Tom’s face twisted in something that was half pity and half chagrin. “There goes our case.”
Scotland Yard’s case against the dope dealer, I assumed. I knew they had been working on one for the past few months, ever since Dominic Rivers landed on their watch list after his involvement in the Frederick Montrose murder case.
“It would be difficult to arrest someone who’s dead,” I agreed as I lifted my teacup daintily and took a sip.
Tom slanted me a look. “Difficult to get information out of him, too.”
Yes, of course. “We assume that his presence here was prompted by someone who wanted a substance that would either kill Cecily outright, or if not that, at least get rid of her problem for her.”
Tom nodded. “That makes sense. Abortion is illegal, but not so illegal that someone with the right connections can’t get his hands on something to deal with it.”
“Not so illegal that someone couldn’t walk down the road and pick a handful of pennyroyal, either.”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. There are always going to be ways and means.” He put his cup in the saucer with a decisive click. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who that person, or persons, might be?”
So he had already come to the conclusion, as had I, that there might be more than one of them.
“We have ideas,” I said, “of course. Lots of them. But no proof. Nor any real indication of who is actually guilty.”
“Tell me what you think,” Tom said, and included Christopher in the look he gave me. “You’re both smart young people, and you’ve been through this a few times now. I’d be interested to know what you think.”
“Are you going to work with the local constabulary?” I asked. “I thought you were here because Christopher rang you up.”
“Iamhere because Kit rang me up,” Tom said. “But as I’m here, I ought to offer my services in an unofficial way, don’t you think?”
“I think Constable Collins would be delighted to have you,” I told him, “even unofficially. We were just talking about you earlier. You remember Collins, don’t you? From the case at the Dower House?”
He nodded. “Of course I do. He was very helpful back in May.”
“Well, he’s upstairs,” I said. “Last time I saw him, he was in Dominic Rivers’s room, but now that the doctor and the mortuary van are here to take away the body, I imagine he’ll be back to searching the upstairs rooms shortly.”
“Searching the rooms?”
It was Wolfgang who asked, and I turned to him. “Yes. They always do, when someone’s dead. He went through mine earlier.”
Wolfgang looked concerned, and I added, reassuringly, “You have nothing to worry about. We all know that you didn’t even know any of these people before you came here yesterday. Did you?”
He shook his head, and I added, “See? Whoever killed them both—and it had to be the same person, don’t you think, Tom? Or the same people, at any rate?”
Tom shook his head. “I’m not going to speculate, Pippa.”
I nodded. “Well, if someone invited Rivers here so he could bring something with him that would deal with Cecily’s pregnancy, that someone had to have known about the pregnancy before yesterday. And had to have known Rivers and what his business was before yesterday, as well. So Wolfgang is out, wouldn’t you say?”
Tom eyed Wolfgang in silence for a moment. Not for long enough that the latter began to squirm, but I could tell it was a near thing.
“I would say so,” Tom said eventually, after what must have felt to Wolfgang like a small eternity, but which was probably no more than a few seconds. “What happened to Miss Fletcher must have been planned, at least far enough in advance that the substance, whether it came from Mr. Rivers or the ditch down the road, was obtained and, in the case of the leaves, steeped.That might have been done in an hour or two, if whoever went picking had the freedom to come and go as they pleased, but if it was Rivers who procured the substance, that part had to be planned at least a few days in advance.”
“Or both,” I said. Tom arched his brows at me, and I added, “We have a theory?—”
“Hers,” Christopher shot in, and Tom’s lips twitched. I gave them both a crushing look before I continued.
“—that it might not have been a murder, but an accidental overdose. If Cecily herself took a dose, or someone gave her one, and then someone else came along and gave her another?—”
Tom nodded. “It might not have been premeditated murder, you mean. Simply manslaughter.”
“Something like that.”
“Still an arrestable offense,” Tom said and pushed his chair away from the table. “If young Mr. Rivers hadn’t already been dead, I would have had to arrest him under theOffences Against the Person Act, Section 59, whether Miss Fletcher was alive or not.”
