“In justice to your uncle,” I said, and it pained me to have to be fair about it, “he had a few other things on his mind at that point.”
Like his wife’s funeral, and the fact that she had been responsible for killing his father.
Christopher shrugged sulkily.
“At any rate,” I added, “it’s not just the study that has stationery.The library does, too, not to mention all the guest rooms.You never know when one of the guests—Lady Laetitia, for instance—might get the urge to pen an explicit love note to St George.”
Christopher made a face.“Did you have to put that image into my head?Although I suppose you have a point.Even if there’s similar stationery in Uncle Harold’s study, or for that matter all over the house, we wouldn’t know whether any of it had gone missing this morning.”
“Mrs.Mason might know,” I said.“Not about the writing paper in the study or library, but in the guest rooms.I’m sure the maids do the replenishing when they do the rooms every morning.Someone might remember having had to replace a piece of note paper this morning.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any harm to ask,” Christopher said.“Whoever wrote the note had to have known that Doctor Meadows was dead?—”
“Or that he would die, if the note was written beforehand.”In which case it was premeditated murder.
“—but how could they know, if they were all at the Hall this morning?”
“Perhaps they weren’t all at the Hall this morning.We can ask Francis when he comes back out, whether he knows where everyone went after breakfast.And if he doesn’t know, we can ask Constance, or Crispin, or even ring up Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert and ask them.”
“We ought to do that anyway,” Christopher said.“And let them know we won’t be coming home today, and why.”
I suppose we ought.“At least they were long gone when this happened.”
“Long gone when it was discovered, at any rate.Hopefully Daniels won’t get any ideas about asking them to come back.They must have been driving through Little Sutherland at around the same time as the murder.”
So it seemed, if that had taken place shortly after Christopher and I had seen him.
“Here’s Francis now,” I said, as the door to the constabulary opened and the latter came out.He shut the door behind himself and strode towards the Crossley.
“Well?”I asked as he fitted himself behind the wheel.“What news?”
He flicked me a glance in the mirror.“Nothing you don’t already know.”
“Did he tell you not to leave?”
“Sutherland Hall, do you mean?”He cranked over the motor.“Yes.We’re all expected to stay.You two are expected to attend the inquest whenever it’s set.The rest of us are to make ourselves available for questions later.”
The Crossley rolled off down the road.
“Questions about what,” I wanted to know, “precisely?”
Francis’s eyes flicked to mine in the mirror again.“Whether either of you two had a reason to want Doctor Meadows dead.You’re not in the family way, are you, Pippa?”
“Certainly not,” I said with a sniff, while Christopher snorted.
“Is he still on about that?I thought I talked him out of that idea.”
“Seemingly not.He asked me about it.”
“What did you tell him?”I wanted to know.“You didn’t suggest that there’s anything like that going on with me and St George, did you, Francis?”
I love my cousin, but he does occasionally display a strange sense of humor.It was the time in the trenches, I assume, that taught him to find amusement in things that the rest of us wouldn’t find funny.I wouldn’t put it past him to perpetuate this story for the simple sport of it.
“St George, is it?”He glanced at his brother.“All he suggested to me, was that the two of you were trying to hide a pregnancy.There was no mention of Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
I made a face.“I don’t know which is less likely, honestly.”
“Me,” Christopher said.“Clearly.While you’re not interested in me, I’m also not interested in you.Crispin, on the other hand, likes women?—”
