Page 75 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
My face twisted. “That’s even worse. Could you imagine the family dinners? Francis and Constance, Crispin and Laetitia, and me and Sammy? Good Lord, we wouldn’t make it through the soup course before there was bloodshed!”
“I’d pay money to see that,” Christopher said with a wistful sigh, before he added, “don’t worry though, Pippa. I’d never let you marry Sammy. Nor would Francis or Crispin.”
“Nor would I,” I said. “I already told you, Christopher. If we’re not married by thirty, we’re marrying each other.”
“I’m not worried,” Christopher said, as we turned the bend in the lane and the carriage house came back into view. “What do you say we go back to the lawn and see what’s happening? The worst Sammy can do is send us back inside.”
I nodded, and we meandered in that direction.
There was a motorcar parked beside the bushes, that must belong to the mortuary, and there was the sound of rattling and clanging from inside the carriage house. Some flatfooted constable trampling all over the evidence, no doubt. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t say anything. What was the point of grousing to Christopher, after all? There was nothing he could do about it, either.
“Here they come,” he said softly, and I pulled my attention away from the carriage house and towards the motorcar in time to see two men emerge from the bushes, at each end of a stretcher. The body was covered by a sheet, I was happy to see. It was about time that someone afforded Abigail Dole that final dignity.
Doctor White came out from the bushes behind them, and he was the one who opened the back doors of the motorcar so they could slide the stretcher and its burden inside. That done, they closed the doors again, and exchanged a few words we couldn’t hear, before the driver and his helper, both dressed in black with bowler hats, got into the car and backed down the driveway past us.
Christopher and I moved aside to let them pass, and then waited for Doctor White to approach.
“Doctor,” I said politely.
He shook his head, and pulled a gigantic handkerchief out of his pocket, and used it to mop his forehead. “Dreadful state of affairs. Dreadful.”
“What happened?” I asked.
He peered at me. “We don’t chain people to their beds, you know. If there are children, one of us stays in the infirmary overnight, in case there’s a need. But she was an adult, and there was nothing wrong with her, nothing that a good night’s sleep couldn’t cure. So we went to bed and let her sleep.”
“Of course.” No point in losing sleep over someone who for all intents and purposes was perfectly healthy, after all.
“I thought she’d still be there in the morning,” Doctor White said. “But by the time my wife got down to the infirmary, the young lady was gone.” He clicked his tongue. “Nothing wrong with that. She wasn’t a prisoner. She could leave when she wanted. But this…” He dragged the handkerchief across his brow again, shaking his head, “this is dreadful.”
“It certainly wasn’t your fault,” I assured him. “As you said, she wasn’t a prisoner. She could leave when she wanted to.”
He nodded, but vacantly, as if the reassurance didn’t matter in the least.
I paused for a polite moment before I asked, “She didn’t wake up at any point, did she? Or say anything to anyone?”
The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid not. She slipped from unconsciousness into sleep without waking up. There was a moment, when we jostled her into the car yesterday afternoon, that I thought she might be coming to?—”
Christopher nodded.
“—but nothing happened. We put her to bed and she stayed there, never saying a word.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. “We thought she must have woken up in the night and realized that the baby wasn’t there. And so she came here to find her.”
Doctor White nodded. “As like as not, young lady. As like as not.”
“And then someone found her instead. And whacked her with a croquet mallet.”
Doctor White shook his head. “Not a croquet mallet.”
Not a…?
“What do you mean, not a croquet mallet? It was next to her on the grass! It had…” I gulped, “it had blood and… and hair on it.”
“That’s as may be,” Doctor White said primly, “but the mallet wasn’t what killed her.”
Christopher blinked. “You mean, someone hit her with something else first, and then hit her with the mallet?”
But Doctor White was shaking his head again. “Nobody hit her with the croquet mallet.”
