Chapter 13
A Spot Of Gardening
Bertie continued on his way and arrived at the summerhouse to find Ginger waiting for him. The young man had come via the croquet lawn, checking the ha-ha for discarded weapons en route.
"That was a nifty piece of work!" opined Ginger when Bertie brought him up to date with events in the rose garden.
"Absolutely, old boy!" agreed Bertie. "The chap ought to join the Magic Circle!"
"You've no idea what it was?" questioned Ginger. "Whether it was fabric or paper?"
"It looked as though it might have been paper," said Bertie, "but I didn't really get a good look at it before the Levy-Strausses did their disappearing act on it."
Ginger sighed. "Let's hope we get some firm information soon. All these suspects and missing clues are driving me crazy."
"Well, there's only one missing clue so far, isn't there, old boy?" remarked Bertie. "The case of the disappearing fragment, you might say," he added facetiously.
"Well, I'm sure there's something I noticed before I fell down the stairs," Ginger reminded him. He wrinkled his brow. "If only I could remember. It's sort of there in the back of my mind, but I can't grasp it," he said irritably.
"Perhaps I ought to bash you on the boko again to bring it back," suggested Bertie brightly. "Sort of shock treatment, don't you know!"
Ginger treated him to a withering glance. "Just a thought, old boy," remarked Bertie. "Nobody ever likes my bright ideas."
"Well try and have a bright idea that doesn't involve pain," Ginger told him with feeling. "Did you see anything that might indicate where a weapon could be hidden?"
"Not a bally thing, old boy," admitted Bertie. "You?"
"No," confessed Ginger, shaking his head. "When you dug the bullet out of the wall, did you get an idea of where it might have been fired from?"
"From the way the branch had been cut and the direction of entry into the stone, it could have been fired from the terrace or from the shelter of those azaleas and rhododendrons by the ha-ha."
"We didn't find anything on the terrace …" began Ginger.
"That shrubbery is looking awfully attractive," murmured Bertie. "You could hide an army in there."
"That's what Clark said," remarked Ginger as they set off down the path to the rose garden, heading for the terrace once more.
At Bertie's puzzled look, Ginger recounted what the constable left outside Cliffe's door had said about the warren of stairs and corridors.
Bertie nodded. "We used to play hide and seek in them when I was a child," he reminisced. "The corridors were so cold in the winter, we used to stuff a hot water bottle down our jumpers when we had to go from room to room. Thank goodness Celia has had the heating mended."
As they passed through the rose garden, Ginger asked which bush had sported the scrap of paper. When Bertie pointed it out, Ginger went over for a closer look.
"There's nothing there, old boy," Bertie assured him. "I had a good look round."
Ginger bent down and looked at the earth beneath the bush. It had a good mulch around the roots which had recently been applied. He looked at the other bushes and saw that they, too, had a mulch, but theirs was much more settled. Curious, he scraped at the mound then knelt down as his fingers touched something firm and rectangular.
Bertie saw him stiffen. When Ginger withdrew his hand, he was holding a small oblong package, wrapped in stiff paper which had once been white. One corner of the wrapping had been torn off.
"I say!" exclaimed Bertie. "What have you got there?"
"Whatever the mystery scrap of paper came off, by the look of things," opined Ginger. He enfolded the parcel in his handkerchief and undid the wrapping, being careful not to cause any more damage to any possible fingerprints which might have survived the burial. Encased in an oiled cloth was a small block of white powder, tightly compressed. He looked at Bertie. "Is this what I think it is?" he asked.
"Well, I don't know, old boy," was Bertie's reply. "Aren't you supposed to put a bit on your finger and taste it? We'd look pretty silly if someone had buried a block of flour!" Suiting the action to the words, he dabbed his finger in the powder and tested it on the tip of his tongue. Grimacing, he confirmed their suspicions.
"Well, this is turning into a regular little maze," he remarked. "Who do you suppose planted this particular rose?"
"Circumstantial evidence points to the Levy-Strausses," replied Ginger. "I wonder if this was a sample of what Mrs Levy-Strauss needed to go to her room for so she could get through dinner." He broke off as a thought struck him. "Suppose Cliffe was dealing in the stuff and she needed a fix," he continued, speculating. "She went up to his room to get a new supply, he played hard to get – tried to up the price or made her beg for the goods - so she shot him and took the drug. Then she came down to the drawing room with her husband, he went ahead and she slipped out onto the terrace and fired the shot under my window or he had already gone on ahead and she fired the decoy shot before joining him. I think her husband would know everything she did and support her – he seems very protective. How does that hang together?"
"Sounds plausible to me, old boy," affirmed Bertie. "Only now, how do we prove it?"
"We need to find that pistol," stated Ginger. "I think that's the key to it all. If that's the way of it and she did shoot him, why did she take a gun with her? And where did she keep it? Evening dresses aren't exactly ideal for hiding weapons. What about her evening bag that she said she went to get? Where is that?"
Bertie sighed. "You know, old boy," he reflected resignedly, "the more we find out, the more questions we have to answer!"
"What concerns me is, what is she going to do when she finds her stash has disappeared? Has she got sufficient for her immediate needs and this is insurance for the future against the loss of her supplier? We shall have to keep an eye on Mrs Levy-Strauss." Ginger put the package in his pocket and looked at the darkening sky. The light had all but gone. "It's too late to look in the shrubbery now," he commented. "We'll have to leave that until tomorrow. Perhaps by then we'll have the forensic report and know more about the weapon or weapons we're looking for and Algy might have been able to find out all about Miss Goldman."
They fell into step together and made their way back to the house in the deepening gloom. The light from the unshuttered windows was spilling out onto the terrace and making the shadows created by the piers darker still by contrast. Ginger stopped in one of the areas between the shafts of light and glanced up. He drew an imaginary bead on the broken branch of the wisteria then looked into the drawing room. Sarah was making up the fire. She finished her task and left without noticing him.
Bertie watched the pantomime and observed, "could be done, old boy."
"Yes, but wouldn't the sound be noticed? We heard it quite clearly."
"You had your window open and we weren't talking at the time," Bertie pointed out. "The drawing room windows were closed. With everybody gossiping before dinner, it might not be heard."
Ginger nodded and walked on. Bertie matched strides. Together they pushed open the double doors to the entrance hall, only to stop dead in their tracks. A visitor was just handing his hat and coat to Beech.
"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed Bertie. "What are you doing here?"
"That's no way to greet someone who's driven all the way down from London with information you asked for," declared Algy, turning to greet them. "Or do you want to keep all the fun for yourself?
