Page 21 of Lies in Little Sutherland
They were all possible explanations, I decided, as I glanced at the rest of the entries on the page.There weren’t many.There had been no corresponding deposit after the flight from the Dower House this summer.Morrison had withdrawn a hundred pounds in May.I assumed it must have been for the cottage and perhaps furnishings, unless it had come furnished.She must have been living off the rest of the cash since.But the updated sum at the bottom of the column showed that even after the withdrawal, what was left was still worth more than the original sum had been when she deposited it.
Galling as it was to realize, Morrison had been worth more than I.Or at least she had been worth more than Miss Philippa Darling.If I were to go to Germany and cozy up to my paternal grandfather, if I were to take up the mantle of Philippa Marie Albrecht,Gräfin von und zu Natterdorff, I would be worth a lot more, of course, but I wasn’t prepared to forgive my grandfather for disowning my father, even if he had changed his mind about it in the end.
But that was all by the by.There was no part of me that wanted to return to Germany.I was happy being Pippa Darling, cousin to Christopher Astley and confirmed Londoner.Even if that meant that I was worth less money than Lydia Morrison the lady’s maid.
And now I really did need to get out of this cottage before Francis and Constable Woodin came back with reinforcements.I shoved the passbook back into the drawer and fluffed the unmentionables over it—the police would find it, and they would also go through the cottage and discover how much was left of the three hundred pounds Morrison had withdrawn in May, unless she had been killed for that cash, in which case they would find none—but there was nothing more I could do.I used my knee to shut the drawer and gave the room—and the corpse—one final look before I headed back onto the landing and down the stairs.
“About time,” Christopher told me when I came back through the kitchen door.He and Constance were still seated—or seated again—on the bench by the wall.They were alone, so Francis and Constable Woodin had not beaten me here, nor had anyone else shown up.
“Found something interesting,” I told him as I held out his handkerchief.
He gave it a dubious look, but stuffed it back in his pocket.“What’s that?”
I wiggled onto the seat between them.“A bankbook.”
They both turned to look at me.“Depositbook?”
I nodded.“Opened with a five hundred pound deposit in August twenty-three years ago.”
“When we were all infants,” Christopher said.
“Right around the time, or so I assume, when Morrison left Sutherland Hall for the Dower House, and when Hughes left the Dower House for Sutherland Hall.”
“We didn’t live in the Dower House when I was a baby,” Constance piped up.“My father was still alive then.”
Yes, of course he had been, or Constance wouldn’t be here.“I don’t expect it matters, but where did you live before the Dower House?”
They had lived in London, Constance explained.“My mother was Uncle Maury’s sister, so we lived in Marsden House when I was small.My grandmother lived in the Dower House.After she passed and my father died, that’s when Mother moved into the Dower House.I was already at Godolphin then.”
“So Morrison moved from Sutherland Hall to London, and Hughes moved from London to Sutherland Hall.”
Constance nodded.“I know nothing about the five hundred pounds, though.”
I knew nothing about them, either, aside from the suppositions I had made while up in Morrison’s bedchamber.That didn’t stop me from opening my mouth, preparatory to give my opinion on where the money had come from.But before I could begin, there was the sound of voices from outside the courtyard wall.
“Let’s talk more later,” I said.
Outside the wall, Francis’s voice mentioned something about a blue door, and then the garden gate rattled.Christopher, Constance, and I looked up, innocently, as the gate opened and Francis and Constable Woodin piled in, followed by an older man with a doctor’s bag and two other constables in uniform.
ChapterSix
In the end,after our official statements had been taken and the crime scene was combed for evidence, the body removed and the doors locked for the last time, the inquest was set for the next day.We were required to give evidence, so we ended up spending the night in an inn in Stow-on-the-Wold anyway, just down the road from the constabulary.After breakfast the following morning, we made our way back to Upper Slaughter, where the inquest was held in the Primitive Methodist chapel, of all places.The funeral would likely be held there, too, unless Edith Morrison, whoever she was, requested the remains be shipped to her in Somerset.She was not present, so I didn’t get a look at her, and couldn’t determine whether she might be a mother, sister, daughter, or something else entirely.
A few of the locals showed up, to say that Morrison had lived there since June, that she had been polite and pleasant but had kept to herself, and that they couldn’t think of anyone who might wish her ill.One villager claimed to have been approached by a young man with golden hair on his way home from the pub late that night, for directions to Morrison’s cottage.Or perhaps it hadn’t been a young man at all, but the angel of death, come to harvest her soul.This gentleman had arrived in what was either a dark motorcar or a carriage drawn by four black horses.It was difficult to say, apparently.But the old chap, dried out from his night at the pub, had inspected Francis and Christopher, anyway, and had sworn under oath that no, the golden haired young man—or angel—hadn’t been either of them, so that was something, anyway.
Constance spoke for all four of us, detailing the conversation with Shreve night before last, and the drive to the Cotswolds yesterday morning, as well as confirmed that the deceased was indeed the same Lydia Morrison who had been Lady Peckham’s maid from 1903 until last April.
Constable Woodin collaborated everything Constance had said, and explained that inquiries were ongoing but that the chief constable was not ready to arrest anyone in particular until after a more thorough investigation.And then the coroner returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, and we were free to go.
“That was interesting,” I remarked as we were in the Crossley and on our way out of Upper Slaughter and the north Cotswolds as quickly as Francis could reasonably make the motorcar go on the narrow, picturesque roads.
He glanced at me in the mirror.“Not your first inquest, Pipsqueak, was it?”
“Not at all,” I said.I had had to attend inquests for quite a few of the dead bodies I had stumbled over in the past half a year.“Nor my first body.At least this one wasn’t bloody.”
“You weren’t close,” Francis asked his fiancée, “were you?”
Constance shook her head.“I’ve known her all my life, of course, so in that sense we were close.But she never liked me, and I never liked her.It was the happiest day of both her and my mother’s lives, I think, when Johanna came to live with us.A pretty doll that they could dress.”
