Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
If you wonder how I know all this, it’s because Christopher regaled me—regaled all of us—with a history lesson as we made our way down Lower Sloane Street and across the Chelsea Bridge just before midnight.
“It’s older than all of us,” I pointed out.
He scoffed. “And we’re just ancient, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know,” Crispin contributed from the front seat. “No offense, Gardiner. I know you can’t help when you were born. But you, Darling…”
“Yes?” I couldn’t help when I was born, either. Or where.
“You’re twenty-four now, aren’t you? Practically irredeemable. A spinster.”
“I could have married Wolfgang,” I said.
He glanced at me in the mirror. “I know you could have done. Why didn’t you?”
“Didn’t feel that way about him. Didn’t want to end up in Germany.” I waited a second before I added, “What does it matter? He’s dead.”
No one said anything to that, and I continued, “But yes, I’m twenty-four. Thanks for pointing it out. Your fiancée is older than that, isn’t she? Practically robbing the cradle, she is.”
He huffed. “She’s not that old. Twenty-five. And I’m not that young.”
“Young enough that she should have known better.”
He scoffed. “Two years. That’s nothing. My father was eleven years older than my mother, and somehow that’s all right. It’s only because Laetitia’s older than me that everyone objects to it.”
“I don’t object to it because she’s older than you,” I said, even as I refrained from pointing out that technically speaking, his father had not been eleven years older than his mother.
His father hadn’t been his father at all.
He was right about his main premise, after all.
It’s much more common for some highborn chap to sow his oats in his youth, and then, when he’s getting older, to marry some nubile young thing.
Aunt Charlotte had been twenty when she married Uncle Harold.
Even Francis was doing it. He was seven years older than Constance, and no one had batted an eye about that.
“Why do you object, then?” Gray eyes flicked to mine in the mirror.
I dragged my mind back to the conversation.
When I knew what I was responding to, I told him, “You know very well what my objection is. You don’t love her.
You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life married to a woman you don’t love just because you’re too lily-livered to declare yourself to the girl you want. ”
“I am not lily-livered,” Crispin objected hotly, and was promptly shushed by Tom as we came off the Chelsea Bridge.
“Knock it off, you two. Work out your romantic woes on your own time. Turn right here, Your Grace.”
Crispin pouted, but turned right into Battersea Park. “I’m not lily-livered,” he repeated, more calmly. “Just because I won’t invite certain rejection—”
“How do you know you’ll be rejected?”
Christopher, beside Crispin in the front, turned to give me an incredulous stare over the back of the seat, and I made a face. What was I thinking? Of course he’d be rejected. We were talking about me, weren’t we? Of course I’d reject him.
Although these days, at least I’d do it without laughing in his face, which I suppose was progress of a sort.
“Never mind,” I said.
Next to me, Tom nodded. “Good. We have more important things to worry about than the two of you and your feelings. Take a left up ahead.”
“Here?” Crispin slowed the Hispano-Suiza down and peered at the entrance to a path on the left, that would take us away from the river and the Royal Hospital grounds on the other side of the water. “It doesn’t appear to be wide enough for a motorcar.”
“Not there.” Tom sounded impatient. “That’s a walking path. We’re looking for something wider.”
Crispin put his foot down, and the H6 surged forward. “Precisely why I wondered, you realize.”
Tom didn’t answer, and we continued forward for another minute, until we reached another path branching off on the left.
This time it was wide enough for the Hispano-Suiza to fit easily, and Crispin turned in.
We crept along, as dark lawns and trees spread out from the path in both directions.
By now, we were far enough from the river that the lights of Chelsea were no longer visible behind us, and it was quite dark as we approached the witching hour.
“Take a right up ahead,” Tom directed, and Crispin slowed to another stop.
“Are you certain? This doesn’t look as if it’s meant for motorcars, either.”
“It’s not,” Tom agreed. “It’s another walking path. But I’m not having you get out to carry ten thousand pounds in cash through the trees at midnight. That’s inviting assault and injury, and we don’t want some random footpad to get away with the ransom before the proper kidnapper can fetch it.”
No, of course we didn’t. Besides—
“You’re in the presence of Scotland Yard,” I reminded Crispin. “No one’s going to fine you for being on the walking path with Tom in the back seat.”
“The only coppers here are on our side,” Christopher added. “Just do it, Crispin.”
Crispin nodded, and turned the H6 carefully onto the narrow path.
The surface was rough—I’m fairly certain the path wasn’t wide enough for both sides of the motorcar to be on it at the same time, so one set of tires was bumping across the grass—and the trees leaned in menacingly, a few of their branches close enough to scrape bare twigs against the sides of the motorcar, like skeletal fingers. I fought back a shudder.
“Left here,” Tom said, and Crispin made another turn onto another narrow path, without protesting this time.
The headlamps of the Hispano-Suiza cut cones of light into the darkness.
The copse of trees continued for a few feet, and then the landscape opened up: a bare lawn surrounded by trees on the left, and on the right, the memorial.
It was pale in color, and approximately the height of two men stacked on top of one another.
It consisted of a carving of a group of stylized soldiers in battledress—three of them—standing on top of a plinth.
I could tell that the latter was carved all around with symbols, but from a distance, and from the back of the motorcar, I couldn’t make out what they were.
The whole thing looked strangely imposing in the dark, and a bit ghostly, with the way the pale stone—limestone, at a guess—glowed even in the low light.
Crispin turned off the motor, and silence descended. I peered around, trying to make out Ian Finchley or any of his cohort, but if they were lying in wait—and I’m sure they were—they had concealed themselves well enough that we appeared to be alone.
“Time?” Christopher asked, and his voice sounded small in the vastness of the dark.
Crispin pushed back his sleeve and consulted his wristwatch. “Four minutes before the hour. That’s if my watch isn’t slow.”
“We should wait, I suppose?”
“Another minute or two won’t hurt. The note said midnight. I wouldn’t want to be disqualified on a technicality.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
“I don’t see anyone lurking,” I said, after another look around. “Kidnapper or otherwise. Surely they must be watching? Would you leave ten thousand pounds sitting around for longer than a minute or two, if it were you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Christopher agreed, “but then we’re not kidnappers, are we? Nor hard up, either.”
“When Mr. Schlomsky dropped off the ransom for Flossie, they were nearby. Remember? We saw them—or him—motor up the street and then come back.”
Christopher nodded. “Much easier to hide under London Bridge than here, though.”
Indeed. Other than the trees, and the memorial itself, there was nothing behind which to conceal oneself. The ground was as flat as a flounder.
“For all we know, they’re up in the nearest tree,” Crispin said and I did another visual sweep of our surroundings, to see whether I could spy anyone—kidnapper or copper—clinging to a branch. I couldn’t, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
“Time to go,” Tom said, and Crispin and Christopher both opened their doors. Crispin pulled his seat forward and snagged the carpet bag from my lap. It had sat between Tom and me on the way over here, but I moved it when I saw which one of them planned to carry it. “Thank you, Darling.”
“Good luck,” I told him.
“Stay by the motorcar, Kit,” Tom added, as Crispin shut his door and Christopher did the same on his own side. “Don’t go any closer.”
Christopher, from what I could see of him, didn’t appear to like this suggestion. His body stiffened in rejection, and I waited for him to speak.
Instead, it was Crispin who said, “It’s all right, Kit,” as he arrived beside Christopher on the far side of the motorcar. “It’ll only take a moment. And you’ll be able to see me the entire time.”
“The note said to leave the ransom behind the memorial?”
Crispin nodded. “It said to bring it to the back of the memorial, strictly speaking. I’m not entirely sure what constitutes the backside of something round, but the chaps up there are all looking in this direction, so I suppose the back means the other side.”
“Sounds good to me.” They took a few steps onto the grass, and then Christopher stopped. “I’ll wait here.”
Crispin nodded. “If anyone starts shooting, get back in the car and get Philippa away from here.”
I sniffed, offended, but of course he couldn’t hear me over Christopher promising that he’d do just that.
“What are the chances that anyone will start shooting?” I inquired of Tom, who looked amused.
“Slim to none, I’d say. Anyone who wanted to take a potshot at His Grace could have done it more easily elsewhere, and in daylight. Although I suppose it isn’t impossible. At least they’d be assured that he’d hand over the money that way.”
“Easier to wait for him to put the bag down,” I said. “They’re already in enough trouble from kidnapping Laetitia. No sense in compounding it by killing Crispin.”
“Unless they’re already in so much trouble that they assume another murder more or less won’t make a difference.”