Chapter 16

Rescue camein the form of Wilkins and the Crossley, and the reinforcements from the village. Sammy dismissed us so he could go and give his minions orders, and I turned to Christopher. "Walk with me."

He nodded. "Excuse us."

"Of course, dear." Aunt Roz waved us off. We ducked out into the foyer and then through the front door and into the fresh air.

"Where do you want to walk to?" Christopher wanted to know when we were outside in the sunshine and warm July breezes. The sun was up now, and it was turning into a nice day. Excepting the dead body on the lawn, of course, and the constables crawling all over everything, and the suspicion that was attached to the family in general.

I shook my head, feeling a combination of hysteria and helplessness creep into my head and my voice. "Nowhere. There's nowhere to go. We're stuck here, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Somebody murdered someone on the lawn, and I don't know who or why!"

"It's not your job to figure out who or why," Christopher pointed out as we approached the intersection between front door path and driveway. The Duke's black Crossley was yet again parked beside the other cars outside the carriage house. "This way."

He turned me in the other direction, down the driveway towards the lane, away from where there were likely to be other people.

"I know it's not my job to figure it out," I told him. "But do you really trust Sammy Entwistle to do it? He'll arrest Francis just for old times' sake! He made it clear in there that he suspects him. We always thought he would, but that made it clear."

"He can't do that," Christopher said, although there wasn't any kind of conviction in his voice. Not much of anything else, either. He must feel as overwhelmed and helpless as I did. "Francis has an alibi. Besides, Tom's coming."

"You hope Tom's coming. But even if he does, as long as Sammy's in charge, there's nothing Tom can do."

"He's from Scotland Yard!" Christopher said. "Sammy would listen to him, don't you think?"

"Knowing Sammy—" Not that I did, "I doubt he'd listen to anyone or anything he didn't personally want to believe. And the thing is, what he believes makes sense, Christopher! Abigail went to Sutherland House and met Crispin. Then she came to the Essex House, and I told her you look just like him. If she knew Crispin wasn't who she was looking for, at that point she would have known that you weren't, either."

Christopher nodded. "I'm not who she was looking for. We both know that."

Of course. "Then she came here. If the old Duke of Sutherland had three grandsons, and it wasn't you or Crispin who got her with child, Francis is the only one left."

"But even if he did," Christopher protested, "and I'm not saying he did, but if he did… he still couldn't have killed her. Constance aside, we both saw him when he came home last night, and he wasn't in any kind of condition to get up and walk out and fetch a croquet mallet and bash anyone over the head."

No, he hadn't been. "You don't suppose he could have been feigning, do you?"

He gave me a look. "Affecting being drunk? To what purpose? He couldn't have known she'd show up, could he? She was still unconscious when we took her to the village. They didn't have a chance to set up an assignation for later."

"Francis was in the village last night, too," I pointed out, kicking at pebbles in my path. "He might have stopped by the infirmary. And if she was awake, they could have arranged to meet at Beckwith Place later. She'd want her baby back, so it wouldn't be difficult to convince her to come here."

Christopher looked reluctant, but he admitted, "I suppose it's possible. Although even if he did set up a meeting, it makes no sense that he'd go to the carriage house for the mallet. There are weapons closer to hand."

I supposed that was true. There were fireplace pokers in the library and rolling pins in the kitchen and golf clubs in the boot room. No need for anyone to go to the carriage house for a croquet mallet.

"Besides," Christopher added, "if it was premeditated, why would he—why would anyone—kill her on our own lawn with our own croquet mallet? None of that makes sense."

No, it didn't. Anyone who was thinking straight and had planned the crime would have killed her in the village without bringing her back to where we—where he—lived.

The only problem with that, of course, was that Francis hadn't been thinking straight last night. I doubted he had been able to think at all, as soused as he'd been.

But it was still unlikely that he could have made it out of the library and onto the lawn to kill her. Not without alerting Constance, and surely Constance would have stopped him had she realized what he was doing.

"So we're back to where we started," Christopher said, kicking out viciously at a particularly offending pebble. "Even if Francis got her with child—and that's a big if, because he says he didn't—he couldn't have killed her."

"That's how it looks to me," I agreed. "The way I see it, we have two issues here. Someone got her with child, someone who said he was the grandson of the Duke of Sutherland, and someone killed her. That could be the same person, or two different ones."

"You mean, if Francis got Abigail with child, Constance might have killed her, because she was afraid Francis would have to marry Abigail instead of herself."

It didn't sound like a question, but I nodded anyway. "Or Crispin got Abigail with child, and Laetitia murdered her. Or Uncle Harold did, because he didn't want Crispin to have to acknowledge Bess. They both had their own rooms—Uncle Harold and Laetitia, I mean—so they could have come downstairs without anyone noticing. And Constance could easily have gone outside. She was close to the back door, and Francis isn't likely to have noticed."

"No," Christopher agreed. "By that measure—opportunity—it would have to be one of those three, or Geoffrey."

"Or me," I said.

"You had no reason to want her dead."

"I had a better reason than Geoffrey. I don't think he loves his sister quite enough to commit murder for her, do you? Or is invested in her marriage to St George enough for that?"

He didn't answer, and I added, "I'm a different story. I would commit murder for you, and I'm sure Sammy knows it. We live together, and some people think we're living in sin. You could have gotten her with child, and if you had, I might have wanted her gone."

Christopher scoffed, and I added, "Or you and I do not live in sin, but I'm in love with St George—eeurgh! Just saying that makes my mouth pucker—so I killed her out of jealousy. Sammy perks up every time Crispin calls me Darling, as if he thinks it means something. Although honestly, if I were in love with St George—eeurgh!—I'd be more likely to go after Laetitia, honestly."

"No, you wouldn't," Christopher said. "You said it yourself, he's not in love with Laetitia. There's no need to worry about her."

"He seems willing to marry her, even so. If I'm in love with him—eeurgh!—I wouldn't want that to happen."

He slanted me a look. "You said he wasn't."

"Two months ago, he made it clear he wasn't. But he's not doing much to avoid it right now, so he must have changed his mind."

"Maybe he doesn't realize what she's planning?"

"He'd have to be stupid not to," I said crossly, since I don't like to admit it, "and he's not."

We walked in silence for a moment, until Christopher said, "Perhaps he thinks he made himself clear and she won't try again."

I shrugged. "Perhaps. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I just hope he won't end up doing something he regrets later. Once she gets that ring on her finger, she'll never let him go."

We had reached the end of the driveway now, and peered left and right up and down the lane. It was empty, of motorcars, horse-drawn carriages, and pedestrians.

"I suppose we'd better turn around," Christopher said. "We don't want Sammy to think that we're trying to escape."

"Definitely not." I turned my back on the lane and looked at the house. "Do you miss living here?"

"I miss Mum and Dad," Christopher said as we started back up the driveway. "But I'm happy that we get to live our own lives in our own space."

"If you ever find someone you'd like to live in sin with…"

He wouldn't be able to marry whoever he found, after all. Not unless his tastes changed, and I didn't think that was likely. Or unless the laws changed, but that was perhaps even more unlikely.

He squeezed my arm. "We'll figure it out. You're more likely than I am to find someone to be with, anyway."

"Not at the rate I'm going," I said, disgruntled. "Every man I've met lately has had something wrong with him. Geoffrey Marsden's a womanizer. Freddie Montrose is dead. Ronnie Blanton's a dope addict. Dominic Rivers is a dope merchant. Graham Ogilvie is queer. Nigel Hutchison?—"

"You know, Pippa," Christopher cut in, "there's always?—"

"If you say St George, I shall pummel you."

"I was going to say Sammy, actually."

My face twisted. "That's even worse. Could you imagine the family dinners? Francis and Constance, Crispin and Laetitia, and me and Sammy? Good Lord, we wouldn't make it through the soup course before there was bloodshed!"

"I'd pay money to see that," Christopher said with a wistful sigh, before he added, "don't worry though, Pippa. I'd never let you marry Sammy. Nor would Francis or Crispin."

"Nor would I," I said. "I already told you, Christopher. If we're not married by thirty, we're marrying each other."

"I'm not worried," Christopher said, as we turned the bend in the lane and the carriage house came back into view. "What do you say we go back to the lawn and see what's happening? The worst Sammy can do is send us back inside."

I nodded, and we meandered in that direction.

There was a motorcar parked beside the bushes, that must belong to the mortuary, and there was the sound of rattling and clanging from inside the carriage house. Some flatfooted constable trampling all over the evidence, no doubt. I rolled my eyes, but didn't say anything. What was the point of grousing to Christopher, after all? There was nothing he could do about it, either.

"Here they come," he said softly, and I pulled my attention away from the carriage house and towards the motorcar in time to see two men emerge from the bushes, at each end of a stretcher. The body was covered by a sheet, I was happy to see. It was about time that someone afforded Abigail Dole that final dignity.

Doctor White came out from the bushes behind them, and he was the one who opened the back doors of the motorcar so they could slide the stretcher and its burden inside. That done, they closed the doors again, and exchanged a few words we couldn't hear, before the driver and his helper, both dressed in black with bowler hats, got into the car and backed down the driveway past us.

Christopher and I moved aside to let them pass, and then waited for Doctor White to approach.

"Doctor," I said politely.

He shook his head, and pulled a gigantic handkerchief out of his pocket, and used it to mop his forehead. "Dreadful state of affairs. Dreadful."

"What happened?" I asked.

He peered at me. "We don't chain people to their beds, you know. If there are children, one of us stays in the infirmary overnight, in case there's a need. But she was an adult, and there was nothing wrong with her, nothing that a good night's sleep couldn't cure. So we went to bed and let her sleep."

"Of course." No point in losing sleep over someone who for all intents and purposes was perfectly healthy, after all.

"I thought she'd still be there in the morning," Doctor White said. "But by the time my wife got down to the infirmary, the young lady was gone." He clicked his tongue. "Nothing wrong with that. She wasn't a prisoner. She could leave when she wanted. But this…" He dragged the handkerchief across his brow again, shaking his head, "this is dreadful."

"It certainly wasn't your fault," I assured him. "As you said, she wasn't a prisoner. She could leave when she wanted to."

He nodded, but vacantly, as if the reassurance didn't matter in the least.

I paused for a polite moment before I asked, "She didn't wake up at any point, did she? Or say anything to anyone?"

The doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not. She slipped from unconsciousness into sleep without waking up. There was a moment, when we jostled her into the car yesterday afternoon, that I thought she might be coming to?—"

Christopher nodded.

"—but nothing happened. We put her to bed and she stayed there, never saying a word."

"That's too bad," I said. "We thought she must have woken up in the night and realized that the baby wasn't there. And so she came here to find her."

Doctor White nodded. "As like as not, young lady. As like as not."

"And then someone found her instead. And whacked her with a croquet mallet."

Doctor White shook his head. "Not a croquet mallet."

Not a…?

"What do you mean, not a croquet mallet? It was next to her on the grass! It had…" I gulped, "it had blood and… and hair on it."

"That's as may be," Doctor White said primly, "but the mallet wasn't what killed her."

Christopher blinked. "You mean, someone hit her with something else first, and then hit her with the mallet?"

But Doctor White was shaking his head again. "Nobody hit her with the croquet mallet."

"But the…" He glanced at me, "the blood, and the other matter…?"

Urk. There was that word I hadn't wanted to think, let alone say. I could feel the blood drain out of my head, leaving me dizzy.

"Catch her, young man," Doctor White's voice said, from farther away than it should have been, "before she falls down. You really ought to know better than that."

"Sorry." I felt Christopher's hand under my elbow. "Come along, Pippa. Over in the shade. This way." I heard one of the motorcar doors open, and then he nudged me onto a seat. "There we are. Deep breaths."

"Sorry," I said, keeping my head down and my eyes closed. "I'm not usually so feeble. It was just that word…"

Plus the fact that a month ago, I had driven around London with the head of a dead man in my lap, wrapped in a towel. There had been blood and brain matter then too. This brought back bad memories.

"Hmph." Doctor White cleared his throat with irritation. "You wouldn't have lasted a week on the ward during the war, young lady. Amputated limbs and infected wounds and maggots…"

No, I wouldn't have, and I didn't want to hear about it now. My stomach flopped over in an unpleasant manner.

"Carry on," I told him—told them both—with a flip of my hand. Perhaps moving on with the conversation would help. "You were saying that the mallet wasn't the murder weapon?"

The doctor harrumphed again, but said, "No. She was hit with something else first."

Something else? "What?"

I admit it, I had visions of fireplace pokers and rolling pins and golf clubs flitting through my head. All the things we had talked about just a few minutes ago, that had been readily available to anyone who wanted to commit murder.

"Something with a smaller circumference, likely metal," Doctor White said. "There were specks of rust in her hair."

So not just metal, but rusty metal.

That would explain why someone was rustling around in the carriage house, anyway. There were sure to be plenty of metals in there, rusty and otherwise. The entire building is a lock-jaw accident waiting to happen.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Christopher objected. "Why would someone hit her with something else, and then go get the mallet and hit her with that, only to leave the first thing lying around in the carriage house?"

"Who said anything about the carriage house?" Doctor White wanted to know. "And she wasn't hit with the mallet. I thought I made that clear. She was hit with something else, and then someone fetched the mallet."

"But didn't hit her with it? How did the blood and… um…" Christopher glanced at me.

"You can say it," I told him grumpily. "By now, that's hardly the most disturbing thing about this situation. Someone hit her with something else, then went and fetched the mallet, and rubbed the head of the mallet in the wound, so it would look as if she was hit with the mallet?"

"In a word," Doctor White answered. He seemed pleased, either because I'd figured it out or because I wasn't fainting after articulating it all.

"But that's barbaric," Christopher said, and the doctor turned to him.

"Less barbaric than hitting the dead corpse with the mallet a second time, I would say. Although I'll readily admit that none of it is pleasant."

No, it absolutely was not. And furthermore, it was well-nigh unbelievable. I couldn't imagine any of us doing something like that. The idea of Constance or Laetitia first wielding the classic blunt instrument—and in rusty metal; where would either of them have got their hands on rusty metal? It's not like we keep our fireplace pokers or kitchen utensils rusty.

But all right, so we had Constance or Laetitia bashing poor Abigail over the head with a rusty, blunt instrument, and then, not being satisfied with that action, running into the carriage house, fetching one of the croquet mallets, dipping it into the blood and brain matter on the back of her head—I gagged—and throwing it on the grass to make it look like the murder weapon, before gathering up the original blunt instrument and restoring it to whence it had come, presumably to divert suspicion from herself.

If that was the case, the real murder weapon must be something that could implicate whoever had used it. Otherwise, why not just leave it on the lawn?

Of course, it might have been as simple as fear that the rusty poker contained the murderer's fingerprints, but if it truly was as rusty as all that, it didn't seem likely that it would. And besides, why not just take it away without substituting the mallet? And if he, or she, could keep his or her fingerprints off the mallet, why not keep them off the original weapon, as well?

"Better now?" Christopher asked me. He must have noticed that I had slipped from nauseated silence into the quiet of contemplation.

I nodded. "Much, thank you. I suppose all we have to do now is find the rusty poker—or whatever it is—and it'll lead us straight to the guilty party."

"I'm sure Sammy is trying to do exactly that," Christopher said, and turned to the doctor. "What can we do for you, Doctor White? Do you want to go back to the village? You'll have to do the post mortem on the body, I assume, even if it's already obvious what caused her death."

Doctor White nodded. "Yes, my boy. For the inquest, you know. Best to have all the details figured out and sound like I know what I'm testifying about."

"Would you like us to take you to the village?" I asked. It would be an opportunity to look around. An opportunity to get away from Beckwith Place for a few minutes, too, with an excuse that Sammy couldn't use to haul us off to jail. "Or do you want to go inside and see Aunt Roz and the baby, and maybe get a cuppa before you head back?"

Doctor White looked like he might have been tempted, but he shook his head. "My wife's waiting. And so is the body. I'd better get to work."

"I'll find Wilkins." Christopher glanced around. The Duke's Crossley was definitely still parked in front of the carriage house, so Wilkins must be somewhere on the premises.

"If Christopher can't find Wilkins, we'll take you to the village ourselves," I assured Doctor White. "We both know how to drive a motorcar, even if we don't get much practice these days. There are four thousand double decker buses in London, and the underground train we can use, not to mention all the taxis."

Doctor White nodded. "It's been a few months now, hasn't it? Do you like living in Town?"

I did like living in Town, and told him so, as I watched Christopher peer into the Crossley, which must have been empty, before he ducked into the carriage house. "Wilkins?" I heard his voice faintly. "Are you in here? Wilkins?"

"We were happy to see Francis bring Miss Constance home," Doctor White commented. "He's had a rough few years since the war. It's nice to see him finally move on."

Yes, it was. "The events of this weekend surely haven't helped. He was a wreck at Sutherland Hall, after Duke Henry and Lady Charlotte died."

"He's better now," Doctor White said. "I haven't had to prescribe any morphia for him in a few months. This may have been a small setback, but overall, he's doing much better."

"That's good. I think he became scared after Aunt Charlotte killed herself with the Veronal, you know? But then he met Constance, and I'm sure that made a big difference."

He'd been so busy making sure that she was all right after losing her mother, and making sure that Christopher was all right after being poisoned, that there hadn't been much time, or need, for any pain-numbing of his own.

"He'll be all right," Doctor White said, as Christopher came back out of the carriage house again, by himself. "In a week or two, this weekend will be a memory, too, and he'll marry Miss Constance and they'll live happily ever after."

Hopefully he was right about that. The alternative was that Sammy would find some way to arrest Francis in spite of his alibi, and that he'd find the evidence to convict him in spite of his not having had the opportunity to kill Abigail, and then there would be no marriage and no happily ever after. But it didn't seem worthwhile for me to say all that, not out loud, and besides, by then Christopher had reached us.

So what I said instead was, "No Wilkins?"

Christopher shook his head. "He must be inside with Uncle Harold. Or perhaps on the lawn with Sammy. Or somewhere else. But he isn't here."

"I guess it's up to us, then." I eyed the row of cars. "I don't suppose the Marsdens would be very happy if we took their Daimler, although it would be great fun to drive it…"

"There's no ‘we,'" Christopher told me, sternly. "I have an alibi for last night. You do not. If you leave Beckwith Place, Sammy would have an excuse for arresting you. You're staying here."

"But it's just a trip to the village?—"

"In a borrowed car," Christopher said. "Which will not be the Daimler, by the way. And I'll spare my cousin's feelings, too, since I know how much he loves his Hispano-Suiza."

I sniggered. "He'd marry it before he'd marry Laetitia."

Christopher nodded. "Mum and Dad won't mind if I borrow the Bentley. We'll take that."

He waved the doctor to follow him down the gravel path towards the Astleys' motorcar.

"Be careful," I told him as I trailed behind. "It's been a while since you had the chance to motor anywhere…"

"I motored home from the village yesterday," Christopher said, "remember? And it was just fine. It's like riding a bicycle. You don't forget."

"I could run inside and fetch St George…"

"No," Christopher said, as he started the Bentley with a growl of the engine. "You're just looking for an excuse to get Crispin away from Laetitia. Just be honest about it. You don't need an excuse."

The doctor perched his bag on his lap and eyed me over the top of his glasses. "Like that, is it?"

"Absolutely not," I said. "I abhor St George. I just like Laetitia Marsden even less. I don't want him to marry her. But it's absolutely not like that."

"I'm perfectly capable of handling this," Christopher told me. "If anyone asks, I'll be back in half an hour."

I nodded. "Be careful, please."

He snorted. "It's a quiet country lane at nine in the morning. I'm not likely to meet another vehicle. But I'll go slow. I'm not my cousin."

"Then I'll see you when you get back," I said. "Goodbye, Doctor White. And good luck with the post mortem."

"All in a day's work," the doctor grunted. "Onwards, young man. Onwards."

He pointed, like Columbus at the Americas. Christopher let out the clutch, and the Bentley rolled off down the driveway. I waved, and waited until they had turned into the lane and were out of sight before I turned away and contemplated my next move.