Free The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn

down with a sigh of relief, he took his notebook from his jacket pocket. His tone became fatherly. “Now, not to worry, miss. It’s all a matter of routine. Just tell me what you told the Inspector. I’ll write it down; summun at the station’ll type it up; then you’ll be asked to sign that we got it down right what you said. If you’d spell your name for me first, please, miss.”
    Laboriously he wrote it down. Daisy repeated her brief story, pausing between phrases as the sergeant’s pencil crawled over the paper. Mr. Goodman had told Owen to show her the garden; she had noticed the dead bush; Bligh had told Owen to dig it up; she had returned from the house just as Owen uncovered the girl’s face and identified her as Grace Moss.
    â€œAnd ’e was upset, would you say, this Owen Morgan?”
    â€œDreadfully.” She didn’t want to recall the young gardener’s terrible grief. “Mr. Goodman arrived then and asked me to telephone the police, so I came away. After I spoke to Inspector Dunnett, I sent a note to Sir Reginald … .”
    â€œMr. Dunnett says there’s no cause to trouble the family,” said Sergeant Shaw hastily. “This ‘ere Mr. Goodman can tell us all we need ’bout the deceased. Right, miss, that’s it.”
    â€œWill I have to give evidence at the inquest?”
    â€œProb‘ly not, miss, seeing you didn’t know the deceased and there’s other witnesses saw the same as what you did. And ’ere’s the last of ’em now,” he added as Ben Goodman opened the door and looked in. “Come on in, sir. Thank you, miss, that’ll be all.”
    Dismissed again, Daisy departed. Holding the door for her, Mr. Goodman smiled, but he looked grey with fatigue. She hoped her
tour of the outside of the house had not made him ill.
    She hesitated outside the room, not sure what to do next. Though she shied away from thinking about the gruesome murder, curiosity gnawed at her. She didn’t want to believe Owen Morgan had killed the girl he loved, but who else could it have been?
    Money as a motive made no sense at all, parlourmaids not being noted for affluence. Nor did Grace sound like the sort of girl to make people hate her. Ted Roper, who surely had no axe to grind, had described Grace as fun-loving, and Sir Reginald had called her a cheerful child. Daisy wondered what her fellow-servants had thought of her.
    Perhaps among them Owen had had a rival for Grace’s affections.
    If Daisy were investigating, she’d start by talking to the servants. Inspector Dunnett didn’t appear to have any intention of doing so. No doubt he was afraid of calling down Lady Valeria’s wrath on his head.
    If Daisy were investigating … . Alec’s voice sounded inside her head: “Stay out of it, Daisy.”
    The warning voice was drowned by her rumbling stomach. She had missed morning coffee and she was ravenous. It must be nearly lunchtime. She’d go up to her room to wash her hands, and if she just happened to meet the ladies’ maid, Gregg—well, it would be unfriendly not to have a word with her about the sad end of Grace Moss.
    A few minutes later she sat at the dressing-table in her bedroom brushing, re-coiling, and pinning up her hair. She had noticed it loosening when she climbed down from the urn on the terrace, but then she’d forgotten about it and it must have been drooping ever since. No wonder Inspector Dunnett had looked at her askance. Perhaps she really would have it bobbed when she went back to town. Short hair was much more practical, especially for a photographer.
    She hadn’t bothered with powder or lipstick this morning and she decided not to now. Bobbie hadn’t for dinner last night. Quite likely she didn’t even own any. The trouble was, Daisy thought, wrinkling her nose at herself in the glass, those freckles made her look so frightfully
young .