Page 100 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
“I already asked Christopher. I think he told me that only Geoffrey and Constance were not in the sitting room. Of the guests, I mean.”
The two coppers exchanged a glance. “Lord Geoffrey Marsden?” Sammy said.
“Too young to serve,” Tom answered. “Although his father did know what the trench club was.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I supplied. “Geoffrey, I mean. He tried to push me into a corner of the Chesterfield at the Dower House two months ago, and St George had to rescue me. I’ve been avoiding him since yesterday, which I can’t imagine that he appreciates.”
There was a moment’s pause while they both chewed on that. Tom had already known about the incident at the Dower House, of course. It had come up during the murder case in Dorset. But it was news to Sammy.
“And also Miss Constance Peckham,” he said now, and I felt myself stiffen. “I don’t know where she might have gotten her hands on a trench club. Astley?—”
“Francis,” I said.
Sammy shot me a look. “Yes, Mr. Francis Astley said that he hadn’t brought one back from the Continent, so it wouldn’t have been here. Unless he lied, of course.”
“I lived in this house with Francis from 1914 until a few months ago,” I said, “and I’ve never seen it before.”
“Her motorcar?” Tom suggested. “Didn’t you say that Geoffrey Marsden motored up from Dorset in it, Pippa?”
I nodded. “Gilbert Peckham was too young to have been in the war too, though.”
“But they had a chauffeur, didn’t they? I think I met him when Lady Peckham died?”
He probably had. I hadn’t paid much attention to the chauffeur—didn’t think I’d heard him speak once. He had arrived at Sutherland Hall with Lady Peckham, Constance and her brother Gilbert, and the late Johanna de Vos, and I hadn’t seen him again until several days later, when he arrived back at the Dower House with Lady P’s luggage. I didn’t even know his name.
And he certainly wasn’t at Beckwith Place now. The only chauffeur here was Wilkins. “Are you thinking that the club could have been in the Crossley? That the chauffeur kept it around as a weapon, should he get held up by a highwayman on a lonely road at midnight? And when Lady P died and he was out of a job, he left it behind?”
“Something like that,” Tom said. “People do keep weapons in their motorcars.”
I’m sure they did. And if a man had gone through the war with a trench club at his side, it might make sense to him to keep it behind the seat of his car in case of trouble.
Although if he had gone through the war with a trench club at his side, would he have left it behind in someone else’s car after losing his job?
“Are you thinking that Geoffrey went to the village in Constance’s Crossley after everyone was in bed last night,” I asked, “and he picked up Abigail on her way here, and killed her? Why would he do that?”
“Not Lord Geoffrey,” Tom said.
“Who, then?” Not Constance. Constance wouldn’t have tried to frame me for murder. We were friends. And she was marrying my cousin.
They exchanged a look.
“Not Constance,” I said. “She wouldn’t have left Francis for long enough to drive to the village. And she wouldn’t be strong enough to crack anyone’s skull. And even if little Bess was Francis’s—and she isn’t—they couldn’t force him to marry Abigail. Constance had no reason to kill anyone.”
“Calm yourself, Pippa,” Tom said. “We aren’t talking about Constance.”
“You’re not?” Somehow that didn’t feel good, either. I wasn’t Hercule Poirot, by any means, but surely I should be able to figure this out. “Who are you talking about, then?”
“We,” Tom said, “are talking about someone who participated in the war, who had access to this house and to a motorcar, and who might have kept a trench club behind the seat in case it came in handy…”
“Not Francis!” The Astleys had the Bentley, but there was no trench club in it. There never had been. I had spent enough time in that car to know.
Sammy looked sour. “No,” Tom said. “Not Francis.”
I sat back on my chair. “Then I don’t know who we’re talking about.”
Tom nodded and turned to Sammy. “What I’m about to tell you can’t go beyond this room.”
“I can’t promise that…” Sammy began, but Tom wasn’t listening to him. Instead, he turned back to me.
