Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

My first thought, if indeed I had the time to think any thoughts at all, was that Geoffrey must have been objectionable. Four months ago, he had had me backed into the corner of a sofa at the Dower House, and had proceeded to shove his hand up under the hem of my skirt. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all, had he decided to use the same technique on Violet under the tablecloth.

But then Violet’s eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled into a heap, incidentally knocking the back of her head against the overturned chair on the way down, and possibly giving herself a concussion on top of whatever else was wrong.

For a second, we all sat frozen, wide-eyed and staring. Then Francis jumped up from his seat, and so did Bilge, from opposite sides of the room. As they came together over the body, Crispin too murmured an excuse, and went to join them.

As if those movements had pulled the plug from the dam, chatter started up around the room. I turned to Christopher. “What on earth do you suppose happened?”

“Something in the tea?” Christopher suggested.

I squinted at him. “My first thought was that Geoffrey had molested her under the table.”

Christopher’s face twisted in distaste, and so did Wolfgang’s. “Lord Geoffrey is in the habit of molesting women?” he asked.

“He tried to stick his hand under my hem once,” I answered. “I thought he might have done the same thing to Violet.”

“That doesn’t explain why she fainted,” Christopher said.

I turned back to him. “Perhaps she’s simply too fine-minded to be able to handle that sort of thing.”

He snorted. “Unlike you, do you mean? You didn’t exactly handle it well when it happened to you.”

No, admittedly I hadn’t. I had neither squealed nor fainted—the Dower House sat on Marsden property, and I didn’t know Geoffrey well enough then to know that this was his usual modus operandi, and that trying to be polite about it wouldn’t work. But I had been out of sorts for the rest of the evening. Christopher had had to lock me in my bedchamber, as a matter of fact, until Constance could come upstairs so I’d have company.

“Besides,” Christopher added, “considering her history with Crispin, she’s hardly what you’d call maidenly, is she?”

Wolfgang looked shocked. I shook my head. “I suppose she’s not, now you mention it. And she spent the evening yesterday with him. Geoffrey, I mean. I can’t imagine that there wasn’t some kind of hanky-panky going on.”

Over on the floor, Francis and Bilge were kneeling on either side of Violet’s prone body. One of them had her wrist in a grip, no doubt fumbling for her pulse, while the other was peeling her eyelid back and checking whether her pupil was responding to light. I had seen Francis do both before, both with Cecily earlier this morning and with Christopher back in May, so it must be standard procedure.

When he put his hand under her head and pulled it away again, his fingers came back stained with red. He made a face and reached towards his pocket, but Crispin got there first, dangling a handkerchief in front of Francis’s face. “How is she?”

The room was quiet enough, even with the whispers, that the question was easily heard.

“Alive,” Bilge said shortly. He let go of Violet’s hand and brushed his own fingers against the fabric of his trousers. “Not well.”

“Clearly not.” Crispin’s voice was as dry as the Sahara, or a particularly good gin and tonic. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Something in her tea,” Francis said, as he finished wiping his fingers clean. He looked at the handkerchief as if he contemplated handing it back for a moment before he shoved it into his own pocket instead. “Pupils are dilated. Most likely it’s more of the same thing.”

I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. Cecily’s eyes had been dilated as well, fixed and staring, and then she had died. I cleared my throat. “The doctor should be upstairs, for the—um…”

…body , was what I had meant to say. But it was perhaps not the best word to use right now, so I skipped right past that thorny issue, and simply added, “I’ll run upstairs and?—”

“I’ll go.” Crispin took off across the drawing room and through the door. I could hear his rapid footsteps down the hallway and then fading up the stairs.

I made a face. I had wanted an excuse to get out of the room, but he had removed himself faster than I could have got up from the table, so I let him go without demur. He would probably be quicker than me in every other respect, as well, and Violet deserved that. Besides, he was probably more worried about her than I was.

Not that I was indifferent to her plight. Not at all. Nor was I indifferent to my own. A third death on top of the two we had already seen today had to be some sort of record. At least when we’d had to deal with three deaths at Sutherland Hall in April, one of them had been the murderer of the other two. This was getting out of hand.

“Is there anything we can do?” I called out to Francis, who looked up and met my eyes and then shook his head.

“I’m afraid not, Pippa. If the doctor is upstairs, perhaps he can do something. But if it’s the same substance again, it’ll be the same outcome again as well, I fear.”

Yes, I feared the same. Several of the others looked ill at the idea, including Geoffrey. He was likely to be especially affected, poor chap, seeing as he had been sitting right next to her, chatting her up, when this happened.

(Did I feel a touch bad for suspecting Lord Geoffrey’s wandering hands of being to blame for Violet’s reaction? In light of what had actually happened, perhaps I did, just a bit. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, at any rate, and assign him enough compassion to assume he was bothered by the situation.)

I cleared my throat. “Can’t we… I don’t know, stick a finger down her throat and make her rid herself of the poison or something?”

Francis gave me a jaundiced look, while several of the others, fine-minded people like Lady Euphemia and her daughter, winced.

“Miss Fletcher rid herself of the poison last night, Pippa,” my cousin reminded me. “And it made no difference, did it?”

No, it hadn’t. But— “Shouldn’t we try, at least? Just in case it would help?”

“We don’t know that it wouldn’t hurt,” Francis said. “If it’s not the same thing, but something else instead, it could hurt her throat coming back up. Better to wait for the doctor to have a look. A minute or two won’t matter one way or the other.”

I made a face, but acquiesced. I wasn’t an expert, but Francis was. Or as much of an expert as we had access to right now. And he didn’t look as somber as he had upstairs, after first seeing Cecily, so perhaps the situation wasn’t as dire.

Holding onto that possibility, I did as I was bid, and resolved myself to wait. It wasn’t easy. I am not by nature a patient person, and the circumstances—with Violet’s shallow breathing practically rattling through the silent room—made things worse. When he couldn’t handle my fidgeting any longer, Christopher reached over and took my hand, and threaded his fingers through mine. I gave him a grateful look, one he returned with a twist of his mouth, but neither of us spoke.

It wasn’t actually that long a wait. It felt like a long time, but it was only a few minutes before we heard footsteps coming down the stairs again. There were several sets of them this time: Crispin’s, quick and light. Tom’s, heavier but no less rapid. Constable Collins, thumping in his regulation boots. And bringing up the rear, the slower steps of an older man.

Bilge had gone back to his wife after ascertaining that there was nothing he could do for Violet. Like me and Christopher, they were sitting hand in hand at their table. Serena looked pale under the makeup. Bilge, with his carroty hair and matching complexion, was always pale, but I thought his freckles might stand out a bit more than usual at the moment.

Crispin popped through the door first, with Tom and Collins on his heels. They all three converged on the body. It was only a moment or two, however, before the doctor made his way through the door and across the floor towards them.

Things moved quickly after that. I hadn’t been terribly impressed with the man during Christopher’s… let’s call it illness, at the Dower House in May. The doctor had looked him over and told us that there was nothing he—or we—could do to help, other than to wait for Christopher to sleep off the overdose of Veronal, and that hopefully he would wake up on his own once he was ready, none the worse for wear. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the time.

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear now either, but again, it was what the doctor told us. “Best get her up to bed where she can be comfortable,” he added.

Lady Euphemia cleared her throat. “Wouldn’t she be better off under medical care?”

I translated the question to mean, ‘shouldn’t you take her with you so we don’t have to deal with her?’ and so did the doctor, it seemed. He grunted, and then said, “There’s nothing anyone can do, my lady. She’ll either wake up or she won’t.”

I mouthed the last sentence right along with him, and rolled my eyes when Christopher looked at me. “He said the same thing about you. Word for word.”

“Hmm.” Christopher glanced at the prone body. “I did wake up. Maybe she will, too.”

“You were fed an overdose of Veronal,” I said fretfully. “It’s not the same scenario.”

“Perhaps she was fed an underdose of pennyroyal and it’ll be all right.” He put his finger to his lips before I could respond. “Just watch, Pippa. We’ll talk about it later.”

No doubt we would. Although I didn’t want to watch, really. It felt ghoulish to stare as Francis scooped Violet up and strode towards the door with her, her head lolling over his forearm and her hand dangling uselessly, tennis bracelet sending sparks of light across the walls and ceiling.

I had expected Tom to take that job, honestly, since he was bigger and stronger than either Crispin or Constable Collins, and he had the official standing that Francis lacked. I was surprised when he nodded to Francis and told him, “You take her, Astley. Do you know where her room is?”

“Top floor,” Francis grunted, as he stood with Violet in his arms.

“I’ll show you.” Collins hurried towards the door ahead of Francis, while the doctor brought up the rear.

“Come back downstairs when you’re done,” Tom called after them, and then they passed out of sight and were in the hallway, and Tom turned to the rest of us. “Have a seat, St George.”

He nodded to Crispin. Once the latter was seated, and once Laetitia had staked her claim with a possessive hand to his arm, Tom added, “In case anyone missed the introduction earlier, I’m Detective Sergeant Thomas Gardiner with Scotland Yard.”

There was a quick indrawn breath from somewhere in the room, so it was obvious that someone must not have realized exactly who Tom was. Detective Sergeant, yes. Scotland Yard, perhaps not.

“A crime seems to have been committed in this room during the last hour,” Tom continued, “and as such, you’ll all be required to stay in your seats until we’ve had a chance to talk to you all.”

Euphemia’s eyes narrowed at that, and Tom must have seen it, or sensed it, or perhaps just expected it, from previous experience with her type, because he turned to her with a practiced, professional smile. “Lady Marsden, Lord Marsden—” He gave Maurice a deferential inclination of the head, that none of us were thick enough to believe was actually deferential, “if I may have the use of one of your spare rooms to conduct individual interviews? Perhaps a study or library?”

Maurice cleared his throat. “There’s a library next door,” he indicated the connecting door, “and a study beyond that, between the library and the outer hall. You’re welcome to use either of them. Or anywhere else that suits you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tom took us all in. “As soon as the others come back, we’ll get started. We’ll start with you, Lord Geoffrey, since you were sitting next to Lady Violet.”

Geoffrey gulped, but nodded. His mother shot him a worried look before she opened her mouth. “Detective Sergeant?”

Tom inclined his head politely. “Yes, Lady Marsden?”

“The local constabulary is in charge of this investigation, is it not?”

Tom’s brows rose, and I didn’t blame him. That sounded remarkably like the runup to an objection. His voice, however, was perfectly pleasant when he told her, “Officially that’s correct, madam. But with two murders and what appears to be two additional attempts, all within a twenty-four hour period, all in this house, the Chief Constable feels—and I quite agree with him—that the local constabulary can use some help. I was here already, so I offered to step in.”

Lady Euphemia looked like she had sunk her teeth directly into a lemon, but she capitulated. I hid a smile, but seemingly not quite well enough, because Laetitia slanted a fulminating look in my direction. Christopher dug an elbow into my ribs. “Stop it, Pippa. You know who’ll be paying for that, don’t you?”

Crispin would, I assumed, once Laetitia had the chance to properly harangue him without having to moderate her voice. “That’s what he gets for shackling himself to her, isn’t it?”

“If you didn’t want him to propose,” Christopher said, “you shouldn’t have given him your blessing.”

“I’d hardly call it that, Christopher.”

Christopher ignored my attempt to debate the situation again, and understandably so, since we’d been over this ad nauseam these past couple of weeks. “Just behave,” he told me. “We’ll be done soon enough.”

“If you say so,” I answered doubtfully, although I settled in to wait while Constable Collins and Francis came back downstairs, and while Tom took Geoffrey off to the study to apply the thumb screws, and while Laetitia hissed volubly in Crispin’s ear.

After Geoffrey it was Olivia’s turn, and then the Honorable Reggie. Once the table that Violet had occupied was empty, Tom moved on to anyone else who might have something to contribute, which was the rest of the Marsden family initially. I assumed that he would be asking them questions about Dominic Rivers and who might have invited him to Marsden Manor, and other inquiries of that nature. As soon as they were all away, and only the current Duke of Sutherland and his heir were left at the head table, Uncle Harold began hissing at Crispin quite as vociferously as Laetitia had done.

“Poor chap,” Christopher muttered. “He just can’t catch a break, can he?”

I sniffed. “It’s his own?—”

He slanted me a look. “It’s not his fault that he was born to Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Harold, Pippa. He couldn’t help that.”

Well, no. I supposed he couldn’t. “I don’t like your uncle.”

Christopher sighed. “I’m well aware of it.”

“I didn’t like your aunt, either. She tried to shoot me once.”

On the other side of me, Wolfgang’s eyes widened.

“She’s dead,” Christopher pointed out. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get over that.”

“I’m over it. Mostly. It just comes back at certain times.” Such as when I was irritated with Uncle Harold and the way he always tried to beat Crispin into submission, sometimes literally.

But then Tom came back and fetched Crispin, and Uncle Harold was left to sit alone, impotently stewing with no one to berate. I smiled, pleased, and of course he looked over and caught me. I can’t imagine that he knew the reason for my happiness, but he scowled at me nonetheless. I pretended that I hadn’t seen, because waving would have been rude.

The drawing room emptied out agonizingly slowly. After Crispin was called away to the study, Tom let Uncle Harold wait, and instead pulled in Constance, and then Francis, and then finally Aunt Roz. At that point, Uncle Herbert got up and joined his brother, and the two of them fell into a low-voiced conversation. Too low for me to catch, more’s the pity.

After Aunt Roz, there was Bilge and Serena Fortescue’s turn, and then finally, Tom came and removed Wolfgang. As soon as he was through the door, Uncle Herbert beckoned. “Come here, Kit.”

Christopher sighed, but he pushed his chair back and took my arm. “Come along, Pippa.”

“He didn’t ask for me,” I pointed out, even as I allowed myself to be hauled to my feet.

“Father won’t mind,” Christopher said.

Uncle Harold certainly would, but before I could say so, Christopher had carried on. “Unless you really want to sit at this table by yourself until Tom comes back?”

I didn’t, of course, so I let him propel me across the floor by my elbow. “Father.” He inclined his head politely. “Uncle Harold.”

“Your Grace.” I did a barely-there curtsey. I knew that Uncle Harold was peeved at my presence, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to show a bit of respect for the title, if for nothing else. “Uncle Herbert.”

Him, I gave a warm smile.

“Kit, Pippa.” Uncle Herbert smiled back, while Uncle Harold gave us a cool nod.

“Sit,” Uncle Herbert added. He gestured to the vacated chairs on the other side of the table. He was in Laetitia’s seat, and I let Christopher take Crispin’s, after he had seated me in the empty chair where Aunt Charlotte might have sat, had Crispin’s mother been alive. “Roz told me that she’d talked to you earlier.”

I nodded, as I arranged my skirt across my knees and my hands in my lap, like a proper young woman. “She had a conversation with the two young ladies upstairs while I eavesdropped. Then we discussed it.”

Uncle Herbert grinned, but merely asked, “Was anything interesting said?”

“Nothing that would explain what happened earlier.” I glanced over at the spot on the floor where Lady Violet Cummings had lain. The chair was still there, overturned, waiting for the local constabulary to get around to processing what I assumed would turn out to be a crime scene. “Olivia Barnsley seems to be enamored with Reggie Fish. Violet was lying about something, or so Aunt Roz thinks.”

“Violet is the young lady who had the medical incident?”

I nodded. “It’s open season on St George’s old flames this weekend, it seems.”

Uncle Harold inhaled sharply enough that his nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak.

“Surely you’re not insinuating that Crispin is involved, Pippa,” Uncle Herbert said, while Christopher rolled his eyes expressively.

“Of course not.” I smirked. “I just find it interesting that they’ve both enjoyed St George’s favors in the past, and now one is dead and the other unconscious.”

Christopher muttered something, and his father cast him a look. “What was that, son?”

“Someone shot at Pippa this morning,” Christopher repeated, in what had to be a non sequitur , because if it wasn’t?—

“I’m hardly what you’d call one of St George’s old flames, Christopher.”

By then, Uncle Herbert was talking over me. “I know, Kit. Francis told me. Although he didn’t seem convinced that Pippa was the intended target.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” I said irritably. “If anyone was aiming at me, it wasn’t because I’m me. It was most likely because I look a bit like Cecily Fletcher.”

All three men looked at me. Uncle Harold looked hostile, Uncle Herbert thoughtful, and Christopher amused.

“It’s much more likely that it was simply a stray shot,” I added. “No one has admitted to aiming in the direction of the house, and I assume they were told not to, so whoever it was, is probably just trying to hide that they made a mistake.”

“Or they won’t admit it because it was on purpose,” Christopher said.

I shook my head. “You’re being silly, Christopher. Even if someone is trying to eliminate all of St George’s old girlfriends—and if that’s the case, my money is on Laetitia—there’d be no reason to eliminate me. I’m not an old girlfriend, and everyone knows it.”

And what would be the purpose in eliminating Crispin’s old girlfriends, anyway? He was engaged to her now—assuming Laetitia was the culprit—and even if she wasn’t and someone else was, he was still engaged to her. Laetitia had no reason to want to get rid of people from Crispin’s past, and anyone else would be more likely to eliminate Laetitia herself than any of the past dalliances, I assumed.

Unless she was next?

“Someone should tell her to watch out,” I said, and all three of the men looked at me.

“Who?”

“Laetitia Marsden. If someone is getting rid of Crispin’s old girlfriends, surely his current fiancée is next on the list.”

“Would you like to confess, Miss Darling?” Uncle Harold inquired snidely, and I blinked.

“You think I’m killing St George’s old girlfriends? Why on earth would I do that? I’m the reason he’s engaged to Laetitia now. If anything, you should thank me. Not accuse me of attempted murder.”

“Now, now, Pippa,” Uncle Herbert remonstrated, while Christopher sat back and watched, lips twitching. “No one is accusing you of anything.”

I sniffed. “I should hope not. For one thing, I had no idea that Cecily Fletcher would be here until I arrived yesterday evening. For another, I didn’t know that she was expecting until Crispin told me last night. I don’t think he knew until then, either, at least if the expression on his face was anything to go by. I don’t see how I could have brought a fatal dose of pennyroyal with me to do away with her if I didn’t know any of those things.”

“Is that what happened?” Uncle Herbert inquired.

“So we surmise. There’s some question as to whether the pennyroyal came from Dominic Rivers, seeing as he was a known dope dealer?—”

Uncle Harold made a face, so perhaps he had heard the name before. Grimsby the valet might have dug up Crispin’s connection to Rivers back in the spring, and it might have been in that dossier I read back then. I had mostly paid attention to the plethora of sexual escapades the valet had detailed, I admit, so I couldn’t rightly remember whether that specific detail of Crispin’s dope habit had been mentioned or not.

“Now, see,” Christopher interrupted, “he’s a spanner in the works of your theory, Pippa.”

“Dominic Rivers is?” How?

Christopher nodded. “He’s certainly no old flame of Crispin’s. Not unless my cousin has a bent we don’t know about.”

He smirked, and looked remarkably like the Viscount St George for a moment.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “St George is relentlessly heterosexual. No one dallies with as many women as he has done unless he likes them.”

Christopher opened his mouth to continue the banter, but Uncle Herbert clearing his throat brought him back to himself. He flushed. “Sorry, Father.”

“As you should be,” Uncle Herbert said mock-sternly. “Although I’m not the one you ought to apologize to, Kit.”

“What Crispin doesn’t know—” Christopher began cheekily, and then he noticed that Uncle Herbert was indicating the Duke, and he caught on.

“Oh. My mistake.” He flushed again, all the way to his ears, and cleared his throat. “My apologies, Uncle Harold. I was merely making sport. Pippa’s right. Crispin is definitely not queer.”

Uncle Harold nodded, mollified, although he looked a bit uncomfortable even so.

“At any rate,” I said, and took Christopher’s attention off his uncle, “it’s obvious why Dominic Rivers had to die. He brought the pennyroyal. Whoever he gave it to, didn’t want him to be able to spill the beans.”

“So you think it was Rivers’s pennyroyal that killed her?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It can’t be a coincidence that there’s pennyroyal for the picking just down the road, too. Or can it?”

Christopher shrugged. “This is above my head, I’m afraid. I’m for letting Tom figure it out. He’s the one getting paid for it.”

“But it’s interesting,” I protested. “And we should be able to reason it out for ourselves. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel, isn’t it? All of us gathered here, and people dropping like flies. It has to be one of us. Someone who was here yesterday; I’m not accusing you, Uncle Herbert, or Aunt Roz?—”

Or His Grace, the Duke of Sutherland, but I didn’t see the need to point that out.

“Of course not, Pippa,” Uncle Herbert rumbled. “I didn’t know either of the unfortunate young women, or for that matter the young man.”

“In an Agatha Christie novel,” Christopher said, “it’s always the least likely suspect, isn’t it? Who’s the least likely suspect here?”

We both thought about it. It only took me a second, because the answer was obvious.

“You, Christopher. It’s you.”