At any rate, Aunt Roz looked up at Gardiner with a warm smile. “You should call me Roslyn, dear. Everyone else does. Any friend of Robert’s…” She trailed off.
Gardiner looked touched. “Of course, Lady Roslyn.” He gave a brief bow from where he was seated at the head of the table.
“So he was shot,” Uncle Herbert said. “With what might have been a gun from our father’s collection.”
Gardiner nodded. “Unless someone would like to claim ownership of the gun it’s a good place to start.”
“My service weapon is back at Beckwith Place,” Francis said. “I didn’t see any reason to bring it to this weekend’s dressing down.”
He smirked. “Under other circumstances I would make a joke about not wanting to be tempted to use it, but with the circumstances being as they are…”
Gardiner glanced at him. “Is that what this weekend was? A dressing down?”
Nobody answered for a moment, so I took it upon myself. “The late duke called everyone together so he could make his opinion of their behaviors clear. All the small ways in which everyone was falling short in bringing glory to the Sutherland name…”
There was a sound from across the table that sounded very Crispin-like, but when I looked up, it was Christopher’s blue eyes that met mine with amusement.
“Well said, Pipsqueak,” Francis nodded. He turned back to Gardiner. “We all fell short in Grandfather’s eyes. Christopher hasn’t proposed to Pippa yet. I should be married with an heir and a spare by now. Crispin’s chasing women instead of settling down, although he isn’t allowed to marry who he wants to marry, so I don’t know that Grandfather could really complain about that one, although of course he did…”
Crispin shifted on his chair, but didn’t say anything.
Francis continued, “Everyone’s behavior was unacceptable in some way. Mother’s and Father’s, and I’m sure Aunt Charlotte’s and Uncle Harold’s. Nobody in the family was good enough for Grandfather.”
“That’s often the way it is,” Tom Gardiner agreed, pleasantly. “My grandfather thinks I’m dishonoring the family name by doing what I do. Nothing the younger generation does is acceptable to these older folks. Although, of course, I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
He looked up at Uncle Herbert and Uncle Harold, who sat like a united front at the end of the table, next to Aunt Roz.
I hadn’t gotten the impression that anyone particularly mourned the old duke, but it was possible that Harold and Herbert, at least, were keeping a stiff upper lip. At some point, a very long time ago, he might have been the sort of father who interacted pleasantly with his young children, even if no evidence had remained of that into the time when I’d known him.
However, I didn’t think Aunt Roz had ever had a close relationship with her father-in-law, and Christopher, along with the rest of the younger generation, seemed far from put out by his demise. Grimsby might have been one of the few inhabitants of the household who would have truly mourned the old man’s death, and he hadn’t had long to grieve.
And so we were back to where we’d started.
“Does anyone else want to claim ownership of a Webley pistol?” Tom Gardiner wanted to know. I shook my head, and watched Christopher and Crispin do the same.
“Didn’t serve,” Crispin said.
“Never felt the need for a gun,” Christopher added.
“Wouldn’t know how to use one if I had it,” I said.
Tom looked at me carefully for a moment. “Point and shoot,” he said. “Is there staff at Beckwith Place? If I were to ring there, would someone be able to let a constable in to determine that Mr. Astley’s Webley is there?”
Aunt Roz nodded. Neither she nor Francis looked worried about the prospect, so Francis’s service weapon must truly have been left behind at Beckwith.
Anything else would suggest that Francis had come to Sutherland Hall with the plan to kill Grimsby, anyway, and that wasn’t likely at all. Even if Grimsby had been blackmailing him along with Christopher, chances were Francis wouldn’t have known about it until he got here yesterday, much too late to make plans for Grimsby’s demise by his own gun.
Besides, why bring your own pistol when Sutherland Hall had a room full of them, and everyone in the family knew it?
Tom Gardiner’s thoughts clearly moved along the same path. “Who here had access to the gun room?”
“Everyone,” Uncle Harold said, with a glance around the table. “The door is kept unlocked. The gun cabinets are locked, of course, but the family and staff would know that the keys are kept in my late father’s desk in his study. Anyone could have taken them, gone to the gun room, unlocked a cabinet, taken a gun and ammunition, and replaced the keys. Or left them in the gun room. I don’t think anyone’s checked the desk to see if they’re there. Until now, we didn’t know that the gun came from my father’s collection.”
“We still don’t know that,” Gardiner reminded him, “but after we’re done with the interviews, we’ll have a look.”
He contemplated his notes for a moment before he added, “Out of curiosity, was anyone in the gun room yesterday?”
We all shook our heads.
