She shook her head.“No, of course not.He looked like he was about to expire, too.”
No doubt.“As for what happened,” I said, “I got carried away, I suppose.It’s easy to do.I get into the back-and-forth, the way one does, and I forget that people are listening.”
She nodded.“That’s understandable.Although it would be easier if you would simply admit…”
“Never mind,” I told her.“He’s marrying your cousin in a month.And whether anyone believes it or not, I don’t feel that way about him.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I don’t!”
“That’s what I said,” Constance said.
I grumbled.It had clearly been sarcasm—or at least I would have staked my life on it being sarcasm—but there was no point in arguing about it, and at any rate, we had reached the drawing room, and I didn’t want to have this conversation with an audience.
The parties had arranged themselves much as they had done three nights ago, with a few exceptions.Lady Euphemia was playing cards with her husband and son, and His Grace, Duke Harold, tonight.Aunt Roz was sharing the sofa with her husband instead.They were sitting across from their sons in the conversation area.Christopher and Francis were going over more of the details from our trip to the Cotswolds, it seemed.I caught Constable Woodin’s name on Francis’s lips as I slithered up to the chair where Christopher sat, and perched on the arm.
He smiled up at me.“There you are.What news?”
I shook my head, as Constance made her way around the table to the other chair, where Francis was sitting.He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her down on his lap.She squeaked and flushed, but didn’t protest.
“None, I’m afraid,” I answered Christopher’s question.“No one claimed to know anything about why Morrison may have left Sutherland Hall twenty-three years ago, or for that matter any reason why Aunt Charlotte may have wanted to get rid of her.”
Christopher’s body stiffened for a second.If he hadn’t been leaning against me, I don’t think I would have noticed.As it was, I felt it clearly, and looked down at him.
He wasn’t looking at me, just staring straight ahead.Uncle Herbert, on the other side of the table, must have noticed something wrong, too, because he was looking at his youngest son with an expression of concern.
It didn’t last long.Christopher’s stiffness melted away after a second or two, and so did Uncle Herbert’s look of worry.I thought about bringing it up, to face the issue head on, but then I decided that any interrogation would be better kept for a more private moment, when everyone in the family—and beyond—wasn’t present to hear our conversation.
“I think I may inquire of Doctor Meadows tomorrow,” I added, and Uncle Herbert’s face took on another look of concern.
“Why would Doctor Meadows have anything to do with Miss Morrison’s death, Pippa?”
“Oh,” I said, “I don’t think he had anything to do with her death.”
Although now that he had brought it up, perhaps I ought to consider that possibility.If she had been with child twenty-three years ago, and he had been the father—or he knew that someone else had been, like Uncle Harold—might he have motored up to the Cotswolds to kill her?
It was difficult to imagine a reason why, or even how, he might have done it.Take the issue of transportation, first of all.Did Doctor Meadows own a motorcar?I rather thought not.Francis had motored to the village and brought him back to Sutherland Hall in April, when Duke Henry first expired, before we had any inkling that the late duke’s death had been a murder.
Without a motorcar, the doctor couldn’t have made it from Wiltshire to the Cotswolds and back overnight, and the owner of any car he hired might have thought the whole thing a bit strange and worthy of notice, which isn’t what you want when you set out to commit a murder.I certainly would have done, had someone hired my car for a seven-hour drive, only to stay inside the destination for just a few minutes.
Then again, Doctor Meadows was a physician, and of everyone, it would make the most sense for a physician to make house calls in the night.So in that sense, someone might actually believe it.Even if Little Sutherland to Upper Slaughter was rather a long distance to go for a house call.
And then there was the question of how Lionel Meadows would have discovered that Lydia Morrison had relocated to Upper Slaughter, because as far as I knew, the maid Shreve wouldn’t have had any reason to search him out to tell him, and without Shreve, none of us would have known.
And besides, as I had already pointed out to Constance just a few minutes ago, anyone who had wanted to get rid of Morrison had had the past twenty-three years to do it.This—what happened two nights ago—couldn’t have been because of something that had happened back then, or at least not because of something that was known back then.If it was cause for murder now, surely it would have been cause for murder then, too?So why wait almost a quarter century, when Morrison had been readily available at the Dower House all this time?Anyone with the ability to motor to the Cotswolds three nights ago, would have had the ability to motor to Dorset any time these past twenty-three years.
Indeed, Marsden-on-Crane was only about half the distance from Sutherland Hall to Upper Slaughter, so for convenience’s sake, it would have been much easier to go to Dorset to do the deed.
“Then what do you think Doctor Meadows can tell you, Pippa?”Aunt Roz wanted to know, and yanked me back to reality.
I blinked, and reordered my thoughts quickly.“I simply thought, since she had his name in her address book?—”
That was as far as I got before Francis turned to me.“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Pipsqueak.You were supposed to wait outside the cottage while Woodin and I motored to Stow-on-the-Wold for reinforcements.Not sneak inside and dig through the crime scene.”
Aunt Roz’s eyes widened, and so did Uncle Herbert’s.Pippa!”Aunt Roz exclaimed, while Uncle Harold at least managed a slightly more questioning, “Pippa?”
“We didn’t dig,” I said, guiltily.
