Page 15 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place: A 1920s Murder Mystery (Pippa Darling Mysteries Book 4)

It wasn’t St George.Of course not.

No, it was Sammy Entwistle, God only knew how.

“Where did you come from?” I wanted to know. The Duke’s Crossley was not back from the village, yet Sammy was here.

“I’ve been here all along.” He smirked.

I shook my head. “You can’t have been. We looked for you.”

Or at least I thought that I had. He hadn’t been on the lawn with the body, and he hadn’t been in the driveway with Wilkins, and the Crossley had been gone, and I guess I had put those three things together and assumed that Sammy had gone with it, when there had been absolutely no proof of that anywhere but in my own mind.

“I heard you come out of the house,” he said now, with a triumphant look at both Christopher and me, as if he believed he’d caught us doing something we shouldn’t be, “and I was curious, so I kept an eye on you. What were you looking for in the motorcars?”

“Nothing.” I refused to share a guilty look with Christopher, even though I could feel him trying to catch my eye.

“Planting evidence?”

“Of course not!”

Sammy hummed doubtfully. “I suppose we’ll see.”

I stuck my hands on my hips. “We absolutely will. Besides, what sort of evidence do you suppose we might want to plant? Everything is out in plain view. The body’s on the lawn with the murder weapon right next to it. What could we possibly have that we’d want to plant?”

“An alibi for your brother?” Sammy suggested with a glance at Christopher, which was proof positive, if we had needed it, that he was eyeing Francis.

I snorted. “How do you plant an alibi, pray tell?”

His brows lowered, and I added, “If you’re talking about Francis, he already has one. Wilkins drove him back here, three sheets to the wind, from the village pub last night. He fell asleep in the library and didn’t stir again until this morning. Constance spent the night with him.”

“But she’d lie,” Sammy said, as if there was no question about that.

I blinked and opened my mouth, but Christopher got in before me.

“That’s a bit cavalier, isn’t it? To assume that she’d lie before you’ve even spoken to her?”

Sammy snorted. “I’ve seen her around the village. Well-bred, mealy-mouthed little thing.”

“She’s not—” I began, irately, and then I stopped, because, yes, she was.

Sammy smirked. “I suppose it’s high time I have a talk with everyone anyway.”

It absolutely was. We’d been sitting in there, chatting about anything and everything, for the past two hours. He really should have corralled us all and written down anything anyone said right from the start.

“They’re all in the sitting room,” Christopher said, gesturing to the house, while I asked, incredulously, “Are you just going to leave the body there, on the lawn?”

Sammy looked at me. “What do you want me to do with it? Doctor White is on his way. He has to look at it next.”

“Can’t you at least cover her with something? There are insects and—I don’t know—birds?” Not to mention that there was us, having to look at Abigail every time we turned our eyes to the croquet lawn. “I’m sure Aunt Roz will give you a sheet, if you didn’t come prepared.”

“Doctor will be here soon,” Sammy said indifferently.

I stomped my foot. It did absolutely nothing, because we were standing on the grassy verge of the driveway. My voice, however, was both loud and demanding. “I insist that you cover her with something! Her daughter is inside the house, and while we have no idea how much babies understand…”

“Yes,” Sammy said, diverted, “I heard she had a baby. Where’s the brat?”

“In the house,” Christopher said tightly. “My mother’s minding her.”

Sammy smirked, but before he had the opportunity to say whatever foul thing had come to his mind, I cut him off. “Someone had to mind her, you brainless clod. Her mother collapsed in a heap on the grass yesterday and was removed to the infirmary. Someone had to take care of the baby, and it’s my aunt’s house, so who else was going to do it?”

“Doctor’s wife?” Sammy suggested, which I suppose was a reasonably good suggestion, everything considered.

“Aunt Roz thought the baby was better off here,” I said stiffly.

Sammy made a humming noise. “Are you sure your aunt didn’t just?—”

“Why don’t you simply ask her?” Christopher cut in, exasperated. “If you’re not going to cover the body, or do anything else useful out here, let’s just go inside and you can ask my mother exactly what she was thinking.”

Sammy nodded. “Why don’t we just do that?”

He grabbed my upper arm, and then he grabbed Christopher’s, and then he proceeded to frog-march us both to the boot room door. At that point he had to let go, since we couldn’t all fit through the opening at the same time. The same thing was true for the boot room itself, and the hallway, but once we arrived in the foyer, he made a point of taking us both by the arm again as he pushed us ahead of him into the sitting room.

“Kit!” Uncle Herbert jumped to his feet.

This caused Aunt Roz to turn from the window, where she’d been standing watching the road. “Pippa? What on earth is going on?” Her eyes dropped. “Are those my gardening gloves?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” I held them out. “We wanted a look inside the motorcars in the driveway, and we thought it better not to add any fingerprints.”

Aunt Roz nodded, as if this made perfect sense. She put the gloves down on the nearest table and turned her attention to Sammy. “Constable Entwistle.”

Sammy pulled his gaze from little Bess, who was staring at him with those big, blue Astley eyes. “My lady.”

“Are you arresting my son and niece?”

Sammy let go of Christopher and me. “Not at this time, my lady. I caught them snooping around in the carriage house.”

“We didn’t snoop,” I said irritably, twitching my sleeve back into place. “We stood inside the carriage house doors looking around. We didn’t even touch anything.”

“Be that as it may…”

“It is not against the law to stand inside one’s own carriage house! And it’s not like you’re doing anything to figure out who murdered Abigail anyway?—”

“Darling,” Crispin said, cutting me off mid-rant just as I was getting to the expletives. I turned to him, and he put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

My mouth dropped open as Sammy looked from me to him and back. “What’s this, then?”

“She doesn’t always know when to shut up,” Crispin explained, and I scowled at him.

“Very funny, St George. If anyone doesn’t know when to shut up, it’s you. You actually shushed me?”

“I’m sitting here quietly letting the constable do his job,” Crispin sniffed haughtily, “while you’re carrying on like a fish-woman. You need to pipe down so Constable Entwistle can get on with it.”

I opened my mouth to blister him with my next retort, but Aunt Roz got in first. “Crispin is right, Pippa. Do take a seat and be quiet so we can figure this out.”

She eyed me, steadily, while I dug my fingernails into my palms until I managed an, “Yes, Aunt Roz.” And then I leveled Crispin a look that ought by rights to have killed him on the spot. He smirked.

“You too, Christopher,” Aunt Roz added.

“Yes, Mother.” Christopher dropped onto the Chesterfield next to Francis and Constance, where he had sat earlier. He left enough room for me, but I pretended I didn’t notice. Instead, I wandered over and perched myself on the other arm of Crispin’s chair, so he had Laetitia on one side and me on the other. His eyes widened at my approach, while hers narrowed.

Sammy watched until I was situated, and then he opened his mouth. “Is there some reason you don’t want the lady to speak, Lord St George? Something you don’t want her to say, perhaps?”

Crispin blinked. I guess he hadn’t thought about the fact that him shushing me made it look like he had something to hide. It was my turn to smirk.

He cleared his throat. “No, Constable. Just trying to prevent her from getting herself arrested for verbal assault, you know. She can be quite mouthy when she’s riled up.”

“You’re vile, St George,” I informed him, but without any heat whatsoever.

He flicked me a cool look. “Likewise, Darling.”

Sammy, meanwhile, fastened his eyes on little Bess. “So this is the babe.”

Aunt Roz clutched her a bit tighter. “This is she.”

“Belonged to the dead lady, did she?”

“So we believe,” Aunt Roz said.

Sammy nodded. He looked from Crispin to Christopher, who was draped on the Chesterfield with one leg folded over the other, elegantly. Neither of them turned a hair at the examination.

Then it was Francis’s turn. When the latter narrowed his eyes under the constable’s examination, Sammy looked pleased that he had gotten a reaction. His voice was practically a purr. “Astley.”

“Entwistle,” Francis growled.

Sammy’s smirk widened and his attention dropped to where Constance was clutching Francis’s hand. Her engagement ring, an heirloom ruby surrounded by small brilliants, sparkled in the sunlight. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

Francis’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak, just gave a short nod. He might be afraid of what would come out of his mouth if he opened it.

“Thank you,” Constance breathed. I swallowed a sigh. I love her, really I do—or at least I’m beginning to, now that it looks like she’s going to be my cousin’s wife—but does she have to be so meek all the time?

“Brand new, isn’t it?”

“Last week,” Francis grunted.

“Happy, I assume?”

“Of course,” Constance said. The firmness of her tone was somewhat compromised by the fact that her voice shook.

Sammy looked at her for a moment and then turned his attention back to Francis. “Anything you’d like to tell me about the dead lady?”

“No,” Francis said.

“Didn’t know her?”

Francis shook his head.

“Yet she came here, where you live? And brought her child?”

There was nothing any of us could say to that, of course, so nobody tried.

“Had you met her before yesterday?” Sammy wanted to know.

“I didn’t meet her yesterday,” Francis answered, with the air of someone who was forcing the words past his teeth. “She staggered onto the lawn and collapsed. I picked her up and carried her inside. She never woke up.”

“But you hadn’t met her before?”

“No,” Francis said. “I’ve never met her.”

Sammy eyed him in silence for a few seconds. “You know the penalties for perjury, don’t you, Astley?”

“It’s hardly perjury,” I said, offended. “Perjury is when?—”

It was all I got out before Crispin shifted on the chair and accidentally—or perhaps not so accidentally—swept me off the arm and onto the floor. I landed with a squeal, and he gave me a bland, “My apologies, Darling,” as I scrambled to my feet. Sammy took a moment to admire my legs—they’re quite good, according to Christopher—while Laetitia and her mother exchanged a cautiously pleased glance that I pretended not to see.

“Really, St George,” I told him as I crossed the floor and dropped down next to Christopher on the Chesterfield, cheeks hot, “if you wanted to be rid of me, you could have just said.”

“I said I was sorry, Darling. It was an accident, I assure you.”

And I was a monkey’s uncle. It had one hundred percent been deliberate. He wasn’t even pretending to match his expression to the words he was saying.

Although, since I assumed he had done it to prevent me from saying something stupid, and not simply because he didn’t want me sitting next to him, I couldn’t really indulge in the hissy fit that was threatening. I took a deep breath instead, and told him, “You could have done the gentlemanly thing and helped me to my feet, you know.”

“You must have me confused with someone else,” Crispin answered. After a moment he added, blandly, “That color is quite becoming to you.”

I hoped he was talking about my cheeks, which were bright pink, and that I hadn’t flashed him (and everyone else in the sitting room) a glimpse of my unmentionables while I was kicking around on the floor, but I wasn’t about to ask.

Sammy cleared his throat. “Has anyone present met the victim before yesterday?”

I thought about lying, but what good would it do? “She came to our flat in London last week.”

Sammy’s brows arched. “Came to see you, did she?”

“She came to see Christopher,” I said.

“And what did she want?”

“We don’t know. Christopher was out. When I told her so, she left.”

“And she didn’t come back?”

I shook my head. Sammy looked around the room. “Anyone else?”

Crispin raised a languid hand. “She came to Sutherland House a few months ago.”

“What’s a few months, Lord St George? February? March? April?”

“Not February,” Crispin said. “The babe was at least a couple of months old. Maybe March or April.”

“And what did she want?”

“To speak to the Duke’s grandson,” Crispin said with a smirk. “Rogers dragged me out of bed to meet her. I told him I’d never seen her before. She ran away. I went back to my guest.”

“Who was your guest?”

He eyed me, and he eyed Laetitia, and then he had the nerve to eye Constance. She flushed. Francis growled.

“Lady Violet Cummings,” Crispin said.

Sammy wrote it down. “And that’s the only time you saw the girl?”

“Until she walked onto the lawn yesterday, yes.”

“And you can prove that, I suppose?”

“Of course I can’t,” Crispin said, irritated, and both Lady Euphemia and Uncle Harold drew in a breath. “You won’t be able to find anyone who’s seen us together, because I didn’t know her, but that doesn’t mean that I can prove I didn’t know her.”

“St George…” his father rumbled, and Crispin shot him a look.

“Sorry, Father. But there’s just no way to prove something like that.”

“So you have no alibi for the murder?”

“Of course I do.” Crispin glanced at Christopher. “Kit and I shared a room. We were together from midnight until Darling knocked us up this morning to tell us about the body.”

“Darling. You two are…” Sammy looked from him to me and back, dubiously, “together?”

I wasn’t the only person who snorted derisively at that. Crispin did, and so did Francis. So, for that matter, did Uncle Harold.

“Certainly not,” Crispin said. “I don’t pass muster with Darling. Do I?”

“Not at all,” I agreed. “You’re a cad and a vile seducer, and I wouldn’t have you if you were giftwrapped with a ribbon around your neck.”

He gave me a mock bow, just as if I had paid him a genuine compliment. “Just so.”

I rolled my eyes. “I suppose you could be worse, St George. I’m not certain off-hand precisely how, but if you put your mind to it, I’m sure you could manage, being so uniquely gifted in that way.”

His smirk widened. “Thank you, Darling.”

Sammy snorted and turned back to the conversation. “Who of you slept alone last night?”

There was a beat, then— “What cheek,” Crispin drawled. “Do you really suppose all of us are comfortable with that line of questioning, Constable?”

“This is an official inquiry—” Sammy began stiffly, but before he could say anything further, Uncle Harold had butted in.

“That’s enough, St George. Don’t make this any more difficult than you already have.”

“Yes, Father.” Crispin didn’t quite roll his eyes, but I’m fairly certain I saw the intent and watched him squash it. I don’t know whether Uncle Harold noticed.

“I spent the night alone,” I told Sammy. “On the third floor, across from Christopher and Crispin, in a room of my own. I had a view of the lawn and if I had looked out the window at the right moment, I might have seen her.” Or seen the murder.

“But you didn’t?”

I shook my head. “Not until I woke up this morning. I was the first one to notice.”

Or at least the first one to say anything about it.

“And no one can vouch for your whereabouts between midnight and six this morning?”

“It was more like ten last night. But no.”

“Why did you retire early?” Sammy wanted to know.

The truth was that I had had enough of Geoffrey’s idiocy as well as Laetitia’s shenanigans, but I couldn’t really say that. So— “I’d had enough of St George for the evening,” I said.

The latter’s brow arched. “Is that so? I don’t recall being there with you when you made that decision.”

“You weren’t. You can annoy from a distance, too.”

“Of course.”

“So no,” I told Sammy. “From ten last night until this morning, I have no alibi. Not unless the boys heard me snore when they came upstairs.”

Crispin and Christopher both shook their heads. “Pippa—” Aunt Roz began.

“It’s the truth, Aunt Roz. I slept alone. He can’t prove that I went downstairs and killed Abigail, because I didn’t, but I slept alone.”

She nodded. Sammy looked around the assembly. “Who else has no alibi for the night?”

Geoffrey and Laetitia both raised their hands. Uncle Harold didn’t, I noticed, although he had certainly spent the night alone, too.

“Names?”

Geoffrey eyed Sammy down his nose. “I’m Lord Geoffrey Marsden, and this is my sister, Lady Laetitia.”

“And you are?”

Geoffrey opened his mouth, probably to reiterate their names. He’s extremely literal and not very bright. Laetitia got in first. (There’s nothing wrong with her head, much as it pains me to admit it.) “Cousins of the bride-to-be.”

Sammy flicked a glance at Constance before turning his attention back on Laetitia. “And you spent the night alone.”

Laetitia nodded. “I was supposed to share Constance’s room, but she ended up in the library with Mr. Astley. Lord St George had made other plans.”

She lowered her lashes demurely. She’s an extremely lovely woman, in case I’ve neglected to mention that. A couple of years older than Crispin (and the rest of us), with big, crystal-clear, blue eyes, perfect porcelain skin, and shiny black hair. Her thick, dark lashes barely needed the coating of mascara she had given them, and the look she slanted Crispin from underneath would have made Sarah Bernhardt proud.

The Countess sucked in a breath, but Crispin just gave Laetitia an apologetic look. “Sorry, Laetitia. But I’m not using my cousin’s engagement party and my aunt’s house to misbehave.”

“And quite right, too,” I said. “We should all misbehave on our own time and in our own houses. Good for you, St George.”

He shot me a look. “Thank you, Darling.”

Uncle Harold cleared his throat. “I also slept alone. Although I’m sure you’re not insinuating that I would murder this unfortunate waif, Constable?”

Sammy hesitated. There was clearly a correct answer here—“Of course not, Your Grace,”—but I suppose he didn’t think that being a duke absolved Uncle Harold of suspicion. (Nor should it.) And in justice to him—Sammy—I guess he didn’t want to say that it did when it didn’t.

“I assume we’re all suspects until we can prove otherwise, Harold,” Aunt Roz said, and took Sammy off the hook. He looked relieved. “Herbert and I spent the night together, Constable, as we always do. He didn’t stir, and I didn’t either. Although we did have a window onto the croquet lawn, so it’s possible we might have seen her arrive, had we looked out that window. At that point, however, I’m afraid we were probably asleep.”

Sammy nodded. “You didn’t hear anything through the window at any point? An argument? Any…” He hesitated delicately, “…noises?”

My mind supplied the sound a croquet mallet might make when it made contact with the back of a skull—the closest my imagination could come was the thwack of a spoon against a soft-boiled egg, magnified several times—and I winced.

“I’m afraid not, Constable,” Aunt Roz said composedly, and Uncle Herbert shook his head. “We slept through the night with no interruptions. Except for the baby, of course.”

Of course.

“We, as well,” Laetitia’s mother hurried to say. “I’m Euphemia, Countess Marsden, and this is my husband, Lord Maurice. We had no window onto the lawn, and didn’t know this unfortunate girl existed until she collapsed in front of us yesterday afternoon.”

She divided a displeased look between myself and Aunt Roz, as if she blamed us for it. I have no idea why, since I’d not had anything to do with that, nor had Aunt Roz. It was her house, I suppose, and her son who had proposed to Lady Euphemia’s niece, thus forcing the Marsden family to be here—although between you and me, I think we would have all been better pleased if they had just stayed home.

At any rate, it wasn’t as if Aunt Roz could have foreseen this happening, nor as if she would have wanted it to, if she had.

“Lord Geoffrey?” Sammy turned to him.

“Slept alone,” Geoffrey grunted. “Saw no one.”

“Didn’t know the girl?”

“Never saw her before in my life,” Geoffrey said.

And that was that. Sammy looked around the room. His eyes lingered for a second on Constance and Francis, and on Crispin and Laetitia, and then on me. I arched my brows at him—surely he didn’t seriously suspect me?—and he pursed his lips, but didn’t do me the courtesy of looking abashed.

I suppose he thought the five of us were the most likely suspects. Francis and Crispin because they might be little Bess’s father, Laetitia and Constance because they were afraid of losing Crispin and Francis, respectively, and me… God only knew what Sammy thought my motive was. While there were people here I would kill for, at least in the heat of the moment, there was nobody for whom I would commit coldblooded murder. Certainly not the coldblooded murder of a poor waif whose only crime was to have gotten herself in the family way by some smooth-talking bloke who told her he was a Sutherland.

If she had threatened Christopher with bodily harm, I would have squashed her like a bug. I wouldn’t have snuck downstairs in the middle of the night and hit her over the head with a croquet mallet, however. And more to the point, she hadn’t threatened Christopher. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had the chance to threaten Francis, either. Crispin… well. Him, she might have threatened. And while I knew I wouldn’t have murdered her for it, even if the baby had been Crispin’s, I suppose I couldn’t expect Sammy to know that. Crispin’s insistence on calling me Darling, which made sense to the two of us, may not make sense to Sammy. He might think it meant something it didn’t.

But Crispin had an alibi for last night and couldn’t have committed the crime. Nor could Francis and Christopher.

Unless someone was lying, of course. Christopher had suggested telling a fib to give me an alibi, so he might have been willing to fib for Crispin, as well. And Constance would certainly have lied for Francis, although he truly hadn’t been in any condition to commit murder last night, so I was fairly certain it hadn’t been him.

That left Laetitia, last of the group Sammy had been eyeing. In my opinion, Sammy ought also to consider Uncle Harold and Geoffrey, both of whom had also spent the night alone.

The case for Geoffrey was simple. He might have seen her, might have made a play for her, and might have lost his temper when she wouldn’t play along. If it was Geoffrey, it had been a crime of passion, heat of the moment, and nothing more.

Uncle Harold was a grandson of a Duke of Sutherland, albeit a long-dead one, and could have passed down the Sutherland hair and eyes to Bess. On the other hand, it was difficult to imagine him being interested in someone like Abigail Dole—difficult to imagine him interested in sex at all, really—and just as difficult to imagine Abigail letting herself be swept off her feet by Uncle Harold. Surely her beau must have been someone younger and better-looking?

On the other hand, he might simply have believed that Crispin was responsible for Bess, and so he got rid of Abigail to keep her from entrapping Crispin. I could see someone like Uncle Harold justifying murder in a case like that, especially if the victim was no one of consequence.

And then there was Laetitia. I had believed her capable of strangling Johanna de Vos at the Dower House back in May, and I believed her completely capable of killing Abigail Dole now. She wanted Crispin, and from where I was sitting, she seemed willing to do almost anything to get him.

I glanced over at her, perched on the arm of his chair, angled towards him as if she were a flower and he was the sun. I shivered.

“All right, Pippa?” Christopher whispered. He reached over and took my hand.

I nodded and leaned closer, putting my head on his shoulder. “Ready for this to be over.”

Sammy Entwistle, as if he had heard me, cleared his throat. “Let’s start over from the beginning.”