“He’s dead,” Crispin answered, and while I could hear a very faint tremor in his voice, he sounded mostly calm. “Someone should ring the police.”
“No!” Rivers yelped. Gladys made a startled hiccough.
“We can’t leave him there,” Crispin pointed out. “Dobbins won’t want to step over him every time he has to use the butler’s pantry for the next week.”
“A week?” I repeated. “Surely you know?—”
He flicked me a glance. “Yes, Darling. But after a week, the odor will be unpleasant enough that there wouldn’t be a question about whether or not to phone the police.”
Yes, of course. “I’ll do it,” I said, and looked around, “if someone can point me in the direction of the telephone.”
But— “No!” Rivers barked again. He went so far as to reach out and grab me by the shoulder, which caused Christopher to growl and Crispin’s eyes to narrow. They both took a step forward, but before either of them could say anything, Rivers dropped his hand. “Dear me,” he said, “I didn’t realize I wasn’t to touch your precious, St George.”
If he had somehow imagined that that pseudo-apology was going to make Crispin calm down, he clearly didn’t know him at all. “Shut it, Rivers, or I’ll do it for you.”
“Oooh.” Rivers grinned unpleasantly. “Touchy.”
“Stop it,” I said severely, “both of you. Now is not the time to see which of you has the bigger?—”
“Pippa!” Christopher exclaimed, shocked, and, “Darling!” Crispin said, wincing.
I sighed. “If Montrose is dead, we have to phone the police. We can’t leave him there.”
“Of course not,” Rivers agreed. “We’ll take him downstairs and put him in the alley.”
He said it as if it were a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem, instead of a suggestion that we interfere with a crime scene and destroy evidence, not to mention the appalling notion of carting around a dead body.
My jaw dropped, and Christopher’s tightened. Clearly neither of us had seen this suggestion coming. Crispin’s face didn’t change, so perhaps he wasn’t as surprised as I was.
Gladys nodded fervently, and Ogilvie uncoiled himself from the wall where he had been languidly observing the proceedings. “It had better be the service lift, then.”
Rivers agreed with a nod. “We’ll need to clean up the blood, too. Blanton will have to send Dobbins out for more towels, I suppose.”
“Have you lost your minds?” I asked, and they both looked at me for a moment before they went back to talking to each other, just as if I hadn’t opened my mouth.
“She’s right, you know,” Ogilvie said. “Dobbins would wonder where the towels went. Ronnie shall have to purchase his own whitewares, I’m afraid.”
“That’s not at all what I meant!” I exclaimed. However, at this point Christopher started to pull me backwards down the hallway towards the sitting room, away from the group in front of the pantry door.
“We can’t let them—” I began, resisting the steady pull, but by now Crispin had caught up too, and between them, he and Christopher manhandled me through the door into the sitting room.
Christopher let go, but Crispin didn’t. He pushed me a couple further steps into the room and turned to me.
“Listen, Darling—” He’s only a couple of inches taller than I am, but he did his very best to loom.
“No, St George,” I retorted furiously, hands on my hips, “youlisten…!”
“Stop it, Crispin,” Christopher said. He took his cousin by the arm and pulled him back a step so he wasn’t hissing directly into my face. “You’re scaring her.”
“No, he’s not!”
What he was doing, was making me angrier than I already was. We had to call the police so they could figure out who had killed Montrose, and the last thing I needed was Crispin telling me otherwise.
Crispin, meanwhile, told Christopher, “She should be scared! And so should you. So should all of us!”
“I just think…” I began, and he turned back to me, eyes glinting with temper.
“Listen to me. For once in your life, Philippa,shut upand listen to me!”
