“Has he been sacked yet, darling?”
“I had a word with the rector before I left. Cartwright has been given notice for the end of term, and the board is considering making Vera Leighton headmistress. In the meantime, Mr. Turnbull will keep a close eye on things at the school.”
“Good.”
“Any more red herrings in that barrel, Chief?”
“Plenty. Miss Chandler, Miss Sutcliffe, and Miss Leighton for a start. Miss Sutcliffe spent the most time at the house during the buying and selling process. Miss Leighton jumped like a startled rabbit when Cartwright was mentioned and Miss Chandler displayed a pronounced aversion to Vaughn, and neither was willing to explain.”
“Those are Mrs. Fletcher’s friends,” said Mrs. Tring indignantly. “You can’t have suspected them.”
“Can’t make exceptions, ducks, you know that.”
“I didn’t suspect them much, nor for long. Naturally DI Underwood was slower to trust them, but none of them had any apparent motive. Miss Sutcliffe is a transparently forthright person, and she and Daisy together came up with the name of the hotel Mrs. Gray had intended to stay at in Paris, as well as the address of Mrs. Gray’s friends in France—”
“That’s noble of you, darling. I’ll take credit for the hotel, but you would have got the address as soon as Isabel handed over the letter.”
“True. Once we’d found out why the other two were so secretive, all three were more or less out of the picture.”
“So the young ladies,” Mrs. Tring pondered aloud, “they never had anything to do with the case?”
“Nothing but the misfortune of moving into a house with a body in the cellar.”
“And inheriting a murderous cleaning woman!” Daisy exclaimed. It might be good fortune in the end, she thought, as it had brought Mr. Underwood into Isabel’s life—but if they made a match of it, what about the other two? Life was so complicated!
“More likely,” Alec went on, “were Judith Gray’s ex-servants, and her London friends and enemies. You two found the servants for us, and I’m sorry I couldn’t give you credit.”
“Were they any use to you, Chief?”
“They were very helpful with regard to the friends and enemies, but in fact they were so many more red herrings. We never had to track down most of them because the real culprit came to light. I have to admit I never seriously considered the charwoman.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of such a case,” Tom observed. “Might have saved you a lot of trouble if the missus and I had managed to scrape up an aquaintance with Mrs. Hedger.”
“Mrs. Hedger is not the sort with whom anyone could scrape up an acquaintance. She keeps herself to herself, even now she’s in a cell. When we walked in on her at home, she was wearing Mrs. Gray’s fur coat. Even to her it was obvious she couldn’t get away with refusing to explain.”
“What was her excuse?”
“Nothing new. You’ve heard it before: It wasn’t stealing, because the owner was dead. Of course, that required an explanation of how she knew Mrs. Gray was dead. The whole story came out then. I don’t think she realised how much she was saying.”
“Ah.” Tom nodded. “That kind that don’t talk much, once they get going you never know what’ll spill out. So how did Mrs. Gray end up with a broken neck?”
“A silly squabble over a reference. She didn’t have the common courtesy to spend a minute writing one for the old woman. She tried to push past her. Mrs. Hedger didn’t care for being shoved out of the way and pushed back. Unfortunately Mrs. Gray happened to be standing on the cellar stairs at the time. The railing is not a sturdy one.”
“Ah.”
“In any other place, I’m sure nothing would have come of it beyond a bit of name-calling. Whether she was really in a hurry or just being obnoxious, we’ll never know.”
“She might have been in a hurry,” Daisy proposed, “because she wanted to evade Vaughn and avoid a row about not giving him her address. Whatever he believed, I’m sure he wasn’t part of her plans for the future, not with Sir George Gantry waiting for her in St. Tropez.”
“We’ll never know,” Alec repeated.
“One more question, darling. Did you ever find the cellar key? That’s what brought us—you—into the investigation in the first place.”
“Yes. All the house keys, including the cellar key, were in Mrs. Gray’s handbag.”
“Ah. If Mrs. H. had thrown them out and kept her mouth shut, she might have got away with a charge of theft.”
“She’s keeping her mouth shut now, when it’s too late. One question is still bothering me, one she can’t or won’t answer: Why Mrs. Gray went down to the cellar in the first place. It was empty.”
“I can guess,” said Mrs. Tring. “It’s like me checking to make sure the gas is out on the kitchen stove before I go round the shops. She was about to leave the house forever, and she went down to make sure everything was as it should be. I expect she went all over the rest of the house, too.”
“Could be,” Alec agreed, smiling. “That hadn’t dawned on me. As DI Underwood remarked, we could do with more detecting ladies on the force.”
CAROLA DUNN is the author of many previous mysteries featuring Daisy Dalrymple, including Death at Wentwater Court and Heirs of the Body, as well as numerous historical novels. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon.
Visit the author on Facebook or at caroladunn.weebly.com. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY CAROLA DUNN
THE DAISY DALRYMPLE MYSTERIES
Death at Wentwater Court
The Winter Garden Mystery
Requiem for a Mezzo
Murder on the Flying Scotsman
Damsel in Distress
Dead in the Water
Styx and Stones
Rattle His Bones
To Davy Jones Below
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
Mistletoe and Murder
Die Laughing
A Mourning Wedding
Fall of a Philanderer
Gunpowder Plot
The Bloody Tower
Black Ship
Sheer Folly
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Gone West
Heirs of the Body
CORNISH MYSTERIES
Manna From Hades
A Colourful Death
The Valley of the Shadow
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Historical Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
About the Author
Also by Carola Dunn
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SUPERFLUOUS WOMEN. Copyright © 2015 by Carola Dunn. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Cover illustration and hand-lettering © Bradley Clark Studio
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-04704-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4741-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466847415
First Edition: June 2015