Chapter 10 #2
“Nobody here is arguing with you,” Christopher told him. “There’s no need to sound so defensive.”
I snorted. “Let me guess. Laetitia was upset that you weren’t devoting enough time to her. Or perhaps to the wedding planning?”
“A bit of both,” Crispin admitted. “She wanted more of my attention, and I had no spare attention to give. Everything I had was focused on learning what I needed to learn to keep the estate going, not to mention that I was working overtime trying to keep everything that happened out of the papers. You know how interested the scandal rags are in me and all my doings—”
Indeed. I didn’t even bother to chastise him for his display of narcissism and arrogance, because the statement was true enough.
The scandal rags are enamored of him, and making certain that they got no whiff of Uncle Harold’s multiple crimes—not to mention the secret behind them—had been imperative.
It had certainly taken precedence over Laetitia’s feelings. He’d hear no argument from me.
“And then she left,” Christopher said.
Crispin nodded. “Two days after the funeral, as I said. The rest of the Marsdens were decamping, too, and Laetitia got on me about not spending enough time with her and how the wedding plans were suffering. I said that perhaps we ought to put off the wedding until things had settled down, seeing as I was too busy with other things to do it justice—”
“Good for you,” I said. “Although I suppose she didn’t bite?”
He shook his head. “She told me she’d take care of everything. Then she made this appointment with Smythson for the monogram and Thank You notes, and told me I was to ensure I could be there. She said she’d meet me the evening before for supper, and to put it on my calendar. So I did.”
“And that’s the last you saw of her. Did she contact you in the meantime?”
“We spoke by telephone once or twice,” Crispin said. “I rang her up the morning I motored up to Town, as a matter of fact.”
I smirked. “Let me guess. You didn’t want her to realize that you weren’t going to be in your study at Sutherland Hall, slaving away, so you touched base before you left, hoping that if you did, she wouldn’t ring up again that day and discover that you weren’t where you were supposed to be.”
He flicked me another look in the mirror, this one annoyed. “Are you a mind-reader now, Darling?”
“Hardly,” I said. “The guilt of it is written all over your face. Besides, I know you. It’s the sort of thing you would do. Underhanded and passive-aggressive.”
He rolled his eyes, even as Christopher chuckled. “She’s got you there, Crispin.”
“Whatever you say,” Crispin told him, and pulled the Hispano-Suiza to a stop at the curb on Park Lane, outside the entrance to Coutts I didn’t know whether he’d do anything more or different for me, necessarily.
I slanted a look his way. He was having some sort of silent communication with Christopher, of the sort that Christopher and I can also do, while Tom was waiting patiently for me to continue the conversation.
“For a moment I thought he was going to grab me,” I said. “It was startling, and a bit frightening. But I backed up and legged it back to the front of Smythson, and he didn’t pursue me. Or if he did, he stayed at a distance. And when I got there, Christopher and Crispin were coming out.”
Tom nodded. “Can you describe him?”
I could, and did. “There was something familiar about him,” I concluded, “as if I have seen him before somewhere. Or perhaps he reminded me of someone. The way Francis looks enough like Christopher that I might be reminded, you know, but not enough that I’d think they were the same person.”
“But you don’t know who he was?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know that the whole thing wasn’t simply a coincidence, or all in my head.
He could have been a random chap who got too close to me in the fog, who happened to look like someone I’ve seen once.
But he was there, and it made me feel a bit off, so I told Christopher and Crispin, and now I’ve told you. ”
“Out of curiosity,” Christopher said, removing his attention from Crispin and the silent conversation they’d been having, “the chap who contacted you about us—about Pippa and me—and about our conversation at the Lyons Corner House…”
Tom nodded.
“What did he look like?”
“If it’s the chap I’m thinking of,” I said, before Tom could answer, “he was sitting behind you, and he looked up at one point and met my eyes. He was a nice-looking gentleman in a suit, with a striped tie and a thin face. It wasn’t this bloke.”
Tom shook his head. “I have no idea what he might look like. Or she. Normally I would have followed up with a visit, but he signed his note with, ‘A concerned citizen.’ No name, no return address.”
“An anonymous note. How did you know you could trust what it said?”
“I didn’t,” Tom said. “That’s why I came to see you. And you admitted to talking about it.”
“But an anonymous note. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”
Tom shrugged. “Sometimes people just don’t want to get involved.”
I couldn’t imagine such a mindset, to be honest. Getting involved is the best part.
Crispin snorted when I said as much, and Christopher smirked. “Yes, Pippa, we all know how you hate to miss things.”
“Do you still have the note?” Crispin wanted to know.
“Of course I do,” Tom told him. “Just because it’s unsigned doesn’t mean it’s untrustworthy. Or it doesn’t necessarily follow, anyway. We’re not in the habit of tossing potential evidence in the rubbish around here.”
“Why don’t you pull it out, then, so we can compare it to the ransom note when it gets here from Wiltshire?”
Tom didn’t say anything to that, but he did pull out the note, so it must have struck him, as it did me, as quite a good idea.