Chapter 4 #2
Christopher hid a smile. “Inquire of anyone you want, Constable Woodin. Cook handed us the picnic basket with her own hands this morning. She can tell you that we were all there then.”
“And earlier?”
Earlier?
“Are you suggesting that one or more of us left Wiltshire last night,” I wanted to know, “that we motored up here, killed Morrison, and motored back, only to go to breakfast this morning and make the trip all over again?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Woodin responded. “I merely asked whether anyone can prove that you didn’t do.”
I scowled at him. “Not in my case. I’m a spinster and I slept alone.”
“Same for me,” Constance said softly.
“Surely you don’t think we did that?” Francis wanted to know. “Would there even be time to drive here and back before breakfast?”
“I think,” I said judiciously, even as my heart began to speed up, “that I’m the only one of us who could have done it. Christopher and I both went up to bed early. You and Constance stayed in the drawing room. But St George knocked on Christopher’s door later—”
I glanced at him; he nodded, “—so I doubt Christopher could have made it here and back after that. Nor you two, either. You stayed downstairs with the others too late, and we were up too early. I didn’t see anyone after I retired, and no one saw me, so I could have made my way down to the garage, taken out one of the motorcars, motored here, murdered Morrison, motored back, and been in the breakfast room when Christopher came down this morning. ”
“Were you the first one there?” Woodin wanted to know, and I nodded.
“Of the guests, yes. Tidwell and Cook were up, of course. I’m sure the rest of the servants, as well.”
Francis grinned. “It’s looking bleak for you, Pipsqueak.”
“Don’t joke about that, Francis,” Christopher said. “Constable Woodin doesn’t know us. He might not realize that you’re not serious.”
The constable didn’t appear to find the conversation humorous at all, indeed. “Miss Darling—”
“Pippa,” I said, “please. And I didn’t do it, Constable. I had no reason to want Morrison dead. Why would I drive four hours out of my way—twice!—to kill a woman I had never even met before?”
He couldn’t answer that, of course—because I wouldn’t do; nor would anyone else.
I added, “It was my idea to motor up here. If I had wanted to murder Morrison, I wouldn’t have suggested coming here today.
I would have kept my mouth shut, and motored up overnight, and slept in this morning, and pleaded a restless night over late breakfast. And you wouldn’t have known that Morrison was even dead, let alone that I had had anything to do with it. ”
Constable Woodin eyed me, but more like someone who was thinking about something else rather than someone who was assessing my potential as a murderer. “I need to report this,” he said.
Francis nodded. “What do you want us to do?”
The constable glanced around, distractedly. “Wait, I suppose. It might take a while. I have to go to the constabulary in Stow-on-the-Wold.”
“There’s no constabulary in Upper Slaughter?”
He shook his head. “Nor in Lower Slaughter, either. Stow-on-the-Wold is the nearest constabulary to here.”
“How far away?”
“Thirty minutes, if I pedal fast.”
He grinned. Francis sighed. “Get in the motorcar. I’ll take you there.”
“What about these three?” Woodin gestured to us.
“We can all squeeze in,” I said, “if you’re afraid that we’re going to contaminate your crime scene if you leave us here. Although, if we stay, we can make sure that no one else walks into the cottage.”
He squinted at me. And it was a difficult decision, I could see that.
I didn’t particularly want to squeeze into the Crossley like a sardine in a can, and I could tell that Woodin didn’t, either.
He was a strapping, young specimen, with broad shoulders and muscular thighs underneath the regulation trousers.
Much more Francis’s type than Christopher’s.
Or if he was Christopher’s type, it was in a totally different way.
There was a faint resemblance to Tom Gardiner there, and it wasn’t just because they were both policemen.
But that’s neither here nor there. Leaving the three of us, with our no doubt concerning history with dead bodies, unsupervised outside a fresh crime scene, can’t have been a comfortable notion, either.
“We won’t touch anything,” I assured him. “We swear. Don’t we, Christopher? Constance?”
They both nodded, young and innocent and big-eyed.
“The longer we stand here and discuss it, the longer the body will lie up there,” Francis said, and that seemed to make the difference. Woodin glanced at him, and something passed between them—perhaps a memory of bodies in the trenches, who knows?—and then Woodin nodded.
“We’ll be as quick as we can,” Francis told the rest of us. “Do you want to come with us, Connie, or stay here?”
“I’ll stay,” Constance said.
And that was that. The two men walked out through the garden gate into Upper Slaughter—Constable Woodin shut the kitchen door behind him in a rather pointed manner first—and then Christopher closed the garden gate behind them.
It was just as well to make sure no random passers-by could peer into the courtyard and see us standing here, really.
And then the three of us looked at one another.
“Sit?” Christopher suggested, nodding to the bench against the wall.
“Don’t mind if I do.” I took Constance’s arm and headed for it. It was long enough to accommodate all three of us, so a moment later she was sitting between us.
Silence descended. Albeit only for a moment, until Christopher broke it again.
“I can’t believe we motored all the way here for this.”
“By this,” I said, “I assume you mean another dead body?”
“That, but also the fact that we’re sitting here waiting for an influx of constables. Not to mention that we seem to be suspects.”
I shook my head. “I’m certain we’re not, Christopher. I’ve never in my life met Morrison. Nor have you. Why would we kill her?”
“I knew her,” Constance’s voice said, sepulcherally, from behind her hands.
I peered down at her bowed head. “But nobody would suspect you of murder.”
Constance looks like the very epitome of the well-bred English gentlewoman, who would never raise a hand against anyone.
Of course, so had Aunt Charlotte, and she had managed to off several people before doing away with herself, but that was neither here nor there. I knew Charlotte. Had done since I was thirteen, and she would never do such a thing.
“Woodin doesn’t know that,” Constance said.
Perhaps not. But—
“I’m certain Francis will set him straight. They seemed to get on well, didn’t they?”
“Let’s hope so,” Christopher said grimly, “because this is all more coincidental than I like. What are the chances that Morrison has lived here quietly for six months, and then, twelve hours after we hear about her, she’s smothered to death? And we have nothing to do with it?”
The chances of that were not very good, when he put it like that. At least not to someone who didn’t know us.
But nevertheless— “I didn’t motor up here overnight and kill her, Christopher. Why would I do? And none of the rest of you had the time to do it.”
Christopher looked dubious. “But will the police believe that?”
“If it’s the truth, I don’t see that they have a choice. If none of the rest of you had opportunity, and I did, but I didn’t do it, then it was someone else. Perhaps she has made enemies since she came here. Was she objectionable, Constance?”
“No more than anyone else,” Constance said and took her hands away from her face before sitting up. “Mother seemed to like her well enough.”
“This was the maid you told me about, who spent all her time dressing your mother and her ward, and no time helping you, correct?”
She nodded. “But I didn’t mind that, Pippa. Certainly not enough to kill her over it.”
“No, of course not.” If Constance had wanted to kill anyone, it would have been Johanna de Vos, and it would have been six months ago. “But you knew her. None of the rest of us did. Was she the type of person to get herself murdered within six months of moving to a new town?”
“Clearly,” Constance said dryly.
I huffed, and she added, “She wasn’t the friendliest person I’ve ever met.
Shreve was right about that. She was polite enough to me, I suppose, and she doted on Johanna, but even after twenty years in Dorset, I don’t think she had made many friends.
She always seemed to think herself too good to fraternize with Cook and the kitchen maid, and she and Shreve clearly didn’t get along well. ”
No, they hadn’t seemed to, and that hadn’t been because Morrison thought she was better, since Shreve and Morrison had had the same job. Shreve’s was even a bit more privileged, I would venture, since Shreve dressed the Countess of Marsden and Morrison merely dressed the Dowager Lady Peckham.
So perhaps Morrison had been envious, and that was why the two maids hadn’t gotten along.
“But you think it’s possible that she came here, and made herself so objectionable that someone decided to get rid of her?”
“Anything’s possible,” Constance said.
Yes, of course. I glanced at the door. “I wonder if there are clues in there.”
“Constable Woodin would kill you if you went looking for them,” Christopher said.
I looked over at him. “Not if he didn’t know I had done.”
He didn’t say anything to that, and I added, “Surely you didn’t expect me to sit here and wait politely while there’s a crime scene on the other side of the door?”
He shot me a look. “Haven’t you seen enough crime scenes, Pippa?”
I had done, to be honest. More than enough. However— “It seems as if I might be a suspect in this one.”
“That should make you more eager to keep your distance,” Christopher said.
“But what if I notice something that proves I couldn’t have done it? Or something that proves that someone else did?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, persuasively, “There’s plenty of time, and nothing to do but sit here.
If it takes thirty minutes to bicycle to Stow-on-the-Wold, it’ll take Francis ten or fifteen to motor there.
Then they have to make their report, notify the doctor, and arrange for a delegation to come back this way.
All I want to do, is go inside and look around before anyone comes to catch me at it. ”
“Then go,” Christopher said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I got to my feet, but hesitated. “You don’t want to come with me?”
He made a face. “I’ve had enough of corpses for a while, Pippa. I spent entirely too long locked in with the one at Thornton Heath.”
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “That must have been awful for you. But this one won’t smell, you know. She hasn’t been dead long enough for that.”
“Nonetheless, I think I shall stay out here, where the air is fresh.” He tilted his head back and flared his nostrils. And lowered it again to ask, “Are you afraid to go in by yourself?”
“Not afraid,” I demurred. “I would just… like to have company.”
I waited, but no one offered to come with me. Both Christopher and I avoided, quite diligently, looking at Constance. After a long moment fraught with silence, she sighed. “You’re shameless, the both of you.”
I smiled. “I knew if I waited long enough, you’d agree to go with me.”
“And you knew Morrison,” Christopher added. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to take a look. At the moment, we don’t even know that it’s Morrison upstairs, and not someone else.”
“That’s a good point,” I agreed. “There’s no reason to think it isn’t Morrison, of course, but it’s just as well to make sure of it. And since I’ve never set eyes on her…”
“Yes, yes.” Constance rolled her eyes. “I said I would go.”
“Let’s do this, then.” I tucked my hand through her arm. “You’ll let us know if anyone comes, Christopher?”
“You’ll be the first,” Christopher said. And added, “Don’t touch anything, Pippa. Hands in your pockets the whole time. Remember to cover the handle before you turn it.”
“Good of you to remind me. May I have the handkerchief back, then, please?”
He handed it over, and I went through the process of covering the door handle before nudging the kitchen door open.
Constance and I exchanged a look. “After you,” she said.
I rolled my eyes, but took a breath before plunging into the kitchen.