Page 78 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
He snorted. “It’s a quiet country lane at nine in the morning. I’m not likely to meet another vehicle. But I’ll go slow. I’m not my cousin.”
“Then I’ll see you when you get back,” I said. “Goodbye, Doctor White. And good luck with the post mortem.”
“All in a day’s work,” the doctor grunted. “Onwards, young man. Onwards.”
He pointed, like Columbus at the Americas. Christopher let out the clutch, and the Bentley rolled off down the driveway. I waved, and waited until they had turned into the lane and were out of sight before I turned away and contemplated my next move.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
There were still sounds comingfrom within the carriage house. One of Sammy’s constables, I assumed, or perhaps Sammy himself. I supposed I could simply go over and have a peek, but Christopher hadn’t made mention of anything particularly exciting going on inside, so it was probably just the equivalent of a constabulary bloodhound sniffing at everything and nothing.
The boot room door turned out to be locked, something that hadn’t happened, in my recollection, more than half a dozen times before during the day. I turned my feet towards the croquet lawn and back door instead.
The body was gone, obviously, and so, I assumed, was the croquet mallet. I hadn’t looked in the mortuary van before it rolled off down the driveway, but I assumed the mallet had been there, carefully wrapped. It ought to be. Unless Sammy had it stashed somewhere, but I couldn’t imagine where, since the constabulary seemed to be getting around on bicycles, and surely he didn’t plan to carry it down to the village strapped to his back at the end of the investigation?
The lawn was empty but for a bobby squatting on the grass next to where Abigail’s body had lain. He had his hat off and the sun shone on brown hair, instead of the flaming carrot red of Sammy’s head. I thought about engaging him in conversation, just to see if he might let some inside information slip, but he looked like he might be praying, or at least doing something else important, and besides, Sammy had surely warned the constables away from telling anyone anything. I would have done, had I been in charge.
So I merely walked past him with a muttered “Pardon me,” giving both him and the crime scene a wide berth, and made my way up onto the flagstone of the terrasse and across to the door.
Inside, the house was quiet. Neither the library nor the study are rooms that particularly invite anyone to kick their heels up in them, and someone must have warned off Cook, because the kitchen and scullery were empty. Hughes hadn’t arrived, either, or so I assumed, until I heard her voice float out of Uncle Herbert’s study as I approached.
“—knows.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Uncle Herbert answered, but there was a brittle note in his voice that stated, as plainly as words, that he was lying. He had understood exactly what she meant, and furthermore, he wasn’t pleased about it.
I stopped, of course, out of sight of the door, while I waited to see whether they had heard my approach.
And it seemed as if they hadn’t, because Hughes made a sound that might have been a giggle in someone younger and less dignified. In either case, there was nothing particularly servile about it, nothing like what a domestic servant should do to the master of the house. I arched my brows and eased a bit closer, holding my breath.
“I can’t make it much clearer than that, Lord Herbert.”
“But he can’t possibly,” Uncle Herbert protested. “We said we’d never speak of it. I don’t know howyou’dknow. You weren’t even at Sutherland then.”
“Lydia Morrison and I compared notes,” Hughes said composedly. “I know His late Grace’s idea was to get rid of anyone who knew anything?—”
The late Duke Henry, obviously. She must be talking about whatever had happened when Lydia Morrison had been sent to Dorset to work for Constance’s mother, and Hughes had come back in her place.
“—but you know, Lord Herbert, how servants gossip.”
There was a hint of something like satisfaction in her voice, or maybe more like triumph; something almost threatening, or at least suggestive that a threat might be in the offing, or could be if she so chose.
“That wasn’t even the first time it happened,” she added maliciously, “was it?”
I could almost feel the question shiver in the air.
There was a moment of silence, and when Uncle Herbert’s voice came back, it was tight with what I judged to be a mixture of anger and fear. “What do you mean by that?”
“Surely you remember Maisie Moran?”
I blinked. My thoughts whirled, scrabbling. Was this someone I should know?
Then I realized that no, I didn’t remember Maisie Moran. I had no idea who Maisie Moran was, or had been.
Uncle Herbert clearly did. “That was a long time ago,” he said roughly. “Before I met Roslyn. Before we got married. It had nothing to do with us.”
“Of course not.” Hughes’s voice oozed poisoned sympathy. “But one child with a woman not your wife is one thing. Two is quite another.”
Child?
