Not a gossip, then. I sighed and nodded. “Yes, please.”
The porter rang upstairs. And someone was at home, because the porter said politely, “Lady and gentleman to see you, Mr. Hutchison.”
“Mr. Christopher Astley and Miss Philippa Darling,” Christopher told him.
The porter repeated it, and gave Hutchison a second to respond. Which he must have done with vigor, because the porter went into a litany of yeses and nos, culminating in, “I haven’t seen him this afternoon, sir.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that if Hutchison was inquiring about Crispin, we were looking for him, too. Christopher put his foot on my toe and applied pressure, and I closed my mouth again.
“Yes, sir,” the porter said. “Right away, sir.”
He nodded to us. “Take the lift up to the seventh floor. Mr. Hutchison will meet you.”
Lovely.
When we exited the lift on the top floor, Hutchison was waiting.
He was perfectly put together, in the same type of casual flannel bags that Christopher was sporting, and the same kind of knit jumper.
You may wonder about the jumpers, seeing as we were past St George’s birthday and almost a week into June.
England is cold and gray a lot of the time, and this year, June was no exception. We had started the month with eleven degrees on the first, and although things were warming up a bit by now, overcoats and pullovers were stillde rigueur. If we were lucky, we might get something that resembled summer in July or August, but for right now, it still felt a long way off.
At any rate, Hutchison was dressed in weekend casual, and his expression when he eyed us was part suspicion, part worry. “Miss Darling. Mr. Astley.”
“Hutchison,” Christopher said smoothly. “We were hoping to find my cousin.”
Hutchison blinked. “St George? Why? Was he coming to see us?”
The blink looked genuine, as if he’d been sincerely surprised by the suggestion, but of course that kind of thing is easy to counterfeit.
“We thought he might,” I said. “He left our flat with Miss Gladys Long. When he didn’t come back, we went to Mr. Blanton’s flat first, since we knew where it was. When St George wasn’t there, Blanton gave us your direction, and we came here next.”
“St George went off with Gladys? He’d be at her place, then, wouldn’t he?”
“We don’t know where to find it,” I said plainly. “Blanton talked about a mews in Belgravia, and a green door, but he didn’t know which one. He knew where you lived, so we came here first.”
“I see.” Hutchison’s lips twitched. “Well, Gladys lives in the Ellery Mews, number 13, and I haven’t seen St George so far today.”
“Thank you.” Christopher turned toward the lift, and Hutchison added, “Not so fast.”
Christopher turned back, brows elevated. So were mine. I could have sworn that Hutchison had been chivvying us along as quickly as possible, but perhaps his tone and his desires were at odds.
“Yes?”
Hutchison looked around, furtively. There was no one visible on the landing, but he gestured to the door to his flat. “Come inside.”
Christopher glanced at me. I shrugged. I did take a bit better of a grip on my reticule, however, as we followed Hutchison toward the door to the flat.
“After you.” He bowed me inside.
I could tell that Christopher was on the verge of offering to go first, and that would rather give away the fact that we were worried about being attacked, so I shot him a look of warning and raised my head high as I passed through the door into the flat.
Nothing hit me on the back of the head, and I relaxed my grip on the bag.
“Is Mr. Ogilvie not home?” Christopher asked as he entered behind me, with a quick glance around.
We were standing in a foyer, not dissimilar to the one in the Essex House Mansions. Parquet floor, tall ceilings, ornate cornices. The room was bigger and the ceilings taller than the ones at home, but the parquet floors were the same.
