Page 48 of Murder in a Mayfair Flat

I shot him a look. “I don’t think this kind of thing was what he was referring to when he said that, Christopher.”

“No,” Christopher agreed, “I know very well that it wasn’t. But that’s quite an ugly picture you painted. You don’t really believe…?”

“Let me put it this way,” I said. “I would be delighted to walk into Gladys’s flat and find her and St George in bed together. Delighted by it. I’d be happy enough that I wouldn’t even give him a difficult time.”

“That’s quite delighted,” Christopher said dryly.

I nodded. Yes, it was. Quite a lot more delighted than he—Crispin, I mean—would deserve under those circumstances. But if that’s what happened, I’d bite my tongue on any unkind words, nonetheless.

“Until Tom mentioned it earlier,” I said, “I didn’t really think that any of us were in danger. It hadn’t crossed my mind that we could be. But someone in that flat perpetrated violence last night, Christopher. Someone who wasn’t you or me or St George. And if they know that he can identify them…”

“Number 13,” Tom’s voice cut into the conversation. “And it’s green.”

We came to a stop beside him, all three of us looking at the small brick house with the green door and a green stable door side by side on the lower level, and two windows up above. The curtains weren’t gingham this time, but looked soft and elegant, with an expensive sheen. Lavender silk, or perhaps satin.

“That looks promising,” Tom said.

I nodded. “The curtains look like they might belong to Gladys Long. She was wearing lavender last night. And the number 13 and the green door are right.”

He shot me a look. “Would you like to do the honors?”

I shot one back. “Knock, you mean? Of course, if you’d like me to.”

I walked up to the door and applied my knuckles to it. And stepped back and listened for any sound from inside.

None came. They were probably upstairs in her bedroom and couldn’t hear. I knocked again, harder.

“Nothing?” Tom asked. He and Christopher had gathered in behind me now.

I shook my head.

“Probably wore himself out,” Christopher muttered, “and is asleep.”

My face twitched into a grimace. “Did he wear her out, too?”

He shot me a bland look. “If he were here, I’m sure he’d tell you that it has been known to happen.”

No doubt. “I would hope he wouldn’t be so uncouth as to tell me anything of the sort,” I said, applying my knuckles to the wood one more time. “Although being intimately familiar with him—if not quite so intimately as Gladys—I wouldn’t put it past him, honestly.”

Christopher shook his head. “Nor would I. Try the knob.”

“We can’t just walk in—” I began, but Tom reached past me and twisted the handle.

The door opened and we peered into a dimly lit hallway with a staircase to the first floor.

“Five will get you ten they’re in bed together,” Christopher whispered.

“As long as he’s not on the floor with his head bashed in, I don’t care,” I whispered back.

Tom, meanwhile, had taken a step into the narrow space and raised his voice. “Metropolitan Police. Is anyone home?”

There was no answer, and my heart started beating faster as he headed for the stairs.

Logically, I knew that there was no real reason to suppose Crispin would be dead on the floor of the flat upstairs. If he wasn’t in bed with Gladys, he was more likely to be elsewhere. On his way home in the Hispano-Suiza, probably approaching Frimley or Basingstoke by now, or else off somewhere with Gladys herself, and Hutchison and Ogilvie. They may not even be threatening him, but might simply want to know what he had done with Montrose’s body last night.

So logically, there was no reason why I should be watching Tom’s ascent up the stairs with dread. Even so, emotionally, I was waiting for disaster to strike.

Halfway up, he turned to us. “Aren’t you coming?”