Soft and sensitive, with a father who didn’t understand him.
It was my turn to twitch at the sting of a mental mosquito. During our formative years, I had usually felt like Crispin was the one with the upper hand, and that I was the one who had to develop a thicker skin to deal with the blows he dealt. (And he did deal them, make no mistake. There was no love lost between us on either side.)
But I had undoubtedly contributed to that hard shell and sarcastic tongue he hid behind, too. I’d given as good as I got. Such as the suggestion that he was only worthwhile in anyone’s eyes because of his title and money—something I had told him so often and in so many different ways that I had managed to sink it so deeply into his brain that he now, apparently, believed it himself.
Yes, I had my own share of blame to shoulder for turning Crispin the way he was.
But my self-reflection was neither here nor there at the moment. Tom was waiting for Crispin’s response to the question of whether Ronald Blanton might be guilty of Freddie Montrose’s murder, and Crispin was eyeing his folded hands, refusing to meet Tom’s gaze.
“Crispin,” I said gently. For the second time today, too; it was unprecedented. He looked up, startled, and so did Christopher.
I ignored the latter, even when his eyebrows arched with speculation. Instead, I kept my gaze and my attention focused on Crispin. “Ronnie Blanton comes across, as you say, fragile. Or I suppose what you said was sensitive and delicate, but it’s the same thing really, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, and I went on, “If he hit Montrose on the head under the influence of his dope, I’m not sure he can really be blamed for it. And it’s easy to feel sorry for him. He comes across as pitiful much more than as a cold-blooded murderer.”
Crispin nodded.
“But Freddie Montrose didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t even do anything to anyone. And Gladys certainly didn’t deserve to have someone she considered a friend, someone she invited into her home because she trusted him, send her to the mortuary with parts of her skull embedded in her brain.”
He winced.
“Whoever did that, needs to pay. It’s only fair. Even if it is someone who only did it because he didn’t see any other way out.”
“I just can’t see him do it,” Crispin said. “Do for Montrose, yes. Blanton was as high as a kite on Saturday night. He might not even have been aware of what he was doing. He told you on Sunday that he couldn’t remember, didn’t he?”
He appealed to Christopher, who glanced at me and nodded.
“But I can’t see him going to Gladys’s flat, lying in wait until the coast is clear, and then going upstairs and hitting her, all the while knowing that I’d be blamed for it. He likes both me and Gladys more than that.”
“But if not Blanton, then who?”
“Dom,” Crispin said promptly. “I’d rather have it be Dom.”
I could believe that. He had certainly made a convincing case for it to the others. “But do you believe it was?”
“I want to believe it was. It makes sense that it could have been.”
“I think we would all be more comfortable with that scenario,” Tom admitted. “And it might turn out to be true. He did have a motive for both. Or he had a motive for Montrose, and if he killed Montrose, that gave him a motive for Long. So it might be him.”
Crispin slanted a look his way. “But you don’t think so.”
“I think the way the other two were trying to protect Ronald Blanton was interesting,” Tom said, and Finchley nodded agreement. “But that doesn’t mean he did it, either. They could be protective for other reasons, such as his mental state and the dope. It isn’t proof.”
No, it wasn’t.
“How do we get proof?”
The words came from me, and before I was aware I was going to say them.
“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “All the physical evidence, at least for Montrose’s murder, is gone. We know where he was killed and how he was killed and to a degree why he was killed. We know how the body was moved and why it ended up in Hyde Park.”
Here, both Christopher and I winced. Crispin, of course, didn’t.
“We know one of a small group of people did it. We think we know who. But we have no way to prove it. And with the way things are, we?—”
He glanced over at Finchley, “We can’t even initiate a thorough investigation, because we’re not supposed to know any of those things. If we go to Blanton’s mansion block, or Hutchison’s and Ogilvie’s mansion block, and start asking questions about their comings and goings, word is going to get back to them that Scotland Yard is asking questions, and then they’ll start to wonder why.”
“But would that be a bad thing?”
