Page 52 of Mischief at Marsden Manor

“A few questions,” I said, dropping my hand but continuing forward down the hallway towards the main foyer, away from the dining room door. Dominic Rivers, perforce, followed.

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he told my back, petulantly.

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “No, of course you don’t. Although it will look suspicious if you’re deliberately unforthcoming, don’t you think?”

He turned a shade paler, not a marvelous look for someone with his skin tone. He tried to brazen it out, however, and his sneer was almost—almost—as good as Crispin’s, at least on a bad day. “To who?”

“Whom,” I said, and waited for him to come up beside me before I continued to walk. “To me, and to everyone else I tell about it. Like Constable Collins.”

He scoffed. That was a creditable effort, too, although Francis does it better. “A small town bobby investigating a crime that may not have happened? I’m shaking in my boots.”

“A small town constable with the power to arrest anyone involved,” I corrected, “whether you have any respect for him or not.”

He didn’t say anything to that, and I added, “Nobody’s suggesting it’s your fault, you know. I don’t thinkyouplanned to kill her.”

All the blood drained out of his cheeks and left them pasty, like day-old porridge. “I certainly did not. How dare you?”

“I just told you that I don’t think that,” I said irritably. “Stop behaving like such a damsel, Mr. Rivers. If you provided her withthe pennyroyal, you still aren’t responsible for whether or not she took it.”

He muttered something, in which I was pretty certain I heard the wordsBillyandChang. I stopped in the middle of the main foyer and put my hands on my hips. “Billy Chang was convicted of pushing cocaine, not medicinal herbs. And he wasn’t even charged in Freda Kempton’s death. It’s not the same situation.”

“It’s close enough,” Rivers grumbled. “There’s a prison sentence on the books, you know.Offences Against the Person Act. Up to three years for the procurement of drugs to cause abortion.”

“But surely that’s less than for selling, say, cocaine or heroin?”

“You would think,” Rivers said mulishly, “but you would be wrong.”

Was that so? “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? You really should have known better, Mr. Rivers.”

He made a face.

“All I want to know,” I told him, “is whether or not it was Cecily Fletcher who invited you here and asked you to bring her pennyroyal.”

He looked at me for a moment in silence, seemingly trying to determine whether or not he should, or had to, answer the question. Finally, he said, “No. It wasn’t.”

“But someone else did?”

He didn’t answer, and I added, “Who was it?”

“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.” His tone was bland, businesslike. “That’s confidential information. Professional courtesy, you understand.”

His color was back to normal now, and he looked as if he thought he had the upper hand. I decided to see if I could disabuse him of that notion.

“Or perhaps you just can’t tell me because there wasn’t anyone else,” I said as I watched his face. “Perhaps no one asked you to procure pennyroyal for them. Perhaps you did it on your own, because you were the one who wanted the baby gone.”

He didn’t look particularly guilty, but I pushed forward anyway. “We both know that you spent some time in her room last night. If it wasn’t to hand over the supply of dope she had requested you bring, perhaps it was so she could tell you that she was expecting?”

“Yes,” Rivers said, clearly through gritted teeth.

“Was it your baby?”

“No.” He turned a bit pale at that question.

“Can you prove it?”

“Of course not. But I have no reason to lie.”

“You have every reason, if you killed her.”