Page 70 of Lies in Little Sutherland
I recoiled a few inches, to where I could see him more clearly.“What do you mean?Mixed up in what?Alfred’s murder?The anonymous note?Morrison’s death?”
“All of it,” Christopher said.
I shook my head.“That’s silly, Christopher.He has no reason to be mixed up in any of it.Why would he be?”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “Besides, he was with Laetitia this morning.”Constance had said so, and so had Laetitia herself.
“Only for part of the morning,” Christopher said wretchedly.“They went inside at some point.”
“And Uncle Harold invited Crispin into the study for a business matter,” I said.“That’s what Laetitia told me.”
“But he could have left there, and gone to the village, and then when he came back, killed Alfie so Alfie couldn’t tell anyone that he had taken the H6 out.”
I thought about it.“I suppose it’s possible.But why would he bother?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and I added, “Do you really believe that, of everyone here, Crispin would try to frame me for murder?What happened to ‘he’s been in love with you for five years, Pippa?’Isn’t he the last person at Sutherland Hall who would do that?”
“He has motive,” Christopher said, half truculent and half glum.
“For framing me?”
“For wanting Alfie dead.If he killed Doctor Meadows.”
“That’s a big if,” I said.“Besides, you saw his writing sample in the drawing room earlier.There’s no chance that he wrote the anonymous note.”
“He could have made it look bad on purpose,” Christopher said stubbornly.“Or perhaps he had Alfie write it for him.Perhaps that’s why Alfie’s dead.”
I stared at him, torn between rolling my eyes and smacking him over the head in order to beat some sort of sense into him.“What has gotten into you, Christopher?You’ve never believed Crispin capable of murder before.”
“I didn’t think that he killed Grandfather,” Christopher corrected.“Or Johanna de Vos.Or Gladys.Or Abigail Dole.Or?—”
I raised a hand.“I get it.You didn’t think he was capable of killing anyone else.But you do think he might have killed Doctor Meadows?Why on earth would he have done?”
“Not only that,” Christopher said miserably, “but I think he might have killed Morrison.And Hughes.”
I stared at him.For once he had rendered me speechless.
Not for long, of course.Nothing renders me speechless for long.“Bloody hell, Christopher!What madness is this?Why on earth would he do any of those things?”
“It’s a long story,” Christopher said.He was squirming uncomfortably on the counterpane.
I eyed him for a moment.“Well, it’s a good thing we have plenty of time, isn’t it?Supper isn’t for hours yet.”
Christopher took a breath.“You were there in July.”
“At Beckwith Place?”I nodded.That had been the visit when the celebration of Francis’s 30thbirthday and his engagement to Constance had been interrupted by the murder of Abigail Dole on the croquet lawn.“But that’s all resolved now.We know who Elizabeth’s father was, and how he was related to the Astley family.Crispin had nothing to do with it.You said so yourself, just now.”
“Do you remember that afternoon, when Tom spoke to Dad in the study?Crispin rang up the pub and asked Wilkins to bring him a bottle of scotch as an excuse for getting him up to Beckwith Place, and the two of you left the study and went outside and around the house to the study window…”
“And you were there.”I nodded.“Sitting on the ground under the window, listening to the conversation.Of course I remember.”
We had had to be exceptionally quiet when we joined him on the ground, so the group inside the study wouldn’t notice us.There had been Tom, and Uncle Herbert, and Sammy, the constable from the village—Beckwith, not Little Sutherland—and eventually there had been Wilkins the chauffeur, as Tom confronted him with being Uncle Herbert’s illegitimate son, Elizabeth’s father, and Abigail’s murderer.
“And you remember Hughes blackmailing Dad, before Tom took her and little Bess to Bristol.”
I nodded.It had been quite an unpleasant experience, as a matter of fact.And worse than eavesdropping on the original conversation had been having to discuss it with Uncle Herbert afterwards.
“I wasn’t there for that,” Christopher said, “but you told me about it.About what she said.”
