Rattle His Bones by Carola Dunn

Tring was round the desk in a flash, his hand on her shoulder. “Here, put your head down on your knees. Ross, quick, pour a drop of whatever it is Sir Sidney keeps in that decanter. That’s the ticket. Take a good swallow, Miss Dalrymple.”
    Head whirling, Daisy only half heard him. Expecting water, she gulped whisky. It hit the back of her throat like a lighted squib. As she choked and spluttered, tears pouring down her face, a comforting warmth spread through her middle. At least it had settled her stomach.
    Tring thrust a handkerchief into her hand. “Here, it’s a clean one. The missus sent me out with half a dozen. Feeling better?”
    â€œYes, thank you,” Daisy croaked, mopping her eyes. “I think so. Gosh!”
    â€œCad you … Half a tick.” He found another hankie and trumpeted into it. “Can you go on? You sent Dr. Smith Woodward for the police?”

    â€œIt sounds frightfully pushy, put like that, but I suppose I did. Mrs. Ditchley turned up first, though. You’ve seen her.”
    â€œI want it in your words, please. You know the Chief’s methods.”
    Tears pricked at Daisy’s eyelids. How she wished for Alec’s comforting presence, even if he was angry with her. But Tom Tring, dear Tom Tring, was now enveloped in a rosy haze, like a mammoth cherub. He needed her help. Blinking away the tears, she suppressed a giggle and tried to concentrate.
    â€œMrs. Ditchley,” prompted the mustachioed cherub.
    Daisy told him about Mrs. Ditchley’s failure to find a pulse, her return to her grandchildren, and the dinosaur commissionaire’s subsequent arrival on the scene. At that point she got Wilf Atkins’s name hopelessly muddled, and she could not pronounce “Pareiasaurus” to save her life, though by articulating with extreme care she managed to substitute “skeleton.”
    â€œWolf Catkins—you know who I mean—said Mr. Flummery would have forty fits when he saw the smashed ske-le-ton. He did. He threatened to kill Pet-ti-grew, but he was too late.”
    â€œYes,” said the cherub, his face wavering in and out of her vision, “so Sergeant Jameson says. I think the rest of your statement had better wait till morning, Miss Dalrymple.”
    â€œSorry. Seem to be fearfully tired all of a sudden.” Daisy’s eyes closed of their own volition, and she couldn’t get them to open again.
    Distantly, she heard the constable’s incredulous voice: “Sozzled?”
    â€œA whacking slug of whisky on an empty stomach,” Tring rumbled. “Our Miss Dalrymple’s not one of these cocktail-bibbing
Bright Young Things, you know. I can’t escort her home now. Help me move the chair over into that corner.”
    Briefly Daisy flew through the air. An overcoat was tucked around her, and she slept.
    Â 
    When she awoke, Daisy was sure she had not been dead to the world for more than a few minutes. She was still slouched in a leather armchair with a coat draped over her. No headache, thank heaven, but she felt decidedly lethargic.
    It was not only lassitude that kept her immobile, her eyes closed. If Detective Sergeant Tring knew she was awake, he might think he ought to send her from the room. With Tom Tring in charge of the case, she abandoned her attempt to curb her curiosity.
    Mummery’s strident outcry had roused her. (Had she dreamt it, or had she really referred to him as Flummery? Too shaming! She only hoped she could rely on Tring not to tell Alec she had been tiddly, and to silence Ross.) After that brief explosion, Mummery was now explaining, using a great many lengthy scientific terms, what he had been doing in the General Library after working hours. Come to think of it, Flummery suited him rather well. He sounded as if he was taking malicious delight in befuddling the poor uneducated coppers. Daisy wondered how the note-taking Ross was coping.
    Tom Tring was unruffled.