VI 1949: Five years later
It was a warm summer day. There was a knock at the front door of the flat in Tufnell Park, although Daisy was not expecting any visitors. Besides, most of her visitors just entered and called “Hello!” The door was never locked when Daisy was at home. So it was with a certain trepidation that she put on her dark glasses, walked over and opened the door, then discreetly sniffed the air for any familiar smells. There was definitely a man standing in front of her. Hesitantly Daisy said, “Cedric? Is that you?”
“You’ve got it in one!”
As Daisy stood frozen on the spot, her eyebrows raised high, Cedric asked, “May I come in? I have a little present for you…”
“Oh, sorry! Of course, do come in… You’re the last person I was expecting, that’s all…”
“Well, that’s always nice to hear…”
“Take a seat… Can I get you something? You have a present for me?”
“Yes, a present, and a message…”
Presently Cedric pushed a little package into Daisy’s hands. Then he sat down and watched Daisy unwrap it, still standing in the middle of the room. She unpacked a little cardboard box, opened it, and retrieved a little car. “A Dinky Toys car!” she exclaimed. “How on earth did you know that I love Dinky Toys?”
“Well, I didn’t, actually… but you’ll find out in a moment why I’m giving this to you.”
“A sports car, how lovely!”
“Yes, the famous Morgan soft top two-seater…”
“Lovely, thank you. Would you like a beer? With this weather I like to drink a beer from time to time.”
“Oh, yes, wonderful!”
While Daisy went to fetch two bottles from the fridge in the kitchen, Cedric took a good look around him in the front room of the flat. Then he called over to Daisy, “This place is almost empty; very Spartan!”
As Daisy returned from the kitchen she said, “Yes, that’s probably because I’m blind. Why would you hang pictures on the walls if you cannot see them; why put rugs on the floor if it is only to trip over them; and why would you have many little pieces of furniture like most people seem to prefer, if it’s only to bump into them?”
“Rational and well organized: that’s our Daisy.”
“Yes, and note how hollow the place sounds: I can practically hear the presence of the walls and aim straight for the doors! This may look like a poky little flat to you, Cedric, but it’s the only place in the world where I’m completely at ease!”
“I see! Strange that I’ve never been here before, though, not even in Ralph’s days…”
“Well, that’s not so surprising, when you think how busy we all were with the war at the time.”
“That’s right… but I feel a bit ashamed that I didn’t visit sooner after the war.”
“Oh well, I suppose that by then we were all very busy picking up our own lives again… or what was left of them, at any rate.”
“Yes, quite…”
They both sat in silence for a while and sipped from their beers. At length Daisy asked, “You said that you had a message for me?”
“Yes, indeed I have. It would sound something like this: dear Daisy, darling Daisy—depending for whom I’m speaking—, it’s been exactly ten years since you came to Bottomleigh House and made our acquaintance for the very first time… That’s why we would like to invite you to stay with us at the House again this summer, for a week or a couple of weeks. Let us renew our acquaintance and celebrate our old friendship. Signed: Margaret, Beatrice, Joan, William and yours truly.”
“That sounds enticing… but are you certain that the others are aware of the fact that they are inviting me? I still meet up with Beatrice regularly, you know, and she told me nothing of this…”
“No, and she wasn’t supposed to, but… Well, let me put it this way: it was my idea, yes, but the others are definitely coming, and they would be very disappointed indeed if you were not there. As a matter of fact, our little reunion wouldn’t make much sense without you…”
“Hmm… Fair enough. But you do realise I have a job…”
“Yes, I heard about that from Beatrice. You’re a ‘physical therapist’ now… But surely you don’t really need to work, I mean, Ralph left you well provided for and you have a war-widow-allowance?”
“Well, yes, but it is my pride and joy to be a working girl… At any rate, I’ll have to ask for a leave of absence at the practice before I can accept your invitation.”
“But surely they give you holidays, and it should not be a problem to take them in August… You see, I was planning to take you along with me to Bottomleigh House right now!”
“Oh, you mean: ‘Dear Daisy, just pack your suitcase and come with me at once’?”
“Yes, precisely. You could telephone the practice from the House tomorrow morning to make the necessary arrangements. I’m sure it must be very quiet at the moment and that there should be no problem…”
“My dear Cedric, you’re making an awful lot of assumptions… But you’re lucky: there is very little to do at the practice right now, and I was just starting to feel rather bored by London in the August heat…”
“Capital! Go and pack your bag, then. Tell me if I can do anything to help…”
Half an hour later they came out of the block of flats and stepped on to the pavement, Cedric carrying Daisy’s bag and she holding his arm. At the curb right in front of the building, a sports car was parked. Cedric explained, “I told you there was a reason why I gave you the Dinky Toys model. Well here it is: I’m taking you for a drive in the original, a Morgan sports car, rather low to the ground and not very roomy, as you will find out.”
Indeed Daisy had to grope her way into the thing after Cedric had led her to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She lowered herself into a narrow and low-slung seat, and then she felt around her and sniffed the odour of brand-new, sun-baked upholstery. “What a good idea to offer me that miniature model, Cedric. Now at least I have an idea of what I’m sitting in…”
“Yes, and you’ll find that there’s nothing more pleasant than driving around in an open two-seater with the roof down on a hot day like this. That’s why I recommended that you put on a headscarf.”
Taking his place behind the wheel and turning the ignition key, Cedric made the engine roar, and they drove off. It took some time to drive through London, and he kept up an agreeable chatter during their ride: a running commentary on the monuments and the sights of the city centre as they drove past them. Daisy didn’t say much. Then they reached the open countryside and speeded along the highway towards West Sussex. Over the noise of the engine and the wind in their ears Cedric cried, “How do you like it, Daisy? Driving in the countryside in an open car?”
“Very nice! Almost as exciting as riding a bicycle, and as noisy as flying on a bomber! What’s the idea with the sports car, anyway? It’s brand new, isn’t it?”
“Yes! Well, I’ve entered a new phase of my life, you know! So I felt like trying something different!”
“What’s with the new phase? Are you getting married or something?”
“No, no. It’s just, now that Ralph’s father has passed away, I have become the Earl of Haverford and all that… you know?”
“Oh! I wasn’t aware of that. So you became the heir to the title after Ralph died?”
“That’s right! Didn’t you know?”
“I wasn’t quite aware of it, no. So in fact you’ve invited me to your house?”
“That’s right! I’m the new master of Bottomleigh House, of course…”
“How strange: when Ralph was murdered, I racked my brains to find out who on earth could have a motive to kill him. And all the while the simple answer to that mystery was just staring in my face: the heir to his title! You, Cedric…”
“Dear God, Daisy, what a nasty thing to say! I mean, it is true, of course, but does that make me a suspect. I was in Egypt at the time of Ralph’s death, remember?”
“Yes, yes. Of course. I was only reflecting, that’s all…”
“And I helped you to get that inquest started, remember?”
“I know, I know. I’m being unfair, but you must forgive me… I’m in a rotten mood because I’m being periodically unwell. I’ll try to put a zip-fastener on my lips…”
“Please… You do that!”
That evening at Bottomleigh House all six of them were sitting around the dining table, a much smaller table than in the old days. Cedric and William were wearing white ties; the ladies their formal evening dresses; Daisy looking quite lovely in the little black thing she had worn just once ten years ago, and which Cedric had asked her to take along when she was packing her bag. The host looked around the table approvingly and said, “Many things have changed since before the war…”
“You mean apart from the fact that we’re wearing formal attire to dinner on a hot August night?”
“Yes, Cookie, if you’ll just let me finish my sentence… I wanted to say that we no longer have any live-in staff at the House. As you can see, we are being served by the kitchen maid, with a little help from Cook… Everything very easy-going and informal, nowadays.”
“Except for your own starched shirt-front, of course!”
“Cookie has a point, Cedric. Why the formal attire all of a sudden, if everything is supposed to be so easy-going?”
“Well, my dear Joan, I guess I need to compensate one thing by another. I’m trying to strike a balance, so to speak.”
“Speaking of which,” Daisy said, “let’s have a little survey of what has become of us all… Cedric we know, but how about you, Cookie… At the funeral I heard that you were living in America, and therefore you couldn’t make it?”
“That’s right, darling. I really regretted that I couldn’t be there. I adored old Prendergast!”
Joan remarked, “We seem to meet up mainly at funerals, lately…”
“That’s right,” Cedric said. “And wouldn’t it be a bit sad if we actually lapsed into one of those setups where you only see one another when someone dies… or gets married?”
Daisy said, “So, Cookie, you married an American?”
“Yes, juste retour des choses, isn’t it? I met Mort in London in 1944, while he was working on Eisenhower’s staff. He’s a businessman now… It was love at first sight and all that: he doesn’t mind my bubbly personality, he’s even noisier than I am! We’re a very American couple in that way… Though there is a funny twist to my story: for you lot I was always that uncouth half-American, but for all my new friends in Saint Louis, Missouri, I am the epitome of British sophistication!”
Everybody around the table had to laugh at that. Cedric said that Cookie’s current visit to Britain was precisely the reason why the reunion had to take place now. In the meantime he kept pouring an excellent French wine into their glasses; that was another difference with ten years ago, when they had only been allowed water. Now Daisy asked William to tell what he was up to these days.
“I work at Manchester University; I’m one of the engineers on Alan Turing’s computer project there. I worked with Turing during the war, of course, but I’m not allowed to tell…”
“Well, we already know that you lived at Bletchley Park and worked on an electric brain,” Beatrice remarked.
“Good Lord! You lot are horrible! These are state secrets!”
“Come on, there are no state secrets at this table tonight. Tell us exactly what this hush-hush war project was…”
“Well, all right, but promise not to tell any further, I had to sign an oath of secrecy, you know… In short, we managed to crack the most secret German code, with a little help from a special computer, of course. And in the end we could read German encryption like an open book and the enemy couldn’t keep any information hidden from us…”
“Well done!”
“Capital!”
“Britannia rules the waves!” they all cried jokingly. Cedric poured some more wine.
“Tell me, William,” Daisy asked. “This computer you’re working on, is it similar to what bomb-aimers used during the bombing campaign?”
“Oh no, my dear, not at all. A bomber computor is just an optical instrument that corrects its viewing angle according to the altitude and speed of the aircraft, so that the aimer can anticipate where his bombs will hit the ground…”
“And wind shear, don’t forget wind shear…”
“Of course! At any rate, what we are creating with Turing is entirely different. It’s an electric brain, like Beatrice said, which means it not only can calculate at high speed, but it can remember the figures, retrieve them at will and work on them according to instructions that are also stored in its memory… Anyway, I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, or if you see the point of it, but I can assure you that it is a very exciting development. Alan Turing is a genius…”
“Never heard of him,” Cookie interjected. “Is there any business potential in this thing?”
“I wouldn’t know, but I think so, in the long run, yes.”
“Am I allowed to tell my husband about it?”
“Oh yes. We publish our results: no secrets there…”
Presently Cedric said, “Shall we have some brandy? I’ll ask the kitchen maid to bring the snifters…”
“Does this kitchen maid have a name?” Daisy asked.
“Mary, I believe. Why do you ask?”
“It used to be a tradition of this house to treat the servants like human beings… Remember how nice it was, when we performed our little sketch ten years ago, and the whole staff was there, and they laughed and applauded as enthusiastically as the masters and the guests…”
“Yes, take a snifter, Daisy, let us raise a toast to ‘Murder of a corpse’… To the corpse!”
“To the corpse!” they all cried, even Daisy, though she found it rather in bad taste.
“Now we must hear from Joan and Beatrice what has become of them. Of course I already know about Beatrice myself, but Bee, you must tell us in your own words…”
“There’s not much to tell, really. I’m not married, still living at home, waiting for Mister Right to come along and sweep me off my feet…”
“Oh come on, Bee, you’re being too modest. You’re awfully busy with different charities, one of which being to help a certain blind girl with all her mail and administrative chores. Beatrice has a good head for legal and financial matters… And then we have Joan left?”
“I’m living in Oxford now and I’m married to a don. I believe I’m the only one who has a baby…”
“Congratulations!” they cried. “We didn’t know!”
“To the baby!” Cedric toasted.
Cookie remarked, “I bet that you could tell us an awful lot of juicy gossip about the goings-on at your hubby’s college, couldn’t you?”
“Maybe, but I’m no longer much interested, you know. I’ve settled, rather…”
“Hard to believe!”
Then Beatrice said, “And what about you, Daisy? Tell the others about your professional activity…”
“Well, I do believe that I’m the only working girl here. I’m a physical therapist and I work two and a half days a week at a group practice near St. Mary’s Hospital. That’s all…”
“Now it’s you being too modest: you could tell us some gruesome stories about your work…”
“Yes, but I’d rather not even start on that, I could keep going forever… No, I’d rather conclude on a positive note: I think I have a wonderful job. Sometimes we get people who are in great pain, and often their doctors have no idea what to do about it. And when it turns out that we can actually heal them, that’s always very gratifying…”
“And I’m very grateful to you that you’re willing to take a few days off, dear Daisy. Remember that beer we had this afternoon? It seems a long while ago, already; we’ve had a lovely evening; I’ve had a bit too much to drink, and I think we should all go to bed… See you at breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Cedric. Let’s all go bicycling tomorrow.”
And for old times’ sake, that’s what they did. Daisy was delighted. “I haven’t bicycled since the summer of forty-one, with Ralph. I haven’t been able to do it since then: in London it’s out of the question…”
“I’ll never forget that first time,” Cedric said, “suddenly you were chasing after Ralph at breakneck speed, shouting ‘Tally-ho!’… We were mightily impressed!”
“Well, that’s another thing that has changed. Ten years ago I was in very good shape because we did a lot of sports at school. But once you’ve left school, how much sports do you do? I try to do some gymnastics regularly, on the equipment we have at the group practice, but that’s all…”
“In the RAF, at basic training, they made us run and march endlessly with heavy packs; tried to toughen us up… Does that sound familiar, William?”
“Not at all. In my case they skipped all that; I was a soldier in name only…”
“Lucky you!”
“That reminds me, Daisy: last night you seemed to know an awful lot of technical stuff about the bombing trade. I was impressed. Did you get that from Ralph?”
“No. Ralph told me a lot about his work, but he never bored me with technical details… But the thing is, I was taken along to Berlin on D for Daisy once… That’s where I learned those details about bomb aiming. Believe me, dropping those bombs was the most gruesome experience of an operation that already had plenty of that!”
“Daisy! You flew to Berlin!” they cried. “Now we’re truly impressed!”
“How could you?” Joan asked. “I would never have dared! Weren’t you awfully afraid?”
“Of course I was! Right at the beginning I broke a couple of fingernails gripping the armrests of my collapsible seat, and that was only while we were taxiing to our starting position. When those aero-engines went roaring for take-off, I can tell you that I was shaking like a leaf!”
“But why did you do it? Had Ralph insisted?”
“No! I wasn’t with Ralph: he would never have been allowed to take me with him… No, it was after Ralph was murdered, when Cedric managed to get me permission to visit Ralph’s station.”
“Were you suicidal, or something?” Cookie wanted to know.
“No, I took a calculated risk on a fact-finding mission.”
“Do you still believe that Ralph was murdered?”
“You made a huge impression when you spoke up at Ralph’s funeral and announced that he’d been poisoned…”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry about that, but I really had no choice…”
“And then, only a few months later, our parents and uncles and aunts told us that the results of the inquest had been published, and that it turned out that it was only an accident…”
“They told us: you see, poor Daisy was just being delusional!”
“We didn’t necessarily believe them, of course.”
“Well, that inquest was a complete sham, I can assure you. Ralph was murdered all right: my own investigation only confirmed that…”
“What did you find out?”
“Well, for one thing, a witness saw a suspicious person snooping around at the station only hours after Ralph’s death. He was an RAF Group Captain, possibly an ADC to a very high ranking member of the General Air Staff…”
“Good Lord! And did you report that to the police?”
“Absolutely! But they were not interested. Believe me, I met this Chief Inspector Cockett three times. He’s the man who actually wrote the report for the inquest. I spoke with him at length. He is a very clever and lazy man, who knows exactly what his superiors want to hear. And they certainly don’t want to hear that someone quite high within the RAF hierarchy might have murdered such a distinguished and gallant scion of England’s landed gentry…”
“You mean Ralph…”
“Of course!”
“It’s funny,” Beatrice remarked. “At Ralph’s funeral, you, Cedric, were wearing the stripes of a Group Captain, weren’t you?”
“That’s right, and I was indeed an ADC to a high ranking member of the General Air Staff in North Africa. So wha