Christopher snorted.
“—concerned that Rivers and company got hold of him. But if he left here under his own power, and only a few minutes after he walked in, he must be all right. He’s probably on his way home, like you said.”
“I’m sure he is. Hopefully he’ll be all right when he hears that Gladys is dead.”
Lord, yes. Johanna had been killed after St George turned down her advances. If Gladys had been snuffed out after the same sort of scene, I could only imagine the effect it would have. Crispin is highly strung and prone to drama anyway. He would probably imagine himself as some sort of jinx who got women murdered when he said no to them. And God only knew what he would start doing then.
“I shall have to set him straight,” I said, more to myself than Christopher.
“If anyone can do it,” Christopher answered dryly, “it’s you, Pippa.”
We partedfrom Tom and his new admirer outside the entrance to the mews. And we did it without a word. Or at least without much of one.
“You know where to find us,” I told Tom, and he nodded, distracted both by the young lady, who was still hanging prettily on his every word, and by the need to flag down a constable for backup.
Christopher said nothing, and I noticed Tom glancing at him once or twice. But of course he was busy, and we had an audience, and were in public, and anything beyond what I had already said would be too much. So I smiled politely, and Christopher nodded, and then Christopher and I set off up the pavement towards the nearest tube station, while Tom focused on getting the attention of the constable who was making his slow and ponderous way towards the mews.
“Home?” Christopher wanted to know as we approached the underground.
I glanced at him. “I’d rather go to Royal Albert Hall and see if we can find Hutchison and Ogilvie. If we show up out of the blue, it’s possible that one of them gives something away, about Gladys or about who might have hit Montrose.”
And if they didn’t, we might at least be able to assume that neither of them had had anything to do with it. Or perhaps not. But Tom was clearly going to be busy with Gladys’s body for a few hours yet. And he had nothing to tie Gladys to Nigel Hutchison or Graham Ogilvie, nothing beyond the confidential information we had passed him last night, so we might as well do what we could as amateur sleuths, at least until we were taken off the case.
“It’s a nice afternoon for a stroll,” Christopher said agreeably, which I took to mean that he had made the same calculations I had made, and come to the same conclusions.
We came up into the sunlight again at Knightsbridge, and from there we strolled the kilometer along Carriage Way, with the city on one side of us and the green grass and trees of Hyde Park on the other. The bright sun and blue sky of the Sunday afternoon were almost impossible to reconcile with the four people—or three people and a detective—who had disposed of a dead body under the trees across the street in the darkness of last night.
The red brick and white trim of the Albert Hall Mansions was visible from several blocks away, but it wasn’t until we had rounded the corner of Kensington Gore that we saw the dome of Royal Albert Hall itself, with the elegant façade of the Albert Court Mansions beyond.
“No H6,” I commented, looking around at the various parked motorcars.
Christopher shook his head. “He’s on his way home, Pippa. Safe and sound.”
He put his head back and peered up at the nearest building. “It’s enormous.”
It was. And there were several other buildings, too, all equally large. “It’s a pity Blanton couldn’t give us better directions than he did. A green door isn’t going to be much help this time.”
Christopher shook his head. “If he’s right about them sharing a suite on the attic level, that’s somewhere to start, though. And each building must have a commissionaire, don’t you think?”
I would expect so. These were expensive flats, more expensive than mine and Christopher’s, and both Hutchison and Ogilvie must be well off, if they were part of Crispin’s set. The Society of Bright Young Persons isn’t open to the working classes, only to the upper echelon who can afford not to work for a living.
And yes, I do know that I can count myself among that number, as Christopher is basically keeping me—or perhaps it’s a little more appropriate, and not so pejorative, to say that his parents are keeping both of us. We would probably be welcome in the Society, or at least Christopher would. My heritage tends to preclude me from that sort of thing. One-half German is still too German for post-War England.
At any rate, the mansion flats were such that they should certainly have a commissionaire on duty.
“Shall we inquire?” Christopher suggested, and led the way into the nearest block.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
We got lucky,as it happened. Misters Hutchison and Ogilvie were residents of the first mansion block we walked into. The porter confirmed that the pair lived on the “bachelor level,” or in other words, the attics.
“Would Mr. Hutchison or Mr. Ogilvie be at home to visitors?” Christopher asked.
The porter suggested that he might inquire.
“So they’re at home?” I asked. “You haven’t seen them leave?”
The porter looked at me down the length of his nose. “Shall I just inquire, madam?”
