Page 9 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Nine

Part of me half expected to walk through the door into Heddon Street and come face to face with a police cordon. That wasn’t likely to have happened in the time we had been in the cellar, of course, not when Heddon Street had been deserted when we went inside. But my guilty conscience, or whatever you want to call it, nonetheless conjured an imaginary battalion of police officers ready to arrest Christopher and myself, and subject Tom to the law enforcement equivalent of a court martial, as soon as we walked out.

None of that happened. Heddon was just as peaceful and quiet as when we had left it. There was the faint sound of music from below, and the buzz of traffic from Regent Street and Piccadilly, but other than that, everything was silent.

Not that that seemed to calm Tom at all. He gave a quick but comprehensive look around the deserted street before heading for Regent at a good clip. “Come along. Move it.”

This was addressed to Christopher, who traipsed behind, tethered to Tom by the latter’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. As I had seen for myself earlier, the cobbles were uneven and a person was likely to court a twisted ankle if he or she wasn’t careful. Christopher kept up, but he also kept swearing under his breath about the treatment he was receiving.

“Slow down, dammit. I can’t walk as fast as you can in these shoes.”

“Should have thought of that before you came here,” Tom told him, although he did slow down a little. The only reason I noticed was because it made it a little easier for me to navigate the cobblestones, too.

“If I had realized that I’d be required to run for my life,” Christopher said tartly, “perhaps I wouldn’t have done.”

Tom shot him a look over his shoulder. “Don’t you think you ought to have prepared yourself for that, Kit? After the last raid, and the raid before that, and?—”

“He’s got you there, Christopher,” I said, as I minced along behind the two of them.

Christopher sniffed. “I’m well aware, Pippa.” He gave an exaggerated shudder, and added, “Wouldn’t even let me pick up my evening wrap. Now I shall probably get a cold on top of everything else. Not to mention that I shall have to spend the money for a new one.”

Tom muttered something, but by then we were out of the alley and standing on the pavement on Regent Street.

“I can go back for it,” I offered, but Tom shook his head.

“Under no circumstances will either of you set foot in that place again. I’ll buy you a new wrap myself if I have to, Kit.”

The Crossley Tender was parked a few yards away, and Tom tugged Christopher towards it. I followed. Before Tom opened the passenger door, however, he shrugged out of his tweed coat and draped it over Christopher’s bare shoulders. “There.”

Christopher blinked. “Well,” he said after a moment, “it isn’t velvet and ermine, but I suppose it’ll do.”

“Glad to hear it. You’d best go into the back where you’re less visible.”

Tom pulled the door open and moved the front seat forward. Christopher made a moue—I’m sure he would prefer to sit next to Tom—but he didn’t complain, just made his way into the rear of the motorcar.

I ambled over and, as soon as Christopher was situated in the back, fitted myself into the front passenger seat. Tom made certain my skirt had made it all the way into the motorcar and made to close the door. And just as he did, a gentleman in evening kit—one I had noticed out of the corner of my eye, but to whom I had paid no attention beyond that—slowed to a stop as he reached us. “Philippa? Is that you, mein Schatz ?”

“Wolfgang.” I smiled brightly, even as I felt Christopher’s consternation from behind me. “What are you doing here?”

He was dressed for an evening out, in a handsome, black overcoat and topper, with a silk scarf around his neck, so the question was mostly rhetorical. He was on his way to a restaurant, or the theatre, or somewhere like that. Perhaps he had a date.

He smiled. “That should be my question, should it not?”

Should it? While I contemplated that, and also how I felt about him possibly going on a date with someone who wasn’t me—was this evening what the note had been about?—Wolfgang nodded to Tom. “Detective Sergeant Gardiner.” He flicked a glance into the back of the motorcar. “And… Lady Laetitia? How lovely to see you again.”

He clicked his heels together and inclined his head. Christopher muttered something non-committal in a breathy, higher-pitched voice than usual, and shrank as far back into the dark of the backseat as he could. His voice sounded nothing like Laetitia’s, and I could see Wolfgang’s eyebrows begin to draw together. Tom must have seen it, too, because he jumped into the fray. “ Graf von Natterdorff. Out on the town?”

Wolfgang took his eyes off Christopher to focus on Tom. “I’m on my way to Piccadilly.”

“I’d offer you a lift,” Tom said, “but as you can see, we’re going in the opposite direction.”

He indicated the nose of the Tender, which was, indeed, facing away from Piccadilly.

Not that I wanted Wolfgang to get into the Tender with us. He didn’t know about Christopher’s habits—or if he had picked up on the fact that Christopher was queer, he didn’t know that my cousin had a penchant for women’s frocks and drag balls—and it was probably best that he didn’t find out. The fewer people who knew about that, the better.

And yes, I do recognize the hypocrisy. Considering that Wolfgang was someone I contemplated marrying. I shouldn’t be keeping secrets from him, even if they were Christopher’s secrets and not my own.

Wolfgang waved the offer, or rather the lack of offer, away. “No matter. It’s a pleasant evening for a walk. You’re headed back to the flat, I presume?”

He looked at me. I nodded. We hadn’t discussed it, but I was sure that’s where Tom was planning to take us.

“Just the three of you?” Wolfgang glanced into the backseat again, and I knew without looking that Christopher was pressing his back against the upholstery to get as far into the darkness as he could. “Where is Lord St George this evening?”

There was a beat of silence. It went on a second too long, or perhaps that was simply my guilty conscience. “Coming,” I said eventually. “He and Christopher. By the way, Wolfgang, I don’t know who you saw at the Savoy earlier, but I don’t think it was either of them. Christopher said he hadn’t left the flat during the time I was gone, and?—”

Wolfgang waved it away. “Likely just a chance resemblance.” He took a step back from the car. “I shan’t keep you any longer. May I contact you tomorrow, Philippa?”

“Of course,” I told him. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He nodded. “Until then, mein Schatz . Detective Sergeant. Lady Laetitia.”

He clicked his heels together again, and bowed to each of them. Christopher murmured something suitable, while Tom nodded back. “Good to see you, Natterdorff. Until next time.”

He turned the key in the ignition as Wolfgang walked away. I resisted the temptation to turn and peer after him. “Do you think he suspected?”

Tom waited until he had cranked the motor before he answered. “Suspected what? That Lady Laetitia isn’t Lady Laetitia but Kit?”

“He seemed to suspect something,” Christopher said, leaning forward to put his chin on the back of my seat. “Although it might simply be that he was surprised that the two of you and Laetitia would go anywhere together.”

We rolled away from the curb.

“He definitely knows that Laetitia and I don’t get along,” I said as we proceeded up Regent Street towards Oxford Circus and home. “And of course he knows that Laetitia and Crispin are engaged. I wonder what he thought Tom and I were doing together?”

Tom slanted me a look. “Aren’t you and Natterdorff engaged, as well?”

“It’s open to interpretation,” I said, and Christopher added, “Pippa doesn’t want to move to Germany.”

“I can’t blame you there,” Tom said.

I slanted a look back at him. “Why is that? Have you been to Germany?”

“Once, a few years ago,” Tom said, “and it was fine. But this is home, isn’t it?”

“Not for Pippa,” Christopher told him, and I shot him a look over my shoulder.

“Of course it is, Christopher. Why else wouldn’t I want to go?”

“You were born there.”

I scowled at him. “I’m well aware of that, thank you. And I suppose I mightn’t mind a trip to see it again, perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to live there. I’m English now.”

“I can’t imagine Natterdorff agreeing to stay here forever,” Tom commented, and I turned back to him.

“I have no idea whether he would do or not. The question hasn’t come up.”

“He didn’t suggest staying,” Christopher ventured, “did he?”

“It’s likely he couldn’t,” Tom answered, before I had the opportunity to say that no, Wolfgang hadn’t suggested it. “He must have business here, something that allows his presence in England, a decade after the war, as a German. But there’s likely to be a limit to the government’s largesse. I doubt he’d be allowed to stay indefinitely.”

“If he married me?” Or I married him, rather.

“Perhaps,” Tom allowed, “although it’s possible that that would affect your own situation instead.”

“My situation?”

“If you’re half German, and you’re choosing to marry a German, the British authorities might decide that you’re putting Germany above England, and send you there.”

“Can they do that?”

“I imagine they could if they wanted to,” Tom said. “I’m not with the diplomatic corps, so I’m not the right person to ask. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Nor would it surprise me, really, now that he had pointed it out. I sat back against the seat and drew my bottom lip into my mouth, gnawing anxiously.

“Surely not?” Christopher said from the backseat.

Tom flicked him a look in the mirror. “I don’t know, Kit. But I don’t think it’s a risk I would want to take.”

No, I didn’t think I wanted to risk it either, now that the hazards had been pointed out to me. “That’s going to be an awkward conversation.”

“You’ve already laid the basis for it,” Christopher told me, “by saying you’d prefer to stay here. It’s just one step further to break things off completely.”

I supposed he was right about that. The question was, did I want to break things off completely?

On the one hand, there was Germany and not wanting to go there. There was the possibility that I was, perhaps, risking my life here in England simply by associating with Wolfgang.

On the other hand, there was the fact that I liked him well enough, and that by marrying him, I’d become a Gr?fin . Not that I particularly wanted to be a Gr?fin , but it was the sort of thing a young woman of our class aspired to. And there was a part of me that wanted to see Heidelberg again, even if I didn’t want to live there permanently.

But I could always take myself to Heidelberg on holiday. I wouldn’t have to marry Wolfgang for that. I could talk Christopher into going with me, or perhaps Aunt Roz. Or both. Christopher’s mother might want to see the place where her sister had lived and died. My father had died on the Front, I didn’t know exactly where, and had been laid to rest in a hurried ceremony in a field somewhere on the Continent. But my mother had a proper grave in a proper graveyard, and her sister might want to see it.

“St George would be devastated,” Tom said and brought me out of myself and back to the interior of the motorcar. We had passed Oxford Circus and were on our way towards Tottenham Court Road.

“Excuse me?”

“St George. He would be devastated if you ran off to the Continent.”

I snorted. “Hardly. He’s marrying Laetitia, and I think they’d both be happier if I made myself scarce.”

“I don’t think Crispin would agree with that,” Christopher said from the backseat. “He rather enjoys his pining, I think.”

Tom chuckled. I glared at him, and he added, “Come now, Pippa. This can’t have come as a surprise. We’ve all been telling you to stop flirting for months.”

“I haven’t been flirting,” I said mulishly. I liked bantering with Crispin—he’s clever and quick-witted and has a wicked sense of humor when he’s not being deliberately cruel, or at least when he isn’t being deliberately cruel to me—and I’ll also admit, under pressure, that I have enjoyed the occasions upon which our banter had made Laetitia (and sometimes her mother) squirm with discomfort. But that didn’t mean I’d been flirting . Certainly not. Just because I enjoyed the bickering, didn’t mean there was anything romantic afoot.

“Here we are,” Tom said. He turned the Tender onto Essex and we could see the Essex House Mansions looming at the end of the street.

“Are you coming up for a drink?”

Tom slanted Christopher a look in the mirror. “I don’t think I’d better, Kit. It’s been a very long day.”

Yes, of course it had been. He had been working since four o’clock this morning, hadn’t he?

“Any news on the investigation?” Christopher wanted to know.

“I updated Pippa.” He glanced at me as he slid up to the curb on the opposite side of the street from our front door. “She can tell you. But the short answer is no. We still don’t know who the bloke is or how he picks his victims, just that he sticks to a certain sphere of society.”

“The ones with money,” I said, as I fumbled for my door handle. “Just stay where you are, Tom. I’m perfectly capable of letting myself out of the motorcar. And letting Christopher out, too. You stay there, where no one can run you over, and let us get out on the pavement.”

Tom nodded. “Under normal circumstances, I’d do a better job of convincing you I’m a gentleman, but at the moment?—”

“No worries,” I told him as I moved the seat aside and reached into the backseat for Christopher. “We can manage.”

“Will you let us know how the investigation fares?” Christopher stepped onto the pavement and shrugged the tweed coat from his shoulders. He took a moment to fold it gently before placing it on the seat next to Tom. “Thank you for the loan. Not a gentleman, you said?”

“I suppose I did that part well enough.” Tom smirked up at him across the passenger seat. “As for the rest, I imagine I’ll be in touch in a day or two. In the meantime, try to be good.”

“I’m always good,” Christopher said, to which both Tom and I rolled our eyes.

“Off you go,” I flapped my hand at Tom. “You know where to find us.”

He nodded, before putting the motorcar into gear and rolling off. We stood on the pavement and waited for the Crossley Tender to move out of the way, before we looked right and left and right again. “Need a hand?” I asked Christopher.

He smirked. “No, Pippa. I’m perfectly capable of walking in heels.”

He stepped from the pavement down into the street and turned to me. “In fact, you look like you’re having a bigger problem than I am.”

I was, in fact, teetering on the edge of the pavement and not looking forward to bending my knees to make the step down. It’s amazing how such a little thing as scabs can make it difficult to navigate daily life.

“I’ll be all right,” I said, and Christopher snorted.

“Of course you’d say that. Take my arm, Pippa. There’s no shame in needing help.”

I sniffed, but did it. “I made it home on my own last night, you’ll recall.”

He braced himself as I leaned on his arm, and then relaxed again when I was safely off the pavement. “I recall. With blood running down both your legs and hands. Come along.”

He put a hand against my lower back and headed across the street.

“Vehicle coming,” I said.

He nodded. “I see it. We’ll be all right.”

“It’s not slowing down.”

“The driver sees us,” Christopher said, and he—or perhaps she—must do, because the light from the headlamps had hit us by now, and while I didn’t stand out particularly well in my dark skirt and jacket, Christopher—in his pale pink frock and bare white arms and shoulders—ought to be as visible as a lamp himself. Nonetheless, the motorcar didn’t slow down, but instead seemed to speed up as it approached us.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, as I hobbled as fast as I could across the street.

“We’ll be all right,” Christopher repeated, although this time there was a tense undertone to his voice that hadn’t been there before. His hand on my back had gone from being a supportive guide to actively pushing me forward as I crossed the street. “Come on.”

“I’m coming.” I put on a burst of speed, ignoring the protests from my knees. We reached the opposite side of the street with room to spare, and climbed the curb onto the pavement while the motorcar was still a couple of car-lengths away. At that point, I assumed it was safe to stop and breathe… and that was when the vehicle shot forward, jumped the curb, and came straight for us.