Blanton claimed that he didn’t remember any details about the murder, even that it had taken place at all.
Hutchison claimed that he didn’t know who had killed Montrose.
Rivers claimed the same, only from the vantage point of the kitchen.
Ogilvie, as the last person out of the sitting room, was the least likely to have seen anything, I assumed.
Any one of them could have killed Gladys, or so it appeared to me, but it was really only the killer who had motive, wasn’t it, and that equation only worked out for Rivers.
But Crispin wouldn’t have been upset at the idea of Rivers as the murderer.
So what was I missing?
I stood up in the tub and reached for the towel.
“Blanton,” I said out loud. “You’re missing Blanton.”
Blanton, whose flat it was. Blanton, whose drug habit it was. Blanton, whose Morris Oxford it was. Blanton, who had had a nasty article written about him by Freddie Montrose just last month.
Blanton, whose father wasn’t as forgiving as Uncle Harold; not that Uncle Harold seemed to be particularly forgiving.
Ronald Blanton, who had been the only one out of the sitting room before Nigel Hutchison.
If Rivers had seen Blanton kill Montrose, he would have wanted to keep it quiet, both because he’d like to keep Blanton’s custom and because the man had done him a favor, honestly.
Gladys and Hutchison and Ogilvie would all have wanted to keep it quiet because they cared about Blanton.
And Crispin would feel bad about it, because he did consider Ronnie Blanton a friend, and probably also because of Blanton’s fragility and his less-than-stellar relationship with Blanton Senior, which Crispin could probably relate to.
“It’s Blanton,” I told the empty flat as I left the bathroom and stepped into the hallway. “It has to be.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
The threesome turnedup together in the red Morris Oxford just before nine o’clock. By then, we had dined on Beef Wellington and mash in Sutherland House’s sumptuous dining room—rather too big and too opulent for the three of us, especially since Christopher and Crispin hadn’t bothered to dress for the occasion, and my gown really wasn’t anything special.
It was, in fact, the yellow crepe with the silver spangles that Crispin had likened to the divine Josephine Baker’s famous banana skirt in Dorset last month, and I waited for him to make a comment about it. But while he eyed it sideways and smirked, he said nothing.
Tom and Detective Sergeant Finchley arrived in time for pudding—spotted dick—and after that, we got busy arranging the parlor for guests.
“You go behind the screen this time, Miss Darling,” Tom said. “It might be interesting to see whether any of them—and if so, which of them—is nervous enough to check the room for listening ears.”
“None of them might,” I protested.
He nodded. “But if one of them does, I’d rather have him find you than me.”
“He could find none of us, if nobody hides behind the screen.”
“But if nobody checks and you’re allowed to stay there, you’ll be able to hear everything much better than we will, in the other room,” Finchley said, and that, of course, was true.
“They won’t think anything of it, if it’s you,” Tom added. “If they find one of us, the jig is up.”
Yes, of course it was. I quite saw why neither of them could hide there. I just didn’t understand whyIhad to. If they didn’t want me involved in the conversation—and Christopher and Crispin clearly didn’t; they were both shaking their heads vigorously—shouldn’t I simply hide somewhere else to begin with?
“Perhaps this time we could go with the maid’s uniform?” Crispin suggested. “You could flit in and out with trays and buckets of ice.”
“You don’t think the other three would recognize me?”
“I doubt they’d look at you closely enough for that,” Crispin said. “They’ll either simply see the uniform and dismiss you as unimportant, or they’ll notice the figure but not the face. Depends on whether they’re snobs or chauvinists.”
