“T
hen I asked for the usual,” said Alec, “an adjournment for the police to pursue their enquiries. The coroner immediately granted it. I don't know when I've had such an obliging coroner.” He had managed to get away for dinnerâan especially lavish meal to celebrate Peter Anstruther's vindicationâand, over coffee in the sitting room afterwards, he was satisfying Daisy's and Baskin's curiosity about the inquest.
Daisy had been obliged to attend and even testify at a number of inquests. She frankly disliked them, but that didn't mean she didn't want to know exactly what had happened. “Nothing was said about whom you suspected? No mention of any of the Colemans?”
”Or me,” Baskin put in.
“No, we're playing the cards close to our collective chest, the few we possess. There was no need for evidence from any of the available suspects, and so no need to draw them to the attention of the press.”
“Thank you!” said Baskin in heartfelt tones. “I'm already dreading what my headmaster is going to say about my getting involved in this business.”
“You'd better hope the chap at the Yard finds out whatever it is you're hiding,” Alec said grimly, “before we have to ask the papers to advertise for anyone who knows you to step forward.”
Baskin's good-natured face paled a little. “I hope you'll let me know if it comes to that, so that I can consider what to do for the best.”
“Why don't you just go ahead and spill the beans?”
“No. I'm sure one of the fellows I spoke to on Sunday will turn up and give me an alibi.”
“Wishful thinking! It's a long shot. You said yourself, none of them had fixed plans to stay in this area.”
Daisy decided it was time to intervene. “Don't be beastly, darling. What about Coleman? You had him in for questioning?”
“And arrested him for setting his dog onto DS Horrocks.”
“Oh no, is the sergeant hurt?”
“Not seriously. A rather nasty bite on one hand.”
“Did you shut Coleman up in Mrs. Puckle's washhouse?”
“No, he's in the lock-up in Abbotsford. I'll be surprised if the magistrate doesn't bind him over to assizes. Assaulting a police officer is a serious offence.”
“I'm sorry for poor Mr. Horrocks,” Daisy mused, “but in a way, it's a good thing. Olive is more likely to cooperate if her father's well out of the way, isn't she?”
“That's a good point. I'll make sure whoever brings her back tells her.”
“You've found her?”
“We think so. We're pretty sure. One of the milkmaids from the farm now lives in Newton Abbot. She married a traveller in farm machinery, chap named Dabb. The local police sent someone round. No one was at home, so he spoke to a nosy neighbour, who says a young girl arrived Sunday evening, without luggage, and is staying. The husband's gone off on his route. The visitor and Mrs. Dabb went to the pictures this evening. She's calling herself by another name but I'd be astonished if it's not Olive Coleman.”
“In that case,” said Baskin, “she'll tell you I wasn't there and you can stopâ”
Vera drifted in, holding a telegram in one limp hand. Her vacant gaze was fixed, as usual, on some inner vision.
“Who is the telegram for, Vera?” Daisy enquired.
“Douglas Fairbanks, m'm,” murmured the maid.
“No, really!”
“Oh, I mean Donald Crisp, madam.”
“Donald Baskin?” Baskin took it from her unresisting fingers and looked at the front. “Yes, it's for me. Excuse me a moment.”
As he opened the envelope, Vera drifted out again. He read the message, a brief one, and started to laugh. To Daisy's ears, his laughter had a tinge of hysteria.
“Good news?” she asked, with the unladylike “'satiable curtiosity” that so often got her into trouble. “Bad news?”
Baskin dropped the telegram into her lap and flung himself into his chair. “Read it. Go on. Here I am practically getting myself arrested for obstructing the police, and all for nothing.”
Daisy read aloud, “Consulted solicitor must have death certificate all my love Bethie.” She handed the form back.
“Bethie,” said Baskin, “is Elizabeth Enderby. Otherwise, Mrs. George Enderby.”
Daisy and Alec stared at him.
“I don't understand. Whatâ?” Daisy began.
“Great Scott!” Alec interrupted. “You don't mean ⦠bigamy?”
“That's just what I do mean. Let me tell you the story. It starts in the last year of the War.”
To the military hospital where Elizabeth was training as a VAD nurse came Sergeant-Major George Enderby, with a nasty abdominal wound. Good-looking, smooth-spoken, charming, he swept her off her feet long before he was able to leave his bed, and married her the day he was discharged. Combining convalescence and honeymoon, they spent a month in Wiltshire with her family before he had to return to the Army and she to her hospital.
“Bethie had two letters from France, and then another from Germany, after the Armistice. After that, nix. She never saw him or heard from him again. Well, you'll say there's nothing really surprising in that.”
“No,” Alec agreed, “soldiers still died after the Armistice, of mines, accidents, and so on.”
“Of course. So when she hadn't heard for several months, neither from Enderby nor from the Army, her father made enquiries. He's a nice old boy, Justice of the Peace, trying to uphold the old standards when they can really only just make ends meet. To cut a long story short, George Enderby had been demobbed, leaving only an accommodation address. Apparently he had never listed Bethie as next-of-kin.”
“Who was his next-of-kin?” Daisy asked. “Couldn't they enquire of his relatives?”
“According to what he'd told Bethie, his only living relative was an ancient cousin in a nursing home somewhere in the Midlands. He'd listed Emma Bovary as next-of-kin, believe it or not.”
“Good heavens!” Daisy couldn't help laughing at the man's cheek. “No one questioned it?”
Baskin grinned. “I don't suppose many military clerks read Flaubert. As a matter of fact, Bethie's father didn't catch the reference and was all for trying to track down Madame Bovary. Bethie and her mother persuaded him it was more to the point to ring up every Enderby in the London telephone bookâit's not so common a nameâbut no one admitted to a George in the family. They couldn't afford a private 'tec. I think, too, by then Bethie wasn't at all sure she wanted to find him if he didn't want to be found.”
“What did she do?”
“She went on living at home and got a job in Swindon to help out the family coffers.”
“And where do you come into this appalling story?” Alec demanded, glancing at his wrist-watch.
“Darling, that's obvious. Mr. Baskin went on a walking tour of Wiltshire and met Miss ElizabethâMrs. Enderby. What does she call herself?”
“Mrs. Enderby. All the village people know she married him and assume he was killed in the War. Yes, I met her last summer. They
changed the divorce law last year, did you know? A woman can now divorce her husband on the same grounds on which he can divorce her. That means she no longer has to prove desertion as well as adulteryâsorry, Mrs. Fletcher, but that's the legal lingoâshe only has to prove his adultery. Which, as you can imagine,” Baskin added with understandable bitterness, “is difficult if you have no idea where to find him.”
“The two of you wanted to get married but couldn't see how she'd ever be able to get a divorce.”
“Got it in one! Desertion alone is insufficient cause.”
“How did you discover his whereabouts?” Alec asked impatiently.
“Pure coincidence. A friend of the family who had met him during their month of wedded bliss happened to stay here at the Anstruthers' last month. She and her husband went to the Schooner for a drink. She had only met George briefly, once or twice, six years ago, and not unnaturally couldn't believe it was the same man, now married to another woman. But she told Bethie, bless her, and I came down to reconnoitre.”
“You concluded it was the same man? You had a photograph?”
“Yes and no. Bethie only had a couple of snaps and she'd got rid of them. But she'd described him in detailâ”
“Including the scar,” Daisy said severely.
“Yes.” He flushed. “I suppose it was obvious I wanted to know where it was on his body, not where he got it.”
“I had a feeling that was the case, but I don't think Cecily noticed.”
“I hope not. I had no idea then that Mrs. Anstruther was one of his victims or, believe me, I'd never have asked. In any case, she said he was wounded at Ypres, which matched. And she said he'd turned up out of the blue three years ago, no one knew where from, and he never talked about his past. I was as certain as I could be.”
“Then you had him cold, didn't you?” said Alec, obviously sceptical. “Proof of adultery no one could argue with. No motive for murder. At least, I presume you consider the scandal of divorce somewhat less daunting than the scandal of being arrested for murder?”
“You bet! As my pupils would say.”
“So why hang about, asking more questions and awakening suspicions instead of rushing back to Wiltshire and starting divorce proceedings?”
“Bethie was worried about the present Mrs. Enderby,” Baskin explained. “If George had settled down and was making another woman happy, even if it was a bigamous marriage, she'd have felt terrible about ruining things if there was the slightest possibility of avoiding it.”
“Hence your questions about whether Nancy was happy with Georgie Porgie!” said Daisy.
He nodded. “I didn't find a chance to ask you until Friday. Well, on Friday, Bethie went to see the family solicitor to ask if a divorce could be managed without George and Nancy's knowledge. He's never handled a divorce case and wanted to ask an expert for advice, and his expert was away for a long weekend. He didn't get hold of him till late yesterday afternoon.”
“By which time the question had changed.”
“Yes, but I simply couldn't think how to tell her by phone or telegram that the man was no longer a thorn in our flesh. That we could marry, I mean, while leaving Nancy Enderby in happy ignorance. I mean, if I'd rung up, or wired something like âEnderby dead name the date,' some meddlesome operator somewhere might have thought it was mighty fishy and reported to the police. I wrote a letter to the same effect, and she got it by the midday post today. This,” he waved the telegram, “is the result.”
“Can't you get a death certificate, a copy, without Nancy knowing?”
“I've no idea, but simply going about finding out will probably give the game away. To the police, at the very least, hence my confession.”
Alec stood up. “Well,” he said, “you've wasted a lot of our time, Baskin. We'll have to check your story, of course, but if it's all right, I may be able to do something about the death certificate. I'm making no promises, mind. I doubt Dr. Wedderburn will object, so it'll depend on the coroner, I imagine. We'll hope for the second Mrs.
Enderby's sake that he's sympathetic. And right now, you'd better come down to the parish hall and give us the address of the first Mrs. Enderby and the family friend, and a few other details.”
“Right now, darling,” said Daisy, “you go and kiss Bel good night before you disappear again. You promised.” She turned to Baskin as Alec obediently departed. “Your Elizabeth sounds like a sweetheart. I can't see many women in her situation being concerned about Nancy's humiliation if her fake marriage became known.”
“She's one in a million,” Baskin said fervently.
“I wish you both very happy. I'd like to meet her sometime, if she wouldn't be embarrassed by my knowing the story. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going up. I'm utterly exhausted!”
Â
Alec walked back to the parish hall with Baskin. They talked on the way, and Alec came to the conclusion he'd have to cross another suspect off his list.
Coleman still refused to utter anything but obscenity and blasphemy, not a word about either the assault charge or his movements on Sunday afternoon. In the morning he would be provided with a lawyer, who might or might not get something out of him. But meanwhile, his daughter had been found. The Newton Abbot police were going to pick Olive up, when the Alexandra Cinema let out at eleven, and bring her to Westcombe.
All Alec's hopes were banked on Olive Coleman being able to tell him whom she had seen on the cliff-top. Suppose she had seen no one? What would he do next? He needed a contingency plan in place, so as not to waste time.