“Can you think of anyone with the initials L.M.?” I asked Christopher.
He thought about it. “Maybe Langston Mariner? A chap I knew at Eton? You wouldn’t know him, though, I don’t think.”
“Laetitia Marsden,” Crispin said with a smirk. It was a sort of self-satisfied smirk, and when I recognized the name from Grimsby’s dossier, I realized why. “You know Laetitia, don’t you, Darling?”
“Not the way you do, I’m quite sure,” I answered. He had a point, though. Both in that I knew her, or knew of her—her reputation was quite as fast as his was—and that she might be a viable owner of the initials. She was clearly associated with Crispin in some way. Hard to say what his birth or birth date might have had to do with it, but there was at least a connection there.
“There’s Doctor Meadows down in the village,” Aunt Roz said. “His first name is Lionel, I believe.”
“The old gentleman who was here Saturday night?”
She nodded. “He’s been the local doctor for thirty years or more, I’d say.”
“The late duke didn’t want a specialist from Harley Street?” That seemed like something I would have expected from the Duke of Sutherland. Only the best.
“Henry trusted Doctor Meadows,” Aunt Charlotte said distantly. “He’d known Doctor Meadows’s father back in the day, and continued to rely on the son when the father passed on the practice.”
“So Doctor Meadows’s father was a doctor, too?”
Aunt Charlotte nodded. “There has been a Doctor Meadows in Little Sutherland for a very long time. Lionel Meadows delivered Crispin, and his father delivered Harold and Herbert. Before that, the Meadows women were midwives, I believe.”
“Interesting,” I said, with a look at Crispin. He made a face. I guess the idea of having been delivered didn’t appeal to him. “Thank you.”
“If you need to talk to Laetitia, Darling,” Crispin said with a smirk, “let me know and I’ll be happy to get in touch.”
No doubt. “Don’t put yourself out, St George. Although, of course, far be it from me to stand in your way if you’d like to see any of your previous conquests again.”
“I don’t know that I’d call Laetitia Marsden a conquest, Darling. It was more that she conquered me, really—”
“Enough!” Aunt Charlotte’s voice snapped like a whip, and the look she directed at her only son could have pinned his ears to the wall. “This is totally inappropriate conversation for the luncheon table, and in front of your mother and your aunt, not to mention an unmarried female relative. Keep it to the changing rooms at the Club, Crispin!”
Crispin flushed, a wave of hot pink staining his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Yes, Mother.”
It was a quiet meal after that. Aunt Charlotte engaged Aunt Roz in discussion about the funeral arrangements for the late duke, and then Crispin excused himself a minute later. He didn’t wait for permission to leave, just pushed his chair back, tossed his napkin on the table, said, “Excuse me,” in a half-choked voice, and strode out. Nobody responded. I kept my eyes on my plate, and so did Christopher. I think Aunt Charlotte might have given a sort of regal nod, but I didn’t lift my head far enough to see. Crispin kept his composure out of the room and up the stairs, but after about thirty seconds, we could hear a slam that reverberated from above, heavy enough that a couple of the lighter pictures on the wall did a shimmy. I deduced Crispin had closed his door with enough force to rattle the windows.
“Temper,” I murmured to Christopher.
He nodded. “Always has. Comes from being the youngest and smallest, I imagine.”
“He isn’t any smaller than you.”
“Not now. But until you came, and we all grew up, he was always the smallest. And he’s still the youngest.”
He was. Not that there was anything any of us could do about that. You’re born when you’re born, after all.
Anyway, thus it was that after luncheon I asked whether Christopher would like to get out of the house for a bit, and we set off down the driveway towards the village.
I had an ulterior motive, of course. In fact, I had several. I wanted to get out of the Hall, because for all its size, Crispin’s bad humor hung like a storm-cloud over all of it, creeping down my spine and making me jumpy, waiting for the next bout of thunder and lightning. I wanted time to tell Christopher about Grimsby’s notes. And I wanted an opportunity to talk to Doctor Meadows, if I could finagle one.
Langston Mariner from Eton wasn’t likely to have had anything to do with Grimsby and the notes. If Christopher had known him, Crispin probably had, too, but I hadn’t heard his name before today, so he wasn’t likely to be significant in any way. And while Laetitia Marsden might have been significant to Crispin—or not—I doubted she had anything to do with his birthday, or birth date, or birth.
The use of initials did make a little more sense in her case, admittedly. She was already mentioned in the dossier with her full name, so it was reasonable that Grimsby might refer to her again by her initials. But beyond that, I couldn’t fit her logically into the narrative.
But Lionel Meadows, the doctor who had delivered Crispin on June 5thalmost twenty-three years ago, he might be important. And so I had orchestrated the walk to the village partly for fresh air, partly for private conversation, and partly because I thought there was a chance we might be able to beard Doctor Meadows in his den.
On the way there, I regaled Christopher with the information from the notebook. “He followed you around London for days, Christopher! Watched you shop and take tea and buy food and clothes. He followed you to Lady Austin’s drag ball last month, and watched you leave with Tom Gardiner. I assume it was Tom Gardiner you left with?”
Christopher nodded, his cheeks almost as pink as his cousin’s had been after Aunt Charlotte’s reprimand earlier.
