“—but we’re just doing this for the amusement of it. I really don’t think Wolfgang knew any of these people before he came here. Certainly not Francis. I’m sure their animosity—or Francis’s animosity, at least—is entirely unfeigned.”
Christopher nodded. “Instead of coming up with mad scenarios, is there anyone you think might have actually done it? Agatha Christie novels is one thing, but in life, the solution is usually much simpler. Take the Margaret Hughes thing, for instance?—”
“The what, now?” Uncle Harold interrupted, and we both—all three—looked at him.
Margaret Hughes, of course, was Lady Charlotte’s maid at Sutherland Hall. Lydia Morrison’s counterpart. After Aunt Charlotte’s death in April, Hughes had lingered at Sutherland for a few months, and then she had made her way to Beckwith Place, and from there to Bristol, where she had met her demise in a dark alley sometime last month. She had had one of Tom’s business cards in her reticule when she was found, so the Bristol police had called him in for a consultation. Otherwise, I’m sure we would have heard nothing about it.
To Christopher’s point: There were a lot of peculiar circumstances surrounding Hughes’ last few months of life, circumstances that might point to all sorts of interesting possibilities. There was Aunt Charlotte’s death—which of course wasn’t a mystery—and Duke Henry’s and Grimsby’s murders, which weren’t either. Then there was the disappearance of Lydia Morrison from the Dower House, and the murder of Abigail Dole at Beckwith Place in July, for which Hughes had been present along with the rest of us. And then there was the thousand pounds Hughes had extorted from Uncle Herbert before leaving Wiltshire, although according to Tom, that money had been safely tucked away in a bank account, so that, at least, was not the reason for the bludgeoning.
“You remember Hughes,” Christopher asked, “don’t you, Uncle Harold?”
He didn’t wait for his uncle to confirm or deny, because of course His Grace remembered Hughes. She had been at Sutherland Hall since Crispin was a newborn, dressing and undressing Aunt Charlotte. Uncle Harold was notoriously uninterested in his wife—it was a miracle that Crispin existed at all, frankly—but he wasn’t as oblivious as that. “She was founddead in an alley in Bristol last month,” Christopher added. “A mugging gone wrong, Tom said.”
Which made Christopher’s point rather nicely, since, with all the questions swirling around Hughes and her decamping to Bristol, the official finding was manslaughter by person or persons unknown, presumably for the twenty pounds or so she had had in her purse. Nothing to do with the Astley family or any murder or blackmail at all.
“Dear me,” Uncle Harold said faintly. “I had no idea.” He glanced at his brother. “Did you, Herbert?”
Uncle Herbert nodded. “Tom stopped by Beckwith Place on his way back from Bristol. Kind of him to let us know.”
There was nothing in his voice to indicate that he realized that Tom had made the stop at least in part to check up on Uncle Herbert’s and Aunt Roz’s alibis. When you allow yourself to be blackmailed, and then your blackmailer dies violently a month or two later, it seems you climb to the top of the suspect list.
Of course, I assumed that Tom’s stop at Beckwith was more to make sure that Aunt Roz and Uncle Herberthadalibis, since I didn’t think he seriously suspected either of them of running off to Bristol to bash Hughes over the head. They could afford the thousand pounds, and neither of them are homicidal by nature.
“Dear me,” Uncle Harold said again. “How terrible.”
We sat in polite silence for a moment. For me, it was in the past and even back when I first heard about it, it had been hard to muster up much sympathy. I didn’t like Hughes, and although it’s not right for anyone to be bashed over the head in an alley, shewasa blackmailer who had extorted money from my uncle. Although of course Uncle Harold was right: it was terrible that someone had killed Hughes, and worse that it was for such a negligible amount of money.
But right now, I was more concerned about the fact that Cecily Fletcher was dead, murdered because she had allowedherself to become pregnant; and Dominic Rivers was dead, murdered because he had let himself get tangled up in it; and Violet was… well, hopefully Violet was not dead, and would come around eventually, but she was as good as dead, and all because?—
“Why would anyone want to kill Violet?”
There was a moment of silence while they all, even Uncle Harold, looked at me, and then Christopher said, “I suppose because she knew something about who killed Cecily and Dominic Rivers?”
That was the logical explanation, of course. Aunt Roslyn had believed that Violet was being untruthful about something, and that something might be the reason why. If Cecily was killed because of the baby, and Dominic Rivers was killed because of the dope, then Violet was surely killed—or poisoned, at any rate—because she knew something about whoever had done it.
“She spent the evening with Geoffrey Marsden yesterday,” I said.
Christopher nodded, even as Uncle Harold bristled at the implication. I ignored him.
“She came here already knowing that Cecily was with child. She knew Dominic Rivers. If we proceed on the assumption that the pregnancy was the reason for Cecily’s murder…”
“By all means,” Christopher said.
“Thank you. Why don’t we say, for argument’s sake, that Geoffrey was responsible for Cecily’s predicament.”
Christopher nodded. “Let’s say that. I can imagine that being true.”
I could too, only too easily. “Geoffrey’s a philanderer, but he definitely isn’t the marrying kind. Having a wife and child at home likely wouldn’t stop him from spreading his favors around—I don’t know if anything would, to be honest—but it might cutdown on his chances, since some girls unaccountably won’t get involved with a married man, unreasonable as that is.”
Uncle Herbert winced. It was probably the subject matter, and what amounted to his presumably innocent niece discussing it so freely (and sarcastically). I smiled at him. “Sorry, Uncle Herbert. But there’s no point in prevaricating, is there? Not if we want to figure this out.”
“Of course not, Pippa.” He waved a hand. “Carry on.”
I nodded. “So if the baby was Geoffrey’s, and Violet knew it, and she wanted Geoffrey for herself… would she have allowed him to poison Cecily? Or done it herself? Theywerefriends.”
“That doesn’t always stop someone from committing murder,” Christopher said, which of course was true. “Did Violet poison herself, then, after killing Cecily and Dominic Rivers? Tom arrived, and she realized she wouldn’t get away with it, so she took the coward’s way out? Or did Geoffrey poison Violet in retaliation for Cecily? Or were they in it together?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “Between Dom Rivers being here, and the plants down the road, I suspect there were two doses of pennyroyal. One very potent one from Rivers, and one less potent in a cup of tea, that might have been enough in conjunction with the first dose to commit murder.”
