Read Online A Presumption of Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh - Free Book Online Page B

drive, and escorted Harriet up to the house. Surprisingly for a house built in Hertfordshire it was of a stone, grey, ashlar under a tiled roof, a bold plain Georgian building with Victorian additions and grand bay windows along the front. Her escort led her into a large hall with an elaborate oak staircase, and into a room that had once been the drawing-room, but was now lined with filing cabinets. The man behind the half-acre desk who rose to meet her was not in uniform. Harriet’s escort introduced her as: ‘The plain-clothes police officer, sir!’ saluted, and departed, closing the door behind him.
    ‘I’m sorry to say I may be here under false pretences,’ said Harriet at once. ‘I am not a police officer. I am simply a private citizen helping the police.’ She handed Superintendent Kirk’s note across the desk.
    ‘Do sit down,’ said the officer. He read the note carefully, twice.
    ‘Well, Lady Peter,’ he said eventually, ‘this is irregular, very irregular, but then these are not normal times. I think I met your husband once. It was some years back.’
    ‘Before I met him myself, I expect,’ said Harriet.
    ‘Yes, no doubt,’ he replied. ‘My name is Baldock. I am in charge of this establishment, which is, Lady Peter, very hush-hush. I am afraid we should not have admitted you, and having done so we must limit the damage.’
    ‘There isn’t any damage so far,’ said Harriet quietly, ‘unless English domestic architecture is part of the secret.’
    ‘Fine house, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Glad you noticed. Well now, I am to understand that you need to question one of my staff. A valuable man, if somewhat temperamental. My own concern is twofold. First I must attempt to conceal from you in every way possible the nature of the work going forward here. And second I must try to protect Birdlap from any upset that might take his mind off his work.’
    ‘You need have no concern about the first of those things,’ said Harriet. ‘It is about incidents in the village of Paggleham that I wish to ask him. I need not, and will not ask him anything about his war work. You have my assurance.’
    ‘Thank you, Lady Peter.’
    ‘About your second concern, however, I cannot be so emollient. It concerns the brutal murder of a young woman with whom he is said to have been involved. I am afraid he may find it very upsetting indeed.’
    ‘I see. Does he already know of this death?’
    ‘I don’t know. He may well do. What he may not realise is that he seems to have been the last person to see her alive.’
    ‘And if I refuse your request to interview him, I shall shortly be confronted with one Superintendent Kirk bearing an arrest warrant?’
    ‘Very likely, yes.’
    Brigadier Baldock rose, walked to the window, and stood looking out of it, rocking on his heels. Then he turned to Harriet. ‘You appear to be the lesser of two evils, Lady Peter,’ he said. He rang a bell on his desk, and a uniformed sergeant appeared.
    ‘Fetch Birdlap,’ he said.
    Baldock sat down again. ‘I shall be present throughout this interview,’ he stated.
    Harriet did not demur. A silence grew in the room. She heard the clock ticking ponderously in the corner. A self-dramatising clock, making the most of ticking off the seconds.
    ‘Lord Peter must have changed a good deal since I knew him,’ the Brigadier suddenly observed.
    ‘Why do you think so?’ said Harriet, anger flickering in her heart. ‘You find me rather unexpected as his wife?’
    ‘Well, I . . . goodness me, dear lady, I didn’t mean . . .’
    ‘What you did mean, I imagine,’ said Harriet, ‘is that I have neither the beauty nor the class that you would have thought necessary to capture him. I take it that you did not know Lord Peter very well.’
    ‘It would be brains, of course,’ said the Brigadier imperturbably. ‘Brains would do it.’
    Harriet was spared the need to answer this by the arrival of Birdlap.
    He proved to be a very young, very