Chapter 16 #2
The fact that Crispin’s face popped into my head at this juncture doesn’t even deserve a mention. It was only because it was something he would do, I told myself, and there was certainly no other reason for it.
“Not Mum,” Christopher said with a snort. “Mum would never. I meant Aunt Charlotte.”
“Aunt Charlotte asked your father to bed?”
“I assume she would have done. Or perhaps she did ask Mum. It might have been a mutual decision.”
I stared at him, the way I would have stared at someone who was leaping around the courtyard with bells on his shoes and a crown of flowers on his head. Someone who had taken leave of his senses. “Whatever are you blathering about, Christopher?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Christopher asked. “Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Harold had been married for several years by then. Mum had Francis and Robbie, and was having me. Aunt Charlotte had no one. Uncle Harold wanted an heir—”
“And you think Aunt Charlotte asked your father to give her one? And your mum agreed?”
Christopher shrugged as if it didn’t matter, when I knew full well that it did. “Keep it in the family, no?”
I sat back and thought about it. “I suppose there might be something to that. I can understand Aunt Charlotte’s side of it, at any rate.
Uncle Harold must have been impatient. And it’s never the husband’s fault, is it?
If she couldn’t provide him with an heir, he’d simply get rid of her, and find himself a different wife. ”
“Precisely,” Christopher said. “One way or the other.”
The other way being divorce, I assumed, if the one way was murder. Or vice versa.
“She’d be out on her bum, no longer the Viscountess St George, with no chance of ever becoming the Duchess of Sutherland. Not to mention that no one else would want her, if she was barren.”
“Except she wasn’t,” Christopher said. “She had no problem getting with child when Dad got involved.”
Ugh. I made a face. “Let’s not discuss that part of it, Christopher. But yes, I could see Aunt Charlotte throwing herself on your mum and dad’s mercy. Help me give him an heir. I could even see Aunt Roz taking pity on her, with her two children and another on the way.”
Christopher nodded, even as his face twisted. “That’s one way to assure that there’s no question about legitimacy, anyway. Crispin is a Sutherland through and through.”
Indeed. “I don’t see what was in it for your dad, though.
It wasn’t because he wanted to bed his brother’s wife.
Uncle Herbert has always been goofy about Aunt Roz.
And if Uncle Harold had no heir, Uncle Herbert would become Duke of Sutherland if he outlived his brother.
With Crispin in place, Uncle Herbert is one step farther away from the dukedom. ”
“But his son would become duke either way,” Christopher said. “Francis in the event Uncle Harold had no heir, and Crispin otherwise.”
He hesitated a moment and added, “I never got the impression that Dad particularly wanted to be duke. He’s happy at Beckwith Place with Mum and his hobbies.”
“He could have your mum and his hobbies at Sutherland Hall.”
“At Sutherland Hall, he would be too busy for hobbies,” Christopher said. “The estate doesn’t run itself, after all.”
After a moment, he added, “Besides, none of this matters, does it? It happened.”
“You believe it happened,” I corrected.
He slanted a look my way. “I’m fairly certain it did do. I heard the conversation. You didn’t. Dad admitted it.”
“There’s no way to know for certain,” I said firmly. “Crispin might still be Uncle Harold’s son. I’m sure he was still bedding his wife, too.”
“But it’s more likely that he’s Dad’s, isn’t it? If Uncle Harold couldn’t get Aunt Charlotte up the duff in several years of marriage, what are the chances that it happened at the same time that Dad was trying?”
Not good, I would have to say.
“All right,” I conceded. “I accept your premise. But it doesn’t explain why you think Crispin would kill anyone.”
“Doesn’t it?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just went on.
“What if he found out about this during that weekend in April? This was probably the secret that Grimsby was holding over Aunt Charlotte’s head, you know.
The secret that she killed Grimsby and Grandfather over.
She may have told Crispin that Morrison knew, as well.
But he couldn’t go anywhere to deal with it right after Aunt Charlotte’s death.
Uncle Harold kept him at Sutherland Hall until the funeral, remember? ”
I did remember that. Christopher and I had gone back to London, and the tabloids had been quiet about Crispin’s exploits for an entire fortnight because he was buried in Wiltshire.
“By the time he got to the Dower House for the weekend party it was two weeks later,” Christopher continued, “and Morrison was long gone. Then in July, there was the engagement party for Francis and Constance, and he learned that Hughes knew, as well. So he waited a month to throw off suspicion, long enough for Hughes to get settled in Bristol, and then he drove there and got her alone in an alley and hit her over the head and made it look like a robbery. Tom went to Beckwith Place after Bristol, to make certain that Dad—and I suppose Mum—had an alibi, but I don’t think he went to Sutherland Hall to check theirs. ”
“No,” I agreed, “why would he? Hughes hadn’t blackmailed either of them.”
“So far as we know,” Christopher said darkly. “At any rate, it’s only a few hours from Little Sutherland to Bristol. He could have easily motored there and back in a day.”
Yes, of course he could have done. Especially in the Hispano-Suiza.
“And Morrison?” I asked.
“Until this weekend,” Christopher said, “none of us knew where to find Morrison. And he did want to come with us, remember?”
“You think he motored up there by himself? And back, overnight? That’s farther than Bristol.”
“If anyone could do it,” Christopher said, “Crispin could. He makes the trip from Wiltshire to London all the time. He’s used to traveling on his own. He’s also used to staying up all night. The Bright Young Set often cap off their parties with breakfast.”
Yes, of course they did. However— “I don’t think he runs much with that crowd anymore, Christopher.
Between Gladys getting killed, and Cecily Fletcher and Dominic Rivers ditto, and Ronnie Blanton being stuck in the country to kick the dope habit, and Hutchison and Ogilvie…
well, we all know what happened there. I get the feeling that Laetitia keeps him on a pretty short leash these days.
The last time I saw him in London, it was for supper at the Criterion and a play. Almost staid.”
“He could have done it,” Christopher insisted.
“He would have arrived in Upper Slaughter sometime between three and four in the morning, most likely. It wouldn’t have taken long to kill Morrison.
She was asleep. All he had to do was hold the pillow over her face for a few minutes.
He’d have been back here by the time breakfast was served. ”
Which he had been. Groggy and in his dressing gown and slippers, but present. “And you think he would be doing all of this because he didn’t want to lose his spot in the succession?”
“If he’s Uncle Harold’s son, he’s next in line to be the Duke of Sutherland when Uncle Harold goes,” Christopher said. “If he’s Dad’s, he’s the youngest of four. Or three now. But still behind Dad, Francis, and me for the dukedom.”
“And you think he cares about that?”
He looked at me. “Don’t you?”
Did I?
He cared about it enough not to pursue a relationship with me even though he supposedly wanted one. He had told me himself that the reason he didn’t declare himself to the girl of his dreams—before I knew that the girl of his dreams was me—was that his father would disown him.
I had reflected at the time that yes, a Crispin deprived of all his creature comforts would be a miserable companion.
He was used to a certain level of ease, and denuded of it, I imagined he would suffer, and no doubt make everyone around him suffer, as well.
But I had encouraged him to declare himself anyway, because love was worth the loss of luxury, and I had assured him that if the girl loved him, she’d be happy to live with him anywhere, even if that was the proverbial Parisian garret.
And instead of listening, he had made the choice to propose to Laetitia Marsden.
“You may have a point,” I said reluctantly.
Christopher nodded. “I don’t like it any better than you do, Pippa. I love Crispin. But it hangs together.”
It did. Or at least it did if one suspended disbelief here and there and didn’t look too hard at a few of the details.
“What about the anonymous note?” I queried. “Why would he try to frame me? If you’re to be believed, he loves me. And even if you’re wrong and he doesn’t, I thought we had worked things out after the engagement, and we were friends again. Or if not friends, at least friendly. Not enemies.”
When he had been among the group that had taken me off the German freighter last month, he had certainly seemed happy and relieved to find me alive and mostly well.
“I thought so, too,” Christopher said. “I can’t explain that. But otherwise, it makes sense.”
“But you can’t just disregard the things that don’t fit!”
I could hear my voice becoming shrill, and I took a couple of breaths and counted to ten before I tried again.
“If he killed all those people—and I’m not saying that I believe you, Christopher.
It may make sense on paper, but that doesn’t mean that I believe it—but if he did, chances are that he wrote the note, as well.
Who else but the killer would know that Doctor Meadows was dead? ”
“Someone else might have gone by and seen the body,” Christopher suggested.