Page 105 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
For a second or two, the mental noise blocked everything else out. Then Tom’s voice cut through, pleasantly. “Mr. Wilkins. Come in. Have a seat.”
There was a pause. I imagined Wilkins standing in the doorway, chauffeur cap in hand, with his sandy hair exposed and his cool, blue eyes—not Astley blue, more the washed-out color of the summer sky—flicking back and forth between Tom, Uncle Herbert, and Sammy.
Sensing the trap and unsure whether he could talk his way out of it. Knowing he had Crispin at his back, so retreat was impossible.
Then—
“Thank you, Lord St George,” Tom added, pleasantly, “you may go.”
There was another moment of silence, then a burst of noise. The sound of flesh on flesh, a grunt, a thud—the door hitting the wall?—and a rattle of footsteps.
“After him!” Tom’s voice said, and then there was the scraping of chair legs and quick breaths and more footsteps pounding. They faded into the distance, and there were a few more, farther-away thuds: perhaps the boot room door opening and shutting a few times.
Christopher and I looked at one another, wide-eyed. I was just about to suggest that we get up and go around the house to see what was going on when Uncle Herbert spoke up.
“All right, my boy? Did he hurt you?”
“Not enough to matter,” Crispin said. “Uncle Herbert…”
“Yes, Crispin?”
But Crispin must have changed his mind, because I don’t think what he had originally planned to say was, “Perhaps we should go and see what’s happening?”
“If you’ll forgive me,” Uncle Herbert said, rather formally, “I think I would rather stay here and not watch.”
That was certainly understandable. Christopher and I exchanged another look, and without a word, got up and headed towards the back of the house. Uncle Herbert might prefer not to watch his newly discovered son be arrested for murder, but I had no such qualms.
It was strange, naturally. I was shocked and appalled that Duke Henry hadn’t seen fit to tell Uncle Herbert that he had a son he didn’t know about, especially when that son came to work at Sutherland.
But right now, there was the fact that Wilkins must have killed Abigail, because if not, why would he have run? He must have recognized Tom from back in April, and must have assumed that if Tom was there, and was asking for him, it was because Scotland Yard knew what was up.
And so he had run, instead of waiting to be asked the questions that would clear it up.
The only reason why someone would do that, it seemed to me, was if he was guilty.
By this point in my cogitations, we had turned the corner of the house onto the croquet lawn, and were trotting alongside the terrasse at a jog. And that’s when the sound of a gunshot sliced through the silence and made both of our steps falter.
From the other side of the trees several voices rose into cries, and then settled back down into murmurs again.
By the time Christopher and I had fought our way through the bushes, the situation became clear. Tom and Sammy, along with Phil Hemings and the other constable, the one whose name I didn’t know, were grouped around the Duke’s Crossley. The motorcar’s door was open, and beyond them, I could see a pair of legs in gray uniform trousers and tall, shiny boots sticking out, at an angle that indicated that their owner was limp.
Crispin had made his way over from the study, and was standing in the boot room door, his face pale and his eyes enormous, with both arms folded across his torso. Uncle Herbert was nowhere to be seen, so he must have done what he’d intimated he’d do, and stayed behind in the study.
I took Christopher by the elbow and tugged him in Crispin’s direction instead of towards the coppers, who were deep in conversation. From the way none of them did anything about Wilkins, I assumed he was no longer a threat, nor capable of being arrested. I didn’t quite know how to feel about that, to be honest, so I made myself not think about it.
“Are you all right?” I asked Crispin instead. “Did he hurt you?” Hopefully it wasn’t his head again.
“Not enough to mention. Elbowed me in the stomach on his way past. It took me a moment to catch my breath, but I don’t think he broke any of my ribs.”
He wasn’t looking at me, but at Christopher. “You all right, Kit?”
Christopher nodded, although he didn’t look it. He kept glancing at the Crossley, and then away again, and then back, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “What happened?”
“I was a little slow off the mark,” Crispin said dryly. “Entwistle and Gardiner both ran by me. By the time I made it through the door, he was already at the car. He opened the door and threw himself inside, across the passenger seat. A few seconds later, there was a shot. He never tried to hurt anyone else, only himself. Gardiner had got there by then, and was trying to haul him out, but it was too late. He went limp.”
After a second he added, “I’ll make a guess and say he kept a loaded pistol under his seat along with the trench club, and he’d rather do this than go to prison.”
It was a blunt assessment, but probably accurate. And not to be callous, but it would solve rather a lot of problems. For the Astley family, anyway. Wilkins’s relationship to Uncle Herbert might not need to come out, nor his relationship to Abigail.
