ‘because I was joking about it with him. We were up on the roof, as I say, and we could see some of the people still picking the burdock seeds. They’re scarce this year, I believe, but there are some good big clumps of them on my land. They came to ask my permission and all that, and I was delighted to let them.’ A note, not quite petulant, had crept into Cadwallader’s voice. He must have felt such a rush of well-being to be up on his castle roof with his trusted servant watching peasants below picking at the bushes on his say-so. An age-old tradition carrying on thanks to his carpenter, his bushes and his magnanimity must have been more than many Americans ever dream of. How horridly awry it had all gone since. Poor Cad.
‘Anyway, I was joking with Dudgeon about it,’ he said. ‘Shouting down to them to be careful to get only the prickliest ones, and Dudgeon laughed and said there wasn’t much to choose between one burr and another and besides he was used to it.’
‘So at that point – when would this be, sir? – at that point he was intending to go ahead.’
‘Oh, definitely,’ said Cadwallader. ‘This was just before tea. Three o’clock or something. So whatever it was that made him change his mind happened between then and seven when he came back to tell me the thing was off.’
This was a puzzle to be sure, but who could say whether it had anything to do with what had happened at the greasy pole? Inspector Cruickshank appeared to be thinking along similar lines to me, because he rolled the thought around for a minute or two, glancing at the constable to make sure the man was getting it all down in his notebook, then he seemed to shake it out of his head and he returned to business with an expressive sniff.
‘Well, we’ll see, we’ll see,’ he said. ‘Meantime, Mrs de Cassilis, would you be so kind as to pop along to Mrs Dudgeon’s house and explain.’ Buttercup nodded; the same hopelessness which meant she would rather die than do it also meant she had no idea how to wriggle out of it. Or so I thought.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Dandy and I will go together.’ I did not even bother to protest.
‘We must take something,’ I said ten minutes later, standing in my petticoats in Buttercup’s bedroom, as we tried to divide what black clothes she had between us. ‘Oh, heavenly!’ I exclaimed, falling upon a figured silk tea dress in black with the merest hint of purple. Buttercup had already bagged the only black skirt in her collection that did not look like a coal sack.
‘Purple roses, Dandy, be serious,’ said Buttercup, rootling through dark blouses. I took the silk frock over to the window and looked at it in the light. The figuring was roses, I could see now, but I was not going to give it up without a struggle.
‘Purple is perfectly funereal,’ I said. ‘And it’s so deep as to be practically black upon black anyway, and in the twilight, and in a cottage -' There was a sharp rap at the door which made Buttercup jump and drop what she was holding, but which I recognized with long experience as Grant.
She marched in, holding over one arm a black linen frock with bottle green ribbon-threading and carrying a bottle green small-brimmed hat and black kid shoes in the other hand. I did not recognize any of them.
‘Your mourning, madam,’ she said, depositing them on Buttercup’s bed and whisking the figured silk away from me with a pitying lift of her eyebrows.
I bought them in the spring,’ she added, by way of addressing my look of puzzlement. I didn’t bother you with it, madam, for who likes to be reminded of the need for them?’
‘And you brought them here because…?’ I always pack them, madam,’ said Grant, sounding astonished that I might doubt it. ‘Otherwise…’ She glanced again at the black and purple roses and her lip curled. ‘Can you manage?’ she went on. ‘The hat will cover everything.’ Grant, it will be clear, thinks little of my talents as a hairdresser. I nodded and she left.
‘Well,’ said Buttercup. ‘Talk about the spirit of Nanny Palmer living on, Dan really.’
‘Nanny Palmer was a darling,’ I countered. But I knew what she meant. Nanny Palmer was a well-starched darling who stood no nonsense and it is perfectly true that a great many of my retainers since have been along the same lines.