I heard Christopher come up the stairs after a few minutes, and then a short conversation between him and Crispin in the hallway. There was the sound of a door shutting, and then a knock on mine.
“Come in,” I called. Crispin had already been in the doorway to my room, and wasn’t likely to come back, so this had to be Christopher.
The door opened. “Gah,” Christopher’s voice said. “I know we’re the next thing to siblings, Pippa, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you in your unmentionables, you know.”
“I’ve seen you in yours,” I pointed out, as I draped the yellow gown I’d been pulling over my head over the counterpane for the night. “Male and female both. If it doesn’t bother you, I don’t see why it would bother me.”
“There’s nobody who would care about you seeing me in my unmentionables.”
“Tom?”
“No,” Christopher said, although his cheeks darkened to pink. “And anyway, Tom—or someone else like that—would know that you don’t care about me and my unmentionables.”
“Well, there’s no one who cares about me and mine, either.”
Christopher muttered something. I caught the words ‘St George’ and shook my head irritably. “Just because your cousin is girl-mad and wants to see everyone’s unmentionables doesn’t mean I have to indulge him, Christopher. Did the detectives leave?”
He nodded. “What did you think about what happened downstairs?”
“Hutchison, you mean? And Blanton and Ogilvie? Hutchison’s explanation makes sense. I can see it all happening that way. Can’t you?”
“I suppose I can,” Christopher said, “but I just don’t want to admit it.”
“Whyever not? It doesn’t matter to us, surely? I mean, I’m sorry it happened. Of course I am. But it was just a fluke that we were here.”
Christopher nodded. “I just don’t want Ronald Blanton to be guilty, I guess.”
“Why not?” And then something struck me, and I added, “Oh, Christopher. You didn’t?—?”
“No, of course not,” Christopher said, shaking his head. “No, nothing like that. I just… I guess I see a little bit of myself in him, you know, and in some ways I see even more of Crispin, and I definitely see Francis, and I don’t like to believe that any of us is capable of murder.”
“You’re not,” I said. “And under normal circumstances, I’m sure Ronald Blanton isn’t either. If he did it, it was only because he wasn’t in his right mind.”
“If?” Christopher tilted his head to the side.
“A figure of speech.” I shook my head. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Christopher. It’s one thing when murderers are cold-blooded and nasty. It’s something else when you feel sympathy for them.”
Christopher nodded.
“But Freddie Montrose didn’t deserve to die that way. And if Ronnie Blanton killed him, then he deserves to pay the price.”
“If, again.”
“Hutchison said it was him,” I said. “You didn’t hear him, but he said he came into the butler’s pantry and saw Montrose on the floor and Ronnie standing over him with the rolling pin.” Laughing. I pushed that particular bit of information aside, and added, “Can you think of any reason why Hutchison would lie?”
Christopher shook his head. After a second he offered, “Not unless he did it himself.”
“Do you have any reason to think he would have done?”
“No,” Christopher said. “I guess I just don’t feel good about convicting a man for murder on someone else’s say-so when he doesn’t remember doing the crime.”
No, I could understand that. But?—
“I don’t see any way around it, Christopher. If Blanton’s memory of that night is gone, and we only have what everyone else says to figure it out, then I don’t see that we have much choice. Better to convict the right man, even if he doesn’t remember what he did, than the wrong one.”
“I suppose.”
“And we’re not in charge of anyone’s conviction anyway, you know. We’re not even in charge of arresting anyone. Tom will arrest who he thinks is guilty, and his superiors have to agree with him, so it’s not just Tom’s whim. And then that person will get a fair trial. And if the jury convicts him, then maybe it’s because he was guilty. But either way it won’t be up to us.”
