“Of course I didn’t,” I said. “I stood in the conservatory, just as I told you, and watched the light go out in Francis’s room, and the door from the hallway open and close. I heard the shot, the same as you did. But I didn’t move from the corner of the conservatory, not even when something slithered—slithered, Christopher!—across my foot, and I didn’t shoot anyone.”
Christopher nodded. “I didn’t, either. I don’t know how I’d be able to prove it, because I didn’t see anyone, and no one saw me. How did my cousin know you were lying, by the way?”
I grimaced. “When you and I were talking in the study earlier? He was tucked away in the secret staircase, like the sneak he is.”
Christopher rolled his eyes. “Of course he was.”
“And another thing. He called Detective Gardiner your boyfriend at one point.”
Christopher stared at me, while red flooded his face all the way to the tips of his ears.
“I told him not to do it again,” I said, “and I got the impression he understood—”
“That’s not true,” Christopher stammered. “He’s not… we’re not…”
“—but he didn’t promise. So…”
“Damn him,” Christopher managed, his voice hoarse. “If the police weren’t here right now, I’d kill him myself. Just go over there, wrap my hands around this throat, and choke the life right out of him.”
I could understand the impulse—St George made me feel that way pretty much every time he opened his mouth.
“I don’t care about myself,” Christopher added. “He can say whatever he wants about me. But Tom… it’s not like that. I told you the truth, Pippa. He’s a chap I knew at Eton. Older than me by several years. Robbie’s age. He and my brother were friends, and when he recognized me last month at Lady Austin’s, he warned me that a raid was coming soon and it would be better for me if I didn’t come back.”
“But you went anyway.”
“And he must have guessed I would, because he got there first and pulled me out. We were a block away when we heard the whistle.”
“That was nice of him,” I said.
Christopher nodded. “But the point is, it wasn’t for me. I’m sure it was for Robbie, and for Mum and Dad. They’ve had enough to deal with, with losing Robbie, and are still dealing with it, with Francis. If Tom could keep them from dealing with me being arrested, I figure he thought that would be a help.”
“He sounds like a nice man,” I said.
“He’s a very nice man,” Christopher answered, “but the point is, we’re not together in any way. Today was literally the third time I’ve seen him since I left Eton five years ago. And I didn’t see him much before that, either, since he was only there for the first year that I was. We’re not friends. Merely acquaintances. And after this, I’m not sure we’ll be that. If there’s a raid on Lady Austin’s next month, I’m sure he’ll leave me to hang. If I’m not in prison for murder already by then.”
“Don’t say that!” I exclaimed. “There’s no reason why anyone would want to arrest you.”
“Two people are dead,” Christopher said. “One of them, at least, was definitely murdered. They’re going to want to arrest someone.”
Of course they were. “But it doesn’t have to be you!”
“Let’s look at the evidence,” Christopher said. “Someone shot him dead. Someone who had access to the gun room, and who knew where the keys to the display cabinets were kept.”
Yes. There was no way around that, it seemed.
“I was one of those people.”
I opened my mouth, and he waved me to silence. “I wasn’t the only one. There’s the rest of the family and the staff. But while I could see one of the staff murdering Grimsby—he might have been blackmailing one of them, too, or at least might have known something about someone they didn’t want him to know…”
I nodded.
“—I don’t see one of the staff killing Grandfather. Most of them have been with him a long time. They were well paid. They seemed to like him well enough. And it wasn’t like he was long for this world, anyway. He was almost ninety, with a bad heart.”
“Are we sure he was murdered, though? Did the police ask you about it?”
Christopher shook his head. “Just where I was and what I was doing between the time I saw him in his room and the time Aunt Charlotte came screaming into the drawing room that he was dead.”
“We were together during that time,” I said, “so if anything happened, we couldn’t have done it.”
