“Yes. She was sick in the lavatory, and I helped her into her room, and saw the cup of tea. After she died, I remembered it and realized that it might have been pennyroyal. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, other than that she must have misspoken.”
Tom nodded and made a note. “Between Miss Peckham and Francis, I think I have information on everything that happened before and after she died. You already told me about the gunshot, Kit…”
Christopher nodded.
“Is there anything you’d like to add about it, Pippa?”
“I don’t think there’s anything more I can add,” I said. “It was over very quickly. One second we were standing there talking, the next a shot came from the woods. It passed between me and Francis. Christopher was a bit farther away, although of course it’s possible that someone simply has atrociously bad aim…”
Tom’s lips twitched. “But if you had to choose, you’d say it’s more likely that you or Francis was the intended victim?”
“If it was intended for anyone, yes. More likely, it was simply someone shooting off a rifle without aiming at anything at all, and accidentally coming close to us. But if I had to choose, I’dsay it was meant for me. Or rather for Cecily Fletcher, since we looked a bit alike and since someone pretty obviously wanted her out of the way.”
Tom nodded. “Other than the four of you, and Miss Fletcher, and the elder Marsdens, and of course the staff, everyone else was in the woods. No one admits to shooting at the house or to seeing anyone else do so.”
No, of course they didn’t. “I don’t think it’s worth speculating over,” I said. “If—when—you figure out who actually killed Cecily, you can ask him or her whether he or she shot at me, but until then, let’s just chalk it up to an accident and move on.”
“As you wish.” Tom consulted his notes. “You went into the house?—”
I nodded. If Christopher hadn’t mentioned us crawling across the grass on our hands and knees, I wasn’t going to.
“—and upstairs to Miss Fletcher’s room, and you stayed there until she died.”
“We did, yes. Constance was still there when we came upstairs, but she ran down to phone the doctor. Francis said there wouldn’t be anything he could do, but we thought we ought to anyway.”
Tom nodded. “At that point, did you suspect foul play?”
Christopher snorted. “Pippa always suspects foul play. You should know that by now, Tom.”
“I remembered the tea,” I said, “so I suspected that it wasn’t natural causes. It was later, after Crispin said that Cecily wouldn’t have done it to herself, that I began to wonder whether someone else had done it.”
“Someone specific?”
Christopher snorted. “We have lots of theories. Just wait.”
I kicked at his ankle under the table, and told Tom, “My preference would be for you to arrest Lady Laetitia Marsden. Butunfortunately, I don’t think it’s St George’s baby, so we can’t get rid of her that way.”
“We thought perhaps Lord Geoffrey?” Christopher said. “He’s a known womanizer, as you know, and?—”
Between us, we went through the entire scenario we had built earlier, featuring Geoffrey, Dominic Rivers, and Violet. Afterwards, for good measure, we also went through the same scenario again, featuring the Honorable Reggie Fish in Geoffrey’s role and Olivia Barnsley in Violet’s, with the exception that of course it was Violet who had been poisoned, not Olivia.
“But perhaps Olivia did it,” I suggested, “because Violet suspected Olivia of killing Cecily. Cecily and Violet were best friends.”
“Is that so? Even though Cecily hadn’t told her best friend who her boyfriend was?”
“That’s what Violet said. Although I suppose she might have been lying. Aunt Roz thought she was prevaricating about something. It might have been that.”
Tom nodded. “Then there are the Fortescues.”
Of course there were. We hadn’t really given much thought to them, although the same scenario worked for them as had worked for the Honorable Reggie and Miss Barnsley.
“They’ve been married for a few years now,” Tom said pensively, “and Lady Serena hasn’t provided an heir yet. If there’s a problem there, and Bilge went elsewhere, and then Cecily conceived, Lady Serena would have additional incentive for wanting her rival out of the way. Bilge might leave her and marry the mother of his child instead.”
Yes, of course he might, the bastard. “She lost a baby,” I said. “It came up over lunch. So that might make it sting more. And of course she made a point of pumping Christopher for information earlier, about what was going on upstairs.”
Christopher winced. “I don’t know that I’d call it pumping—a bit crude, that; thanks ever so, Pippa—but she did make a point of getting me on my own to ask about what Collins was up to.”
“She was clinging to your arm on her way down the stairs, too. Perhaps she’s enceinte again, and just hasn’t told anyone about it.”
