Page 14 of Lies in Little Sutherland
Constable Woodin had inspected the front room—why, I had no idea, since, if Morrison was in there, she certainly would have heard us knock and call—and now he came back into the kitchen and made his way toward the staircase.
“Nothing?”I asked.
He shook his head.“Everything looks good.But I’ll check the upstairs, too, before we leave.”
He put a regulation boot on the bottom step of the staircase and called out, “Miss Morrison?It’s Constable Woodin.I’m coming up.”
ChapterFour
I wishI could say that I was surprised when he came down the stairs again two minutes later, his face pale and his eyes dark under the brim of the helmet.
I wasn’t, nor was anyone else.
“Dead?”Francis inquired.
Woodin nodded, looking nauseated.“In bed.Bottle of sleeping draught on the bedside table.”
“Suicide note?”I asked, and he gave me a look.I raised my hands.“It’s a fair question, Constable.We’ve had two family members die of Veronal-overdoses in the past few months.”
“Three,” Constance said.
I flicked her a look.“Three, including Constance’s mother.”
“The mother who employed Miss Morrison?”
I nodded, although Lady Peckham’s murder had had nothing to do with what was going on now.That had been explained at the time.“And only one of them was a suicide.”
“Four if we include Kit,” Francis said with a glance at him.
“That was intended for me,” I answered, with a glance of my own, “and he didn’t die?—”
Christopher shook his head, and Francis said, “Not that time.Although it was a Veronal overdose.But I’m talking about what happened last month, not what happened at the Dower House in May.”
Ah.“Last month wasn’t intended to kill either of us.Although if we’re considering attempted murders, I rather think Aunt Charlotte tried to get me with a poisoned cup of tea, too, after shooting at me didn’t work.”
Christopher’s brows drew down.“What happened?Why didn’t I hear about that?”
“I didn’t realize it until the event at the Savoy last month,” I said, “with the overturned teacup.The same thing happened at Sutherland Hall in April, only then it was St George who knocked it over.I rather think his mother put something in it, and he saved my life.”
“Good for Crispin,” Christopher said, and turned back to Constable Woodin, who had been looking from one to the other of us with his mouth open.“Don’t worry about it, Constable.It’s just that we’ve had to deal with a few deaths by Veronal this year, and it’s just as well to make certain that she did it to herself, and on purpose.”
Woodin opened his mouth and closed it again.And opened it again.“As far as that goes…”
“Yes?”We all sounded politely inquiring.Or so I hoped; I would hate to sound indecently nosy.
“Her complexion indicated that she died from suffocation.Which I suppose can happen if the lungs get compromised?—”
He glanced at Francis, who nodded grimly.Woodin cleared his throat.“But there was a pillow on the bed, yet not under the victim’s head, that may have?—”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but there was no need for him to go on.We could all picture it perfectly well.Morrison, sleeping the sleep of the just in her upstairs bedroom.(I furnished it with a brass bed and a quilted counterpane and sloped ceilings, but it might, of course, look quite different.) A tall, dark figure made its way into the secluded courtyard under cover of darkness.(Figures are always tall and dark in these circumstances.Aunt Charlotte had been a dainty thing with Crispin’s platinum blond hair, and that hadn’t stopped her from killing several people, but in my imagination, the figure was tall and dark.) Gloved hands picked the lock on the kitchen door.Careful feet crossed the kitchen slates and went up the steps.I imagined the pillow, lifted in gloved hands and pressed to Morrison’s sleeping face.By the time she woke up, it would have been too late, especially if the Veronal had been her own and she had been under its influence.
If she hadn’t been, then… well.
In my imagination, the pillow was tossed aside and the bottle of Veronal removed from a pocket and placed on the bedside table next to a waterglass, before the perpetrator slipped back down the stairs and out through the courtyard and away.All while we’d been asleep in our beds in Wiltshire, three-and-a-half hours away.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” I said helplessly, and Christopher put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in.
“There, there.You knew, coming up, that there was a chance?—”
