Page 19 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place

“And now she’s here.”

Indubitably.

“It seems, then,” Aunt Roz said, “that one of two things is happening. She got herself in the family way by someone in the Astley family?—”

“There’s really no denying that, is there?”

Aunt Roz looked at little Bess, now contentedly chewing her thumb while perched on my hip. “That the baby is a Sutherland? No, there’s no denying that, I’m afraid. So either Miss Dole went to Sutherland House looking for her baby’s father, and when she determined that Crispin wasn’t he, she found out where Christopher and you live, and went to look at Christopher. And then?—”

“I told her that if she’d seen Crispin she’d seen Christopher,” I said, “and Flossie Schlomsky agreed with me…”

“—and now she’s learned where Francis lives, and has come to take a look at him.”

So she was essentially going down the line of Astleys looking for the right one. “Or?”

“Or,” Aunt Roz said, eyeing the unconscious figure critically, “she knows exactly who little Bess’s father is, and she’s here to force him to acknowledge her.”

“Blackmail?”

She shrugged, and I added, “When you say that she knows exactly who he is…?”

“She went to Sutherland House first,” Aunt Roz said, “didn’t she?”

“So you think it’s Crispin.”

She slanted me a look. “Don’t you?”

Did I? “Every time we’ve talked about it,” I said, “he has told me it isn’t. He said it again just a few minutes ago. He’s said it every time I’ve asked.” And I had asked more than once.

“He has every reason to lie,” Aunt Roz pointed out. “If this truly is his baby, Harold will go spare. And the last person he’d want to admit it in front of?—”

“Is Laetitia Marsden. Of course.”

“No,” Aunt Roz said, blinking. “That wasn’t…”

I brushed her off. “It doesn’t matter. He could be lying. Or he could have forgotten. Or he could be telling the truth. I don’t know how we’d ever know for certain. People lie. Even if Abigail wakes up and says he’s Bess’s father, it won’t be proof.”

“It’ll be proof enough for me,” Aunt Roz said. She turned to look at the unconscious girl. “I’m surprised it has taken as long as it has, honestly. I don’t suppose you carry smelling salts, Pippa?”

“Of course not. I’m hardly in the habit of fainting.”

She nodded. “Nor am I. And I don’t suppose Euphemia or her daughter are the swooning sort, either. Perhaps Constance…?”

“I could go inquire,” I said. “Unless something’s wrong with her that smelling salts won’t fix. Did you check her for injuries? Maybe someone shot her, or conked her over the head…”

“To many murder mysteries, Pippa.” She smiled at me fondly, but shook her head. “If she’d been shot, we’d have heard it, and besides, there’d be blood. If she were conked on the head, we’d be able to see that too, I imagine. Besides, who would do it? We were all on the terrasse when she walked up. Unless you imagine Cook was running around in the bushes with a rolling pin?”

Hardly. “I guess we just wait for St George to come back with the doctor, then.”

“Not much more we can do, I imagine. I’m sure Gerald will have a way of waking her when he comes.”

She sat in silence for a few seconds before glancing at the door. “I wonder what’s going on out on the terrasse. Whether Herbert managed to calm the waters.”

The waters hadn’t struck me as being particularly choppy, but what did I know? There was bound to be some curiosity, certainly, although Uncle Herbert hadn’t the information to quell any of that. None of us did.

“I could stick my head through the door and see,” I suggested. “I’m not doing you any good standing here. Orherany good, either.”

“You’re holding her baby,” Aunt Roz said, and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll go.”