Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [7]
Daisy looked wildly round the park. “Come away,” she begged. “The murderer could still be hiding somewhere close.”
“We must tell the police,” said Rose.
And as if by some miracle she suddenly saw a policeman on his bike cycling through the park.
“Help!” screamed Rose. “Over here!”
Rose and Daisy clutched each other as the policeman cycled up.
“Miss Dolly Tremaine is down there,” gasped Rose. “She’s been murdered.”
The policeman hurried down the river bank at the side of the bridge and bent over the body. Then he straightened up and came running back. He took out a notebook and wrote down their names. Then he said, “Wait here.”
“Where’s he gone?” whispered Daisy through white lips.
“There’s a police box on Park Lane. It won’t be long before he’s back.”
The gas-lit police boxes for use by the police and the public had started off in Glasgow a bare four years after the telephone had been invented. The cast-iron boxes looked like men’s urinals.
They did not have to wait long. The policeman came back and began to take further notes. Who was the dead girl? Where did she live? Soon more police arrived and then two detectives, followed closely by Detective Superintendent Kerridge in a police motor car.
“Lady Rose!” he exclaimed, having dealt with two previous cases where Rose was involved. “What have you been up to now, my lady?”
TWO
Gorgonised me from head to foot,
With a stony British stare.
—ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
The earl’s town house was in an uproar. Lady Rose and Daisy had been escorted home by Detective Superintendent Kerridge and Inspector Judd. The earl and countess were awakened to this dire news. They were told that the superintendent would return as soon as possible to interview Rose. What on earth had their daughter been up to now?
Kerridge had shrewdly guessed that he would be in deep trouble if he continued to interview Rose without her parents’ being present. Unmarried girls were not expected to have any freedom at all. Their letters were routinely read by their parents before being handed to them. And they were certainly not expected to venture outside without being chaperoned. Kerridge was sure the earl would not consider Daisy to be a suitable chaperone without the added guard of a maid and two footmen.
Although it was noon before he arrived, having come straight from Dolly’s parents, he had to wait some time until the earl and countess were dressed.
“You, again,” was the earl’s sour greeting. “What’s our Rose been up to, then? It’s those suffragettes, that’s what it is.”
“No, my lord,” said Kerridge. “It is a case of murder.”
“Where is my daughter?” shrieked Lady Polly.
“Here, Ma,” said a calm voice from the doorway. Rose had gone to her rooms to get an hour’s sleep.
“Who’s murdered?” asked the earl. He tugged the bell-rope furiously and ordered a footman to fetch his secretary, Matthew Jarvis.
“A certain Miss Dolly Tremaine.”
“Oh, that beautiful girl,” wailed Lady Polly. “But what has all this to do with my daughter?”
Matthew came in at that moment and the earl roared, “Get Cathcart. He’s got to come here now.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Your daughter, Lady Rose Summer, had an appointment to meet Miss Tremaine at the Serpentine Bridge at six o’clock this morning.”
“Why the deuce . . .?”
“Miss Tremaine gave me a note at the ball last night,” said Rose. “She said she was running away. When I arrived at the bridge, I looked over and saw her lying dead in that rowing-boat dressed as the Lady of Shalott.”
“Who’s she?” demanded the earl. “She ain’t in Debrett’s, I can tell you that. Foreigner, hey?”
“The Lady of Shalott is the title of a poem by Lord Tennyson, Pa. I have a copy of his poems here. This is the famous illustration, Mr. Kerridge.”
“Any idea why she was dressed like that?”
“Miss Tremaine may have had the costume made to wear at a fancy dress ball next week.”
“Have you any idea why she would want to run away?”
“I do not know. I only know that she was bewildered and unhappy in society. Her father is a country rector and her parents would