Page 90 of Lies in Little Sutherland
Aunt Roz or Uncle Herbert could have taken the Bentley to Upper Slaughter the night Morrison was killed.Uncle Herbert usually does the motoring, and he would definitely be able to make it to the Cotswolds and back overnight while Aunt Roz stayed here to provide an alibi.Add to that that he hadn’t even been awake to see us off the following morning, and he might very well have been gone all night with none of us the wiser.
But while they could perhaps have done it, I didn’t know why they would have bothered.Like Francis, Uncle Herbert would only benefit from having Crispin declared ineligible for the title, and then there was the anonymous note.Both my aunt and uncle had had access to the paper and a pen with which to write it, and of everyone here, they were the two people we knew for certain had been in the village this morning (aside from Christopher and myself).But it was hard to imagine that either of them would have tried to implicate me.
The only purpose of the note, it seemed to me, was to stir up trouble.I hadn’t killed Doctor Meadows, and I had Christopher to alibi me.There was always the chance that Constable Daniels wouldn’t believe Christopher, of course, but that seemed like a long shot.
And it was possible that Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert (or whoever else might have penned the note) had surmised as much.That it would be safe to accuse me, because I wouldn’t be a real suspect, not with Christopher to vouch for me.
But if so, why bother to write the note in the first place?
So no, while I had to keep Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert on the list of suspects, I wouldn’t put either of them anywhere near the top of the list.No motive for the murders, and no motive for framing me.
Onwards, then.To Uncle Harold.
He had been at Beckwith Place in July, and knew that Tom had chauffeured Hughes to Bristol along with little Bess.And of course Uncle Harold had heard us make plans to motor up to the Cotswolds to talk to Morrison.He had the same access to the same motorcars as anyone else, and more of a reason to write the anonymous note.Uncle Harold abhors me, as well as deplores his son’s feelings for me.
But Uncle Harold might not even know that Crispin wasn’t his son.Crispin had found that out by eavesdropping, which Uncle Harold was surely above doing.And if Aunt Charlotte had killed Duke Henry and Grimsby to keep the knowledge of Crispin’s paternity from him, surely it was safe to assume that he didn’t know?
And if he didn’t know, he had no motive.For any of it.
Laetitia and the other Marsdens hadn’t been here in April, although they had been present both at Beckwith Place in July and here this weekend.Laetitia might have doped Crispin to give herself time to motor to Upper Slaughter and back.Of everyone here, he was surely the one most likely to try to invade her bedchamber in the middle of the night, so ensuring that he couldn’t do might make sense.And she had tried to shift the blame for that onto my cousin, whether she had intended the dig to be at Christopher or Francis.
She would kill me without batting an eye, I thought, if I tried to come between her and Crispin.It was difficult to say how much of that was trying to hang onto the title and fortune, and how much was trying to hang onto Crispin himself, but she was at least capable of murder in the right—or wrong—circumstances.
Then again, so are most people if the conditions require it.
And here we were, again.I made a face as I scribbled the next name on the pad.
Crispin, Viscount St George.Future Duke of Sutherland.
Or as the case may be, simply Crispin Astley, youngest son of Lord Herbert Astley, without even an Honorable in front of his name.
He had every reason to want to keep his paternity quiet.If word got out, he’d lose everything.His reputation, his inheritance, his pretty fiancée, his father’s regard, such as it was—or at least the regard of the man he had thought was his father for almost all of his twenty-three years.
On the other hand, there were the rest of us.He’d gain two brothers, a father, and a stepmother, all of whom already loved him and would fold him into their family with cries of joy.There was me, although as a pseudo-sister I surely left something to be desired.And with all that, we might still be a poor exchange for the Sutherland title and fortune.
So yes, Crispin had a lot to lose.He had known about his parentage since April.Duke Henry had been giving him a difficult time as it was that weekend, ranting about his grandson’s recklessness and profligacy and loose morals, not to mention the unsuitability of getting himself emotionally attached to someone like myself.All of it must have grated, even before the final, big discovery.And on top of that, the old man had been approaching ninety.Giving him a nudge toward eternal sleep might not have appeared as such a sin under the circumstances.
Crispin had known where to find Hughes, and no one had checked his alibi for that day.He had known where to find Morrison, too, and had even wanted to go with us to see her.He would have had no problem making it to Upper Slaughter and back overnight.The excuse about the sleeping draught—if it was an excuse—might have been to explain away both why he was groggy the next morning, and why no one would have been able to rouse him overnight.Just in the event someone had tried to knock on his door while he wasn’t there.
He said that he had spent half the morning today in Uncle Harold’s study, but he had been alone, and there had been no reason why he couldn’t have left and gone to the village.I had seen someone through the study window when Christopher and I arrived back at Sutherland Hall from our walk, but I hadn’t looked closely enough to determine whether it had been Crispin or Uncle Harold.There had been no reason to look closely, not at the time.I had assumed it was Uncle Harold, but there isn’t much difference between platinum and gray-blond hair in lamplight.
If Crispin had left the study, Alfie might have seen him, which would explain why Alfie had to die.And as for why he had decided to implicate me… well, as I had told Christopher, Crispin was the last person here who would accuse me of murder.The man who—supposedly—loved me.
And what a perfect cover that was.He would have known, of course, that I was in no danger of being arrested for the murder.He knew, better than anyone, that Christopher and I stick together.He’d have had every reason to think that we’d step into the infirmary together, talk to Doctor Meadows together, and step out again together.
He had even told Christopher to be careful, and had reminded him of what had happened the last time Christopher and I had walked to the village.
What better way to ensure that Christopher didn’t leave my side for so much as a second?
I popped the top of the pen between my lips and gnawed on it.
This all hung together far better than I wanted it to.I didn’t want Crispin to be guilty.My inner eye supplied me with an image of him, hands tied behind his back, shirt-collar turned down, and a rope around his neck—and when the rope jerked, I jerked, too, and made a face when I realized it.
It was a fact I couldn’t avoid, however.If he were found guilty of—I counted in my head—anywhere from four to six murders, there was no chance that the House of Lords would afford him the kind of leniency that they had shown Geoffrey.It would be the hemp fandango, for certain.
His motive—killing numerous people to keep his illegitimacy quiet—wasn’t likely to gain him any favors, either, with the peerage or the population at large.
I grimaced.This was doing absolutely nothing to help me relax for sleep.Seeing things in black and white, written starkly on paper, only made them look worse.I shoved the paper and pen onto the bedside table and swung my legs over the side of the bed.I wasn’t going to get to sleep anytime soon, so I might as well take the opportunity to go to the carriage house to look for oil leaks.
