Page 101 of Peril in Piccadilly

I nodded. That made sense, actually.

“The maître d’ at the Savoy tried to blackmail him,” Tom added, “and Christopher saw it happen, so that explains both Christopher’s disappearance and the dead body.”

Christopher nodded, still masticating.

“He wanted to marry you,” Tom said, eyeing me, “to keep the Natterdorff money in the family. If you wouldn’t accept him, then he wanted to kill you so he could be the only heir. He went back and forth between the two because…?”

“Probably because I went back and forth between being conciliatory and not,” I said with a sigh.

Tom nodded. “After his grandfather formally disinherited him, it became even more imperative that he sew up the inheritance, so he came up with the freighter and the elopement.”

“It was hardly an elopement,” I said, but at that point Christopher had swallowed wrong and was coughing hard enough to expel a lung. I turned to smack him on the back only to find that Crispin had got there first.

“There, there. Breathe, old chap.”

“What—?” Christopher croaked.

“We were cousins,” I said. “You know that, Christopher.”

“Yes, of course. But?—”

“As it turns out,” Crispin said dryly, “the relationship was a bit closer than we thought. You’re looking at the newGräfin von und zuNatterdorff.”

Christopher’s eyes widened. “You’re joking?” He was still breathing hard from his choking fit, but at least his cheeks were nice and rosy now. And for the record, he had directed the question to Crispin, not me.

“I’m afraid not,” Crispin said. “What a time to find out, eh?”

Christopher nodded. “Indeed.”

Neither of them explained this exchange, of course. Then again, they didn’t have to, although if I hadn’t known what I now knew, I would have asked them about it. As it was, I didn’t. Nor did Tom, so he probably knew, too.

“Will you be going to Germany, then,” he inquired instead, “to meet your grandfather?”

“And deliver myself right into Wolfgang’s hands, if he managed to get onto that freighter?” I shook my head. “I think not.”

“And you don’t want to take your rightful place in the family?”

This was Crispin, and I faced him. “Not at all. I’m British, not German. I don’t care that I would have been aGräfinin Germany. The Weimar Republic did away with all of that in 1919.”

“But your grandfather—” Christopher began.

“The grandfather who disowned my father for wanting to be a craftsman? The grandfather who disowned Wolfgang and made him turn to theft, and then to kidnapping and murder, to save himself? No, thank you. Let the old man reap what he sowed. Or let him choose to take Wolfgang back, if he makes it home. I can do without that kind of family.”

There was a pause. Then Christopher leaned his head on my shoulder. “I’ll be your family, Pippa.”

“You’re already my family,” I told him. “Marriage at thirty if we haven’t married anyone else, remember?”

“Marriage at thirty,” Christopher echoed, with a glance across the table at Tom, “if we haven’t married anyone else by then.”

Next to me, Crispin said not a word.