I perched on the edge of the bed and flapped a hand at him. “Shoo, St George. Lady Laetitia is waiting.”
“Yes, Darling.” But he hesitated, looking at Christopher. “You’ll let me know if anything changes?”
“You’ll be the first,” I said. “St George…?”
He turned around in the doorway and arched a brow questioningly.
“That first day at Sutherland Hall, when Constance and I caught you and Johanna in the garden maze…”
He winced, but nodded.
“Did you spend the rest of the evening with her?”
“With the things you’d said about me?” He shook his head. “Good Lord, no, Darling. I dumped her on Peckham at the first opportunity and hid in my room until I was forced to come out by the supper gong. I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed.”
“So if I told you that I saw Johanna going into her room around seven-thirty, with her hair a mess and her lipstick gone…”
“It wasn’t me,” Crispin said promptly.
I nodded. “If it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Christopher, and it isn’t likely to have been Francis, and I hope to God it wasn’t Uncle Herbert or your father…”
“It was Gilbert,” Crispin said.
“That’s what I was thinking, too. Constance bought him onyx cufflinks for Christmas.”
He didn’t say anything, and I added, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He ducked out the door, to where—I assumed—Lady Laetitia was still waiting. I turned to Christopher and settled in to wait for something to change.
Nothing happenedfor the rest of that day, though.
Or rather, quite a lot happened, of course. Scotland Yard spent the day investigating the physical aspects of the Dower House—photographs, fingerprints, searches; still looking for Gilbert and any clues as to where he might be headed. They interviewed us all again about last night and what, if anything, Gilbert had ever said about either his mother’s death, or Johanna’s, to any of us. Constance told them about him and Johanna, and I told them about the séance and the conversation I’d had with Gilbert afterward, during and after he mixed my almost-fatal drink.
Of Gilbert himself, there was no sign. He wasn’t anywhere in the house, and it looked like he might have taken a small knapsack with him when he left, so it had clearly been planned, down to the smallest detail. He must have figured out, when Tom so ostentatiously announced his intention to sleep at the pub but that they were planning to make an arrest tomorrow—today, now—that there would be guards posted outside in case anyone tried to make a bunk. He had deliberately caused the scene in Lady Laetitia’s room in the hope that it would draw the constables from outside into the house so he would have a chance to make his escape.
And so he had. On foot, since all three motorcars—the Bentley, the Hispano-Suiza, and Tom’s police car—were still in the garage and not even a bicycle was missing.
We were, on average, twenty-five miles from both Salisbury and Bournemouth, and Tom had phoned the railway office in Salisbury and the docks in Bournemouth to tell them to be on the lookout for a man fitting Gilbert’s description. With the railway workers and dockworkers both on strike, there was a question of what, if anything, anyone would do if they did see Gilbert, of course, so Tom had also rung up several of the local constabularies between the two with the same message.
Southampton, to the east, was a bit farther away, but also a possibility for someone who might want to leave the country by boat, so they got a call as well. And since Portsmouth was only a few miles further, so did they. People all over southern England were looking for a tramp with Gilbert’s features, wearing plus fours and sturdy brogues and a brown newsboy cap, with a knapsack over his shoulder.
But by evening the first day, there had been no sign of him.
By evening the first day, Christopher hadn’t awoken, either.
The local doctor from Marsden-on-Crane, a small man with a very large mustache, had turned up at the Dower House in the late morning. He had examined Christopher—listened to his heart, measured his breaths, peeled his eyelids back and shined a light into his eyes—before confirming Crispin’s diagnosis.
“If he isn’t dead by now, he’ll likely pull through. He’ll wake once the medicine has run its course, hopefully none the worse for wear. Just give it time.”
The news hadn’t been terribly encouraging, if you asked me—too many likelies and hopefullies in that statement—but since the doctor hadn’t seemed actively concerned about any of it, I managed to refrain from physically grabbing him by his thin shoulders and shaking something more definite out of him.
Crispin’s hand on my shoulder—he must have noticed the light in my eyes—had helped keep me from committing physical assault, as well. Not a statement I’d ever expected to make about St George.
But the next morning we were sitting down to breakfast in the dining room when Tom burst through the door, eyes shining and high color in his cheeks. “They got him!”
Constance turned pale, of course, and Francis put a hand over hers.
By now, it was just the four of us at table, with Gilbert gone and Christopher still abed upstairs. Lady Laetitia and Lord Geoffrey had been allowed to withdraw to Marsden Manor yesterday afternoon, after their statements had been taken and it was obvious that they’d had little to do with anything that had happened.
