Page 77 of Death at the Dower House
“If she refused to let Johanna marry St George?” I pushed. “Would Johanna have killed her over that?”
Gilbert looked pensive. “I didn’t get the feeling that my mother opposed Johanna marrying your cousin,” he said. “Although I suppose she might have learned something to incline her otherwise. Is there a reason St George would be an inappropriate match for my mother’s ward?”
“Oh, lots of them.” I smiled toothily. “Lady Laetitia you already know about, but there have been so many others. The Honorable Cecily Fletcher. Lady Violet Cummings. Millicent Tremayne…”
“The actress?”
I nodded. “I could give you the names of at least three or four more, that he’s dallied with in the past year. And that’s in addition to the girl with the baby at Sutherland House, of course. You heard me mention her earlier today, I think?”
“Good Lord,” Peckham said, looking faint. “Yes, if Mother knew about all that, she might have had second thoughts.”
He glanced at Crispin and Laetitia, and then at Marsden, who was scowling over by the window. “Does Geoffrey know about this?”
“If he doesn’t, I think he ought to, don’t you?”
Peckham nodded. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.” I waved him off with a wiggle of my fingers and watched, amused, as he crossed the room to where Marsden was standing. Crispin arched a questioning brow at me, and I smirked, which did nothing to reassure him. Then Laetitia tugged at his sleeve, and he turned back to her.
“What did you do now?” Christopher’s voice asked next to me, and I glanced at him.
“Told Peckham all the reasons Crispin shouldn’t be allowed to marry Lady Laetitia. He scurried off to share them with her brother.”
“You’re evil,” Christopher said.
I scoffed. “It’s not like he’s in love with her. Besides, would you want Laetitia Marsden to be part of your family forever? Face her over plum pudding at Sutherland Hall every Christmas? No? Then let’s not pretend I’m not doing you a favor.”
Christopher shrugged. “Everything all right in here?”
“Just fine. Peckham gave me a horrible cocktail I’m pretending to like, but now that he’s gone, I guess I can forget about being polite.”
I looked around for somewhere to put the glass, and then stopped when Christopher took it out of my hand. He raised it to his mouth for a sip and shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
“Truly?” That was hard to believe, but we all have different tastes, I suppose. “Peckham’s relieved his mother stopped by to notify us all that her death was accidental.”
“Is he really?”
I nodded, speaking fast because I didn’t think we’d get a whole lot of time to ourselves where no one could overhear. “He can’t think of any reason why anyone would have wanted to kill Lady Peckham, but when I suggested that Johanna might have, if Lady P told her she couldn’t have Crispin, he sounded like it might have been a possibility after all.”
Christopher nodded.
“And Constance knew that Francis takes Veronal and that he had some in his room at Sutherland Hall, so she would have known where to find it and what it does. Even if Francis didn’t tell her about Aunt Charlotte dipping into his stash, I’m sure she and Gilbert both know that Aunt Charlotte’s death was due to an overdose of Veronal.”
“The last thing Gilbert did before we left Sutherland Hall yesterday morning, was run back inside because he said he forgot something,” Christopher said. “And Tom said they’re getting close to making an arrest, but he wouldn’t tell me who, probably because he was afraid I would give something away.”
“The only person I can think of with a motive for killing both of them is Constance,” I told him, “but she was in my room last night, and I’m almost positive she didn’t leave. I’m not sure she’d have had the strength to strangle Johanna anyway, she’s such a small girl, and besides, it seems like she would have used the Veronal on Johanna, too, if she had it, instead of making it so obviously a murder.”
Christopher hummed agreement and took another sip of his—my—drink.
“Whoever did it had access to a note with Johanna’s handwriting, so it would have been easy—or fairly easy—to make it look like a suicide. Copy the handwriting and put the blame for Lady Peckham’s death on Johanna, too. Everything would have been tied up with a neat bow.”
Christopher nodded.
“But whoever killed Johanna didn’t do that. He—or she—used the note and cufflink to try to implicate St George, but he—or she—didn’t use the Veronal. So were they two different people? Or was Lady Peckham’s death an accident, and Johanna’s murder unpremeditated, and whoever did it decided to frame St George afterwards?”
Christopher shook his head. “No idea. Although I hope for Francis’s sake that it isn’t Constance.”
I nodded. “On the other hand, it would be quite convenient if it were Lady Laetitia. Solve the murder and get her away from St George in one move.”
