Page 36 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
Constance nodded. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, Hughes.”
“Thank you, Miss Constance,” Hughes said politely. She went back to the tea things, and we headed for the cellar steps and the door into the front of the house.
“You don’t suppose anything is really wrong with her,” I said, “do you?”
“I can’t imagine what,” Constance answered, and Christopher nodded.
“It was Aunt Charlotte who did away with Grandfather and Grimsby. By the time Morrison left the Dower House, Aunt Charlotte was already dead. She couldn’t have done anything to Morrison.”
No, I suppose not. “And Morrison was in Dorset, so she couldn’t have had anything to do with what happened at Sutherland.”
“I don’t see how,” Christopher said.
“So why do you suppose Morrison hasn’t got in touch with Hughes?”
“Is there any reason she would want to get in touch with Hughes?” Christopher didn’t wait for me to answer, just went on. “She’d been working in Dorset for more than twenty-two years. She had no ties to Sutherland anymore. She might not actually like Hughes. She might not have liked Aunt Charlotte either, and that’s why she wanted to leave her employ back in 1903. She didn’t bother to come to the funeral, did she?”
No, she hadn’t.
“It had been twenty-three years,” Constance said in her soft voice. “Half her life, probably, since she worked for your aunt. She would have formed new friendships and connections during that time. Sutherland was a lifetime ago.”
“She’s probably on the beach in Blackpool,” Christopher added, “under an umbrella. Or in London working at a dressmaker’s shop. Or sitting in a cottage in the Cotswolds with a husband and two stepchildren.”
“I suppose.” Someone would have to work fast to acquire a husband and two stepchildren in two months’ time, but the others were at least theoretically possible. “I don’t suppose your mother is likely to know what was going on at Sutherland Hall back then, is she?”
“If she is, she wouldn’t tell us,” Christopher said. “It’s none of our concern, and that’s what she’d say. And Uncle Harold would tell us it’s none of our concern, and he’d be right.”
“And that’s if anything was going on at all,” Constance reminded me. “We only have Hughes’s word for it that something was. Morrison might have wanted a change of scenery for her own sake. Perhaps she had a love affair in the village that went wrong, or something like that.”
I made a face, and she continued, “Don’t do that, Pippa. Twenty-two years ago, she wasn’t much older than we are now. Just because she’s a servant, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have normal thoughts and feelings.”
Of course she did. “Fine,” I grumbled. “Never mind Morrison, then. What do we do now?”
“I intend to go upstairs to see if I can find Francis,” Constance said. “I haven’t seen him since tea.”
Since he’d stalked off into the house looking for a stiff drink, more specifically. I hadn’t seen him since, either.
“I’ll take the bag to Aunt Roz,” I said, reaching for it. “I’ll see you in the dining room for supper, if I don’t see you before.”
Constance nodded, and headed up the stairs to the first floor. Christopher and I followed the sound of Aunt Roz’s voice, and the gurgling of the baby, into the drawing room.
She had spread a blanket on top of the rug, and little Bess was lying on it, kicking her legs, while Aunt Roz sat on the floor next to her. Uncles Harold and Herbert were arranged on the Chesterfield. They each cradled a glass of something amber, possibly bourbon.
“There you are,” Aunt Roz said brightly when we came through the door. “Did everything go well, Christopher?”
“As well as can be expected,” Christopher said. “Wilkins carried her into the infirmary. Doctor White said she might not wake up until tomorrow, but he’ll let us know.”
Aunt Roz nodded. “And what’s that you’ve got there?”
“We found it in the garden.” I handed her the bag. “It’s full of nappies and baby clothes.”
“Perfect.” She peered into it. “This will come in handy.”
I perched on the chair Laetitia had sat on earlier, and Christopher folded himself onto the arm next to me. “There was a note inside, as well.” I dug it out of my pocket and passed it to Aunt Roz. “She must have sat on the train and compiled it. The paper has the GWR logo on it.”
“What does it say?” Uncle Herbert wanted to know, peering over his wife’s shoulder.
Aunt Roz cleared her throat. “Hammersmith Palais. Fair hair. Blue eyes. Black motorcar?—”
