Page 22 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Welcome home, Miss Darling,” Evans greeted me when we, at long last, made our way into the foyer at the Essex House. “My lord.” He gave Crispin a bow.

“Evans.” Crispin nodded back.

We were both a bit the worse for wear at this point. Crispin still hadn’t slept. I was still wearing the same gown and wrap I had left in last night, but now I had slept in it, traveled in a boat in it, and found another dead body in it, this one a malodorous one. I would never wear this gown again, as it clearly carried with it awful luck. All I wanted was to get upstairs, into a bath and a different set of clothing, and to sit down with a cup of tea and breathe. I imagined that Crispin wanted much the same thing, and hopefully Christopher’s wardrobe would be able to provide.

“Any messages?” I inquired on my way to the lift.

Evans shook his head. “But Detective Sergeant Gardiner arrived twenty minutes ago and went upstairs.”

Oh, really? Part of me wanted to chastise Evans about letting people other than Christopher and myself up to the flat without announcement—first there had been Crispin, and then there was his father, and now there was Tom—but I didn’t have it in me to argue. Besides, Tom probably had information I would want to hear, so it was just as well that he was here, really.

“Did he seem upset, Evans?”

“No more than usual,” Evans said, which seemed fair.

“Thank you, Evans.” Crispin shoved me into the lift and pulled the grille shut behind us.

“There’s no need to manhandle me,” I told him, but without any heat whatsoever. “I was going. I want to see Tom just as much as you do.”

“I’m sure you do, Darling.” He mashed his finger on the button for the second floor and stood back. “I want to get out of this suit. And bury it somewhere. I can’t get the smell out of my nostrils, and I’m certain it must have permeated the fabric.”

He gave his sleeve a sniff and made a face.

“At least you didn’t sniff me,” I said. “Although I do know exactly how you feel. This is the first time I’ve worn this frock since the night Flossie was killed, and I’m never wearing it again.”

He gave me an up-and-down look as the lift rose. “That’s just as well. It’s not very flattering, is it?”

“Says you,” I said, offended, and he grinned.

“Sorry, Darling. I like the Bramley. It matches your eyes.”

“It does not.” My eyes are more emerald or forest green than apple, and if he was referring to the second definition of green-eyed—as in jealousy—he couldn’t be more wrong.

We reached the second floor, and the lift stopped with a jolt. Crispin pulled back the grille and pushed open the door. I headed down the hallway towards the flat.

“At any rate,” I told him over my shoulder, “I’m certain Christopher has something that’ll fit you. At this point, he might not even need it back.”

I stopped in front of the door and fumbled in my handbag for the key.

“Don’t say that,” Crispin said, coming to a stop behind me. “We’ll get Gardiner on the case. Perhaps there really is a Shoreditch flat, and perhaps Kit’s in it. Perhaps Natterdorff had information about it in his luggage. I’m sure Gardiner and Finchley between them gathered up all of Natterdorff’s things…”

“Perhaps.” I turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. “It’s just difficult, Crispin?—”

And that was as far as I got before a shriek cut through the air, loud enough to pierce my eardrums, and the next second there was a rush of feet and then I found myself knocked back into Crispin—who had the wherewithal to hold on to me—while Christopher flung his arms around both of us.

“He was here when I arrived,” Tom said ten minutes later. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get in, don’t you know.”

No, of course he wouldn’t have done. I didn’t know why that thought hadn’t occurred to me before now.

I was curled up next to Christopher on the Chesterfield, close enough that our bodies were mashed together from shoulder through arm to hip, while Crispin exhibited a bit more restraint. He sat on Christopher’s other side, but not so close that they actually touched. Just close enough that he could reach out and reassure himself that Christopher was there if he wanted to.

“Where were you?” Tom added.

“We stopped off in Thornton Heath on our way back,” Crispin told him, while Christopher alternated between sipping tea from a cup and water from a glass, and alternating that again with eating.

“Did he not feed you?” I asked, and Christopher shook his head.

“A glass of water in the morning and evening, whenever he gave me another dose of sleeping draught, but no food.”

After a second he added, with a shrug, “I was asleep most of the time, so I didn’t notice how hungry I was.”

But he clearly noticed it now. There was a stack of toast on the table in front of him, and he was making his way through it at a rapid pace.

“What happened?” I wanted to know, and he flicked me a look.

“It’s a long story. Let me eat, and then I’ll tell you. I’m certain you have other things to discuss with Tom.”

I was certain we did, too. Crispin and Tom had continued the conversation while I’d been speaking to Christopher, for one thing.

“I already know that,” Tom said. “I’ll be taking Finch and Curtis and Pendennis out there as soon as we’re finished here.”

They must be talking about the body. But how could he know about that already, unless?—

“Were you in the house in Thornton Heath?” I asked Christopher.

He nodded, mouth full of toast.

“You must have left just before we got there.”

Christopher swallowed. “Halfway through the night. The sleeping draught wore off. He’d usually give me a dose at night, but he didn’t come back for it last night.”

No, Wolfgang had been busy carrying me onto a freighter bound for Germany last night. I supposed he thought that once Christopher woke up, the ship would have sailed, quite literally, and there would be nothing he could do to get me back.

“So you just walked away?”

“Stepped over the body and headed down the stairs.” He reached for another piece of toast.

“But you didn’t stop at the local constabulary on the way?”

“I was still dressed in your skirt and jacket,” Christopher said as he lifted the piece of toast to his mouth. “I didn’t want to risk it.”

He bit into it while I nodded. No, that made sense, actually.

“What did you want?” I asked Tom, who blinked at me. “You came to the flat for something. Were you looking for us?”

“Yes, of course.” He had taken off his jacket at some point, to get comfortable—he had been up all night too, hadn’t he?—and it was hanging over the back of one of the chairs. Now he went to it, reached into one of the pockets, drew something out, and came back to the table, where he put it in front of Crispin. “Here you are.”

When he took his hand away, the gaudy Sutherland engagement ring sparkled on top of the wood, next to a pair of matching earrings and a string of pearls. I winced as a refracted beam of light hit me in the eye.

“Natterdorff stole it?” Crispin asked, without making a move towards picking any of it up.

Tom nodded. “We have to keep it in evidence for now. You’ll get it back once it’s been processed. But I thought you would want to see that it has been recovered.”

“Thank you.” The look he slanted at it wasn’t that of a man happy to see his heirlooms, but more like someone who wished he would never see the items again.

“I also need you to formally identify them. I know what I’m looking at, but they’re yours, so I need it to be official.”

“Of course.” Crispin cleared his throat. “That’s the engagement ring that I gave to Laetitia in August, with the matching earrings. They’re part of the Sutherland parure. They’re the same pieces that were stolen from Marsden House on Friday night.”

“And the pearls?”

“You’ll have to ask Laetitia,” Crispin said. “I didn’t give them to her. And one string of pearls looks very much like another.”

Tom nodded. “Thank you.” He scooped it all up. “I’ll get it back to you as quickly as I can.”

“No hurry,” Crispin muttered, but I’m not sure Tom heard him.

“Did you find Wolfgang when you went back out?” I asked Tom when he had made his way back to the table.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. He wasn’t in the water. And we didn’t find a body, so it’s possible he’s still alive. We searched the freighter again before we let it go, and didn’t find him, but it’s possible that he may have stowed away somewhere we didn’t look. He could be on his way home. If not, I suppose we’ll find out in a few days.”

When the body washed up on shore. Right.

“I would rather not think about it,” I said. “But you recovered all the jewelry?”

“Most of it. We’ll have to show it to the victims once we’ve dealt with the dead body in Thornton Heath, but I expect it will all match up. Except for the peacock brooch. Although there are a few other emerald and sapphire pieces that might explain it.”

Such as the engagement ring he had offered me, I supposed.

“It’s the ma?tre d’ from the Savoy Restaurant,” I said.

“Who is? The corpse at Thornton Heath?”

I nodded. “I’m fairly certain. I didn’t get a good look, and he wasn’t looking quite like himself when I saw him—” A brief vision of the bloated, discolored face appeared in front of my inner eye, and I swallowed, “—but I think so.”

“He met with the chap after luncheon at Sweetings,” Christopher said. “I followed him across the street to the church?—”

“St Mary Aldermary?” I exchanged a glance with Crispin, who winced.

Christopher nodded. “The bloke was waiting for him there. They must have arranged it beforehand, because neither of them looked surprised to see the other.”

No, that had probably happened on the Saturday afternoon after tea. The ma?tre d’ had handed Wolfgang a note. Wolfgang had put me in a Hackney and gone back inside the Savoy. By the time I got back to the hotel, the ma?tre d’ had not been at his post outside the restaurant. They must have been together, arranging their next meeting.

“I got the impression that Natterdorff was supposed to give the other bloke money,” Christopher added. “He handed him a brown bag and told him to count it, and when the chap’s attention was elsewhere, Natterdorff hit him on the back of the head with something.”

I winced. “And you?”

He made a face. “He realized I was there, and came after me. I couldn’t run fast enough in the stupid strap shoes to get away.”

Well, no. It’s difficult to run in high heels, and Wolfgang was quite a few inches taller than Christopher to begin with, with correspondingly longer legs. “What I meant,” I said, “was whether he hit you too.”

He shook his head. “At first I think he thought I was a woman. I gave that away when I opened my mouth, and after that, he knew who I was.”

“But he didn’t hurt you.”

“He told me that you wouldn’t like it,” Christopher said, “and that as long as I cooperated, I would be fine.”

“So you cooperated?”

This was Tom’s question—it would never occur to me to question it—and Christopher’s brows lowered. “Was I supposed to not do?”

“No, of course not,” Tom said. “I’m glad you did.” He shot a look at me, and then one at Crispin. “We’re all glad you did.”

I nodded. “Of course,” Crispin said. “Whatever kept you safe, Kit.”

“Well, he made me get in the back of the motorcar with the bloke, and then he drove us to the house in Thornton Heath. By the time we got there, the bloke was dead.”

He shuddered. “I’m sorry we made you sit in the back of the motorcar with Frederick Montrose’s body that time in June, Pippa.”

“It’s all right,” I said, although I was glad for the sympathy. It had been a rather harrowing experience. “And then he locked you in the room upstairs?”

“And doped me to the gills,” Christopher nodded. “I asked for a chance to write you a note, but he said no. I think he was afraid that I would manage to get you a message in code or something. He didn’t seem to realize that having me write and tell you I was all right would have been preferable to not telling you anything, since that would only make you more frantic.”

I nodded, fervently.

“And then he said that he was going to put me to sleep, but it would only be for a few days, and as long as I cooperated he wouldn’t hurt me, so I cooperated. Until I woke up and he wasn’t there, and then I made tracks.”

He reached for another piece of toast. We all watched as he folded it into his mouth and chewed.

“I suppose that’s it,” Tom said after a moment. “It explains it all, I think. His grandfather cut him off, so he began stealing to keep himself afloat financially. He spent the money, no doubt, but it seems he held onto most of the jewelry. Perhaps he planned to pawn it in Germany, where it was less likely that anyone would recognize it.”

I nodded. That made sense, actually.

“The ma?tre 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 new Gr?fin von und zu Natterdorff.”

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 a Gr?fin in 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.