Chapter 15 #2
But that aside, if she was the one who had killed the dead bloke, she might be wandering about somewhere in London’s East End in the middle of the night, looking like the wealthy aristocrat she was, which might not be good for her health.
Although on the other hand, she might have managed to flag down a Hackney, and was even now back in Mayfair, with Thompson the butler waiting on her hand and foot. I had no idea how long the dead bloke might have been dead. No one had said anything about it.
“Should we stop at Marsden House and ask if she’s made it home?” I asked, and Crispin met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“At this time of night? Are you mad, Darling?”
“It would be good to know, wouldn’t it?”
He shook his head. “I’m not knocking up the entire household just to be told that she’s not there. It can wait until morning. We need some rest.”
I wasn’t going to argue with that. It had been a long and busy day. And if he didn’t care enough to ensure that his fiancée was home safe, I certainly didn’t.
The drive to Mayfair was quick. The Hispano-Suiza skidded around the corners, but Crispin managed to keep from hitting any pedestrians—few and far between this time of night—or other motorcars, or any light poles.
He also managed to avoid being stopped and fined, so it was all very much a win for our side.
Back at Sutherland House, we stumbled upstairs to our rooms and let Niles the footman do the same.
Rogers and Tidwell must still be out carousing, unless Tidwell had turned around and motored back to Wiltshire.
The Rolls Royce Phantom was no longer parked in the portico when we got there, so perhaps he had done.
“No, Your Grace,” Niles said when Crispin asked, “Lady Laetitia has not been here, and no one has rung up.”
Crispin nodded. “Very well, Niles. You can turn in. Let me know if that changes.”
Niles assured his employer that he would, and that was the end of it.
I removed my makeup and brushed my teeth and dropped into bed.
And didn’t wake up until morning, when one of the maids opened the door to inform me that His Grace desired my presence in the breakfast room, because Detective-Sergeant Gardiner had arrived.
I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth again, pulled on the same clothes I had worn yesterday, and hurried downstairs, where I found the rest of our small group gathered around a table, shoving down kippers and toast and sauteed mushrooms. Crispin and Christopher looked no worse for wear than they usually did.
Tom appeared as if he’d not made it to bed yet.
He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, as well, and his face was pale and his eyes heavy and bloodshot.
He lifted his coffee cup to me in a toast when I told him he looked rough.
“Thanks ever so, Pippa.”
“You didn’t make it to bed, I assume?”
I served myself an egg and toast and a few rashers of bacon and sat down at the table with a strong cup of tea.
“I got three hours down. Better than nothing.”
But nothing like a full night’s sleep. However, needs must, I supposed. Besides, he was probably used to it. Murder waits for no man.
I picked up my fork. “What news?”
“I was waiting for you to come down to update you all,” Tom said as he put down his cup. “I see Lady Laetitia isn’t here.”
He glanced around the table.
Crispin shook his head. Unlike Tom, he looked refreshed and rested, in a clean shirt and jumper, with his hair neatly combed back for the day. “No word from her. Isn’t that right, Rogers?”
Rogers nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. There’s been no word from Marsden House.”
“Thank you, Rogers.” Tom turned back to the rest of us. “The dead chap has been identified as a Russian by the name of Leonid Novikov. He’s twenty-two, and has been in England since 1919.”
So right after the Great War ended. Although—
“At twenty-two, he wouldn’t have been old enough to have fought in the War, surely?”
Twenty-two was younger than both Christopher and Crispin, and we had all missed the cutoff for service by a few years.
“Not our war,” Tom said, with the possessiveness of someone who had suffered and bled for it. “But the Russians had their own civil war, remember? Starting with the revolution in 1917, and lasting until sometime in 1922.”
I hadn’t been paying Eastern Europe a whole lot of attention, I had to admit.
Russia was a long way from Wiltshire, and I’d had my own concerns during those years.
My father died in France (or perhaps Belgium) and my mother in the influenza epidemic that followed, and I had been at the Godolphin School for Girls from 1916 to 1920, and at Oxford after that.
A civil war taking place in a far-away land wasn’t something I had spent much time thinking about.
“So he might have been a soldier?” Christopher asked.
“Anything’s possible,” Tom answered. “More likely he was a young chap whose parents didn’t like the direction that Russia was going—someone opposed to the Bolsheviks—who either left for greener pastures or were driven out by persecution where they were.
And they took their children with them. Leonid included. ”
“He has a family, then.”
“A mother, a father, and two sisters,” Tom confirmed, and a shadow crossed his countenance. “I had to do a notification.”
I felt for him. It’s never easy to have to notify someone that their loved one is dead. Nor is it an easy thing to hear, of course. We all got a lot of practice with it during the War, on both sides of the issue. There’s hardly a family in Britain who wasn’t affected in some way, including ours.
Respectful silence descended for a few seconds, punctuated by the sound of masticating.
Crispin was the one who broke it, as perhaps he should have been. “Did his family know anything about Laetitia?”
Tom shook his head. “If he was involved in her kidnapping—”
I opened my mouth to make the obvious comment—“If?”—but he waved me down.
“Yes, I know, Pippa. If he had been a random bloke dead in that bandstand, he might have stumbled upon something by accident, but you saw him earlier in the day. He was almost certainly involved. But his family knew nothing about it, or claimed to know nothing. There were five of them living in that two-bed council flat, and nowhere for them to keep a hostage. I checked.”
“That must have gone over well,” Christopher commented.
Tom shot him a look. “Not particularly. But they allowed me to look around. There was no sign that anyone had been there that didn’t belong. If he was involved, he and whoever else is behind the kidnapping kept Lady Laetitia somewhere else.”
“You looked in cellars and attics and storage areas,” Crispin said, “I suppose?”
Tom nodded. “I looked everywhere I could. All the public or semi-public areas. There was no sign of her, and no sign that she’d ever been there.”
“Did his family know anything about his associates?” Christopher wanted to know. “People he spent time with? Did he have a profession?”
“Delivery driver,” Tom said, “for Harrods. He drove a motorcycle van.”
“Is there enough room in one of those to hide a body?” Or a living but unconscious woman?
“I haven’t seen it,” Tom said. “I have to go there once they open, I suppose, and let them know what happened, and then interview anyone who knew Leonid. I’ll make certain to take a look at the delivery bicycle then.”
It probably didn’t matter anyway, to be honest. Laetitia’s yellow Citroen seemed to be missing, too, so whoever had taken her, had most likely just taken her away in that.
“Would you like company?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind a trip to Harrods. Christmas is coming, and I’m woefully behind on my purchasing.”
Not to mention that I hadn’t picked up a gift for Crispin’s and Laetitia’s nuptials yet. I suppose I felt, superstitiously, that doing so would make it more real, and thus more likely to happen. If I ignored it, perhaps it wouldn’t come off.
Then again, if I mentioned anything about that, Tom might think that I hadn’t purchased a gift for the wedding because I knew it wouldn’t happen, and I knew that because I was behind Laetitia’s kidnapping, so it was probably best if I simply kept my mouth shut about it.
“Harrods has put in an indoor skiing slope with artificial snow,” Christopher said. “Instructors for the Swiss Army Ski Corps are on hand to help customers.”
He pretended to swoon against the back of his chair, flapping his hand in front of his face as if he had the vapors. Crispin chuckled, and Tom sighed. “Enough, Kit. I’m not taking you with me.”
Christopher straightened. “Of course not. I don’t need your permission to visit Harrods. Besides—”
He glanced at me, “Pippa’s right. We’re woefully behind on presents. Would you like a cheese grater, Crispin?”
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” I told him, before Crispin could say anything. “I’m certain the marriage itself will be sharp-edged enough without adding to it.”
Crispin rolled his eyes. “Thanks ever so, Darling.”
“Don’t mention it,” I told him. “Shall we accompany Tom to Harrods, then?”
“I don’t know how appropriate it is for me to gallivant about with my fiancée missing,” Crispin said, but Christopher brushed the objection away.
“It isn’t as if it’s common knowledge, is it? Her family has kept it out of the papers, and so have we. No one knows.”
“Euphemia and Maury know,” Crispin said.
“And the only way they’d know, is if they were there themselves, and saw you. And if they were, they’d have no room to talk, would they?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “Are you afraid that they’ll refuse you their daughter’s hand in marriage if you go, as you say, gallivanting about in her absence?”
He turned to look at me, and I added, “Would that be the end of the world, if they did?”
“At least it wouldn’t be you on the hook for the breach of promise suit,” Christopher contributed. “Besides, don’t you want to see the Swiss Army instructors?”