Page 60 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place

“Of course not. I didn’t do it. I’m just saying I could have.Youhave an alibi for the whole night. I don’t.”

“You had no reason to want her dead, though,” I pointed out. “Of everyone here, it’s least likely that the baby is yours.”

Uncle Harold huffed and looked like he wanted to say something, but Christopher merely shrugged. “That’s easy for you to say, Pippa. You know me. The police doesn’t.”

“Tom does.”

“Tom’s not in charge,” Christopher said. “Sammy Entwistle is.”

“Of anyone, Sammy Entwistle is going to try to pin this on Francis.” I shot the latter a look. “Sorry, Francis, but you know as well as I do?—”

Francis nodded. “No love lost between me and Sammy Entwistle.”

“Which is why it’s very good that you have a solid alibi. Less good that Christopher doesn’t have one.”

“I’ll lie,” Crispin said. “I can say we went upstairs together.”

I shook my head. “If it were just us, that might work. But there are too many other people here who can dispute it.”

And I wouldn’t trust the Marsdens not to spill the beans. Laetitia would certainly prefer to see Christopher hang for murder rather than Crispin, and so, I’m sure, would her mother.

I added, “It’ll be easier if we just say that he and I went upstairs together at the beginning of the evening, and spent the night in the same room. That’s what we were supposed to do, anyway, before Francis ended up in the library.”

Crispin looked like he didn’t think much of this idea, but it was Christopher who shook his head. “That leaves Crispin without an alibi, and he’s at least as likely to be guilty as Francis…”

“Thanks a lot, Kit.”

Christopher shot him a look. “You know what I mean. You say you didn’t do it, and I trust you. But that’s somebody’s child—” he glanced at little Bess, “—and somebody picked up that croquet mallet and killed her mother. I know it wasn’t me. I don’t think it was Pippa. I don’t see how it can have been you or Francis. But I’m not going to lie to cover my own back, especially if it leaves someone else without an alibi. They can’t prove I had anything to do with it, because I didn’t.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ll all tell the truth. Francis was in the library with Constance, you two were together, I was by myself. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Crispin said dryly. “How do you plan to prove that you didn’t kill her, Darling? You have no alibi at all, do you?”

I didn’t. But I also didn’t need one. “Don’t be ridiculous, St George. What reason would I have to kill her?”

“None,” Christopher said.

Crispin shot him a look. “You know that, and I know that. But does Sammy Entwistle know that?”

“Sammy Entwistle knows sod all,” Francis grumbled.

Aunt Roz shook her head, but fondly, and Crispin continued. “Sammy Entwistle is going to look at this baby, and come to the same conclusion we’ve all come to. One of us is responsible for getting this girl with child. He’s going to say that one of us killed her. If we’ve all got alibis, he’s going to look further afield, to the other people who may have had a reason to want her out of the way. That means Constance?—”

“Constance would never,” I interrupted.

“Constance was with Francis,” Christopher added.

Crispin glanced at him. “In that scenario, Francis is the one with the alibi, not Constance. She would have noticed him sneaking out. He was too drunk to notice anything at all.”

“Listen…” Francis growled, and Crispin rolled his eyes.

“I’m not sayingIbelieve it, Francis. I’m saying it’s what Entwistle will say.”

When none of us objected, he went on, holding up another finger. “It means Philippa, because I’m sure he knows that she’d commit murder for Kit.”

He probably did. Sammy Entwistle, I mean. He’d seen enough of both of us growing up to assume that.

“It means Laetitia,” I shot back, “for the same reason it means Constance.”