“If anyone saw us.”
“Someone saw us,” Christopher said.“Whoever wrote the note.”
“Did Daniels tell you about it?”
He nodded.“Showed it to me, told me it had come through the mail slot shortly after the murder.Asked me if I recognized the writing.”
“And did you?”
He shook his head.“Something like that could belong to anyone.We all write abominably with our left hands.All except for Crispin.”
“Why except for Crispin?”
“He’s naturally left-handed.I remember all the crying when we were small.Uncle Harold tied his left hand behind his back so he couldn’t use it, and made him learn to write with his right instead.”
I scowled.“Bastard.”
He shrugged.“It’s common practice.Although I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.As long as he knows how to write, who cares which hand he uses to do it?”
Certainly not I.“Didn’t people used to believe that being left-handed meant you were evil?”
“Hundreds of years ago,” Christopher confirmed.“But all sorts of things were thought to be evil back then.We know better now.”
“Are you certain about that?”It was St George, after all.Evil seemed to fit.
Christopher rolled his eyes at me, and I smirked.“So he can write with both hands, is what you’re saying?”
“Equally well, too.He kept the left-handed writing from Uncle Harold and practiced on his own time.At Eton, he’d use both.Sometimes at the same time.”
How interesting.
“It sounds like anyone except perhaps Crispin could have produced the note, then.Did Constable Daniels think it might have originated at Sutherland Hall?”
“He didn’t suggest it,” Christopher said judiciously.“Although the insinuation that I might recognize it did rather lend itself to that interpretation.It’s not as if I know any of the villagers’ hands.”
No, it wasn’t.“I don’t suppose the writing paper looked familiar?”
“It looked like writing paper.”After a second he added, “At least it didn’t have the Savoy Hotel logo in the corner.”
I made a face.“Don’t remind me.”
Wolfgang Ulrich Albrecht, the late—or perhaps still-breathing—Graf von und zuNatterdorff, had corresponded with me via Savoy Hotel stationery for several months after he moved out of the upscale Savoy Hotel and into humbler accommodations.I didn’t appreciate the reminder, of the subterfuge or of Wolfgang himself.
“We could check Uncle Harold’s study,” Christopher said, “once we get back to Sutherland Hall.”
“Do you suppose he’ll allow you to skulk in his study, peering at his stationery?Besides, he was in there when we came back up from the village earlier.I noticed the lights were on when we crossed the courtyard.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Christopher protested.“He could have gone out and left the lights on.”
“Are you accusing your uncle of killing Doctor Meadows and framing me for murder, Christopher?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “I’m fairly certain I saw his head, too.Someone was in there, sitting at the desk.And it couldn’t have been Uncle Herbert.He had already left by then.”
“Dad wouldn’t have gone in Uncle Harold’s study anyway,” Christopher said.
“He might have done, if there was something your uncle asked him to look at.”
Christopher snorted.“And what do you suppose that might be?Uncle Harold has always been extremely territorial about the Hall.He hardly even took Dad’s input when it came to burying Grandfather.”
