Chapter 5 #2
“That’s because someone had committed a murder in the next room and tasked us with getting rid of the body,” I told him.
“The reason we’re not upset now, is that no one’s dead.
There was no dead body in the motorcar, we didn’t leave it anywhere, and as far as I know, Laetitia is alive and well.
Until we find out otherwise, I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll be out in a moment.”
I withdrew to the lavatory, and then to my room, where I spent a couple of minutes rolling down my wool stockings and exchanging them for nylons, before I shoved my feet into a pair of not-too-uncomfortable strap shoes.
I’d been on my feet most of the day—other than the hours we’d spent sitting in the H6—and the last thing I wanted was to put on shoes that elevated my heels and pinched my toes.
But needs must: I wasn’t about to beard Crispin in his townhouse looking less than my best, so I exchanged my jumper for a blouse and freshened up my lipstick in front of the mirror before I ventured back out into the rest of the flat.
Tom and Christopher would most likely appreciate a few extra minutes alone anyway, I reasoned.
They were standing in the foyer when I reappeared, and if the intervening time had served to make relations less hostile, it wasn’t immediately evident.
Apparently Christopher was less delighted than I was about the idea that he was a suspect in a hypothetical murder.
I tried to put myself in his place, as if I were suspected of murder by the chap I adored, who on top of it was a detective-sergeant with Scotland Yard, who presumably knew what he was doing, and I had to admit that it didn’t feel good.
The scowl Christopher directed at the floor said it all, really.
“Ready,” I said brightly.
Tom nodded. “Let’s go, then. The sooner we can get there, the less chance he’ll leave again.”
There was no reason to think Crispin would leave again—unless Christopher and I were both wrong and he truly did have Laetitia’s body stashed in the boot of the H6, and he needed to get rid of it, although if that were the case, why come to us at all last night?
He would have been better served with getting rid of the body then, than spending the night here and today with us.
For a moment, as we left the flat and headed down the hallway toward the lift, it occurred to me to wonder whether Crispin might have shown up here last night to confess to Christopher that he had committed murder.
I had given them the privacy to discuss it when Christopher and I arrived home yesterday evening and found Crispin here.
But that still didn’t explain where the hypothetical body had gone. Neither of them had left the flat again last night, and we’d been together all of today. They hadn’t left me alone at any point, certainly not for long enough to remove a dead body from the boot and dispose of it.
“We’ll have to take a Hackney,” Tom informed us as we descended slowly to the ground floor. “I don’t have a Tender.”
The Crossley Tenders are the Metropolitan Police Department’s vehicle of choice since the Great War. One of them has been nicknamed the Flying Bedstead because of the contraption of wireless aerials on its roof that looks like a bedframe.
“That’s fine.” Although if I had known, I would have kept my brogues on. “We can flag one down as soon as we reach Great Russell Street, I’m sure.”
And from there it was only a few minutes along Oxford Street and down Regents before we were in Mayfair.
Tom nodded. “Good evening, Evans.”
“Good evening, Detective-Sergeant,” Evans chirped.
And then we were outside, slogging through the fog again. It was possible that finding a Hackney wasn’t going to be as easy as I had thought.
Down on the corner, Christopher hesitated for a moment in front of the telephone box. “How about I ring up Sutherland House and ask Crispin to fetch us? It’ll be easier than trying to get a cabbie’s attention in this.”
“I vote yes,” I said readily, since I didn’t fancy walking all the way to Mayfair.
Tom, meanwhile, looked skeptical. “What if he isn’t there?”
“Then it wouldn’t do us any good to drop in at Sutherland House in the first place, would it? I guarantee you that you won’t find Laetitia’s dead body propping up the door to the parlor.”
Tom bit his lip. “I suppose you might as well,” he said after a moment of having thought the problem through from every angle. “You make a good point.”
Christopher nodded and pulled open the door to the telephone box.
“But keep the door open,” Tom added, “so I can be certain you’re not warning your cousin to flee.”
Christopher rolled his eyes, but did it. I leaned against the side of the telephone box and listened to him feed the machine coins. “Operator? Mayfair34, please.”
A few seconds passed—I could imagine the clicking Christopher was listening to—and then his voice continued. “Rogers? This is Christopher Astley. Is my cousin home?”
Rogers is the Sutherland House butler, and has been for many years.
I do wonder, however, if his days aren’t numbered, since he was one of the servants who cooperated with Duke Henry and Uncle Harold when it came to informing on St George and his escapades in Town.
Crispin couldn’t do anything about it when his father was alive, when he was merely the Viscount St George, but now that he’s the new Duke of Sutherland, he could let Rogers go on the spot if he wanted.
He hadn’t done it yet though, it seemed. Unless Christopher wasn’t truly speaking to Rogers, but there was no reason to assume that.
The butler must have gone to fetch St George, because a few moments later, Christopher said, “Crispin? It’s me. Listen, Tom wants to talk to you. Do you suppose you could come and fetch us? We don’t stand a chance of finding a Hackney in this fog.”
Crispin must have asked if he couldn’t simply come and talk to Tom in the flat, because Christopher told him, “I think he wants a look around Sutherland House, if you don’t mind.”
He sounded apologetic, so perhaps Crispin was miffed. Not miffed enough to refuse, however, because Christopher finished the conversation with a, “Thank you. We’ll return to the Essex House Mansions and wait for you there.”
He hung up the earpiece and turned to Tom. “He’s coming.”
“I gathered as much,” Tom said, and we returned up the street in frosty silence.
By the time Crispin showed up less than ten minutes later—it really isn’t a long drive—we were still not speaking. Christopher climbed into the back seat next to me, and left the passenger seat for Tom.
“It’ll be all right,” I told him and patted his hand.
He turned his over so he could lace our fingers together. “I hope so.”
In the front seat, meanwhile, Tom was getting comfortable. “Your Grace.”
Crispin rolled his eyes. I could sense the motion, and hear it in his voice, without having to see it for myself. “After knowing me for ten years, I would think you’d dispense with the formalities. After all, you’ve seen me stripped naked and tossed in the water at Cuckoo Weir, haven’t you?”
“What?” I said.
“Hazing ritual at Eton,” Christopher informed me, his voice just above a whisper.
“Someone debagged St George and threw him in the river?”
“He wasn’t St George yet, but yes. Someone debagged both of us. We were both among the school tarts.”
“The what?”
“The prettiest boys in the Lower school,” Christopher said, with no attempt at modesty whatsoever. “Tom and Robbie fished us out and told them, on threat of bodily harm, never to do it again.”
“I should hope so. I don’t suppose there are photographs?”
“No,” Crispin said over the back of his seat, “and I wouldn’t let you see them if there were. Mind your own business, Darling.”
I stuck my lower lip out, but subsided. In the front seat, the conversation continued.
“So you spent the night,” Tom said. “And this morning?”
“Didn’t Kit or Philippa already tell you this?” Crispin turned the corner onto Oxford Street with a glance in the side mirror and one into the back of the motorcar. “We motored to Surrey. Philippa fancied seeing the place where the novelist disappeared.”
“And you didn’t think to open the boot to store the picnic basket?”
“Why should I?” Crispin wanted to know. “It was a picnic basket, not a school trunk. It fit on the seat next to Philippa.”
“Perhaps you fetched a blanket to sit on?”
“Who’d want to sit on the ground in December when the fog is so thick it’s practically raining?” I asked, rhetorically. “We ate in the car before motoring to Shere.”
Tom sighed. Crispin looked at him, and then glanced in the rearview mirror at Christopher and myself. “What’s this about?”
“Laetitia is missing,” I said bluntly. “Tom thought she might be in the boot of your motorcar.”
“Why would she—?” He trailed off, as realization dawned, and I saw the color drain out of his cheeks. “Am I being accused of murder?”
“No,” Tom said shortly.
“There’s no reason to think anyone’s dead,” I added.
“Have you spoken to Laetitia since yesterday?” Christopher wanted to know, more practically.
Crispin met his eyes in the mirror for a moment. “Can’t say that I have, old chap. We were supposed to meet for supper tonight, after she made her way up to Town, and then go to the stationers tomorrow, but I haven’t heard from her so far.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, at the same time as Tom asked, “Tonight?”
He glanced at me, and I waved him on. He was the professional, after all.
He turned back to Crispin. “She was motoring up to Town today?”
“That’s what I was told. I came up yesterday so I could spend today with Kit and Philippa before she arrived.”
“She left Dorset yesterday morning, as well,” I told him, because I often can’t resist the opportunity to impart information when I have it.
Crispin glanced at me in the mirror as we turned onto Bruton Street on our way to Berkeley Square. “Is that so?”
“That’s what Tom said. I’m sure I have no idea.”
Crispin shrugged. “Well, why shouldn’t she? I did. She probably stopped off with a friend on the way.”
“Her mother said that Lady Laetitia said she was going up to London,” Tom said.
“So she stopped off with a friend in Town. I’m not my fiancée’s keeper, Detective-Sergeant.”
“You’ve known me for ten years,” Tom said blandly, “and I’ve fished you out of Cuckoo Weir in the altogether. I’d think you could dispense with the formalities.”
Crispin made a face, but told him, “Not when you seem to suspect me of doing away with my wife-to-be. I motored up to Town early so I could have some time to myself before she arrived. Who’s to say she didn’t do the same?”
“No one,” Tom admitted. “Her mother became concerned when she rang up Marsden House last night, and her daughter wasn’t there.”
“Well, believe it or not,” Crispin said, “my future mother-in-law can be a bit overbearing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Laetitia wanted a day to herself, too. She’ll turn up sometime tonight, mark my words.”
He circled Berkeley Square and made for Sutherland House, off in the distance.
“You didn’t have plans to meet at a restaurant?” Tom asked, and Crispin shook his head.
“I expected to hear from her by telephone, or for her to simply show up in person. We hadn’t made plans for where to go. Somewhere horrifically expensive, I’m sure.”
“But you’re not worried,” I said.
He glanced at me in the mirror. “Not in the least, Darling. Why should I be? She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and it’s not as if I have any reason to think something’s wrong.”
He pulled into the courtyard outside Sutherland House and turned off the motor before he added, “Lady Euphemia only knows about half the things Laetitia gets up to. If my lovely fiancée wanted a day to herself, it makes perfect sense that she’d tell her mother she was motoring up to London to meet me, but told me that she was staying in Dorset for one more day. She’ll turn up.”
He opened his door and swung his feet out, before pulling the seat forward to release Christopher and myself. “Out you come, Kit. I trust you can manage on your own, Detective-Sergeant?”
Tom nodded and opened his door. “I’m only doing my job, you know.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Crispin said pleasantly. The pleasantness came nowhere near his eyes. “You’ll get Philippa, won’t you, Kit? I’ll open the boot for the detective-sergeant.”
He moved to the rear of the motorcar to suit action to words.