Page 66 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
“I know, Pippa.” Christopher glanced at me over his shoulder. “I lived here too, remember?”
Of course he did. I looked around at the piles of things—rakes and spades, croquet mallets, old wooden sleds and bicycle tires, and the dust motes dancing in the streaks of sunlight coming through the cracks in the walls—and fought back a wave of revulsion. “Now I remember why I never go in here. It’s creepy.”
“It’s just an old carriage house,” Christopher said, “full of old things we no longer use. It’s only creepy because of the spiders.”
“Precisely. Crispin used to drop them down the back of my dress. Spiders and caterpillars and anything else small and wiggly that he could catch.”
Christopher smirked. “I remember. And handfuls of snow and fallen leaves and whatever else was available. He kept doing it for far longer than he should have, too.”
“Lord, yes.” I shuddered. “I think I must have been fifteen before he stopped.”
“He was probably hoping you’d tear off your frock and he’d get a look at your unmentionables,” Christopher said with a snigger. “That would have been before he started getting access to women’s unmentionables of his own.”
“He wouldn’t have been interested in mine, Christopher. I’m sure he just enjoyed hearing me squeal.” I took another look around the room now that my eyes had adjusted to the gloom. “Do you see anything interesting?”
“Can’t say I do,” Christopher said. “You?”
“Not really. It seems as if whoever used the croquet mallet must have known where to find it, though. They’re not terribly visible over there, are they? Not something you’d stumble over accidentally, it seems.”
Christopher nodded. “Takes out the itinerant wanderer, then.”
“Was there an itinerant wanderer in the village last night?”
“Not aside from Abigail,” Christopher said. “But they make for such handy scapegoats, don’t they?”
They did. “I’m fairly certain it has to be someone in the family, you know. Or in the household, I should say. Not only is it too much of a coincidence that she’d come here all the way from London only to get herself murdered by a stranger, but nobody else would know where the croquet mallets are.”
Christopher nodded.
“Before we go in, let me ask you something.”
“Of course.” He put his back against a rickety shelf cobbled together from rough pieces of wood and proceeded to listen attentively.
“When you and Francis went into the front of the house and I went onto the terrasse earlier, who was in the sitting room when you arrived? Was everyone there, or was someone missing?”
Christopher threw his mind back. I could see his eyes grow unfocused. “The Marsdens were there. Except Lord Geoffrey. He came down a few minutes later. But Laetitia was there, as you say, already petting Crispin. Her mother was talking to Uncle Harold and her father was talking to Mum. Constance came down before Geoffrey but after Francis and myself.”
“And your father?”
“There from the beginning,” Christopher said, “riding herd on the Marsdens. Why do you ask?
“There was someone in my room, looking down at me. Or at the body. I couldn’t see who, they stepped back out of sight as soon as they noticed I had seen them.”
“Must have been Constance or Geoffrey,” Christopher said. “Everyone else was downstairs.”
“Why would Constance or Geoffrey be in my room?”
“For a look at the body?” Christopher suggested. “Constance’s room has its own window on the croquet lawn, I guess. But Geoffrey’s room faces the front of the house.”
“Whymyroom, though? Why not his sister’s room?” It would be much more convenient, on the same floor as his own as it was.
“No idea,” Christopher said and stripped off his gloves. “Maybe he has some sort of illicit passion for you and wanted to sniff your bedding and imagine himself sharing it with you.”
My face twisted, and he added, “Just joking. I’m sure he wouldn’t do that. He probably just wanted a look at the body from somewhere he wasn’t likely to be seen.”
Perhaps. Although I did wish he hadn’t chosen to do it frommywindow.
“Are you ready to go back inside,” Christopher added, “or is there something else you want to look at?”
