Chapter 10 #2
“Fine,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be? He didn’t indicate any plans to arrest me, did he? Or suggest that he thought I was guilty?”
Christopher shook his head. “Although I don’t know that he believes you to be innocent, either, necessarily. There’s the note, and I suppose he has to take it seriously.”
“An anonymous note!”
“I know. But it’s an accusation, and he has to look into it. I didn’t get the idea that he thought it particularly credible.”
“I should hope not,” I said, disgruntled. “Why on earth would anyone think I’d murder Doctor Meadows? I can probably count the times I’ve met him on one hand. The only time he treated me, was six months ago when the bullet just missed me.”
I had never lived at Sutherland Hall, and never spent much time here, either. Unlike Christopher, who had eleven years of visits with Crispin before I showed up from Germany.
“I’ve met him more often than that,” Christopher said.
“I broke my arm once, when I was seven or so, and Doctor Meadows had to set it. And that wasn’t the only time something happened when Crispin and I played together, either.
But all the childhood illnesses and such I had, I went through at Beckwith Place, with Doctor White. Including the influenza.”
I had gone through the influenza with Doctor White, too.
Before coming to England, I’d had a few of the standard childhood illnesses in Germany, and then there were the years I had spent at the Godolphin School in Salisbury, while Christopher was away at Eton.
None of which translated into much time spent in Little Sutherland with Doctor Meadows.
“He suggested that you might be in the family way,” Christopher added, “and that Doctor Meadows refused to give you something for it.”
I snorted. “I hope he didn’t suggest that you were the father of my non-existent child?”
“He did,” Christopher said calmly. “I set him straight, of course. Then he suggested that it was Crispin’s.”
I rolled my eyes. “For the record, if I had been stupid enough to get myself up the duff by St George—and what an idea, Christopher!—I wouldn’t visit the Sutherland village doctor to have it taken care of. I’d go to someone in London, where I live.”
And where they would be less inclined to speculate about the identity of the baby’s father.
“I made certain to point that out,” Christopher nodded. “I also reminded him that Crispin is engaged to Laetitia, and that nothing good will come of asking that question of anyone else.”
I shuddered. No, indeed. I could just picture Laetitia’s face now, if Constable Daniels were to bring up the possibility. Not to mention Uncle Harold’s ditto.
“I did my best to impress on him the absolute ridiculousness of the notion,” Christopher assured me.
“I got the feeling that he believed me. Or at least he believed that I believed it. Although, since we were together every minute of our visit earlier, there was no way you could have murdered Doctor Meadows even if you were expecting.”
“Good,” I told him decisively. “Did he ask you about anything else that I should know? Or let anything interesting slip?”
“Nothing he didn’t already tell you, I’m certain,” Christopher said. “I told him that we’d heard a door slam a minute or so after we left the infirmary, while we were still standing outside in the lane.”
“Did we hear a door slam?”
“I did,” Christopher said. “I don’t know about you. We didn’t discuss it. But I certainly heard something of the sort.”
So had I done, now that I thought about it. “I wonder whether that was when the murder took place?”
“I hope so,” Christopher said, “since we were indubitably together, and in full view of everyone in the village.”
“If anyone saw us.”
“Someone saw us,” Christopher said. “Whoever wrote the note.”
“Did Daniels tell you about it?”
He nodded. “Showed it to me, told me it had come through the mail slot shortly after the murder. Asked me if I recognized the writing.”
“And did you?”
He shook his head. “Something like that could belong to anyone. We all write abominably with our left hands. All except for Crispin.”
“Why except for Crispin?”
“He’s naturally left-handed. I remember all the crying when we were small. Uncle Harold tied his left hand behind his back so he couldn’t use it, and made him learn to write with his right instead.”
I scowled. “Bastard.”
He shrugged. “It’s common practice. Although I can’t imagine why anyone would bother. As long as he knows how to write, who cares which hand he uses to do it?”
Certainly not I. “Didn’t people used to believe that being left-handed meant you were evil?”
“Hundreds of years ago,” Christopher confirmed. “But all sorts of things were thought to be evil back then. We know better now.”
“Are you certain about that?” It was St George, after all. Evil seemed to fit.
Christopher rolled his eyes at me, and I smirked. “So he can write with both hands, is what you’re saying?”
“Equally well, too. He kept the left-handed writing from Uncle Harold and practiced on his own time. At Eton, he’d use both. Sometimes at the same time.”
How interesting.
“It sounds like anyone except perhaps Crispin could have produced the note, then. Did Constable Daniels think it might have originated at Sutherland Hall?”
“He didn’t suggest it,” Christopher said judiciously. “Although the insinuation that I might recognize it did rather lend itself to that interpretation. It’s not as if I know any of the villagers’ hands.”
No, it wasn’t. “I don’t suppose the writing paper looked familiar?”
“It looked like writing paper.” After a second he added, “At least it didn’t have the Savoy Hotel logo in the corner.”
I made a face. “Don’t remind me.”
Wolfgang Ulrich Albrecht, the late—or perhaps still-breathing—Graf von und zu Natterdorff, had corresponded with me via Savoy Hotel stationery for several months after he moved out of the upscale Savoy Hotel and into humbler accommodations.
I didn’t appreciate the reminder, of the subterfuge or of Wolfgang himself.
“We could check Uncle Harold’s study,” Christopher said, “once we get back to Sutherland Hall.”
“Do you suppose he’ll allow you to skulk in his study, peering at his stationery? Besides, he was in there when we came back up from the village earlier. I noticed the lights were on when we crossed the courtyard.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Christopher protested. “He could have gone out and left the lights on.”
“Are you accusing your uncle of killing Doctor Meadows and framing me for murder, Christopher?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “I’m fairly certain I saw his head, too. Someone was in there, sitting at the desk. And it couldn’t have been Uncle Herbert. He had already left by then.”
“Dad wouldn’t have gone in Uncle Harold’s study anyway,” Christopher said.
“He might have done, if there was something your uncle asked him to look at.”
Christopher snorted. “And what do you suppose that might be? Uncle Harold has always been extremely territorial about the Hall. He hardly even took Dad’s input when it came to burying Grandfather.”
“In justice to your uncle,” I said, and it pained me to have to be fair about it, “he had a few other things on his mind at that point.”
Like his wife’s funeral, and the fact that she had been responsible for killing his father.
Christopher shrugged sulkily.
“At any rate,” I added, “it’s not just the study that has stationery. The library does, too, not to mention all the guest rooms. You never know when one of the guests—Lady Laetitia, for instance—might get the urge to pen an explicit love note to St George.”
Christopher made a face. “Did you have to put that image into my head? Although I suppose you have a point. Even if there’s similar stationery in Uncle Harold’s study, or for that matter all over the house, we wouldn’t know whether any of it had gone missing this morning.”
“Mrs. Mason might know,” I said. “Not about the writing paper in the study or library, but in the guest rooms. I’m sure the maids do the replenishing when they do the rooms every morning. Someone might remember having had to replace a piece of note paper this morning.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any harm to ask,” Christopher said. “Whoever wrote the note had to have known that Doctor Meadows was dead—”
“Or that he would die, if the note was written beforehand.” In which case it was premeditated murder.
“—but how could they know, if they were all at the Hall this morning?”
“Perhaps they weren’t all at the Hall this morning. We can ask Francis when he comes back out, whether he knows where everyone went after breakfast. And if he doesn’t know, we can ask Constance, or Crispin, or even ring up Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert and ask them.”
“We ought to do that anyway,” Christopher said. “And let them know we won’t be coming home today, and why.”
I suppose we ought. “At least they were long gone when this happened.”
“Long gone when it was discovered, at any rate. Hopefully Daniels won’t get any ideas about asking them to come back. They must have been driving through Little Sutherland at around the same time as the murder.”
So it seemed, if that had taken place shortly after Christopher and I had seen him.
“Here’s Francis now,” I said, as the door to the constabulary opened and the latter came out. He shut the door behind himself and strode towards the Crossley.
“Well?” I asked as he fitted himself behind the wheel. “What news?”
He flicked me a glance in the mirror. “Nothing you don’t already know.”
“Did he tell you not to leave?”
“Sutherland Hall, do you mean?” He cranked over the motor. “Yes. We’re all expected to stay. You two are expected to attend the inquest whenever it’s set. The rest of us are to make ourselves available for questions later.”
The Crossley rolled off down the road.
“Questions about what,” I wanted to know, “precisely?”
Francis’s eyes flicked to mine in the mirror again. “Whether either of you two had a reason to want Doctor Meadows dead. You’re not in the family way, are you, Pippa?”
“Certainly not,” I said with a sniff, while Christopher snorted.
“Is he still on about that? I thought I talked him out of that idea.”
“Seemingly not. He asked me about it.”
“What did you tell him?” I wanted to know. “You didn’t suggest that there’s anything like that going on with me and St George, did you, Francis?”
I love my cousin, but he does occasionally display a strange sense of humor. It was the time in the trenches, I assume, that taught him to find amusement in things that the rest of us wouldn’t find funny. I wouldn’t put it past him to perpetuate this story for the simple sport of it.
“St George, is it?” He glanced at his brother. “All he suggested to me, was that the two of you were trying to hide a pregnancy. There was no mention of Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
I made a face. “I don’t know which is less likely, honestly.”
“Me,” Christopher said. “Clearly. While you’re not interested in me, I’m also not interested in you. Crispin, on the other hand, likes women—”
“And how.”
“—and he also likes you specifically.”
“None of which has anything to do with whether I would have anything to do with him. But I take your point, Christopher. So Constable Daniels was still on about that, then, Francis?”
“Seemed to be,” Francis said, maneuvering the Crossley up the lane towards the Hall. “I can’t wait until Uncle Harold has to field questions about it.”
He sniggered.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, joy. Nor can I.”