And how was that any different from what I had articulated?
“You mean, she didn’t ask for him by name? Lord St George?”
Or Crispin Astley, I suppose. This had happened before Duke Henry died, so Crispin had been a mere Honorable back then.
Rogers shook his head. “No, Miss Darling. ‘The old Duke’s grandson,’ was what she said. She didn’t use any name at all.”
But Crispin was the one who occasionally used Sutherland House as his love nest while in Town, so he was the obvious culprit. His Grace, the late Duke, had had more than one grandson, however.
I turned to Christopher. “Anything you’d like to say?”
He stared at me, appalled. “Good grief, Pippa. You’re accusing me now?”
“You’re a grandson of the old Duke’s too, aren’t you? If it wasn’t Crispin who got her with child…”
I trailed off, blinking, as we both realized the corollary. If it hadn’t been Crispin’s doing, and it certainly hadn’t been Christopher’s, then the only other option was Francis.
“No,” Christopher said, shaking his head. “That’s not possible.”
Of course it was possible. And it was certainly more likely than that Christopher was the guilty party. Although it was still possible that Crispin was lying, or that he simply didn’t remember. The way he carried on, I wouldn’t be surprised. If Ronald Blanton could forget a murder in his own flat, Crispin could certainly have forgotten one of the several dozen women he must have bedded in the last year or two.
“Thank you, Rogers,” I said, although he had given me precious little to be grateful for. I was sorry I had asked, to be honest. “I don’t suppose she left a name or a direction?”
Rogers shook his head, but volunteered the following information. “She wasn’t someone we had seen before, Miss Darling. When the young master brings a woman by, they’re usually loud enough that we get a look at her.”
Yes, the staff at Sutherland House had gotten a look at an even dozen or so women over the past year, all of whose names they had shared with Grimsby, who had shared them with His Grace, the late Duke Henry, and with Crispin’s father. He had also noted them down in his book. And then, somehow, the pages had ended up in my possession—an event which had never been satisfactorily explained, by the way; at least not as far as I was concerned—so now I knew the names of all the women St George had dallied with recently, too.
“If Lord St George should happen to phone,” I told Rogers, “or turn up in person, will you tell him that we’re looking for him?”
“Yes, Rogers,” Christopher added, “please do.”
Rogers inclined his head. “Certainly, Master Christopher. I’ll let him know.”
Wonderful. I had gotten the distinct impression that until Christopher added his exhortations to mine, Rogers hadn’t planned to do a thing, which was galling, but at least now he had promised.
“Whatever possessed you to check Uncle Harold’s alibi, Pippa?” Christopher wanted to know when we were back outside Sutherland House and standing on the pavement with the door shut behind us. This close to midsummer, the evenings were long, but dusk had started to creep in along the bottom edges of the buildings.
I opened my mouth, but before I managed to get anything out, a motorcar bounced up to the curb in front of us.
“There you are,” a voice said, and Tom’s face appeared in the opening between the door and the roof. “I should have guessed I’d find you here.”
“If you’re looking for St George,” I said, “they haven’t seen him.”
“Nor have they seen my Uncle Harold since he left this morning,” Christopher added, coming up to stand next to me. “He’s back home. We rang up Sutherland Hall. But Crispin hasn’t made it back to Wiltshire yet.”
Tom’s brows furrowed, what we could see of them beneath the Homburg. “He should have made it back by now, shouldn’t he?”
“One would think,” I agreed. “Especially with the way he drives.”
Fast, and without much care for comfort or whoever else might share the car or the road with him.
“Although the way he normally drives,” Christopher added, “makes it more likely that he might have gotten into an accident between here and there, too, I suppose.”
Wonderful. Something else to worry about.
“We told Tidwell to tell him that we want to speak to him,” I said. “We planned to find a call box later on this evening, and try again.”
Tom cogitated for a moment. He looked from me to Christopher, to the polished stone façade of Sutherland House behind us, and back to me and then finally to Christopher. And seemed to make a decision. “Hop in.”
