“Can you describe the scene?”
I described the scene and did my best to downplay the fact that I had behaved like a Victorian maiden, not at all like the thoroughly modern girl from the new century I liked to think myself.
“Thank you, Miss Darling,” Inspector Pendennis said when I was done. “Did you get the impression that the Viscount St George was in shock when you found him in the maze?”
He’d been pale, certainly. And a bit shaky. Although I hadn’t honestly paid a whole lot of attention to anything but my own reaction.
Pendennis made a humming sound. “And neither of you noticed the pistol?”
I hadn’t. I couldn’t say what Crispin might have noticed, only what he had drawn my attention to. And the pistol hadn’t been among those things.
“And then you came inside,” Pendennis said. “Together?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want to stay there alone with the body, and it must have been there since the previous night anyway, so there was really no point in standing guard over it. If anything was going to happen to it, it would have already happened, we assumed.”
Pendennis nodded. “Thank you, Miss Darling. Anything else you would like to add?”
I told him there was nothing. “May I go to my room now?”
“After you allow Detective Sergeant Finchley to take your fingerprints.”
I looked at Finchley, who nodded towards the sideboard where the orange juice usually sits. Now it was a fingerprint station with ink and pieces of paper. I let him roll each of my fingers on an ink pad and then on a piece of paper, and signed the corner of the paper where he told me to sign.
“Just one more question, Miss Darling,” Inspector Pendennis intoned as I made my way towards the door afterward, rubbing at my fingers.
I stopped. “Of course, Inspector.”
“You said you caught a glimpse of someone moving through the garden maze last night, and immediately ran down the hall and into the duchess chamber to see who it was.”
I nodded. It hadn’t been a question, but as far as it went, it was correct. “That’s right.”
“Was there a particular reason that someone moving through the garden maze might have been of interest to you? Was there a reason you wanted to know who it was? You said you thought the shot had come from farther afield, so it couldn’t have been concern about that.”
Oh.
The reason I’d been interested was because Grimsby hadn’t shown up to the appointment he’d set with Christopher, and I’d thought it was strange. I’d been further wound up by my time alone in the conservatory, and the gunshot, and the snake—or perhaps mouse or lizard—that had slithered across my foot, and being locked in and having to ask Crispin for help in getting out. But I couldn’t say any of those things to the inspector.
“No,” I said instead. “It was late and I was curious. I had thought everyone else was already in bed. There was no other reason.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Miss Darling. That will be all.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” I said, and headed for the door again, and closed it firmly behind me. Neither of them said anything until I was outside in the hallway, and by then, all I could hear was the murmur of voices through the wood, and not the actual words they said.
I glanced down the hall at the door to the drawing room, but instead of heading that way, I did what I’d said I’d do, and made my way to the foyer and the staircase to the first floor, where my room was.
ELEVEN
I was still rubbingat my fingertips, trying to get rid of some of the ink, when I reached the top of the staircase. That must have been why I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.
As such, it came as a surprise when a hand shot out of nowhere and wrapped itself around my wrist and yanked. I stumbled to the left with a shriek, and found myself towed behind Crispin towards the door to the Duchess’s Chamber. He pushed it open, hauled me over the threshold, and kicked it shut behind us. I twitched my arm out of his grip and rounded on him.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I should be asking you the same thing,” Crispin said, eyes narrowed. “What was that, down there?”
“What do you mean?” So many things had happened downstairs that you’ll excuse me for having no idea to which of them he was referring.
“You’re giving Kit an alibi for murder when you have no idea whether he did it or not?”
