Page 17 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Seventeen

Aunt Roz must have been sitting beside the telephone, because it was answered almost as soon as it rang.

“Kit?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said apologetically.

She breathed out. “Pippa? What news?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. He still isn’t home. But we’ve brought Tom in, and here’s what we know so far.” I listed all the places that Christopher was not, and could hear her tension dissipate at the same time as it ratcheted up. It was a very strange, if understandable, phenomenon.

“Let me get this straight,” she said when I had finished. “So far as we know, he isn’t dead, he isn’t hurt, and he hasn’t been arrested.”

“That’s correct.”

“But we don’t know where he is, and he could be dead or hurt somewhere he hasn’t been found yet.”

I made a face. “That’s a possibility, yes.”

“We should come up to London.”

“Crispin said you might feel that way,” I said. “Sutherland House?—”

She interrupted me. “Crispin’s there?”

“He motored up last night.”

“Let me talk to him.”

I arched my brows but waved him closer. “Aunt Roz wants to talk to you.”

His arched, too, but he took the earpiece and put it to his ear. “Hullo, Aunt Roslyn.”

They talked for a minute or two. Crispin’s share of it was mostly limited to things like, “Yes, Aunt Roslyn,” “No, Aunt Roslyn,” “I’m afraid I don’t know,” and “of course.” Of Aunt Roz’s part, all I could hear was a faint quacking from the earpiece. He winced once or twice.

“Do you wish to speak to Philippa again?” he asked eventually. My aunt must have said no—my feelings were a bit hurt—because he nodded. “I’ll let her know. We’ll see you soon, Aunt Roz. Sutherland House is always available to you.”

He deposited the earpiece in the cradle and breathed out, closing his eyes.

“They’re coming?” I asked.

“I talked her into giving it another day,” Crispin answered. “Or she mostly talked herself into it, I suppose.”

I supposed so. I certainly hadn’t heard him give voice to any kind of persuasion.

After a moment’s silence he added, “There’s nothing they can do here. We’re already doing everything we can. They’d be underfoot.”

“Tom probably thinks we are underfoot, too,” I pointed out.

“Well, I’m not leaving. But we do need to let him know about tonight.”

“Go ahead,” I told him, and watched him deposit more coins in the slot and ask the operator to connect him with Scotland Yard. A minute later he was explaining to Tom about the dinner invitation and the plan we—or he—had come up with. “It’s the Savoy again, so it ought to be fairly easy to lurk and follow him when he leaves.”

“As long as he doesn’t go out by one of the entrances we’re not watching,” Tom’s tinny voice came out of the headset. Crispin was holding it, but we both had our ears as close to it as we could manage without bumping heads. I’m fairly certain my hair must have tickled his cheek, although he didn’t say anything about it.

“I rang them up,” Tom added, “and confirmed that he’s no longer a guest there.”

“I hope—” Crispin began, and I could practically hear Tom’s eyeroll come down the line.

“This isn’t my first day on the job, my lord. I rang up from a call box, and I didn’t tell them who I was, just that I was trying to reach the Graf von Natterdorff and this was the address he had given me. He did not leave a forwarding address with the concierge, although he does sometimes stop by and ask whether any messages have arrived for him since he left.”

Theoretically, then, I could send a note saying that I didn’t want to have supper, and he would receive it when he got there. But he’d already be there at that point, expecting to find me, which seemed impolite, and besides, we’d lose the opportunity to find out where he actually laid his head.

If he had anything to do with Christopher’s disappearance, we might also find Christopher, although I didn’t dare allow myself to hope for that. Or at least I did my best to talk myself out of hoping.

I was still talking myself out of hoping when it was time to leave. With Christopher’s absence, I had had to put on my own makeup—Crispin was no good at it, or at least he was too heavy-handed for me. The theatrical makeup he had learned to do at Cambridge made me look like a trollop, and I had to remove it and start over.

My lovely ivory gown was dirty and torn from my tumble down the Piccadilly Circus tube stop stairs last week, but of course I had worn it to dinner that night, so I couldn’t have worn it again tonight even had it been in perfect condition. You don’t want to give an eligible gentleman the impression that you only have one serviceable gown. Instead, I found myself having to decide between the apple green frock Crispin had told me made me look like a Bramley, the butter yellow gown he had once likened to the marvelous Josephine Baker’s banana skirt, and the salmon pink I had worn the night we had found Flossie Schlomsky’s dead body.

That particular gown had also prompted the comparison of my humble self to a stalk of rhubarb—Crispin seemed to have a strange fixation on fruits when it came to describing my attire—but truly, that last part paled in comparison to the memory of Flossie.

And that part ought to have disqualified the salmon forever. I had, in fact, not worn it since that night. I had bought the ivory to replace it. But now, looking at them all, I found my eyes drawn to it.

“Apple, banana, or rhubarb?” I asked Crispin.

“Pardon me?”

He was not changing his clothes, of course, but was sitting on the Chesterfield flipping through a gossip magazine. It had his face on the cover, and was from several months ago, back when he spent most of his time drunk and carousing with the Society for Bright Young Persons. Laetitia, or perhaps his father, seemed to have mostly cured him of that, at any rate. The few times he had been up to London lately, there had been precious little carousing going on.

“Apple, banana, or rhubarb?” I repeated. “Color-wise.”

“Has he seen them all already?”

He had.

“Does he have a favorite?”

Not as far as I knew. He usually told me I looked good no matter what I wore.

Crispin muttered something uncomplimentary when I said as much, and told me, “Wear the green.”

“You want me to look round, I suppose.” Like the apple he had likened me to.

“It doesn’t make you look round, Darling. There’s no dress in existence that would make you look round. You’re as skinny as a blade of grass”

“Lovely,” I said.

“The green brings out your eyes. Wear it.”

He turned back to the magazine. I stared at him for a moment—he looked up once, blandly, and met my eyes—before I turned on my heel with a muttered expletive, and ventured back into my bedroom to finish my toilette. Behind me, I heard a magazine page turn over.

When I came back out, Bramley frock on, face in place, hair fluffed and held back with a sparkly barrette to match the diamanté accents on the gown, he spared me a single up-and-down look before he got to his feet. “Ready?”

“You tell me,” I said sourly, as I swung my evening wrap around myself. He might have offered to help me with it, having been brought up to be a gentleman, but I supposed I wasn’t worth the trouble.

Either that, or he simply didn’t want to get too close to me. He rarely touched me, now that I thought about it. For someone who took every chance he could to get a verbal reaction, you’d think he would take the opportunity to get close to me without causing suspicion, too. But he mostly kept his hands to himself, other than the occasional support under my elbow to help me rise or an offered arm to cross the street; something he really couldn’t avoid if he wanted to keep his reputation as a gentleman. But beyond that, no gratuitous touching whatsoever.

“You know, St George,” I told him as we approached the door to the lift, a spot where we’d have to stand close together whether we wanted to or not, or at least a place where it would appear strange if we stood an inordinate distance apart, “it’s all right for you to admit that you think I’m pretty.”

The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Is that what you think I think?”

“I certainly hope so,” I said. “I didn’t go to all this trouble for people to look at me and think I’m plain.”

He looked amused. “You’re not plain, Darling. And I’m certain Wolfie will appreciate the trouble.”

I smirked. “So you do think I’m pretty.”

He gave me a quick up-and-down, there and then gone. “Of course you’re pretty, Darling. Whatever gave you the idea that I didn’t?”

“The fact that you don’t look at me much,” I said. “Or only as much as you have to, to be polite.”

“That’s because I’m engaged, Darling. It’s really not appropriate for me to admire other women, is it? Especially not in the absence of my fiancée.”

Ugh . I took a step back. “No, of course not. Forget I mentioned it.”

The lift arrived, and the door opened. Crispin slid the grille to the side and nodded to me to enter. He stood in one corner of the lift, and I kept to the other. After that salutary reminder, the last thing I wanted to do was crowd him.

“Any news, Evans?” I inquired on our way across the lobby.

The doorman shook his head. “No, Miss Darling. I would have rung upstairs if anything occurred.”

“Of course you would,” I said. “We’re going out for a bit. To the Savoy, should you have a need to get in touch.”

“Of course, Miss Darling.” He touched the brim of his cap and accepted the coin Crispin handed him on our way through the door. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Don’t mention it, Evans,” Crispin said and headed for the Hispano-Suiza. “In you go, Darling.”

In I went, and a minute later we were headed down Essex Street towards the Strand.

“You and Tom are certain you have things worked out?” I wanted to know. We had been over this already, but I wanted to hear it again. “You’ll drop me off around the corner from the Savoy…”

“So that he won’t realize that I’m in London,” Crispin nodded. “I’ll park the H6 somewhere out of the way so he won’t see it?—”

Yes, it wasn’t a well-designed motorcar for covert surveillance. Too distinctive by half.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense, St George. Wolfgang has no reason to want Christopher out of the way. Something else must have happened to him.”

“If so,” Crispin said, his hands easy on the wheel as he steered us through traffic towards Charing Cross station, “we’ll find out where Wolfie lives, and that’ll be all. And you can’t tell me you wouldn’t like that information.”

I supposed I couldn’t. “I’m not saying it isn’t strange. Or that he hasn’t behaved strangely. It’s just difficult to say that it equates to him harming Christopher.”

“And perhaps he hasn’t done,” Crispin said. “Perhaps something else happened there. But he has something to hide, and even if we don’t find Kit as a result of tonight’s adventure, it would be nice to know what his reason is.”

Yes, of course it would. “So you park the Hispano-Suiza out of the way somewhere and join Tom…”

“And we wait for you and Wolfie to finish supper,” Crispin nodded. “You let him put you into a Hackney bound for home, and Gardiner and I follow Wolfie to his lair.”

Lair, was it? “That wasn’t part of the deal,” I said.

“What wasn’t?”

“I don’t want to go home and sit there and wait while you two big, strong men chase down Wolfgang and look for Christopher. That’s not fair. He’s my best friend. I shouldn’t be made to miss out.”

“He’s my best friend, too,” Crispin said. “And if you can figure out a way to get to the police-issue Hackney before Wolfie leaves the Savoy, you’re welcome to accompany us. But I don’t see how you’d be able to accomplish that.”

I didn’t either. It would be late by the time supper was over, and it was already dark, so Wolfgang would insist on putting me in a cab for the trip home. And while I could do what I had done last time, and perhaps convince the driver to set me down further up the street, I might not make it back to the Savoy before Wolfgang—and Crispin and Tom—left.

“Perhaps I could simply get into the Hackney the two of you will be occupying? You said that there’s a police-issue Hackney, correct? I assume it will be parked out front? Why don’t I just get into it, and I’ll be with the two of you.”

“I won’t be in the Hackney,” Crispin said. “I’ll be in the lobby. That way, if he goes back into the hotel and out through another door, I can follow.”

“So you’ll be driving the H6.”

“There’ll be three of us,” Crispin said. “Tom is driving a Hackney. It’s the most common motorcar in London, and the least likely to be noticed.”

I nodded.

“Detective Sergeant Finchley will be driving a police issue Crossley Tender.”

I opened my mouth, and he continued before I could express my thought, “Not the Flying Bedstead. This is a Tender without any markings. It looks just like any other motorcar.”

“Just like any other police issue Crossley Tender, you mean.”

“Without the police department logo,” Crispin said.

“Yes, obviously. But it’s still a police issue Crossley Tender.”

“It can’t be helped,” Crispin said. “I’ll have the H6?—”

“So there will be three of you with three different motorcars. You’ll practically be driving in a queue behind him. And yet you’re sending me home? Why can’t I go in the Hackney with Tom, or in the Tender with Finch, or in the H6 with you? You’ll be the farthest behind him, right? You have the most easily recognizable motorcar. So why?—”

“Because we’re trying to keep you safe, Darling. Kit will kill me if he comes back and something has happened to you.”

I folded my arms across my chest, sullenly. “Christopher would not send me home like an ornamental object while he had all the fun. No more than he would have agreed to go home to wait if I were the one who was missing.”

He didn’t answer, and I added, “You can’t do this to me, St George. You can’t send me home while you follow my fiancé to see whether he has my best friend bound and gagged in his wardrobe. I won’t stand for it.”

“You won’t have much of a choice,” Crispin pointed out, and I narrowed my eyes.

“I’m not sure you want to go there, St George. I can assure you, you won’t like it.”

He smirked, the bastard. “And why is that, Darling?”

“Because,” I said darkly, “I’m the one who shall be spending the next hour and a half with Wolfgang, and there’s nothing you can do to keep me from saying something to him. Something that will blow up your entire plan and leave you all with egg on your faces.”

He shot me a look. “While I admire your creativity, Darling, are you certain you want to do that to Kit? Following Wolfie might be the best chance we have of finding him.”

He had a point, unfortunately. A point that he further emphasized when he added, “The longer it is until we find him, the worse the results could be.”

Yes, of course. Christopher might be starving to death right now, while I was worrying about being excluded from the excitement.

I sagged back against the upholstery, disappointment along with disgust (at myself) swirling acidly in my stomach. “Damn you. You would bring that up.”

“It’s the most important aspect of this whole operation, Darling. The entire reason we’re doing it.”

Yes, of course it was. “Fine,” I said. Not graciously, but I got the word out. “I’ll go home and wait.” Like a useless decorative object.

“Thank you, Darling.” After a second he added, “One less thing for me to worry about, you know.”

Yes, I knew. I was worried, too.

“So you’ll come back afterwards and tell me what happened?”

“As soon as I can,” Crispin said. “The very moment I know whether or not Christopher is there.”

“Do you swear?”

He flicked me a look before licking the back of his thumb and holding it out.

“Eww,” I said, eyeing it.

He rolled his eyes. “Just do it, Philippa. Binding agreement.”

“Fine.” I licked my own thumb and pressed it against his. “Swear.”

“I swear I will leave where I am and come find you the moment I know whether Wolfgang has Kit or not.”

“Good enough.” I looked around for somewhere to wipe the wetness off my thumb, somewhere that wasn’t my evening gown. Crispin dragged his thumb down the front of his jacket, and after a second’s thought, I did the same.

He looked at me, brow raised.

“Your spit, your jacket,” I said.

“I suppose that’s fair.” He moved the gearshift and the Hispano-Suiza rolled to a stop at the curb on Garrick Street, just around the corner from the Strand. “Out you go. You’re walking from here.”

I nodded and fumbled for the door handle. “Be careful, St George. God willing, we’ll find Christopher and all will be well. But the last thing we want is for something to happen to you, too. The family couldn’t handle losing both of you.”

I couldn’t, either. Not to mention that I would probably be blamed for it.

“I’ll do my best, Darling. You do the same.”

I promised I would do, and then I shut the car door behind me and squared my shoulders and set off around the corner and down the Strand towards the Savoy and supper.