Page 4 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Four

They were clustered around a small table in the parlor when I came down the stairs. And instead of the tea I had requested, someone must have asked for coffee, because that’s what everyone was drinking. I suspected that at least Laetitia’s beverage was laced with something stronger, even if the others’ probably weren’t.

Tom and Christopher were sitting on one side of the table, with Laetitia and Crispin on the other. She was plastered to his side. There was an empty cup and saucer on one of the short sides, and I headed for that. Perhaps it would fall to me to referee.

“Tea or coffee?” Christopher asked as I made myself comfortable in the green velvet chair.

“Tea, if you don’t mind. Thank you.”

Tom watched as Christopher poured and doctored a cup, and then handed it to me. I balanced it awkwardly in my bandaged hands.

“What happened to you?” he wanted to know.

“I fell down a flight of stairs at the underground last night.” I leaned back and attempted to cross one knee over the other, and remembered, only when it was too late, why that was a bad idea. Instead, I took a sip of the genial beverage and flapped a hand. “Don’t let me interrupt the conversation.”

Tom watched for a moment, but he didn’t comment, just turned back to Laetitia. “So you don’t know what woke you. But when you opened your eyes, he was already in the room with you.”

Laetitia shuddered delicately. “Yes. He stood beside the toiletries table. I think he had the ring, or perhaps the earrings, in his hands. Something that sparkled.”

“You may have heard him pick it up?” Tom suggested, and Laetitia nodded. “Had you closed the door when you went to bed? Do you know how he made it into the house?”

Laetitia shook her head. “The windows in my room were shut, so I know he didn’t come in that way. The door to the hallway was closed but unlocked. He must have come from there.”

Tom nodded. He scribbled a few words in the little notebook that was open on his knee. “At what time did you come home last night?”

Laetitia looked at Crispin. He looked back at her.

“I took the underground home,” I said into the silence. “When I got to the flat, it was after eleven. St George showed up perhaps thirty minutes later.”

Christopher nodded, his eyes limpid, even as he smothered a smirk. “I agree with Pippa. It was close to midnight when Crispin arrived.”

“You must have dropped Lady Laetitia off around eleven-thirty, then, St George? Unless you stopped somewhere on the way to the Essex House Mansions? No? What did you do when you arrived home, Lady Laetitia?”

“Thompson opened the door,” Laetitia said. “I said goodnight and went up to my room. The maid was already in bed—I thought I would be home later than I was, so I had told her not to wait up for me…”

She directed a look of deep disappointment Crispin’s way. He pretended not to notice.

“I undressed on my own and went to bed. I left my frock on the chair and my jewelry on the toilet table for the maid to deal with tomorrow morning. This morning now.”

Tom took the statement down, dutifully. “Is there a clock in your room, Lady Laetitia? No? How long would you say that you had been asleep when you were woken up?”

Laetitia shook her head in a very desultory, helpless fashion.

“Evans rang up our flat at half four,” I contributed, “but I don’t know how long it would have taken the footman to make it from Sutherland House to Bloomsbury after Lady Laetitia arrived. I suppose that depends on how upset she was.”

The look she sent me could have peeled the skin from my bones, and her voice was crisp when she told Tom, “It was perhaps forty-five minutes from the time I was woken up until I made it to Sutherland House and discovered that Crispin wasn’t there.”

Disappointment and blame curdled around every syllable of those last few words. Crispin looked like he had taken an arrow to the heart, or at least to the belly.

“Buck up, St George,” I told him unkindly. “All is well that ends well. Your fiancée is fine, and now you can buy her a prettier engagement ring than that monstrosity that’s been passed down in the family for the past five centuries.”

“The Sutherland engagement ring is an irreplaceable heirloom that dates from 1682, I’ll have you know, Darling.”

Laetitia looked at him, and he added, “Philippa.”

“I’m well aware of it,” I said, “Crispin.”

We both wrinkled our noses and I added, “I’ve seen it in half the portraits in the portrait gallery at Sutherland Hall. And it’s an ugly, heavy thing. I’m certain Laetitia would prefer something less likely to give her muscle strain every time she lifts her hand.”

Crispin twitched a brow, first at her and then back at me. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s gone, along with the matching earrings.”

Laetitia looked wretched. “I’m sorry, darling.”

“It’s not your fault,” Crispin told her. “Philippa is simply being her usual ray of sunshine.”

He patted her hand, right where the engagement ring would have been, had it still been on her finger. I smirked and turned to Tom. “Sorry to take over the conversation.”

“No matter.” He barely spared me a glance. “So, Lady Laetitia, it is your statement that the break-in might have happened around three or three-thirty.”

Laetitia nodded. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more specifically.”

“Very few people can,” Tom said calmly, “when they’re woken up in the middle of the night. I’m surprised this chap was here so late, frankly. He usually visits in the evening, when the occupants are out to supper and the staff is busy.”

Neither one of us said anything, and he added, “Would you tell me about the staff, Lady Laetitia?”

She did, a bit desultorily. Perhaps she wasn’t certain who was who at the Marsdens’ London house. I wasn’t surprised. Laetitia wasn’t the type to notice the servants.

“Do you know whether anything else was taken?” Tom wanted to know, and Laetitia admitted, a bit shame-facedly, that she hadn’t stopped to check. Her only concern had been to get to Crispin.

He looked a bit uncomfortable at that admission, and who could blame him? The last thing he wanted was a wife who was a limpet. I had always known that it would be a bad idea to propose to Laetitia. She was obsessed enough with him that at this point, there was nothing at all he could do that would make her relinquish her hold.

“Was anything else taken at the other burglaries?” I wanted to know. “Other than jewelry and money, I mean?”

“A few small things,” Tom said. “An enameled snuff box, a gold cigarette case, other trinkets of that sort… small, valuable things that would fit easily into someone’s pockets.”

Yes, of course. Our burglar probably wasn’t walking around with a suitcase.

Unless, of course, he was.

But no, Laetitia shook her head when Tom inquired. “I didn’t notice anything like that. All I saw was that he was holding my engagement ring.”

“Finch said that there have been five burglaries in all,” I said. “Has anyone else seen this character?”

Tom shook his head. “So far, the burglaries have all taken place while the houses were empty—of anyone but the servants, that is—or while the occupants were asleep. He’s not inviting attention.”

“But the one time someone noticed him—Lady Latimer’s butler—he ended up dead.”

Laetitia squeaked and turned pale. “Well done, Darling,” Crispin told me, in a tone that indicated the opposite of approbation.

I smirked. “Sorry, Laetitia. I didn’t mean to imply that you were in any danger.”

Laetitia turned enormous, fear-filled eyes on Tom. “Detective Gardiner?”

“Detective Sergeant,” Christopher muttered.

Tom flicked him a look but didn’t respond. “Pippa is winding you up,” he told Laetitia instead.

“So it isn’t true?”

“It’s true that Lady Latimer’s butler is dead?—”

Laetitia squeaked again, and grabbed for Crispin’s hand.

“—but it was not something that the burglar did. The chap’s heart gave out. He was an old man, and the stress was too much for him.”

“So you don’t think that he’ll come after Laetitia because she saw him,” Crispin said, patting Laetitia’s hand.

Tom opened his mouth, but I got there before him.

“If that was going to happen, I’m sure it would have happened already. He was up there alone with her, after all. There was no one to stop him if he wanted to strangle her.”

Laetitia whimpered.

“Thank you, Pippa,” Tom said, in much the same tone that Crispin had employed earlier. “Let me handle this, please.”

“Of course. Be my guest.” I made a gracious gesture to cede the floor to him.

“Lady Laetitia.” He turned towards her. “Pippa’s right.”

Hah , I thought. Christopher glanced at me and smirked. I smirked back. Crispin, meanwhile, rolled his eyes hard enough that he practically gave himself whiplash.

“If this bloke had a problem with you seeing him,” Tom continued, “or he were inclined to violence, it would likely have happened before now.”

Laetitia nodded and sniffed. She was still clinging to Crispin’s hand while she used his handkerchief to dab at her cheeks.

“Now, you say you didn’t see him well, that he was wearing something over his nose and mouth, but every little bit helps. For instance, you would definitely say that the burglar was a man, wouldn’t you? No question about that?”

Laetitia shook her head. “Certainly not. And dressed in black with a scarf over his face and head. I couldn’t see his face aside from his eyes, or his hair.”

“Height?” Tom asked. “Weight? Age?”

“Tallish?” Laetitia ventured, although she didn’t sound certain. “Youngish? But it was only a glimpse. I...” She flushed, “I hid before I could notice much.”

“That was probably the safest thing you could do,” Tom told her, kindly. “We’ll check with the neighbors, in case anyone else saw him arrive or depart. If you could do me the courtesy of having a look around, to see whether you can spot anything else that might be missing? You would know where the small and valuable objects are, I assume.”

Laetitia nodded.

“Finchley started fingerprinting Laetitia’s toiletries table,” I told Tom. “Is there anything you want us to do that would help you?”

He eyed me for a moment in silence. “I don’t suppose you know anything about any of this?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” I said cheerfully. “You told Christopher and me about the burglary in Mayfair in August. That would have been at Lady Latimer’s, I assume. Laetitia told us about the Cummingses being robbed. Finchley said there have been five burglaries altogether, but he wouldn’t tell me who the other victims are. He said I would probably recognize the names if he did do, though. Based on that, they’re clearly people of quality, although that goes without saying, really. If you’re going to steal, you go where the money is.”

Or in this case, the jewelry.

Tom nodded. “You and Lady Violet Cummings are friends, aren’t you? She was there at your engagement party.”

This was directed at Laetitia, not me. Lady Violet and I are certainly not friends. Nor are Lady Violet and Laetitia. Friendly acquaintances, perhaps, in the way that all Bright Young Things are friendly acquaintances, but the only reason that Laetitia had invited Violet Cummings to Marsden Manor for the party, was that she had wanted to rub her engagement to Crispin in Violet’s face.

Laetitia nodded, if reluctantly.

“Do you also know Lady Latimer?”

“I think my mother does,” Laetitia said. “Or her mother did. Lady Latimer is old .”

Tom’s lips twitched, but instead of saying anything else, he turned to Christopher and me. “You two should go home. You know nothing about this, and can’t be of any more help to me.”

I’m sure I looked mutinous. I had hoped he would ask about the other victims of the burglaries, and now I had missed out on that knowledge. Christopher looked reluctant—he would much rather be where Tom was, and in a house this size, it wasn’t as if we’d be in the way—but he nodded.

Tom turned to Crispin. “I don’t need you to stay any longer either, although I would like to ask your fiancée a few more questions in private. You’re welcome to stay for that, and then, if you wouldn’t mind, if you would take Kit and Pippa home?”

Crispin nodded. “Of course.”

He glanced at Laetitia, who looked at him with huge, limpid eyes. Crispin turned back to Tom. “After your questions, would it be acceptable if I took Laetitia back to Dorset? We didn’t come prepared for a long stay, and I don’t think there’s much more she can tell you.”

Tom nodded. “I don’t see why not. We can reach you by telephone if we have any more questions.”

He wiggled his fingers at Christopher and myself. “Out you go. Wait by the motorcar. Your cousin will be there to take you home in a minute.”

“Don’t do us any favors,” I said sourly, because my knees hurt getting up, and Crispin gave me a look.

“You’re as stiff-legged as a wooden board, Darling.”

Laetitia cleared her throat, and he added, “Philippa. The less you walk and irritate those scabs, the sooner they’ll heal.”

“Yes,” Tom cut in, “tell me what happened to you again, Pippa?”

“I fell down the stairs to the Piccadilly Circus tube stop,” I said, as I moved carefully towards the foyer, with Christopher’s arm for support. “After supper and the theatre last night. There was nothing sinister about it, everyone’s suspicions to the contrary. Someone stumbled and took out the rest of us like ten-pins.”

Tom winced. “But you’re all right?”

“I’m fine. Give me a week, and I’ll be back to normal.”

“Well, you definitely shouldn’t take the tube home. Let St George take you.”

“I wasn’t going to take the tube,” I said irritably. “I thought we might find a Hackney. It’s late enough now that I’m sure London has woken up.”

There was daylight creeping in around the edges of the drapes, so the sun had risen in the time we had been sitting here, and there was sure to be a Hackney somewhere on the street.

“Why would you pay for a Hackney,” Crispin wanted to know, “when the motorcar is right outside and I can easily take you and Kit home on my way?”

“I’m sure what Pippa meant,” Christopher said, supporting me carefully for the walk across the slippery marble floor of the foyer, “was that we’d be delighted for the lift. Thank you, Crispin, for being willing to go out of your way.”

“Of course, Kit. We’ll be right there.” He turned to Tom. “Let’s get these questions over with, Gardiner, so I can get my fiancée out of her night clothes and into something decent for the drive. And then we’ll get out of here.”

By that point, Christopher and I had reached the front door, which Thompson held open for us. “Miss Darling. Mr. Astley.”

“Thank you, Thompson,” Christopher said. “We’re just going to wait right here until the others come.”

“Of course, Mr. Astley.” Thompson inclined his head. “Good day to you, Mr. Astley. You as well, Miss Darling.”

He closed the door behind us. I gave it a disgruntled look.

“You just wanted to hear the names of the other burglary victims,” Christopher told me as he guided me slowly towards the Hispano-Suiza.

“And you just didn’t want to leave Tom,” I shot back.

He didn’t answer, and I blew out a breath. “I hate being kept out of things.”

“I know you do.” He smirked. “But all you have to do is wait for the others to come out, and then ask Crispin. He’ll tell you.”

“Laetitia won’t let him,” I said morosely.

“I’m not sure it’s up to her, Pippa.” He stopped beside the Hispano-Suiza and attempted to prop me against the wheel well for support. I snorted at him, and he added, “Why do you want to know, anyway?”

He pulled open the door and then moved the seat up before gesturing to me.

“No particular reason,” I said as I made my slow way into the backseat. “I just like to know things.”

“Of course you do.” He climbed in after me. “Unless you think you know who the burglar is, I doubt it matters.”

“Of course I don’t know who the burglar is. How would I know something like that? It’s just interesting to speculate, is all.”

“Of course it is.” He leaned back against the seat. “It’s been quite an eventful morning, hasn’t it?”

It certainly had. “An eventful evening yesterday, too. I’m ready for a nap, I think.”

“When we get home,” Christopher said. “Or you can put your head on my shoulder and try to sleep now, if you’d like.”

“With the way St George drives? I wouldn’t dare.”

Although I did put my head back and close my eyes while I waited for Crispin and his fiancée to come out of the house.

When they did, Laetitia was appropriately dressed in a day frock—black, of course, with white embroidery—and her effects were packed into a weekender bag that Crispin stowed in the boot of the motorcar. That done, he assisted Laetitia into the passenger seat and slid himself behind the wheel.

“Everything all right?”

“She’s tired and in pain,” Christopher answered, so Crispin must have looked at me, I supposed. I opened my eyes, in time to see Laetitia direct a gimlet stare at the side of his head.

“I’m fine.” I sat up. “Who are the other families that were burgled?”

Crispin arched a brow in the mirror. “Really? You couldn’t even wait until I started the motor?”

“You have the answer,” I said, “and I want to know. So spill.”

He sighed, but turned the key in the ignition. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’ll catch more flies with honey, Darling?”

“Philippa,” I said. “And I believe you have told me that, actually. Repeatedly. If you would like me to coo at you?—”

Laetitia made a protesting little noise, and Crispin said. “Please don’t. In fact, I’ll tell you just so you won’t coo at me. I don’t think I could survive it.”

Christopher snorted, and Crispin shot him a look, but didn’t say anything. Not to him. To me, he said, “I don’t think you know them, anyway. In addition to the Marsdens and the Cummingses, there have been the Wickstroms and the Harrimans.”

“I don’t know either of them,” I said.

“Just as well,” Crispin answered. “Now close your eyes again and let me concentrate, Darling.”

“Philippa,” I said, and closed my eyes.

It wasn’t a long drive. The Marsden Town house was located in Mayfair, just a few blocks from Sutherland House. Christopher and I can’t afford Mayfair—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Uncle Herbert can’t, since he’s the one footing the bill for our flat.

Although that’s not entirely accurate, either, because of course he could afford it if he wanted to. Or if we wanted to. The Astleys have plenty of money. We had even been offered lodging in venerable Sutherland House when we first started talking about going up to London to live. Christopher and I had agreed, however, that Mayfair wasn’t necessary, nor was it desirable, and we certainly didn’t want to live anywhere where the Duke of Sutherland might show up without notice, or where the staff answered to him. We, or perhaps more specifically Christopher, would prefer something a bit less staid and stuffy, with rather less supervision. He had, after all, gone up to London in the hope of a different life than the one Wiltshire could offer him.

Again, not that we hadn’t been perfectly comfortable at Beckwith Place with Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert and Francis. There was no question about that. But rural Wiltshire isn’t exactly Soho, and the village charm—and village morality—was chafing a bit at a young chap who wanted to spread his wings and fly.

At any rate, we had compromised on the Essex House Mansions, a short drive from Mayfair in Crispin’s H6. London had woken up while we had been inside Marsden House: the sun had risen and the streets were full of pedestrians and other motorcars. Even so, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes or so—fifteen mostly silent minutes—before Crispin pulled up in front of the Essex House Mansions and opened his door. “Out you come.”

He extended a hand to Christopher, who let himself be pulled from the backseat of the car in the manner of a cork from a bottle. Crispin turned to me, but when Laetitia cleared her throat, he took a step back, albeit not without a small grimace.

“You had better do it, Kit. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Nobody had better do it,” I said irritably as I hauled myself from the backseat and onto the cobblestones with no help. It hurt, and the pain made me irritable enough to tackle the issue head-on, in front of Laetitia. “Although I will say, St George, if this is how you’re going to treat your female relatives from now on, I’m not looking forward to it.”

Laetitia made a face, and so did Crispin. “Don’t worry about it, Darling,” he told me. “You won’t be here to see it, will you?”

“I won’t?” This was news to me, frankly.

“Of course not.” He curled his lip in a sneer. “You’ll be a distant memory soon. That German girl who spent some time with the family before she snagged herself a German nobleman and went back to Germany to live in luxury.”

For a moment, time itself, as well as my breath, suspended. My mouth dropped open as if he had socked me in the stomach. And it wasn’t only the accusation of being a gold-digger, to be clear, although that was bad enough. But beyond that, this came very close to the argument we had had (by letter) back in August; the argument that had culminated with me telling him to go cry on Laetitia’s shoulder, because he and she deserved one another. And while he was at it, he might as well propose to her, because I certainly didn’t care what he did.

Which he had then proceeded to do, instead of taking a step back and a moment to realize that we were both angry and that, after four months of telling him not to, I probably hadn’t really changed my mind and suddenly thought it was a good idea for him to throw his life away.

And now here he was again, the absolute tosser, throwing the land of my birth in my face and ripping open those wounds that had only just started to heal.

My hands curled into fists, in spite of the abrasions on my palms. My voice was breathless—with anger, I assure you—when I told him, “Go to hell, St George. And take your fiancée with you. And don’t show your face here again. How dare you accuse me of settling for a title and money, you bastard, when you?—”

But by that point Christopher had grabbed me around the waist and had hauled me to the door of the mansion block, which Evans was holding open. His eyes were wide as he took in the spectacle of Christopher having to hold me back from throwing myself bodily at St George and throttling him.

“Is everything all right, Miss Darling?”

“Fine,” I snarled as Christopher wrestled me across the threshold into the foyer. “Stop it, Christopher. You can put me down. I won’t go after him.”

I wanted to, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have done it in the first place, curled fists notwithstanding.

My feet touched the floor of the foyer and Christopher removed his hands from my person. He smoothed down his jacket while I turned to Evans. “Everything is fine. Lord St George and Lady Laetitia were just leaving. And the next time he shows up here, you have my permission—no, the absolute privilege—to tell him that we’re not in to him.”

I stalked across the lobby towards the lift while Christopher headed back outside to bid his cousin and cousin-to-be goodbye.