“Room search? Whatever do you mean, Christopher?”
“Oh,” Christopher said, with a guilty sort of wriggle, “I forgot you didn’t know. Tom told me yesterday—Detective Sergeant Gardiner—that they were going to search all our rooms this morning.”
Aunt Roz pulled her brows together, while Crispin arched his. “Surely that was before Darling here handed Tom,” his voice lingered on the name, “her love note last night?”
Aunt Roz’s brows arched this time, too. “Pippa? Something you’d like to tell me?”
“St George,” I said, with emphasis, “is making a joke. It wasn’t a love note.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Crispin scoffed. “Nor was it your movements for any given time. You would have told those to Pendennis during the interview yesterday, and the other detective would have taken them down. Fletcher. Fletchley. Whatever his name is.”
“Finchley,” Christopher said, from where he had fallen into another chair and was looking quite as boneless as Crispin had earlier. “And you’re a bit too smart for your own good, Crispin. What do you think it was, if not a love note or Pippa’s movements?”
Crispin glanced at him, and then at me. “I have no idea. But if I were to guess, something you found in the bottom of your weekender bag, that someone else had put there, and that would help the police in their duty. Something like, say, the notes Simon Grimsby took while he was digging up dirt on all and sundry?”
Christopher was right: Crispin really was too smart for his own good, or at least for mine. “Fine. It might have been something very much like that.”
“Pertaining to,” his voice made quotes around the words as he repeated what I’d said last night, “—‘all three of you.’ Who would the third be, I wonder? Perhaps Cousin Francis?”
“Or perhaps you,” I said sourly. And added, before he could question whether it really had been him, “It doesn’t matter. Scotland Yard has the information now, and from what I could tell, there was nothing there to implicate any of us in either murder.”
He looked at me for a second. Then— “I wasn’t aware that Grandfather’s death had been ruled a murder.”
“It hasn’t,” Aunt Roz said, “as far as I know. For now, we can hope that he died naturally, in his sleep, of old age and too much excitement.”
It was a lovely thought, but personally I figured it was probably too much to hope for. And given the look that passed between Christopher and his cousin, I rather thought that they both felt the same way about it that I did.
You will have noticed, I’m sure, that no one present questioned Crispin’s assertion that Grimsby had been digging up dirt on everyone in the family. No one questioned the idea that he might have had notes about us all, either. As for the fact that Scotland Yard was now in possession of the notes, it didn’t seem to inordinately discomfit anyone present. I wondered whether that meant that none of us was guilty, or whether Crispin had simply taken my word for it that the notes had been harmless.
“I guess I’ll go wash up before luncheon,” he said, and unwound himself from the armchair.
“Capital idea,” Christopher told him, and did the same. “Care to accompany me upstairs, Pippa?”
“I would be delighted,” I said, and took the hand he offered, and let him pull me to my feet. “Aunt Roslyn?”
“I’ll stay down here, dear. I’ll see you all for lunch.”
The boys bowed, and I dropped a curtsey, and we headed out and up, leaving Aunt Roz in the library to ponder the brevity of life, much like Hamlet with Yorick’s skull.
At the topof the stairs, we sent Crispin off to the east wing to effect his toilette, while Christopher came with me. He didn’t say it, but I knew it was so that he could try on the cloche hat Hugh the footman had taken up to my room. Christopher hadn’t been able to try on a lady’s hat in the middle of the millinery department of Style & Gerrish, of course, so this was the first time he’d have a chance to see how it looked on him. While he preened in front of the mirror, turning this way and that, I slipped out of the stained blouse I’d been wearing since breakfast, and into the new one we’d bought in Salisbury to match my existing skirt. The entirely new outfit could wait until tomorrow.
“Very becoming,” Christopher said, meeting my eyes in the mirror when I stepped up next to him to see how I looked.
I nodded. “The violets really bring out your eyes. Of course, I’m sure you knew they would.”
He smirked. “I was talking about your new blouse, Pippa, but thank you.”
“Oh.” I examined myself in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s a bit too demure?”
It was yellow with small green dots, with a bow at the neck, pleats on the shoulders, and long sleeves that ended in narrow cuffs. I could imagine myself having worn something very much like it when I was twelve or fourteen.
But Christopher shook his head. “It’s very becoming. And the cut is elegant. You look lovely.”
“If you say so.” I turned away from the mirror again. “I suppose I’d better keep your cloche in my room until we get back to London.” And there as well, actually. “It wouldn’t be good for the police to find it in your room when they do their search.”
“The police already know,” Christopher said, plucking the cloche from his head. “Or at least Tom does, so I assume the rest of them do, as well. I’m more concerned with the servants.”
And so, perhaps, he should be, given how easily the Sutherland House servants had gossiped with Grimsby. “Just leave it on the stand,” I said. “Would you like me to come with you to your room, or are you just going to wash your hands in the basin and go downstairs as you are?”
