Page 3 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Three

We made it to Sutherland House before the sun rose. Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza racing car lived up to its reputation by taking the corners between the Essex House Mansions and Mayfair on two wheels, but we got there without being arrested for reckless motoring, and without picking up the Metropolitan Police Department’s Flying Bedstead along the way. We were still on our own when Crispin pulled to a stop under the portico outside Sutherland House with a squeal of brakes, and slammed the gear shift into park. The door to the townhouse flew open, and Laetitia streaked through and into Crispin’s arms.

“Darling!”

He caught her, but just barely. She was already hanging around his neck by the time his arms came up to encircle her. “Laetitia?” His voice was muffled in the fur collar of her coat. “What are you doing here?”

“Darling!” She snuffled into his neck. “A robbery! It was terrifying.”

On the other side of the Hispano-Suiza, Christopher let himself out of the passenger seat with an eyeroll, and then pulled the seat forward so I could clamber out. I did it with less than my customary grace, given the stiffness of my knees. In fact, I needed a hand to haul myself out of the motorcar onto the cobbles.

“Oh,” Laetitia said when she caught sight of me—or of us, I suppose I should say, although it was probably just me. She doesn’t have much of a problem with Christopher. Her tone indicated deep disappointment.

Crispin glanced over his shoulder. “Right. I spent the night with Kit and Pippa.”

Laetitia looked betrayed. I thought about mentioning whose bed he had spent the night in—nothing wrong with speaking the truth, after all—but before I could, I noticed something that drove the inclination right out of my mind. “What happened to your engagement ring?”

She had stopped clutching at Crispin now, the better to impress upon him her level of disappointment, no doubt, but her left hand was still splayed on his shoulder, and the ring finger was bare.

“What happened to yours?” Laetitia shot back.

I eyed my ringless finger. “I turned it down. Although if you’re wondering about these—” I displayed my bandaged palms, “I fell down the staircase to the underground on my way home from Piccadilly last night.”

“I…” She stopped, and turned to Crispin, teeth in her bottom lip. “Darling, I’m so sorry. There was a robbery, and…”

Crispin cut her off with a quick and concerned, “Are you all right?”

From what Evans had said earlier, I had gotten the impression that the robbery had been at Sutherland House, but it appeared as if it had been Marsden House that had been violated, and Laetitia had made her way here for comfort and companionship, only to find Crispin gone. It was pretty typical, really. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

“Did you call the police?” Christopher wanted to know.

Laetitia flicked him a glance. “Thompson did.”

The butler, one presumed. “Did they come?”

“I don’t know,” Laetitia said. “I left.”

She turned back to Crispin. He glanced at Christopher and me—it was obvious to all three of us what had to happen—before turning back to the Hispano-Suiza. “Let’s go.”

“We’ll take the backseat,” Christopher said, and opened the motorcar’s door again with a nod to me.

“But—” Laetitia blinked. “I want to stay with you.”

“We’re all going,” Crispin assured her, as he escorted her around the H6 to the passenger seat. Meanwhile, Christopher handed me into the backseat and crawled in behind me.

“Tom?” I asked him, sotto voce , as Crispin busied himself with getting his fiancée situated in the front of the H6.

Christopher shook his head. “I don’t know, Pippa. It’s possible. He mentioned a jewelry theft in Mayfair a few months ago, during that time when Flossie Schlomsky was missing, if you recall…”

Tom—Detective Sergeant Thomas Gardiner with Scotland Yard—was my cousin Robbie’s best friend at Eton, and after Robbie died in France, Tom transferred that loyalty onto Robbie’s little brother, and to a degree onto his elder one, although Francis was less in need of rescuing than Christopher was.

I wasn’t quite sure how Tom and Christopher had ended up meeting one another again. But Christopher and I had only been in London for a few months the first time I saw Tom in the foyer of our flat, having a low-voiced but intense disagreement with Christopher about the latter’s penchant for attending drag balls and the former’s need to keep him from being arrested for doing so. I ought perhaps to find out how it had happened, although if I had to guess, I would say that Tom had most likely recognized Christopher during one of the raids—quite an accomplishment on his part if so, because Christopher in his guise of Kitty Dupree looks very little like himself and quite a lot more like Laetitia Marsden, as it happens.

At any rate, Tom had become a regular part of our lives over the past six or seven months. Christopher kept him busy with rushing to the rescue every time Christopher found himself in trouble, be it another drag ball, another murder investigation, or that time he drank the cocktail meant for me, and ended up sleeping for several days.

“What are you whispering about back there?” Crispin wanted to know as he made himself comfortable behind the wheel of the H6. He pulled on his driving gloves and cranked the key over in the ignition.

“Tom,” I told him over the sound of the motor.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Is he involved in this?”

“We think it’s possible. There was a jewelry theft in Mayfair in August that he investigated. If there’s a connection…”

I let the sentence trail off, since his guess was as good as mine.

“There was a robbery last week, as well,” Laetitia volunteered, and we both—we all, Christopher included—turned to look at her.

“How do you know?” Crispin wanted to know.

Laetitia looked guilty. “It was at the Cummingses. I didn’t mention it because…”

Because Lady Violet Cummings had been an old flame of Crispin’s, and his current fiancée hadn’t wanted to bring her up.

Crispin didn’t say anything, but Christopher and I exchanged a look that said it all. “What happened?” he wanted to know.

Laetitia sniffed. “The same thing that happened to me. I was asleep. I had taken the ring off because I didn’t want anything to happen to it…”

That was certainly understandable. The Sutherland engagement ring is obscenely large and gaudy. One could easily take out someone’s eye with it. Laetitia could have taken out her own, had she been careless in her sleep. Had it been mine, I would have taken it off to go to bed, as well.

“It was on the makeup table,” Laetitia added, wretchedly, “along with the earrings and the string of pearls I wore last night.”

The earrings were also part of the Sutherland parure, and correspondingly ostentatious and gaudy. The diamonds were enormous, and would undoubtedly fetch a pretty penny for whoever had stolen them. And while long strands of pearls are everywhere these days, this strand was probably made from real pearls, instead of the kind of cheap costume jewelry that us non-titled girls have to settle for.

“What happened?” Crispin inquired, his voice soft and sympathetic. I don’t know what amount of effort it took—perhaps it required none at all. It seemed as if the loss of the Sutherland diamonds was of less consequence to him than his concern about his fiancée’s wellbeing.

Which would have made sense if he were in love with his fiancée, but since I knew that he wasn’t…

Laetitia sniffed. “I was asleep. I didn’t hear the door open. He was very quiet. It wasn’t until he was at the toilet table, and something—perhaps the pearls—knocked into something, perhaps a perfume bottle…”

She took a hitching breath and tried again. “I heard a click. When I turned to look, someone was standing beside my toilet table. I thought at first that it was Geoffrey, but of course…”

Yes, of course. There was no need to spell it out. Lord Geoffrey Marsden, Laetitia’s brother, was in prison, waiting for the next session of the Western Circuit of the Assizes, to be tried for his involvement in the death of the Honorable Cecily Fletcher. He hadn’t killed her—someone else had been responsible for that—but Geoffrey had played his part, and had to answer for it. Buying an abortifacient with the intent of administering it is still a crime, even if the unborn child was the only one he intended to kill.

So no, this hadn’t been Geoffrey. Although it was possible that the thief had looked like him.

Laetitia shuddered when I asked for details. “He was tall, dressed all in black. He had a scarf tied over his nose and mouth.”

“So you wouldn’t recognize him.”

She shook her head. “I only got a glimpse.”

“Did he run when he realized you were awake?”

I pictured the scene, like something out of a silent film: Laetitia sitting upright in bed, in a drippy negligee of the type I had seen her wear during other weekend parties, screaming her head off, while the servants appeared from all corners, dressed in their pyjamas and carrying meat cleavers and fireplace pokers with which to overcome the burglar.

“No,” Laetitia said, and her flush was obvious even in the low light before dawn. “I hid. Under the covers.”

I blinked. So did Christopher. Crispin might have done, too, although I couldn’t tell from looking at the back of his neck.

I had no idea what to say. On the one hand, it was rather cowardly on her part, wasn’t it? The thief was stealing her jewelry, including the Sutherland engagement ring. The least she could have done was put up a fuss, it seemed. I would have liked to think that I’d be out of bed and on the attack as soon as I saw him, screaming like a banshee the whole time.

On the other hand, she had been taken by surprise, and she had undoubtedly felt at a disadvantage, in bed in her night-things. Hiding might have been the safest course of action, and perhaps a natural inclination, at least for some. I had never found myself in that position, so what did I know? Perhaps I would have done the same thing.

“You must have been terrified,” Christopher said sympathetically.

Laetitia sniffled, and nodded.

“What happened then?” I wanted to know. My understanding only extended so far, and I’m at any rate less inclined to coddle people than Christopher is. “Did he realize that you had seen him?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I pulled the counterpane over my head and waited. I was afraid that he would come over to the bed and?—”

She made a hiccoughing little sob, and Crispin slanted her a look from behind the wheel, “—and touch me.”

There was silence in the motorcar for a moment while we all contemplated this confession, and yes, I’ll admit it, the thought of it sent a chill down my spine. Perhaps I ought to be a bit more empathetic to her actions. It must have been terrifying to lie there and wait for the blankets to be pulled away and then—God knows what else.

“And did he do?” Crispin asked. His voice was tightly controlled.

Laetitia glanced at him, bottom lip quivering. She shook her head. “I waited until I heard the front door close. When I was certain he was gone, I called for Thompson.”

That was a bit less understandable, and not really admirable at all. She might at least have called out as soon as she heard his footsteps on the stairs, once he was far enough away that he couldn’t have come back before she had a chance to lock the door against him, but before he was outside in the street and away.

It wasn’t my place to say anything about it, however, and by then we had reached Marsden House anyway. I put it out of my mind. Crispin pulled the Hispano-Suiza to a stop under the portico outside the front door and turned off the motor. Blessed silence descended.

Like Sutherland House, the Marsden family’s Town residence was a Georgian monstrosity of three stories or so that took up quite a large part of a city block just around the corner from Park Lane. And like Sutherland House, it looked staid and conservative. Or it would have done, were it not for the fact that every light in the house was on, and that the front door stood wide open. At the bottom of the steps stood what was easily recognizable as a police issue Crossley Tender.

A tall, rather handsome individual of around fifty years of age stood in the open door. “Miss Laetitia.” He inclined his head. “You’re back. And with Lord St George.”

He bowed to Crispin, as well.

“Hullo, Thompson,” the latter said blithely, while Laetitia nodded.

“Yes, Thompson. I went to fetch Lord St George.”

“The police are here,” Christopher commented, and Thompson turned to inspect him. It took him but a second to peg Christopher as being related to Crispin—they look enough alike to be brothers—and another to figure out exactly who he was.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Astley. They arrived a few minutes ago.”

“May we come in?”

Thompson glanced at Laetitia, who nodded.

“Of course, Mr. Astley.”

Thompson stood aside. Crispin presented Laetitia with his elbow, and she latched on and swept past Thompson into the house, quite as if they were entering some ballroom somewhere after being announced as the guests of honor. Christopher watched, and then turned to me with a smirk as he presented his own elbow. I placed my fingers on his arm in the same manner Laetitia had done, and we breezed past Thompson with our noses in the air. Christopher winked at the butler on his way past. “Thank you, Thompson.”

“Of course, Mr. Astley.”

Thompson shut the door behind us.

The foyer was tall and lovely, with a checkerboard marble floor and a two-story ceiling. To the left and right were hallways reaching into the back of the house. Sutherland House was set up in a similar manner, and I assumed that the formal rooms were down one corridor while the servants quarters and kitchen were down the other. The family’s bedrooms and sitting-out room would be upstairs, along with the guest rooms.

That was also from whence the sounds were coming. And when I say sounds, I mean footsteps and voices, at least one of them recognizable.

“Tom,” Christopher said.

I nodded. “I assume the police are upstairs in Lady Laetitia’s room, Thompson?”

“Yes, Miss Darling,” Thompson said. I hadn’t been introduced, of course, nor had I ever been here before, but he must know the Astley family tree, and its assorted hangers-on, well enough to have placed me.

Or perhaps Laetitia had mentioned me. I wouldn’t put it past her to grouse about me to the servants; she had certainly done so to her mother, who had taken against me long before we’d been privileged to meet face to face.

“Would you mind if we went upstairs?” I inquired politely.

Thompson hesitated. Perhaps he was unused to being asked for permission, or perhaps he simply didn’t want us wandering anywhere unsupervised. He slanted a look at Laetitia, but she had pulled Crispin into a room to the right of the foyer—somewhere with a bar cart, at a guess—and was of no help.

“We’ll only be a minute,” Christopher said persuasively. “We just want to say hello to Detective Sergeant Gardiner.”

“Of course, Mr. Astley.” Thompson didn’t sound certain, but he did, at least, not try to stop us.

“It really will only be a minute,” I told him, as Christopher tugged me towards the staircase. “Could we have some tea for when we come back down, Thompson? It’s a bit early for spirits.”

“Of course, Miss Darling.” Thompson moved towards the hallway on the left, washing his hands of us as we headed up the stairs.

The first floor consisted of a long hallway with doors on both sides, and at the end, another, less ostentatious staircase up to the second floor, where there were more servants’ quarters and perhaps a nursery and such. We didn’t bother with that. A door stood open halfway along the hallway, whence the voices came. We made our way there and peered inside.

I hadn’t taken the opportunity to look at Laetitia’s bedchamber at Marsden Manor when we’d been in Dorset last month. I had, however, seen Constance’s room, which was lovely, and Christopher’s and Francis’s shared room, which was also lovely, and my room, and Cecily Fletcher’s room, and Dominic Rivers’s room—all of which were lovely, as well. It came as no surprise that this bedroom was lovely, and approximately twice the size of my bedroom in the mansion flat at the Essex House.

Laetitia had spent the night, what there was of it, in an intricately carved four-poster with gauzy hangings and a pale pink counterpane over what was undoubtedly a goose-feather mattress. There were Persian rugs on the floors, and landscapes in gold frames on the walls, and a matching toilet table—matching the bed, I mean—that also matched a marble-topped tallboy and armoire in the corner. Last night’s black evening gown was thrown negligently over the back of the toilet table chair, while a pair of lovely T-strap shoes lay on their sides below. The matching silk stockings lay in wadded-up balls beside them.

Two men were inside the room: one compact and muscular, with brown, wavy hair and a handsome face, the other taller and thinner, with fair hair and a rabbity chin.

“Tom,” Christopher breathed, while I said, a bit more politely, “Detective Sergeant Finchley. How nice to see you again.”

Finchley—the blond—nodded. “Morning, Miss Darling. Mr. Astley.”

“Kit,” Tom said. “Pippa. What are you two doing here?”

“We came with Crispin and Laetitia,” Christopher said, looking around the room.

“The butler said that Lady Laetitia decamped for Sutherland House.”

I nodded. “But St George spent the night with us. When Rogers sent one of the footmen to the Essex House Mansions, he didn’t make it clear that the burglary had taken place here and not at home. We assumed it had been at Sutherland House, so we thought that St George might need the moral support.”

The look that Tom gave me was jaundiced. He knew as well as I did that I rarely go out of my way to provide Crispin with support in any way, shape, or form. In this case, it had been curiosity as much as anything else that had caused me to accompany him, and Tom knew it.

Christopher, of course, loves his cousin. And I love Christopher, so I had gone along for that reason, as well.

“Laetitia said there had been a burglar,” I added brightly, as I eyed the toiletries table.

Tom nodded. “That’s what the butler said. Lady Laetitia is downstairs?”

“We brought her back with us,” I confirmed. “I have no idea why she thought it made sense to leave the house before you got here. It’s not as if Crispin could do anything about the situation whatsoever, even if he had been at Sutherland House.”

“Shock?” Detective Sergeant Finchley suggested, and I snorted.

“An excuse to check up on him and make certain that he was snug in his bed and not out gallivanting, more like.”

“She must have been disappointed, then,” Tom said dryly. “I’ll go talk to her, Finch.”

Finchley nodded. “Better you than me. You’re familiar with this group. I’ll finish up here.”

“Is it just the two of you?” I asked, as Tom made his way towards the door. Christopher followed him, naturally, and I was alone with Finchley.

He nodded. “No fatality this time, so no need for Doctor Curtis. And we thought we’d let the Chief Inspector sleep for a few more hours.”

He might as well do. There was nothing he could do here that Tom and Ian Finchley couldn’t do without his presence. They were both, if not seasoned veterans, at least experienced hands at this, and if Laetitia was right and the Cummingses had been burgled too, this was at least the third scene of its kind in a few months.

“Any fingerprints?” I inquired. That’s Ian Finchley’s specialty on CID Arthur Pendennis’s team. Tom is the crime scene photographer.

Finchley shrugged. “Plenty of them. Miss Marsden’s, I assume. The maid’s. Nothing that looks like a man’s hand.”

After a moment he added, “Every criminal these days has the good sense to wear gloves.”

“Laetitia told us that there had been another jewelry theft a couple of weeks ago. At the Cummingses. And Tom told us that there had been one in August, as well. While Flossie Schlomsky was missing, do you recall?”

“There have been more than those two,” Finchley said. “Or three, now. There’s been a burglary in Mayfair or Kensington almost every weekend for the past month. If not on Friday night, then Saturday.”

“Interesting,” I said. “How many altogether? Burglaries, that is?”

Finchley didn’t have to think about it. “This is number five. I can’t tell you their names—these are people whose names you would recognize if I did do—but unfortunately, that information is confidential.”

Of course it was. “That’s all right,” I said. “If I wanted to find out, I’m sure I could.”

Aunt Roz used to sell gossip to the tabloids, so I’m sure she has a solid pipeline—not that I’ve ever tapped it—and of course there’s Crispin, who knows everyone who’s anyone in London society.

Ian Finchley made a face. “Don’t get involved in this, Miss Darling. Just because this character hasn’t hurt anyone yet, doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t take that step if he felt it necessary.”

“I didn’t plan to threaten anyone,” I said lightly. “Besides, I’m not likely to ever come across him, am I? I don’t own anything worth stealing—unlike Laetitia, I don’t have an engagement ring, and my pearls are paste—and besides, I live with Christopher, with Evans downstairs in the lobby. No one is likely to try to make it inside my flat to raid my jewelry box.”

“Miss Marsden was surrounded by servants,” Finchley pointed out, “and Cummings House had a full contingent of staff as well. It didn’t matter.”

No, I suppose it hadn’t done.

“Out of curiosity,” I asked, “what did he get away with in the Cummings robbery? Here, Laetitia startled him by waking up, it seems, so he only got away with the few pieces on her toilet table. Did he do better at the Cummings’s?”

Finchley hesitated.

“You can tell me,” I said persuasively. “Laetitia or Crispin probably know the answer already, and will tell me if I ask. And it’s not as if I’m going to talk to anyone else about it.”

Finchley relented, as I figured he would. “In the Cummings household, the jewelry was all kept in a safe in the study. The thief got away with all of it, as well as quite a bit of money. Nobody even realized he had been there until hours later, the next time they opened the safe and realized it was all gone.”

“Ouch.”

Finchley nodded. “On the positive side, nobody was frightened out of their wits that time. Back in August, Lady Latimer’s butler died when Latimer House played host to this character.”

My eyes widened. “That’s terrible. What happened?”

Had the burglar committed murder? If so, Laetitia truly was lucky to get away with her life.

“Heart attack,” Finchley said. “He was nearly as old as Lady Latimer, who’s eighty if she’s a day?—”

I nodded, I was familiar with Lady Latimer.

“—and he must have come upon the chap either coming or going. Or so we assume. Lady L found him in a heap in the foyer when she came home from supper.”

“How awful.”

Finchley agreed. “There were no marks on him, so we don’t think it was deliberate, but it’s still death during the execution of another crime. But at least this bloke doesn’t seem inclined to violence unless it’s absolutely necessary. Hopefully that won’t change.”

Hopefully so. “Do you think this will happen again?”

“No reason for him to stop now,” Finchley said cynically. And added, “And now, if you don’t mind, Miss Darling, I should get on with my job.”

“Of course.” I took myself off towards the door. “I’ll be downstairs with the others. It was nice to see you again, Detective Sergeant.”

“You, as well, Miss Darling,” Finchley said politely. He had already turned back towards the toilet table and the fingerprint powder. I headed back down the stairs to where the others were gathered.