Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What was that about?” I asked Christopher a few minutes later, after we had reached the lane and were ambling in the direction of the village, with Marsden Manor behind us and the Dower House, Constance’s late mother’s house, looming up ahead.

He shot me a glance. “What?”

“That look you gave each other. I thought you and I were adept at speaking telepathically, but so are you and St George.”

“He’s worried,” Christopher said.

“Well, of course he is. If I had tied myself to Laetitia Marsden for the rest of my natural life, I’d be worried, too.”

He snorted. “Not about that. About the murder.”

“It might not have been a murder.”

He glanced at me. “That isn’t the impression you’ve been giving so far.”

I shrugged, eyes on the ditch beside the road where I was trying to spot something that looked like a thistle but wasn’t. “I have no idea what happened. But there are only so many scenarios that work. Murder is one of them.”

“One,” Christopher said, “she was pregnant and didn’t want to be, so she took the pennyroyal herself to restart her flow, and it had unintended consequences.”

I nodded. “Crispin told me that he didn’t think she would do that, but he could be mistaken. She might have given him that impression deliberately, so he wouldn’t do anything to stop her, or he might have simply misread her behavior. Or he could be lying, of course.”

“He’d have no reason to lie unless he was involved,” Christopher said, “and he can’t have been. You said it yourself: if he hasn’t been with her in six months…”

“He might have lied about the six months.”

“That wouldn’t change the fact that you already knew he’d had relations with her in the past. If he did it again, it’s not as if it would change your opinion of him.”

No, of course it wouldn’t. I had known St George for the cad he was for a while now, and finding out that he had bedded Cecily Fletcher in the recent past as well as half a year ago, would have made no difference to my opinion of him whatsoever.

“That wouldn’t be why he’d lie about it, though, Christopher. He doesn’t care what I think of him. But if the baby was his…”

“It wasn’t,” Christopher said. “He would never kill the mother of his unborn child, nor do anything to harm the baby.”

“He’s engaged to Laetitia…” I began, and got a jaundiced look for my trouble.

“That’s hardly his fault, is it?”

I sniffed. “It certainly is. Although I suppose I’ll accept a small part of the blame, too.”

Christopher nodded, satisfied, and moved on. “It would be different if he had proposed to Laetitia because he loves her. But he doesn’t. Nor does he—or did he—love Cecily Fletcher. But if that baby had been his, he would have done the right thing. And I don’t think he would have cared one way or the other whether he ended up marrying Cecily or Laetitia. Laetitia Marsden isn’t important enough to him that he’d commit murder over her. Certainly not the murder of his own heir.”

“Fine,” I said. “I didn’t really think he’d done it, anyway.”

Christopher snorted. “That’s a first. You always think he’s done it.”

“Not this time. And I didn’t think he’d bashed Abigail Dole over the head back in July, either. There are limits to what I think he’s capable of.” And killing pregnant women was certainly well over that line.

“Glad to hear it,” Christopher said. “So option one is, she took the pennyroyal herself because she wanted to rid herself of the pregnancy, and she died as a result, by misfortune.”

I nodded. “Option two is that someone else gave her the pennyroyal to force a miscarriage, and it backfired and killed her.”

“That would be the father of the baby, then, I assume? Not Crispin, but someone else who didn’t want to have to settle down and marry her?”

“Something of that nature,” I agreed. “Or alternatively, someone else who wanted to prevent that from happening. I think that motive can probably be applied to several of the men present, as well as a few of the women.”

“Most of them, I would think,” Christopher nodded. “Although for many of us, it’s also not a likely scenario. For instance, I wouldn’t have wanted to marry her. But I also haven’t put myself in a situation where I’d have to.”

“No, of course not. I didn’t include you on the suspect list. Nor did I include Francis or Constance. I don’t think Francis knew of Cecily’s existence until yesterday, and if he did, it was likely only from word of mouth because Crispin had dallied with her.”

Christopher nodded. “We decided it wasn’t Crispin.”

We had. “I don’t see how it can be Wolfgang,” I said.

“We don’t know enough about Wolfgang and who he might or might not know to say for certain,” Christopher said fairly, “but I agree that it seems unlikely.”

“That leaves Rivers and the Honorable Reggie, then, along with Bilge Fortescue and the Earl of Marsden?—”

“Bah!” Christopher said.

“The Earl of Marsden, do you mean?” I sniggered. “I agree with you. I doubt he would lower himself to dally with one of his daughter’s friends. I doubt Cecily would have wanted anything to do with him if he tried. And there’s no way Lady Euphemia would have let him live if it had happened and she found out.”

Laetitia and Geoffrey’s mother was a scary woman. Lord Maurice, meanwhile, was a friendly and likeable dumpling of a man who certainly didn’t have ‘great seducer’ written anywhere in his makeup.

“You asked Dominic Rivers,” Christopher asked, “I suppose? It seems like something you would do. Ask a bloke you barely know straight out whether he’d begat an illegitimate child on a woman.”

I nodded. “Of course I did. What’s the point in being well-mannered about it?”

He didn’t answer, and I added, “Besides, the fact that I barely know him, and really don’t care what he thinks of me, makes it easier rather than harder to ask him invasive questions.”

Christopher rolled his eyes. “What did he say?

“He said he would have married her if it had been his child, but it wasn’t. And I believe him; marrying Cecily would have been marrying up, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Christopher agreed. “Probably not him, then. Unless you think he had a reason to lie?”

“I never underestimate the reasons people may have for lying. But I don’t see how that particular lie would have helped.”

“Unless it was his child and he didn’t want to marry her, so he killed her,” Christopher said.

“Yes, of course. I don’t suppose we can write him off entirely. He did spend part of the evening with her. And he did have access to the dope.”

“But you don’t think it was him.”

“I didn’t get that impression,” I said, “no.”

“The Honorable Reggie, then?”

“I don’t know anything about Reginald Fish. I’m not sure I’ve even heard his name before.”

That might indicate that he was one of the more well-behaved members of the Bright Young Set, and not inclined to get up to trouble or to talk himself into Cecily Fletcher’s bed. Then again, looks can be deceiving.

“He seemed like a nice enough chap for the few minutes that I saw him yesterday,” I added, “but I hadn’t the chance to spend much time with him.”

“At least Lady Violet kept Geoffrey busy, so you didn’t have to deal with him.”

Yes, indeed. “Now, he’s someone who?—”

“Later,” Christopher said, pointing to a stand of stalks up ahead. “Over there. Is that?—?”

I squinted. It wasn’t thistle, but it didn’t look too dissimilar, either.

“It might be.”

We made our way over, and then I waited on the road while Christopher lowered himself into the ditch and waded over to it. “Ugh. I’m getting wet.”

“Never mind that,” I told him. “You’ll be shifting into dancing shoes later.”

He flicked me a look. “I doubt there’ll be much dancing when the older generation gets here, Pippa. It’ll be a stuffy sit-down dinner under the beady eye of Uncle Harold and my parents, and Crispin’s future inlaws, and whatever eagle-eyed old ladies arrive from the Marsden side of the family. Laetitia has a grandmother, doesn’t she?”

She might have. I had a vague memory of it being mentioned at some point or another. Not by Laetitia, but by Constance, who shared her.

“I’m certain there’ll be dancing afterwards,” I said. “Or if not, at least there will be card games or some other form of entertainment. Unless it’s deemed too callous under the circumstances, I suppose.”

“I thought about ringing up Beckwith Place,” Christopher said, “and telling Mum and Dad to stay home. But nobody said anything about canceling the celebration.”

He reached a hand towards a purple-flowered stalk and I snapped out, “Don’t touch!”

“I thought I’d bring it back for Constable Collins to have a look at.”

I scowled at him. “Not without gloves, Christopher! If the plant is toxic, I don’t want you to touch it with your bare hands.”

“I’ll be careful,” Christopher said, and before I could stop him, he had ripped off a stalk with four or five pale purple flowers and oval leaves. “There.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have done that,” I grumbled, as I watched him scramble back onto the pavement. “We could have simply told Collins that they were here, and let him do his own gathering.”

“I’ll wash my hands when we get back to the house.” He shoved the stalk towards me and I leaned back, out of its way.

“I’m not touching that.”

He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to. I’m going to keep it in this hand until we get back inside, and then I’ll hand it off to Collins and visit the lav. That way, I won’t be touching you, and I won’t accidentally stick my thumb in my mouth…”

I rolled my eyes. “As if you still suck your thumb, you nitwit.”

“I don’t. But I do sometimes touch my face with my hands when I’m not thinking. I can’t imagine it would do me any good to get it in my eye, either.”

I shuddered. “No, I imagine not.”

“Look at it, though. Do you believe it’s pennyroyal?”

“It looks like what Constable Collins described,” I said, leaning in a bit and drawing in a deep breath. “And I think it definitely smells like mint.”

Christopher lifted the stalk to his own face and inhaled. “Spearmint, not peppermint.”

“Precisely.”

“I think we may have found it, then. And no more than a few minutes’ walk from the manor.”

I nodded, as we turned around and headed back towards the big, gray structure in the distance. “There are a couple of issues with this scenario, you know.”

He glanced acrss at me. “And what are those?”

“Well, if someone picked the pennyroyal out of the ditch here… by the way, do you have any idea which part of the plant one uses for tea? Is it the flowers, or the leaves, or the stalk? Or all of it?”

“I have no clue,” Christopher said and waved his free hand. “But carry on.”

“Well, whoever picked it would have needed to turn it into tea somehow. Or turn it into something that could have been mixed with the tea. I wonder if simply steeping the leaves or petals in water would be enough to do it? Would the water have to be hot, do you suppose, or would cold water from the tap be enough?”

And for that matter, would pennyroyal tea be enough to kill someone? Or would it have to be something more concentrated than that?

“A question for Collins,” Christopher said. “But what you’re saying is that if someone picked the plant here, they would have had to have the supplies and the know-how to turn it into poison.”

“Or something that works like poison, yes.”

Christopher nodded. “I could see that being an issue for someone. Especially if it came down to actually brewing the tea themselves. The guests can’t just wander into the kitchen and start using the AGA.”

No, definitely not. “But on the other hand,” I said, “if someone brought the pennyroyal liquid here already ready for use, that person must have known about the situation before coming here. It’s not likely that someone would be traveling with an abortifacient just in case they came across a pregnant woman, you know.”

“No,” Christopher admitted, “I suppose it’s not. She didn’t even look pregnant, did she?”

“Not to me. I don’t think she was more than a few months along. Not enough for it to be visible.”

“Who knew about Cecily’s condition before they arrived?”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “Not many people, it seems. We didn’t. Crispin didn’t seem to. She told him about it in her room last night, and he appeared shocked enough that I’m willing to stake money on the fact that he hadn’t known beforehand.”

Christopher nodded. “He’s a passable liar when he’s prepared. When he’s faced with things without warning, he gets flustered easily.”

I waved it away. “We’ve already decided it wasn’t St George, whatever he knew or didn’t know before yesterday. Lady Violet and Olivia both said that Cecily hadn’t confided in them, and Violet claimed to be Cecily’s best friend.”

“Had she not told them who she had been spending her time with?”

“They said she hadn’t. I don’t know whether they were telling the truth or not.”

“Hopefully whoever the murderer is believes them,” Christopher said, as we turned into the driveway of Marsden Manor and made our way up towards the house. “Because if he doesn’t, and if he truly killed Cecily rather than acknowledge her and the baby, he might decide to take out anyone else who knows who he is, as well.”

I made a face. “I hadn’t thought about that. I guess perhaps I did a good thing, bringing it out in the open like that at the luncheon table. At least he won’t think, assuming he was there, that people know things that they don’t.”

“Why wouldn’t he be there?” Christopher wanted to know. “The only person on the guest list who wasn’t at the luncheon table was me, and surely you’re not suggesting that I’m it?”

“Of course not.” Geoffrey had been there, and Reggie, and Dominic Rivers, and of course Francis and Crispin and Bilge Fortescue, as well. Everyone except Christopher had heard Violet and Olivia claim not to know who the father of Cecily’s baby was. Hopefully that would be enough to keep them both safe.

“At any rate,” I said, “if the pennyroyal was brought here yesterday because Cecily was expecting, then someone knew about her condition before this weekend. It’s still possible that it was Cecily herself who arranged it with Dominic Rivers, and that Rivers simply lied to me. But it could also be that the young man was someone she sees regularly, whom she had already told. Someone who also came down from London for the party. If he’s part of the Bright Young Set, she would have seen him again before now, I assume. They get up to their shenanigans most weekends in Town, don’t they?”

“One supposes,” Christopher nodded, as he headed for the front door into the manor. “There’s no point in going back to the croquet lawn, I imagine. Constable Collins won’t be there anymore.”

I shook my head. “He said he was going to start searching the rooms. He’ll be somewhere on the first or second floor.”

“On the other hand,” Christopher said, picking up the conversation again, “there are surely a few members of the Bright Young Set that she would not see on a regular basis. Crispin has been staying in Wiltshire lately. The last few times he’s been up to London, it was to see us.”

I made a face. “To see Wolfgang, you mean.”

“To assess Wolfgang,” Christopher corrected, “yes. I think the last time he did any kind of heavy partying was for his birthday, and that was the first week in June.”

“It was also with us,” I pointed out, “although he was already sozzled by the time he arrived at the flat, so he must have spent time with someone else first. But that’s three months ago, Christopher. If he bedded Cecily in June, and she conceived, surely she could have found a way to let him know about it sooner than this weekend? Sutherland Hall is on the exchange, and it’s not as if the postman doesn’t deliver. And she knows where Sutherland House is; she could always have gone to Mayfair and asked Rogers to pass on a missive.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Christopher said, and pushed the front door open, only to come face to face with Perkins the butler. “Oh. Hullo, Perkins. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Constable Collins, would you?”

Perkins looked from the weed in Christopher’s hand, up to Christopher’s face, and back to the weed in Christopher’s hand again before he intoned, “The constable is on the upper floors, Mr. Astley.”

“Thank you, Perkins,” Christopher said. His cheekbones were pink, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Would you happen to know what kind of flower this is, Perkins?”

“It’s pudding grass, Mr. Astley,” Perkins said.

“Is it really?” Christopher gave it a dubious look, and then shot me one out of the corner of his eye. My lips twitched. Christopher turned back to Perkins. “Thank you.”

“Of course, sir.”

Perkins took a step back. We proceeded across the marble floor and up the stairs. I managed to keep a straight face until we were out of sight down the first floor corridor before I burst into laughter. “Good grief, Christopher, did you see his face? He thinks you’re bringing flowers for Constable Collins because you’re sweet on him.”

“Yes,” Christopher grumbled, “thank you for pointing that out, Pippa.” The tips of his ears were hot. “You don’t think Collins will think that, do you?”

“Of course not,” I reassured him. “And he’ll also be able to tell us whether this is pennyroyal or whatever pudding grass is, if they’re different. We just have to find him.”

I looked around.

The first floor was quiet. All the bedroom doors were shut, and there were no sounds of voices anywhere except behind the Fortescues’ closed door. As a married couple whom no one could fault for wanting their private time, I suppose they had opted for a lie-down after luncheon and all the excitement of this morning.

“He must have started the search upstairs,” I said. “There’s simply no way he could have managed to go through all of these rooms already if he hadn’t.”

Christopher nodded. “And why not? Cecily’s room is up there, and so are the most likely suspects.”

I arched a brow at that, and he added, “Or at least most of them are. I suppose Geoffrey is down on this level, and so are Crispin, Francis, and I. Just because we know that none of the Astleys are involved, doesn’t mean that Constable Collins believes that to be true.”

Indubitably. Although I had done my best to convince him of it.

“He probably started in Cecily’s room, in case there’s something among her possessions that would shed some light on this situation. Perhaps even… a diary.” He sounded optimistic when he added, “It’s what I would have done.”

“She was in no condition to update her diary last night,” I said. “If it’s there, it won’t tell us who brought her a cup of tea to settle her stomach.”

“Of course not,” Christopher agreed. “But she might have mentioned which gentleman—I use the word advisedly—she has been spending her time with lately.”

Yes, of course she might have done. She hadn’t confided in anyone else, it seemed, but she might have told her diary. Even an initial would be helpful, since we had, here at Marsden, a rather finite suspect pool. And all of them with different initials, at least apart from the youngest Astley boys and Constance.

“We’ll try there first,” I said. “And if he’s not in Cecily’s room, I suppose we can yell for him.”

“I’m sure we’ll find him,” Christopher said, and exited into the second floor hallway. It looked much the same as the first floor ditto, if a bit narrower and a bit less opulent. All the doors were shut except for the one into Cecily’s room, from which we could hear rustling and the occasional mutter.

I expected there to be someone else inside, but no, when we reached the doorway, Constable Collins was on his own inside the room, and the muttering must be him talking to himself. By that time he had heard us approach, and had turned towards the open door.

“Oh,” he said when he saw us, and his posture lost some of its stiffness, “it’s you two.”

“It’s us. Christopher has something for you.” I moved aside so Christopher could step into the room and present Collins with his weed.

There was a beat of silence.

“Really,” Collins’s voice said dryly, “you shouldn’t have.”

I bit back a snigger as Christopher’s shoulders dropped. “It’s the wrong kind, isn’t it? Perkins called it a pudding plant.”

“No,” Collins said, eyeing it, “it’s exactly the right kind. Where did you find it?”

“Just a quarter mile or so away from the manor,” I told him, as I leaned my shoulder in the doorway. “In the ditch between here and the Dower House. Well within walking distance for anyone interested in picking some.”

“What we don’t know,” Christopher added, “is what someone would do with it after they got it. It’s possible to brew it into tea, of course, and it seems someone did that…”

He glanced at me, and I nodded, “but we’re not sure who would have had that opportunity apart from the kitchen staff. It’s not likely that the staff would have allowed any of the guests to walk into the kitchen to use the cooker.”

Collins nodded and put the stalk down carefully on top of the tallboy. “Cook or the kitchen maid would definitely be able to say whether anyone did that. But it’s not likely that they’d allow it. It’s more likely that they’d have taken the leaves off someone’s hands and brewed the tea themselves.”

“And if that’s how it happened,” I said, “they would know who it was.”

Collins nodded. “I’ll ask once I’m done up here.”

“I assume,” Christopher asked, “that the leaves would have to be boiled? Just steeping them in water from the tap wouldn’t have the same effect?”

Collins and I looked at one another. “I honestly don’t know,” I said, when the constable had no answer. “Although I doubt she would have drunk it if it were cold.” Unless she did it herself, of course, and then she might have forced it down for the effects she wanted.

“It looked like tea,” I added. “Brown color, served in a cup with a saucer and a spoon. I imagine it was heated up before it was given to her. But if you’re asking whether a pennyroyal draught can be made by soaking the leaves in cold water, I wouldn’t be surprised if it could. I can’t imagine it would taste very good, though.”

“Nor would it be enough to kill anyone,” Collins added. “People drink pennyroyal tea all the time. It’s a common remedy for—” he flushed, “—female things.”

“So it’s only a problem when someone takes too much,” Christopher said.

Collins nodded. “A few leaves in a pot of water isn’t going to kill anyone. This was more than that.”

So figuring out who had used the kitchen to brew the tea might not help at all.

“Is it possible,” I said, and hesitated.

They both looked at me. “Yes?” Collins asked.

“Is it possible that there are two different people involved in this? Someone who gave Cecily the tea, and someone else who tried to kill her?” Perhaps Cecily gave herself the tea, and then someone else came along and gave her more? “Maybe this second person didn’t even want to kill her, but the second dose on top of the first turned out to be too much?”

There was a pause while we all contemplated what that scenario would look like.

“I can’t say that it wouldn’t be possible,” Collins said. “If she, say, picked the leaves herself, and asked Cook to brew the tea, and then she drank it to… um… restore her flows…”

He trailed off, flushing again.

“And then someone else came along—” I prompted.

He nodded gratefully. “And then someone else came along and gave her more of it. Or perhaps it’s more likely that that happened the other way: she picked the pennyroyal leaves and gave them to Cook to turn into tea before bed. She went to dinner and then to drinks and dancing. Someone fed her a cocktail with pennyroyal in it.”

That was certainly possible. I had seen for myself, at the Dower House in May, just how easy it is to poison someone with a doctored cocktail. And mint is a fairly common garnish; Cecily might not have noticed the taste at all.

“Then, after she retired to her room,” I continued the story, “she called for the tea, and someone brought it up, and by the time I had finished speaking to St George and was doing my ablutions in the lavatory, she was vomiting.”

“That works for me,” Christopher said.

I nodded. It worked for me, too. Even though we now had to look for two different people who wished Cecily harm, unless Cecily herself had been one of them.

Constable Collins looked around the room with a sigh. “I expect I should go speak to Cook and the other servants. I can always come back to the searching later. It would be good to have this tea issue clarified one way or the other.”

It would. And I would have offered to go and ask myself, but this was an official inquiry while I wasn’t an official participant, so I had to let the constable do his job without my help.

But at least I could make suggestions. “You should talk to Dominic Rivers, too. He told me he didn’t give Cecily any pennyroyal, and if she picked her own, then he told the truth. But he may have given some to someone else.”

“I tried,” Collins said. “I knocked on his door when I came upstairs after finishing my conversation with the two of you and Lord St George. There was no answer.”

“Just because he told me he’d go upstairs for some peace and quiet, doesn’t mean he did.”

He might have lied about his intentions, or he may have been waylaid by someone on his way to his room.

I turned and glanced at the door to the room he shared with the Honorable Reggie. It was closed.

“He wasn’t downstairs,” Constable Collins said. “At least not anywhere where I saw him. He wasn’t with the others in the dining room?—”

I shook my head. “No, he escorted me out of there earlier. The last time I saw him, he was on his way up the stairs.”

Collins nodded. “Perhaps he changed his mind and decided to take a walk, like you did.”

Or perhaps he’d gone upstairs, tossed all his belongings into his bag, and high-tailed it down to the garage, before anyone more official than me could start asking him questions.

“You didn’t notice a motorcar leaving the manor,” I asked Christopher, “did you?”

He shook his head. “One didn’t pass us, certainly. Do you think he did a bunk?”

“He seemed fairly spooked when I spoke to him about Cecily. There’s a prison sentence for providing someone with an abortifacient, did you know that?”

“The question has never come up,” Christopher said dryly. “I’ll just try his door, shall I? If all his possessions are gone, then we’ll know he’s scarpered, and perhaps the London police can intercept him when he gets home.”

He didn’t wait for Collins to give him the go-ahead, just left the doorway of Cecily’s room and started across the landing.

“That’s Wolfgang’s room,” I told him, when he approached the door on the other side of the lavatory from mine. “Theirs is the next one.”

Christopher nodded and applied his knuckles to the wood. “Rivers, old boy? Are you in there?”

There was no response, and he knocked again. When he reached for the doorknob, I told him, “Wait!”

He glanced at me. “Are you still worried about the sap from the pennyroyal?”

“Not this time. Although it wouldn’t hurt for you to go into the lavatory and rinse it off. But mostly I don’t want you to touch the doorknob.”

Understanding crossed his countenance, and he took a step back. “I’ll just do that, shall I? It’s all yours, Constable Collins.”

He exchanged glances with Collins, who had come into the doorway to see what was going on, and headed for the lavatory door. A few seconds later, I heard the water turn on and then splashing as Christopher washed his hands.

Collins, meanwhile, gave me a look before he moved past me with an murmured apology and approached the door to the young men’s room.

A third knock on the door had no more effect than the first two times Christopher had knocked—or for that matter the time when Collins himself had done it. The constable put his ear to the door. “Mr. Rivers? This is Constable Collins. If you’re in there, can you call out?”

I didn’t hear a response, and Collins mustn’t have, either, because after a moment he took a step back and eyed the door. By now, Christopher had come out of the lavatory, too, shaking the last of the water off his now clean hands, and stopped beside me. “Nothing?”

“Doesn’t seem so,” I said grimly. Collins pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his uniform jacket and draped it over his hand.

“Mr. Rivers?” he called one last time. “I’m coming in.”

He waited a second or two, and then reached out and grabbed the knob.

At this point, there were only two options, and we had all, surely, calculated them in our heads. One: Rivers had done a bunk, in which case the door would be unlocked and the room empty. Or two: he hadn’t, he was still inside, alone or with someone else, and the door would most likely be locked.

The knob turned and the door opened. I braced myself for the outraged squealing of one of the female guests, but none came.

“He’s likely gone, then,” Christopher muttered beside me as Constable Collins pushed the door open and stepped into the doorway.

And stopped.

“What?” I asked, heart in my throat. Christopher’s hand fumbled for mine, and I grasped it and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Collins shook his head. “Don’t come any closer.”

I didn’t listen, of course. Pulling Christopher behind me, I took the couple of steps up to the door and peered into the room over Collins’s shoulder.