“And no one else does?” Crispin arched a brow. “The rest of you walked, I suppose?”
Nobody answered. It was quite clear that we had been nominatedin absentiato transport the body, and nothing we could say would change that.
“Where are we supposed to take him?” I wanted to know. “I thought you were going to put him in the alley. You don’t need a motorcar for that.”
Had they, by chance, reconsidered, and were going to let us transport him to the police? Or at least to a hospital?
But no, surely not. Nor was I sure I wanted to, actually. Nothing good would come from driving up to Scotland Yard with a dead body in the back of the automobile. That was true whether we’d had anything to do with killing him or not.
“We thought,” Rivers said, “that taking him further afield might be a good idea. With the way he’s currently dressed?—”
He leveled a look through the open door into the butler’s pantry, “we thought you might take him back to Rectors.”
Where everyone had seen him sit with us, drink with us, and leave with us.
Then again, that was true for everyone else in Ronald Blanton’s party, as well. We’d all sat at Freddie Montrose’s table, and shared a bottle or two of champagne with him, in full view of everyone in the club, just an hour or two ago.
“Fine,” Crispin said, since there was nothing else to say. “Get him downstairs. I’ll fetch the motorcar.”
He swung on his heel so the pink tassels danced around his calves. “Come along, Kit. Darling.”
“They can help us down with the body…” Hutchison began, but a look from Crispin shut him up.
“If we’re to be responsible for taking him away, we’re already doing more than our share of the work. And I don’t want any of us having to explain away bloodstains. It’ll be hard enough to make excuses without that, if we’re stopped along the way.”
“Why would you be stopped?” Blanton wanted to know, and Crispin gave him a crushing look.
“You don’t think every one of the London constables know the H6? Most of them probably know it’s my birthday, too. You think they won’t stop me, to see how much I’ve had to drink?”
“He has a point,” Ogilvie told Rivers. “Perhaps?—”
But Crispin had already swept past him to the door, dragging me behind him. “We’re off. The rest of you bring the body.”
“Might it not be better—” Blanton began, but Crispin kept going.
“If we’ve been nominated to do this, then let us do it. We’ll meet you at the service entrance.”
He opened the front door and held it for me. “After you, Darling. You too, Kit. Let’s go.”
He shut the door gently behind us and breathed out. I felt the same way. Just leaving Blanton’s apartment behind was like a breath of fresh air.
“Let’s not dilly-dally,” Christopher said, making a beeline for the staircase and waving us down ahead of him. “Let’s not give them any opportunity to change their minds. We’re out of there. Let’s keep going.”
“Are we going to take Frederick Montrose to Scotland Yard?” I asked, as we clattered down.
Crispin didn’t bother to glance at me over his shoulder, just kept going down the stairs, his heels clicking in counterpoint to Christopher’s against the marble steps. “Of course not, Darling. Don’t be absurd.”
“What do you mean? What are we going to do with him?”
“What we said we would do,” Crispin said. “Take him back to Rectors.”
I stopped, or I would have, if Christopher hadn’t been behind me. As it was, I had to keep going whether I wanted to or not. “Have you lost your mind? You’re going to drive a dead body from Mayfair to Tottenham Court Road and leave it there? And go home and sleep as if nothing happened?”
“Of course not, Pippa,” Christopher said from behind me, and Crispin added, before he could go on, “None of us will be able to sleep after this. Not for days and days.”
I stared at him, or more accurately, at the back of his head. He didn’t seem to notice, just kept moving down the stairs. “Have you?—?”
Lost your mind, was what I was going to ask. I didn’t get the chance.
