Page 90 of Death at the Dower House
I turned my attention back to him. “It tasted awful. Bitter and sort of sour. Once Peckham ran off to tell Marsden all about St George’s women, I thought I’d throw it into a handy aspidistra. But Christopher tasted it and didn’t think it was as awful as I did, so he ended up drinking it.”
No one said anything for a moment. Tom directed a grim look at the room in which Christopher lay.
“But it was just a few grains,” Laetitia protested again. “I swear. I’m quite used to…”
She trailed off, blushing slightly.
“Doping other women to keep them away from the men you want?” I suggested. She gave me a crushing look, but no answer.
“I don’t understand,” Marsden said after a few moments. It would be Marsden, of course. “What happened to Astley? Where’s Peckham? And what are you doing here, Gardiner? I thought you were going to the pub for the night.”
Tom nodded. “That’s what I said I’d do, Lord Geoffrey. But two residents of this household have died under suspicious circumstances in the past two days, and there’s still a murderer on the loose. We don’t actually leave the premises and go off to the village pub to sleep under those circumstances.”
He waited a second while that information sank in, and then he added, “Constables Collins and Burke were on guard outside the house, while I set up in a quiet corner of the dining room. I didn’t think it likely that I would be spotted there at that time of night.”
“So you’ve been sitting in the dining room in the dark for…” I glanced around for a clock. When there was none to be found, I estimated, “—four hours? Waiting for what, exactly?”
“Waiting for someone to make a move,” Tom said coolly. “Waiting for something to happen. Or more precisely, for someone to try to make a bunk, so I could arrest him.”
Lord Geoffrey’s lips curved in a way I didn’t like. “And did you?” he inquired.
Tom leveled a look at him that ought to have had him quailing in his… well, bare feet. It’s hard to be angry with a man who is standing in bare feet on the upper landing in the middle of the night, although Tom gave cold professionalism a try. “I did not. When the something I was waiting for happened, it wasn’t what I expected.”
He turned back to Lady Laetitia. “You said you thought someone was in your room when you woke. Someone who told you to confess.”
She nodded.
“And when you opened your eyes again, the figure was gone. But you heard footsteps.”
“I did,” Laetitia confirmed. “It was either the man—the figure, the person—running away, or it was Geoffrey running towards me.”
“Geoffrey’s in bare feet,” I pointed out. “He wouldn’t have made any noise.”
Tom nodded. “When you heard your sister scream, Lord Geoffrey, and you left your bed, can you remember whether Gilbert Peckham was in the room with you?”
Marsden threw his mind back. It looked painful. “No,” he said eventually, and while I wanted to blame him for not being more observant, I realized that neither Crispin nor Francis had noticed that Christopher was there with them, and unwell, when they had scrambled out of bed—or off the settee—at the beginning of the ruckus, either.
Constance looked like she was swaying, and Francis must have thought so too, because he put an arm around her. She drew in a breath. “Detective Sergeant Gardiner?”
Tom turned to her. “Miss Peckham?”
Constance had to take in another breath before she could speak again. “Where is my brother?”
“That’s what I was trying to convey, Miss Peckham,” Tom said with a grimace. “Constable Burke was stationed in the back garden, to keep an eye on the double doors with the exit from the parlor. When the screaming started upstairs, Burke ran towards the house to help. Upon arrival in the parlor, he encountered a person coming in the opposite direction. This person fell upon Constable Burke, and knocked him down for long enough to allow this person to make his escape through the door, over the wall at the end of the garden, and away.”
Constance stared at him, her eyes enormous in her pale face.
“Given present company,” Tom said, eyeing the circle of us, and the door to the room where Christopher lay with Crispin watching over him, “we assume the person who fled to have been your brother, Gilbert Peckham.”
Twenty-One
It was still very early,the sun hadn’t risen yet, but after an announcement like that, I guess nobody wanted to go back to bed. I sat with Christopher for long enough to let Crispin change out of his pyjamas and brush his teeth, as well as slick that wayward lock of hair back against his scalp again, before he walked back into the bedroom. “Your turn.”
I got to my feet with a last look at Christopher’s peaceful face. “You’ll let me know if anything changes?”
“Of course.” Crispin sat down in the spot I’d vacated and ran a hand absently over the counterpane that covered Christopher’s chest. “But I think he’s going to be all right. This amount of Veronal would likely have killed you, had you finished the drink with the powder in it—”
The look he directed up at my face was turbulent, “—but Kit’s bigger than you are, and with more muscle mass. If he were going to die, he’d be dead by now. I think he’ll just sleep it off in time.”
