“His heart was weak to begin with,” Crispin said. “He had the doctor in just a few weeks ago.”
There was a moment of silence while we, all three, contemplated the old man in the bed.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, formally, to both of them. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“We should close up the room,” Christopher said, “and then we should go downstairs and tell Mum to call the doctor.”
“Not the police?”
He glanced at me. “Let’s start with the doctor. If he thinks there’s a reason to call the local constabulary, then I imagine he will. But as far as I can tell, this was an old man with a bad heart who died from too much excitement.”
He hesitated for a second before he added, “If Francis is around, perhaps he could have a look. He has more experience with dead bodies than the rest of us.”
And more problems with them, too, judging from what Crispin had told me earlier.
“I should think that would be a good reason for him not to have to deal with this one,” I said, “although I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask, if you can find him. Then again, I’m sure none of the bodies Francis came across in the war died in bed of natural causes.”
Christopher shook his head. He grabbed my hand again, and started to back away from the bed. I followed, and so did Crispin. It seemed impolite to turn our backs until we were halfway across the room, and once we had, we scurried for the door so quickly that there was a crush to get outside into the hallway. Crispin shut the door behind us, a little harder than was strictly necessary, and then we stood there looking at each other.
“I’ll go speak to Mum,” Christopher said after a moment.
I nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Crispin said, with a glance over his shoulder down the hall. “There’s something I… um… something in my room. I’ll knock on Francis’s door on the way, and see if he’s there. And my father’s door, as well.”
“We’ll see you later, then,” Christopher told him and turned towards the stairs. I gave Crispin a strained sort of smile, one that resulted in a twitch of his lip that wasn’t quite a sneer, but wasn’t quite anything else either, and then the two of us headed down while Crispin strode down the hallway towards his suite of rooms. He wasn’t running, but his stride covered ground just as quickly. I wondered whether he was trying to get to a private place before he broke down in tears, or whether there was another reason he wanted privacy.
And then we were downstairs in the foyer, on our way back to the salon, and the thought flew out of my head at the murmur of voices from within.
Aunt Charlotte must have been feeling better, because Aunt Roz had her sitting up instead of reclining on the sofa. And she was sipping from a cup of tea instead of the glass of brandy from earlier. It had been discarded on the side table next to my now-cold cup of tea, although the glass itself was empty, so Aunt Charlotte must have fortified herself on the contents before switching to the genial beverage.
Or perhaps Aunt Roz had poured it into the two cups the ladies were drinking from, and so they were being fortified by both tea and brandy at the same time.
When we walked in, they both looked up. After a moment, Aunt Roz’s attention focused on her son. “Well?”
“He’s definitely dead,” Christopher confirmed. “Cool to the touch, no pulse.”
Aunt Charlotte squeaked. This should not have come as news to her, so perhaps it was the somewhat callous phrasing she objected to. If Crispin was upset about his grandfather’s demise, Christopher was quite clearly the opposite.
Unless Crispin hadn’t been upset, either, and had simply wanted to get to a place with some privacy before his elation could give him away.
“We think it might have been a heart attack,” I said, “perhaps brought on by all the haranguing he did earlier today.”
Aunt Roz nodded and put her cup down. “I suppose one of us ought to ring up the doctor.”
She glanced over at Aunt Charlotte. And really, as the lady of the house, it was properly Aunt Charlotte’s duty. But she made no move to put down her own cup of tea, so it was Aunt Roz who got to her feet and headed into the hall to the telephone.
“Tea?” Christopher asked me. “If you’ll give me your cup, I’ll refresh it for you.”
“Please.” I took the cup from the side table, tossed the cold beverage into a convenient aspidistra, and handed the empty cup to Christopher, who proceeded to fill it. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He smiled.
“You’re such a lovely boy, Christopher,” Aunt Charlotte said dreamily. The brandy had quite clearly done a number on her. “Tell me, darling, what was it that I interrupted when I came in earlier? It seemed like you were doing something of consequence?”
Christopher looked blank. So did I. Until it hit us both at the same time, and we turned to one another with identical expressions of horror.
“Oh, no,” Christopher said, shaking his head determinedly. “That was nothing.”
