Epilogue
Agatha Christie turned up two days after the events at Brown’s, alive and well and registered as a guest at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire.
She had told the staff that her name was Mrs. Teresa Neele, and that she was a traveler from South Africa, and unlike Laetitia, she had not stayed in her room for the duration of her stay.
No, she had sat at the breakfast table at the Hydropathic, looking at her own face on the covers of various newspapers, seemingly without making the connection to the face she saw in the mirror every morning.
If you find it hard to believe, you’re not the only one. Several of the guests and staff had been suspicious of her identity, and on the same Sunday that we confronted Laetitia in her suite at Brown’s, the Hydropathic’s head waiter was elected to go to the Yorkshire police with their thoughts.
Things moved swiftly after that. On the following Tuesday, Colonel Archibald Christie took a table in a corner of the Hydropathic’s dining room and watched as his wife—using his mistress’s surname—walked in and took a seat at a different table, seemingly without recognizing him.
And that was that. The famed novelist was taken away by her cheating husband, and there were articles about amnesia and a concussion, which didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility, considering that she had motored her Morris right off the road in Newlands Corner a week and a half ago.
Then again, she had apparently enjoyed dancing and singing and billiards at the Hydropathic, which didn’t square all that well with a concussion either, if you asked me.
She was back home, at any rate, and the newspapers continued to rehash the story and speculate about what would happen to the Christies now.
Which was all very good news for us, or for Crispin, at any rate.
The Times carried a small notice hidden in its back pages, announcing that the engagement between Laetitia Grace Marsden and Crispin Henry Jonathan Astley, Duke of Sutherland, had been dissolved by mutual agreement, but that was all.
Everyone was too busy gossiping about Agatha Christie, Archie, and Nancy Neele, to track down the disengaged Duke of Sutherland in his lair in Wiltshire to ask what was going on.
And Laetitia at least had the decency to keep her mouth shut.
“I don’t know that I’d call it decency,” Christopher protested when I said as much. “More like self-preservation, if you ask me.”
“I suppose the tabloids would be unkind to her, wouldn’t they, if this came out?”
Christopher nodded. “They’d crucify her. Everyone loves Crispin, and after what he’s been through this year—losing his grandfather and mother and then his father, a poor orphan ascending to the title—the public would turn on her like a pack of hyenas.”
“It would serve her right if they did.”
He shrugged. “I’m not going to say that she wouldn’t deserve it. But that’s why I think it’s self-preservation rather than decency.”
And he might well be right. Part of me wanted her to suffer, but so far it seemed I was out of luck on that score.
Tom had refrained from arresting her for anything to do with the kidnapping hoax, as well as for anything Wolfgang had done to Christopher or me, or for that matter to Leonid Novikov and the dead ma?tre d’.
She’d got off easy, if you asked me. Lady Euphemia had been upset with her, of course, both about the emotional toll of the faux kidnapping and the fact that Laetitia had let Crispin wiggle off the matrimonial hook.
She had even made noises about a breach of promise suit.
But Laetitia must have convinced her that making anything public would do more harm than good—especially in light of Geoffrey’s recent brush with the law—because we, or Crispin, heard no more of it.
And that’s where things stood on the morning of Saturday 18 December 1926, which was to have been Crispin and Laetitia’s wedding day.
The Duke of Sutherland was back in Wiltshire, lying low, and I assumed Laetitia was back in Dorset, ditto.
I hadn’t seen her since the events at Brown’s.
That left the task of going to St George’s, Hanover Square, to myself and Christopher.
Yes, the wedding was off, and there had been a notice in the paper to that effect.
But the notice had been small and the original invitation broad—the nuptials would be open to anyone who wanted to attend—so I thought someone ought to be there to turn away any well-wishers that arrived, and explain the situation in terms that didn’t make things worse.
Christopher had snorted with merriment when I put myself forward for the task—apparently he didn’t think highly of my ability to be tactful—and then he had insisted on coming with me.
And that was why we were standing on the front steps of St George’s at ten-thirty that morning, dwarfed by the massive Corinthian columns marching across the front of the church, and peering up the lane at the bare hedges and wrought iron fences of Hanover Square a block away.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Christopher grumbled as he flapped his arms in an effort to stay warm. “We could have been at home, enjoying the central heating and a nice cup of tea, but no. You had to come here instead.”
“I didn’t talk you into it,” I reminded him. “I told you I would have been happy to go by myself.” I breathed in the cool air and smiled.
“I bet you’re so delighted that you don’t even feel the cold, aren’t you?” He flapped his arms again, bitterly.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. The fog that had blanketed southern England for weeks had lifted, and as a result the temperatures had dropped. It was definitely chilly. But at least it was a pretty day. It would have been a nice day to get married. It was a lovely day not to have to.
Christopher snorted when I expressed the sentiment. “Couldn’t ask for better.”
I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and turned to him. “It’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it? Did you think we’d ever be standing here?”
“I knew we’d be standing here,” Christopher said, “but I didn’t think it would be for this reason.”
No, me either. “I can’t believe it’s over. Although… you don’t think they’ll try anything, do you? The Marsdens?”
“I think they’d be mad to,” Christopher said firmly. “Laetitia’s lucky Tom didn’t arrest her. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that was partly tied to her letting Crispin go without a fight.”
“Would he do that? Tom?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Christopher said.
“It would have been difficult to get a conviction anyway. The staff at Brown’s swore up and down that she didn’t leave her room on Friday, so she can’t really be blamed for Novikov’s murder, and whilst she shouldn’t have allied herself with Wolfgang in the first place, she wasn’t there when he killed the ma?tre d’, or when he hit me over the head, or when he kidnapped you. ”
No, she hadn’t been. And although I still thought she bore at least some of the blame, I did appreciate the difficulty in actually bringing her to trial for it.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that she’ll take her brother and go to America, is there?” My voice was wistful. “It could be a lovely new start for them both, far away from England. Maybe she’d find a rich American to marry.”
And stay there. Where I’d never have to lay eyes on her again.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Christopher said. “They do like aristocratic titles in the colonies.”
He turned his head to watch a pair of young women stepping up the pavement toward us. “Oh, look. It’s Lady Violet and the Honorable Olivia.”
It was. Both of them were swathed in furs, so fuzzy only their noses peeked out between the collars of the coats and the brims of the hats, and they were leaning against one another and giggling. If it hadn’t been before eleven in the morning, I would have said that they were drunk.
“Good morning, ladies.” Christopher greeted them politely when they came close enough to be able to hear him. “Liquid breakfast, was it?”
“Celebrating,” Olivia said with a giggle. “That the most eligible bachelor in England is back on the market.”
She raised an imaginary glass and clinked it against the imaginary glass in Violet’s hand. They’d been toasting in champagne, it seemed.
“And then we had to come here,” Violet added, dropping her hand and the imaginary drink, “to make certain the wedding really wouldn’t take place.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes, but only because I would have had to roll them so hard I might have hurt myself. “As you can see, no one’s getting married today. Crispin’s in Wiltshire, if you’d like to extend your condolences.” Or something else.
They looked at one another, and then Violet giggled. “Should we motor to Wiltshire, Liv?”
“Don’t mind if we do, Vi,” Olivia answered, and they were off again, clinging to one another and laughing themselves silly.
“When you’ve sobered up,” I said. “You wouldn’t want anything to go wrong on the way.”
They both shook their heads solemnly. “Shall we go and find another mimosa, then, Vi?” Olivia asked.
“Let’s do,” Violet answered enthusiastically, and they linked arms and set off in the direction from whence they’d come with an unsteady gait and a, “Toodle-oo, Mr. Astley!” over their shoulders.
We stood in silence until they were around the corner and out of sight. At that point I cleared my throat. “To think I thought she liked the Honorable Reggie Fish.”
“I’m sure she does like the Honorable Mr. Fish,” Christopher said, “but he’s not the Duke of Sutherland, is he?”
No, he wasn’t.
He slanted me a look. “You shall have to marry him yourself, you know. If you don’t, one of them will snag him. And you can’t tell me that either Lady Violet or Olivia would make you any happier as Duchess of Sutherland than Laetitia did.”
No, of course I couldn’t. “He ought to marry someone who cares for him,” I said, “not just someone who wants the title and fortune.” Or to wed the most eligible bachelor in England.
“I agree,” Christopher said readily. “Although what I thought you wanted, was for him to marry someone he loves.”
I had said that, at some point. Before I knew that it would put me on the hook to marry him. I couldn’t very well deny having said it, however, especially since I still believed it to be true. “That, too.”
“Then perhaps you ought to get with the programme, Pippa. He’s been hung up on you for five years. I don’t think it’s going to change.”
“It might,” I said. “He’s only twenty-three. And he’s busy figuring out how to be the Duke of Sutherland right now. He doesn’t need to worry about marriage at the moment.”
“That’s considerate of you. But if you don’t snatch him up, don’t you think someone else will do it? Someone who cares less than you do that he’ll be happy?”
I made a face. “How about this? I promise I’ll be nice to him. Then perhaps he won’t feel the need to do anything rash.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Christopher answered, and looked around. “What say we get out of here? It’s cold and no one else seems to be coming. I could go for a cuppa and a cream bun.”
So could I. “Lyons Corner House?”
“Why not?” Christopher said and presented his elbow for the half mile walk to Coventry Street.