Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
I walked to breakfast the next morning like a person to the gallows, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The rest of the night, after listening to Crispin walk away, had been spent going over the evidence in my head, over and over again: all the threads, all the intricate, small plot-lines, until I fell into a restless slumber, haunted by hangmen and dead bodies and black things covering my head.
I overslept, of course, and woke up as frazzled and divided in spirit as I had been when I turned in.
It had also occurred to me, a bit belatedly, I’ll admit, that Crispin’s sly comment about the ball and chain might not have been in reference to Laetitia.
He might have been talking about being arrested this morning.
There was a whole month left until he got married.
Plenty of time for kisses. But they were likely to be scarce in prison.
There was no part of me that wanted to see anyone, but I knew that if I didn’t show my face downstairs, Christopher would come looking for me.
So I donned a warm skirt and jumper, in deference to the gray November morning as well as the chill that permeated from my center out to the other parts of me.
There was no one about when I opened my door, nor when I reached the bottom of the servants’ staircase. The smell of cooked bacon hung in the air, and I could hear the murmur of voices from the breakfast room.
I set off down the hallway, only to slow a few seconds later, as I noticed that the study door was open. I drifted over and lingered on the threshold for a moment to peer inside.
This was where Crispin had spent part of the morning yesterday, several hours going over paperwork, or perhaps only the few minutes necessary before scurrying through the boot room and across the courtyard to the carriage house.
Twenty or thirty minutes would have been enough to motor to the village and back, and if the study door was kept shut, no one might realize that he had left at all.
And there was plenty of blank paper around on which to write the anonymous note.
I peered around again, carefully, before ducking through the open door and into the room. Hopefully no one would catch me in the minute or so it would take for me to check the desk blotter for any sign that the anonymous note had been written in this room.
I stopped beside the desk and pushed the tangled papers on top aside. And there—yes, a sheet of blotting paper, with ink spots still on it. I bent over and peered at it, doing my best to translate the random squiggles and constellations into what might have been words.
Surely that was an inverted P and half an H for PHILIPPA? And a bit above that, the line and half the backward curve of a D? For DOCTOR or perhaps DEAD? Or even DARLING?
My heart sank slowly into what felt like my stomach. This didn’t look good for Crispin, whether he was guilty or not. He had motive, means, and opportunity, and now I could put him in the vicinity of the anonymous note at the time when the ink was still wet.
My fingers twitched as I fought the impulse to snatch up the blotting paper and crumple it into a tight ball that I could toss into one of the fireplaces.
Which was what anyone sane ought to have done, frankly.
Why on earth wouldn’t Crispin have taken it with him, if he knew that it could implicate him?
It was left in his father’s study, yes, and no one but Uncle Harold was likely to see it.
The rest of us weren’t supposed to go into Uncle Harold’s study.
Not even Crispin was supposed to be here unless he was specifically invited.
I suppose he must have assumed that Uncle Harold wouldn’t give him up even if he did happen to notice that the spots on the blotter matched the verbiage of the anonymous note, and he had been right, hadn’t he? Uncle Harold hadn’t said a word to anyone, as far as I knew.
Before I could take that thought any further, I heard the sound of a throat clearing behind me, and I swung on my heel, heart knocking against my ribs.
“Oh.” The relief was palpable. “Good morning, Tidwell.”
“Miss Darling.” Tidwell ran a practiced eye over the room. “You shouldn’t be here.”
No, I shouldn’t. I should leave immediately, before anyone other than Tidwell caught me.
I picked up the blotting paper before I walked away from the desk. Tidwell looked as if he’d like to protest, but only until I handed it to him on my way past. “Hold onto this for me, Tidwell.”
Tidwell gave both me and the paper a look, but all he said was, “Very well, Miss Darling.”
I brushed past him into the hallway, and watched as he shut the door to the study behind us with a pointed snick. “The family is gathered in the breakfast room, Miss Darling,” he informed me as he turned.
“All of them?”
“His Grace is still in his chambers,” Tidwell said, “and Master Crispin has gone—”
Gone? “Gone where?”
“To the constabulary,” Tidwell said, and my jaw dropped. Tidwell clarified, “He said he would be back shortly.”
Yes, of course he would say that. Telling the butler, “I’m going to give myself up for murder,” was surely out of the question. If the village was even where he had gone. He might have made a break for it, and only told Tidwell that he was going to the constabulary to gain a head start.
“Did you see him before he left? Did he seem all right?”
“His lordship seemed perturbed,” Tidwell intoned.
Yes, I could well believe it. “Christopher’s in the breakfast room, did you say? I must go there.”
Tidwell made no move to stop me, so I indicated the blotting paper. “Put that somewhere safe, if you would, Tidwell. The police will want to examine it, I expect.”
“Yes, Miss Darling,” Tidwell said, with a glance at the paper in his hand. Anything else he may have asked faded into nothingness behind me as I took off down the hallway as quickly as I could without flat out running.
The breakfast room was indeed full of people when I reached it.
Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert were gone, of course, and had not mysteriously materialized again overnight, but the Marsdens were gathered around one table, snacking on tea and eggs and sauteed mushrooms, while Christopher, Francis, and Constance were sitting at a second table, drinking coffee and picking at bacon and buttered toast. All three of them brightened when they saw me, and Christopher beckoned.
“There you are. I was beginning to worry.”
His eyes landed on my arm, which was better this morning than last night, but which I still favored and tended to keep close to my body.
“Rough night,” I told him as I angled out the empty chair between him and Francis and made my way onto it. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to visit the carriage house, and someone attacked me.”
They all turned silent. So did the Marsdens, although they appeared to try to be more circumspect about it.
“Who?” Christopher demanded.
I shrugged, and winced when it jolted my arm. “I have no idea. We didn’t precisely have a conversation. I opened the door and turned on my torch, and whoever it was threw a bicycle pump and a blanket at me, and got away.”
There was a quickly suppressed snigger from the other table. Laetitia, surely, although Geoffrey has been known to have an inane sense of humor as well, although perhaps not this particular week. Francis’s lips twitched. “A bicycle pump and a blanket, you say?”
“The bicycle pump first, to make me drop the torch. Whoever he was, he had good aim. The blanket came a few seconds later, when he knocked me over and ran past me and out the door.”
“What’s wrong with the arm?” Constance inquired, and I turned to her.
“Thank you for asking, Constance.” Unlike some people, who merely seemed to enjoy my suffering. “I don’t think it’s broken. Just bruised and sore, I think. It’s purple and yellow.”
Constance winced, and so did Christopher. Not Francis, of course. He’s seen much worse.
“Shall I take a look?” he asked.
I glanced around. All the Marsdens were watching, more or less avidly. “Perhaps later. I’m not about to cause a scene by disrobing in the breakfast room.”
“Good show,” Francis said. “Can you use it?”
“As long as I’m careful.” I stretched the arm out and pulled it back in, slowly. “See? Nothing to worry about. If it’s not better in a few days, I’ll find a doctor and have him look at it.”
He nodded. “And you didn’t see who it was who maimed you?”
“By the time I had clawed the blanket off my head, the carriage house was empty. And I wasn’t about to chase whoever it was up to the house.”
“No, certainly not.” Christopher shuddered. “I would hope you stayed where it was safe.”
I assured him I had done. “The glass on the torch had broken, but it still worked. So I used it to look for oil spills underneath all the motorcars.”
“Oh.” Comprehension dawned on his face, and on those of everyone else, as well. “Was that what you were doing there?”
“I thought it might at least point to someone other than Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert,” I said. “We know they were in the village, or at least that they motored through it, but we don’t know whether anyone else was.”
Constance murmured something, and Francis nodded. “And did you see any oil, Pipsqueak?”
“I did,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you whose motorcar it was that was leaking.”
He tilted his head to contemplate me. “You do know that I can simply go down there and look for myself, don’t you?”
Of course I did. “I’m sure you checked the Crossley after we returned from the Cotswolds the other day. Didn’t you?”
Francis allowed as how he had done. “And it was fine. So not that, then. And probably not the Phantom, as it’s practically brand new. Crispin’s little speed machine, perhaps? It’s had the most wear of the lot.”
“I told you,” I said. “I’m not saying.”
“You’ll tell Tom,” Christopher asked, “won’t you?”