Page 10 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place: A 1920s Murder Mystery (Pippa Darling Mysteries Book 4)

I did,indeed, sleep well. Nothing disturbed my slumber that night. Christopher didn’t burst in at any point to tell me that Crispin had lost his mind and proposed to Laetitia, nor did Francis sleep off his bout of drunkenness and come upstairs to bed. I spent a peaceful nine hours in oblivion, all by myself, without even a bad dream for company.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright, with rays of light peeping around the draperies. I lounged luxuriously for a few minutes before I remembered that today was the day we would (surely) get answers from Abigail Dole about the paternity of little Bess, and it was also the day in which I would get another chance to beat St George—and everyone else in the family, but particularly St George—at croquet.

The tiny windows on the top floor of Beckwith Place, the ones that go along with the tiny rooms in the attic, look out over gray roofing slates and, below, the croquet lawn. When I bounded out of bed and over to the window, I only wanted to look at the smooth and even greenness of the grass, so as to gloat over my possible defeat of St George later.

Instead, as I pulled the curtains back and peered down, past slate gray tiles and the edge of the roof onto the bright green of the lawn, I experienced a distinct sense of déjà vu when I spotted the patch of sprigged rayon on the grass, and the pale limbs extending from it.

For a second or two, it felt like I had gone back in time twelve or fifteen hours, and Abigail Dole had just walked out of the trees and collapsed. But of course I knew that such was not the case. We had lived half a day since then. We had picked her up and carried her inside, and Doctor White had come and taken her to the village, and Aunt Roz had minded little Bess all evening and night. Christopher, Constance, and I had found Abigail’s tote under the lilac bush and read the list of things she knew—or thought she knew—about her baby’s father.

It was Saturday morning, not Friday at tea time, but Abigail Dole was sprawled on the lawn.

I pushed back from the window and ran across the room to the door. And yanked it open and ran across the landing to the next door. “Christopher!”

Two almost-identical faces peered at me from over the top of the blankets. One pair of Astley blue eyes, one pair of cool gray.

“Darling?”

I ignored him—ignored them both—in favor of rushing across the room and yanking the curtains back. Crispin winced as the sunlight hit him full in the face.

“What’s wrong, Pippa?” Christopher asked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. “A bit early, isn’t it?”

“Abigail,” I said, waving at the window. “On the lawn.”

They both glanced at the window, and then back at me. “That was yesterday,” Crispin said.

I shook my head, and continued to shake it. “She’s there again. Now.”

They exchanged a look, and then Crispin threw the blankets off to stride to the window. I kept my eyes on Christopher. “We have to go down. We have to see if…”

I couldn’t finish, and Christopher looked at me with concern for a second before he turned to his cousin. “Crispin?”

The latter turned from the window, his face pale. “She’s there.”

Christopher breathed a bad word and pushed the blankets off himself. “We’d better go, then. But let’s do try to be quiet, so we don’t wake the whole household. At least until we get past the first floor.”

He stuffed his feet into slippers and waited as Crispin, who had taken off his pyjama top to sleep, pulled it back over his head. “Something for your feet, Pippa?”

“I suppose I’d better. Just a moment.” I scurried back across the landing, picked up my brogues, and carried them in my hand as we slipped down the two sets of stairs and through the back of the house onto the terrasse. There, I took a second to shove my bare feet into the shoes before I followed the boys across the flagstones and down the lawn.

By the time I caught up, they were kneeling, one on each side of her, with their knees in the dewy grass. Christopher was pale. Crispin was paler. He had his hand on Abigail’s throat, and must be unable to feel a pulse, because the hand trembled.

“Looks like someone whacked her on the back of the head,” Christopher said. His voice shook, too.

“With that?” I eyed the croquet mallet lying a few feet away.

Christopher glanced at it. So did Crispin. “I would assume so. Don’t touch it.”

I hadn’t planned to. I’m not stupid. I did take a few steps towards it and bent down for a closer look, though. “There’s blood and maybe hair on it.”

My stomach rolled, and I backed away and closed my eyes and focused on pushing air into and out of my lungs.

“All right, Darling?” Crispin asked. His voice came from quite far away, down a long, echoing tunnel.

I nodded and continued to breathe. “Fine. Or I will be fine. Someone should phone the constables.”

“I’m phoning Tom,” Christopher said. I opened my eyes in time to see him push to his feet. “They’ll have to call in Scotland Yard anyway. It’s us. And she was from London. It makes sense.”

“Whatever you say,” Crispin told him. “I’ll stay with her, shall I, until we know what to do?”

“If you don’t mind.” He turned to me. “Pippa?—”

“I’ll stay with Crispin,” I said.

Both of them eyed me as if I had said something extraordinary.

“What?” I wanted to know. “Someone has to stay with you to make sure you don’t tidy away any of the evidence.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course, Darling. You know, if I had evidence to tidy away, I would have done it last night.”

“It was dark,” I said. “You may not have seen clearly.”

It was Christopher’s turn to roll his eyes. “Be nice, Pippa. Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Crispin told him. “Hurry, won’t you?”

Christopher did just that, headed for the terrasse at a jog. Crispin turned to me, “You know, Darling, your suspicions of me are getting ridiculous. First you thought I shot Grimsby, then you thought I strangled Johanna. You probably played with the idea that I may have killed Gladys, too?—”

“Actually, I didn’t.” I sank to the ground on the other side of the body, far enough away that I didn’t have to look at her, and folded my legs. “I made a good case for why you may have wanted your grandfather and Grimsby out of the way. It made sense. But I never believed that you’d strangled Johanna, and not just because you hadn’t had the time to do it. If you haven’t strangled me in all the years we’ve known each other, you’re not going to strangle anyone else. And the idea that you might have done something to Gladys never even crossed my mind. When we tracked you down at Sutherland Hall that evening, it wasn’t because we thought you’d hurt her. It was because we were worried about you.”

He blinked.

“And I don’t suspect you of this—” My eyes flicked down to the body and away again, quickly, “either. Not more than I suspect anyone else. You’ve always seemed sincere when I’ve asked you about it. And if Bess isn’t yours, then you’d have no reason to murder Abigail.”

He looked caught somewhere between gratified and appalled. “Then why are you making remarks about tidying away evidence?”

“Isn’t that what we do?” I said. “Say awful things to one another to annoy?”

“You, perhaps,” Crispin answered. “I, on the other hand…”

“Oh, spare me.”

He grinned, a quick flash of white teeth, and I added, “Every time you say anything to me, you intend for it to grate. Why else do you insist on calling me Darling every time you open your mouth?”

He opened his mouth, and I continued before he could say anything. “Yes, yes. I know it’s my name. Or approximately my name.” An anglicization of my German surname of Schatz, if you want to be precise. “But that isn’t the reason you use it.”

He smirked. “No, Darling. It isn’t.”

“You do it because you know it irritates me. And in return, I do what I know irritates you.”

“It’s hardly on the same level,” Crispin said. “You seem to actively despise me. I don’t despise you. I don’t even particularly dislike you, except when you do something that reminds me that you loathe me.”

I opened my mouth. And closed it again. “I don’t loathe you,” finally fell out.

He arched a brow.

“I don’t! I’ll admit that I have, at times, disliked you. You were a horrid little boy. You used to take me into the garden maze at Sutherland Hall and leave me there.”

He sniggered. “Only until you figured out how to get yourself out. And it didn’t take very long, as I recall.”

Well, no. It hadn’t. But— “It happened more than once. And you also took me into the cellars and implied you’d shut me in the dungeon, and you threw mud at me, and snowballs in the winter, and you put spiders and caterpillars down the back of my dress...”

“I’m sure I did, Darling. I’m sure I did worse than that, too. But I haven’t been a horrible little boy in quite a long time, and I haven’t done anything like that to you in years. You should have gotten over it by now.”

Perhaps that was true. However— “You’re still exceedingly annoying, you know.”

“It’s hardly my fault that everything about me bothers you, Darling. Unlike you, I don’t go out of my way to annoy you.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” I said. “So in May, when you told me I looked like a Bramley?—”

He held up a finger. “I did not tell you that you looked like a Bramley, Darling. I said that you looked edible.”

“But what you meant was that I looked like a Bramley. Because my dress was green.”

He smirked, and I added, “Fine. Last month, when you decided to treat me to a sampling of your charms…”

“I was proving a point,” Crispin said. “Unlike you, when you went out of your way to embarrass me in front of my entire family yesterday. Not to mention in front of the woman my father wants me to marry, plus her entire family. Thanks a lot, Darling.”

I shook my head. “You can’t, St George.”

“Can’t what?”

“Marry her. What else?”

He tilted his head inquiringly. “And why is that?”

“You don’t love her. We both know it. She knows it. You’ve told her. I heard you.”

He nodded. “And she wants me anyway. Unless you think she’s after the title and fortune?”

He quirked a brow. I pressed my lips together in a concerted effort not to take the bait. For years I had been telling him, at every opportunity, that that was all he had to recommend him, that the Sutherland title and Sutherland money are the only reason that women buzz around him like bees around a flower. It’s a lie, of course. I’m neither stupid nor blind. He’s clever, he’s handsome, he can be charming when he wants to be (and vicious when he doesn’t)… but the fact that he’s Crispin Astley, Viscount St George, and first in line for the Sutherland dukedom, isn’t the only reason why a woman might find him attractive.

Naturally I didn’t say so. Not in so many words.

“She has a title and money of her own,” I said instead, crossly. “She doesn’t need yours. We both know she thinks you’d have fun together.”

My nose wrinkled on the word, and Crispin chuckled. “You could have fun of your own, you know, Darling. Plenty of girls these days aren’t opposed to a bit of slap and tickle.”

Well, he’d know, wouldn’t he?

“Thank you, St George,” I said repressively, “but I prefer to wait until I find someone I want to have more than just fun with.”

He smirked. “Well, she does want more than just fun, doesn’t she? So tell me why I can’t marry her, Darling. If she wants me, and it isn’t for the title, and we both know my father won’t let me marry who I really want to marry… why shouldn’t I marry Laetitia?”

“You’ll be unhappy,” I said.

“I’m unhappy now, Darling.”

I blinked at him. Opened my mouth and then closed it again before saying, “This is a strange conversation to have over the dead body of a woman you may have gotten with child a year ago.”

“I thought you said that I seemed sincere when I told you I hadn’t.”

“You lie like a rug,” I told him. “I wouldn’t trust you any farther than I could throw you.”

He rolled his eyes. “There’s the Darling we all know and love.”

Yes, there she was. The conversation had gotten heavy, and I had become uncomfortable, and I had done what I usually did, and lashed out at him.

He turned to glance over his shoulder. “Here’s Kit. Good conversation, Darling. I’m going to go upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

He uncoiled in one smooth motion, and was on his feet. And then he walked away. He met Christopher on the stairs between the grass and the terrasse—I heard a quick exchange of, “Something wrong?” and, “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m going up to change,”—and then he was gone and Christopher bore down on me.

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Then why did he look like that?”

“Like what?” He had looked perfectly normal when he’d stepped away from me. “He asked me why he shouldn’t marry Laetitia if she wants him. I said it would make him unhappy. He said he’s unhappy now.”

Christopher nodded. “I got through to Tom. He said to call in the local constabulary.”

“He’s not coming?”

“He’s coming,” Christopher confirmed. “He said he’d contact Inspector Pendennis and get him to get in touch with the chief constable for the area, but we have to follow procedure. So I called the village and asked for a bobby. When he gets here, I’ll explain the situation. Tom said he’d be on his way as soon as he updated Pendennis.”

Chief Inspector Arthur Pendennis is Tom’s boss, or his team leader or some such thing. When Pendennis investigates a case, Detective Sergeant Tom Gardiner goes along as photographer and general dogsbody. There’s also a Detective Sergeant Ian Finchley who serves the same purpose, but his specialty is fingerprints. Sometimes, Scotland Yard Police Surgeon Curtis tags along with them, too.

“Tom’s coming before it’s officially Scotland Yard’s case?” I asked.

“Tom’s coming because someone in the family committed murder,” Christopher answered bluntly. “He was coming anyway, for Francis’s engagement party this evening. Now he’s just driving down a few hours early. Is that a problem?”

“Of course not. Not at all.” I’d rather have Tom investigate than some flatfooted bobby from the village. “It’s just… Aren’t you afraid it might look like… well… favoritism? Or bribery or something?”

He arched his brows. “Do you intend to pay him?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“Then it isn’t bribery.” He shook his head. “He said he was on his way, Pippa. I wasn’t going to tell him that I didn’t want to see him, was I?”

No, I imagined he wasn’t. “When will he get here?”

“Not for a few hours yet.” He reached out and flapped his hand at a fat fly that took aim at the body, probably attracted by the sticky area of blood on the back of Abigail’s head.

I averted my eyes. “Should we cover her with something?”

“Hard to say,” Christopher said. “Some coppers would appreciate us preserving the evidence and keeping the body mostly untouched. Others would be upset because we didn’t leave it alone.”

I eyed him. “Is there a reason you’re suddenly overly concerned with this?”

Christopher made a face. “Would you happen to remember a local boy by the name of Samuel Entwistle?”

“Of course.” He was a few years older than Christopher and I, and had lived in the village for as long as I could remember.

And then I made the connection. “Oh. He’s Constable Entwistle now, isn’t he? Did he answer the telephone at the constabulary?”

Christopher nodded.

“So he’s the one coming? Is that going to be a problem?”

“He and Robbie never got along,” Christopher said.

“That’s a shame. But—forgive me—Robbie’s gone.” Christopher’s elder brother, younger than Francis by a couple of years, had died in the Great War.

“I know that, Pippa.” Christopher sounded impatient. “However, Francis is not. And whenever Sammy picked on Robbie, it was Francis who hit back. Twice as hard.”

“So Sammy doesn’t like Francis.” I knew that, actually. I had lived here for a long time, after all. It was just that a lot of this history had happened before I arrived, before the beginning of the war, so I hadn’t been here for it.

Christopher shook his head. “And Francis is very much alive. Not to mention a prime suspect in this murder.”

Yes, of course he was. “We’ll just have to make sure Sammy thinks someone else is guilty, then.”

He huffed. “And who do you think we should throw under the bus, Pippa?”

“Well,” I said, thinking about it, “not me or you, obviously.”

He shook his head. “No, let’s not. Nor Crispin, if we can avoid it.”

I supposed not. There was no part of me, not anymore, that wanted to see St George go down for murder, especially one he hadn’t committed.

“I’d rather it not be Aunt Roz or Uncle Herbert, either. Who does that leave?”

“Laetitia or Constance?” Christopher proposed. “Or Uncle Harold, because he thought she was after Crispin?”

“I’d rather not take Constance away from Francis,” I said thoughtfully, “although I’d be all right with framing Uncle Harold.”

I’d be more than all right with it, in fact. Truthfully, the idea was not unpleasant, and came with benefits other than just fixing on a suspect for the murder. If Uncle Harold was sent away to prison, it would rid us all of the prospect of Laetitia Marsden as part of the family, and it would also get Crispin out from under his father’s thumb. He might be able to marry who he wanted to marry, which might give him a shot at being happy, or as happy as he could be with a father who was incarcerated.

Yes, framing Uncle Harold was an idea with merit.

“I like my cousin better than my uncle,” Christopher agreed, “so if I’m going to throw one of them to the wolves, it’ll be Uncle Harold. Although it’s probably not either of them, you know.”

“Guilty, do you mean?

He nodded.

“Well, if it isn’t Uncle Harold or Crispin, and it isn’t Constance or Laetitia, and it isn’t you or Francis or your parents, then who is it?”

He smirked. “I don’t suppose it’s you, Pippa?”

I stared at him, appalled, and he continued, “You had a room to yourself. You could have seen her from the window, and come down to talk to her, and lost your temper. You have one, you know. And you swing a mean croquet mallet.”

“Surely you’re not serious, Christopher?”

He sniggered, and sounded like his cousin for a moment. “No, Pippa. Although I don’t doubt that you would viciously attack anyone who threatened me or Francis, or even Crispin.”

“But I wouldn’t whack her over the head with a croquet mallet,” I said. “I’m not a murderer, Christopher!”

“Of course you aren’t. I just can’t think of anyone else who would do such a thing, either.”

No more could I. However— “I don’t think Sammy Entwistle is going to care who we think is capable of it, Christopher. He’ll be more concerned with alibis, I’m sure. I don’t have one. You and St George were together in the other attic room. Did either of you leave at any point?”

He shook his head. “Not after Crispin came upstairs. But that was after I did. So there was a period of time—long enough to hit someone with a mallet—that we weren’t together. He might have been with someone else?—”

I made a face. Laetitia, most likely. Lip-locked in a dark corner somewhere.

“—but I wasn’t.”

“Francis and Constance were together in the library,” I said. “But Francis was sleeping off a drunken binge, and I don’t suppose he would have noticed if Constance slipped out.”

“And Constance might not have noticed if Francis slipped out, either. I don’t know how soundly she sleeps.”

“Not that soundly. I shared a room with her at the Dower House for a couple of nights. Besides, she was curled up in a chair, and probably uncomfortable. I doubt she would have stayed asleep had Francis started stumbling around in the dark. But again, I don’t think Sammy would take my word for it.”

Christopher hummed agreement.

“Laetitia had Constance’s room to herself,” I said. “She might have been afraid that Abigail was going to point the finger at St George this morning. And her room has a window onto the croquet lawn, so she could have seen Abigail arrive. If she were awake.”

Christopher glanced up at the house, and the window to Constance’s—currently Laetitia’s—room. The curtains, pale blue, were still shut against the morning sun.

“Uncle Harold also has a private room,” I added. “Right next to the stairs, too. It would be easy for him to come and go.”

“But no window on the lawn.”

No. But that didn’t matter. He might have been looking out the front window just at the time when Abigail turned the corner from the lane into the driveway, which wasn’t any more unlikely than that Laetitia had looked out onto the lawn and spied her.

And we didn’t know that it had happened by chance, anyway. Uncle Harold might have had a pre-arranged assignation with Abigail. She might have contacted him at Sutherland Hall and arranged to meet him here. She might even have traveled up from Sutherland in the Crossley with him and Wilkins. We didn’t know that she hadn’t. Crispin had motored up on his own, so he wouldn’t have known. They could have set her down in the village and instructed her to walk the rest of the way here. If she had been Crispin’s paramour, and Uncle Harold wanted Crispin to marry Laetitia, he had reason to want Abigail gone. Bringing her here to Beckwith Place, where the suspects were more plentiful, before he did away with her, made sense in that context.

“Geoffrey slept alone, too,” Christopher said, derailing my train of thought, “but I don’t suppose there’s any reason to think he’s involved.”

Sadly not, although he was someone else I wouldn’t be disinclined to frame for murder.

“I would love it to be him,” I said. “He pokes little Geoffrey into anything that moves, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he had gotten some poor girl with child at some point or another. Although he wouldn’t need to say he is the grandson of the Duke of Sutherland to make himself sound important, would he? He could claim to be the next Earl of Marsden, and it would come to the same thing.”

Christopher nodded. “Unless he was specifically trying to put the blame on one of us. But in April last year I didn’t even know who he was, and Crispin hadn’t taken up with Laetitia yet then, either.”

“Nor does he have fair hair,” I said regretfully. “Besides, it’s really a bit too much of a coincidence that he’d be here the weekend she shows up, isn’t it?”

“Probably so,” Christopher agreed, his voice equally regretful. “I wish it were this easy.”

I nodded. And then we both turned towards the edge of the lawn as a strapping young constable wheeling his bicycle through the trees looked around and said, “What’s all this, then?”