Page 57 of Peril in Piccadilly

“Itwaslovely. Listen, Aunt Roz…”

“Yes?” my aunt said brightly.

“Christopher—”

But I couldn’t bring myself to say that he was missing. It would only upset Aunt Roz, when there was nothing she could do about it, and besides, I didn’t actually know that he was missing. He might turn up on his own, full of apologies for having worried me. He might have sent a note that went astray before reaching me before he went off to spend the night with a friend. I might be overreacting.

“Christopher?” Aunt Roz prompted.

I waited for inspiration, but then, before I could actually, consciously come up with something to say, my brain took over, and I blurted, “Christopher told me that Crispin?—”

“Ah,” Aunt Roz said when I faltered. “I wondered how long he would be able to keep quiet about it.”

“Do you mean to say that it’s true?”

“Of course it’s true,” Aunt Roz said. “Dear me, Pippa, the boy could hardly be more obvious about it.”

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” I grumbled.

“Well, it ought to have been.” Aunt Roz’s voice was brisk. “He could barely look at you without getting starry-eyed at first.”

Starry-eyed, was it? “I don’t remember that.”

“Of course not. You were too busy sniping back at all the sarcasm he employed to cover it up. Really, he’s very good at misdirection, isn’t he?”

He certainly was. More than five years of it by now. “I have a hard time believing it,” I confessed.

“Do you really? I assure you, Pippa, we’ve all known for years. Why do you suppose my late sister-in-law lost her mind and tried to shoot you at Sutherland Hall in April?”

Um… “Because she knew that I was trying to figure out who had killed Duke Henry and his valet and she was afraid that I would succeed?”

“I’m sure that was part of it,” Aunt Roz admitted, “but he was also so delighted about you being there that weekend that he had a hard time containing himself, and I’m sure his mother noticed. I’m equally sure that Harold had quite a lot to say about it.”

Yes, indeed. I had heard some of what he’d had to say, and it had been blistering.

“But surely shooting me is a step too far?” I said.

“She had already shot Grimsby by then,” Aunt Roz answered blandly, “so I suppose it mightn’t have been that much of a stretch.”

Perhaps not. “Be that as it may, what I actually rang up to talk to you about, was Christopher.”

“Is that so?”

“He hasn’t come home,” I said. “I went to lunch with Wolfgang at one, and I haven’t seen Christopher since. There’s been no note and no message left with Evans. He wouldn’t happen to have phoned home, would he?”

“Phoned here, do you mean? I rather think your flat is his home now, Pippa.”

Yes, of course it was. “Phoned you,” I corrected. “Or Uncle Herbert or Francis.”

“I don’t believe so, my dear. But wait a moment while I ask.”

I heard the ear piece click against the surface when she put it down, and then her voice faded as she walked away. “Herbert? Francis? Has either of you heard from Kit today?”

There was an exchange of voices in the background, too far away for me to make out individual words, and then the click-clacking of my aunt’s heels as she came back to the telephone. “Pippa? No, he hasn’t rung up here today.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I assumed he hadn’t done, but I thought I would ask.”

“Should we be worried, dear?”