ChapterTwenty
There aremultiple ways out of Sutherland Hall.None from the second floor, of course, not unless I wanted to open the window and slide down the wall—which I didn’t.There’s the front door, that Tidwell guards during the day.There are the double doors from the drawing room onto the terrasse.There’s the conservatory door at the end of the east wing.There’s the boot room door next to Uncle Harold’s study in the west wing, that also opens into the courtyard.There’s the kitchen door into the kitchen garden, accessible through the servants’ wing, which I wasn’t about to invade.
I peered out into the hallway before I left my room, to make certain everything was quiet and that no one was lying in wait.The hallway was empty and still, save for the muffled sound of snoring from down the hall.Geoffrey, or perhaps Tom.I didn’t move closer to ascertain the source one way or the other.Constance also made little snuffling noises in her sleep, but from Laetitia’s direction there was no noise at all.Perhaps she had made her way over to Crispin’s wing after we were all in bed, and her room was empty.
I placed my brogues carefully on the floor beside me as I pulled my door shut and locked it.I was as careful as I could, wincing at every scrape the giant old key made in the lock.When I could pull it out and drop it into my dressing-gown pocket, I let my breath out as quietly as I could.Then I bent to pick up the shoes, and the key fell out of my pocket and clattered against the wood floor with a racket that cut through the still of the night like a gunshot.
The snoring cut off with a surprised snort.Constance’s snuffles stopped, as well.For a moment, nothing happened.I held my breath, dirty brogues clutched to my nice, clean gown, while I waited for one of the doors to open.The key lay accusatorily in the hardwood gap between the wall and the carpet runner.
There was the soft noise of blankets shifting, and a body moving on a mattress.Someone was getting comfortable.The snoring started up again, more softly.I bent, as silently as I could, and grasped the key.It went back into my pocket, and then I tiptoed to the door to the servants’ staircase and eased it open.I slipped across the threshold onto the landing and shut the door behind me again, as quietly as I could.When the green baize had settled into the frame, I flitted down the stairs in my bare feet and out into the ground floor hallway.I slipped my brogues on in the boot room, the last thing I did before I opened the door and stepped out into the night.
The rain had let up, but it was still overcast and misty, and the dark bulk of the Hall towered over me as I made my way across the courtyard, around the fountain, and along the wall of the conservatory.Every light in the Hall was out, at least as far as I could tell, and with no moon and stars, it took a few minutes before my eyes fully adjusted to the dark.By then, I had left the wall of the conservatory behind and had struck out down the drive towards the carriage house.
It was only now that it occurred to me to wonder whether Constable Daniels had set a guard.
But no, surely not.What was there to guard, after all?The constables had spent all afternoon and most of the evening here, picking over the crime scene.Whatever there had been to find, surely they must have discovered by now.
As I flitted down the grass and gravel, I imagined myself stumbling through the carriage house doors, directly into the arms of Constable Daniels or one of his cohort.There’d be no way to convince him I had nothing to hide then.If sneaking around the crime scene in the middle of the night didn’t cement my guilt, I didn’t know what would do.
For a moment, I thought about going back.Of simply turning around and returning to my room without breaching the carriage house doors.
But I was already here, so close to where I wanted to be.And all I wanted was a quick look underneath the motorcars; surely there wasn’t anything wrong with that?It wasn’t as if I planned to touch anything.And I certainly didn’t plan to venture up into the rooms above the garage, where Alfie had been killed.
Just in case, I made certain to wrap my hand with a corner of my dressing gown before undoing the latch and pulling the carriage house door open.It screeched like a needle on a gramophone, and for the second time tonight, I froze in place, certain that someone must have heard me.
I could even imagine that I felt, from within the darkness, the same breathless anticipation that I felt myself, as if someone was in there, just waiting for me to make the next move.
In the event that I wasn’t simply imagining things, but that Constable Daniels truly had left a colleague to stand guard, I raised my voice.“Is anyone there?This is Pippa Darling.”
Better to make myself known now, I figured, than be caught in the act of looking suspicious.I wasn’t actually going to do anything suspicious, after all, so it was a risk that seemed worth taking.
There was no answer, not even the scuff of a shoe, so I must have imagined someone’s presence.I stepped across the threshold into the darkness and pulled the door shut behind me.At that point, I thought it would be safe to take the torch out of my pocket and turn it on—no one was awake to see it from up at the Hall—and it was when I flicked the switch and the beam of light shot out, that there was the very distinct shuffle of someone, or something, from farther into the garage.
My heart jumped onto my tongue and continued beating there.I had to swallow hard to be able to speak, and when I did, my voice shook.“Hullo?Who’s there?”
It’s a cat, I told myself.A cat, or perhaps a hedgehog, or some other small woodland creature that I—or the light—had startled into flight.Something cute and furry that would never hurt me, and that was more afraid of me than I was of it.Certainly not something, or someone, who knew that I was standing here, quaking in my brogues, expecting the worst.
There was another noise, from the left this time, and I swung the torch that way.“Stop!”
Whoever it was did, which argued against a cat or hedgehog, or anything with four legs.They don’t tend to listen that well, or respond as accurately.
“Who are you?”I tried.“Show yourself!”
I don’t know what I expected.I suppose I was still clinging to the hope that there might be a constable from the village here, or perhaps Tom himself, trying to teach me a lesson about wandering about in the middle of the night and putting myself in danger.
What I did not expect was for something to come flying out of the darkness toward me.I raised both arms to protect my head—it’s automatic, in case you wondered—and the projectile hit my arm.
The blow knocked the torch from my hand, and I squealed and fell back.The torch hit the ground with a tinkle of broken glass.So did I, with a grunt.
The light didn’t go out, but it might as well have done.The torch spun away from me, coming to rest underneath the Marsdens’ Daimler, and lay there, illuminating nothing but dirt and the undercarriage of the motorcar.
My arm felt as if someone had hit it with a bicycle pump—most likely because someone had done—and I clutched it to my chest, blinking away the tears that filled my eyes.And that was when something big and dark bore down on me from out of the darker darkness, and something black descended on top of me.
I screamed, but it was buried under a… was that a car blanket?
It was, I decided, as I clawed at the muffling folds with my only functioning hand.In the background, I could hear the sounds of someone scrambling away, stumbling over and around things and barging into the motorcars with dull thumps of metal, and then the garage door opened with a squeal.There were rapid footsteps running away, and then the reverberating bang as the door slammed back into the frame and hung there, shivering.By then I had gotten the blanket off my head into my lap, and was carefully brushing the folds away from my injured arm.There was no need to hurry, after all.Whoever had been here was gone, and I wasn’t reckless enough to charge after him, or her, into the night.
I’ll admit it: all I wanted to do at that point was to retreat to my room.But I had dragged myself here, specifically to check which—if any—of the remaining motorcars were leaking.If none of them were, that would point to the Bentley having been parked behind the infirmary this morning—or yesterday morning by now.But if one of the others had developed a leak, at least it would go some way towards exonerating my aunt and uncle.
