Page 92 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
That explained why the light had been on in the cellar stairwell when Tom and I passed by. It also explained the rather heavy footsteps I had noticed passing back and forth above my head.
Lady Euphemia clutched her not-prepossessing bosom. Like her daughter, she was built tall and willowy. “What do you mean, you’re checking the residence? You’re going through our rooms?”
“Routine,” Sammy grunted, while Tom nodded apologetically.
“I’m afraid that’s true, Lady Euphemia. The premises are always searched for the murder weapon and anything else that might pertain to the crime.”
“Well, I have nothing to hide,” I said. “Anyone’s welcome to search my room.”
It was hard to say who was most put out by that statement, Laetitia and her mother, or Sammy.
I smiled brightly at the Countess. “By the way, my aunt instructed me to tell you that breakfast is almost ready. She said you were starving. It shouldn’t be long now.”
That’s not what Aunt Roz had said, of course, not in those words, but Lady Euphemia gave me the kind of fishy stare that ought to have dropped me into a heap on the carpet.
When it didn’t, she turned away with a sniff. I grinned, and caught an answering twitch of Crispin’s mouth across the room. “Where’s Kit?” he asked. “Not back from the village yet?”
Sammy brightened. “Done a bunk, has he?”
I rolled my eyes. “He drove Doctor White to the mortuary, since you and your colleagues are getting around on bicycles. I’m sure he’ll be back shortly.”
“Was Wilkins not available?” Uncle Harold wanted to know, in a sort of distant voice, as if an Astley should not have had to drive the doctor anywhere when there was a chauffeur around to do it.
Or perhaps it was distant because it was me, and he doesn’t like to address me. When he has to, he often pretends that I’m not here, like he’s talking to the air instead.
“I haven’t seen him lately,” I said. “He was here this morning. Constable Entwistle spoke to him—” I glanced at Sammy, who nodded confirmation, “but the motorcar was gone by the time Tom arrived.”
“Probably assumed his services wouldn’t be needed today and retired to the village pub,” the Earl of Marsden grunted.
“No doubt,” I answered, as pleasantly as I could manage. “He’s not wrong, after all. None of us are going anywhere anytime soon. Are we?”
Tom and Sammy both shook their heads, and then Sammy shot Tom a disgruntled sort of look and Tom hid a smile. Before he cleared his throat and told us all, “No. No one will be allowed to leave until the police are satisfied that they have all the information necessary to solve the crime.”
Uncle Harold heaved a sigh. Lady Euphemia sniffed.
I was still leaning in the doorway between the foyer and the sitting room, one shoulder against the jamb, and now I became aware of noises behind me. First there was the sound of the front door opening, and Christopher’s voice. “Hullo, Pippa. What’s going on?”
At the same time, there was the clatter of crockery from behind the door at the landing to the cellar steps. Christopher crossed the foyer to open that door instead. Meanwhile, a set of ponderous footsteps began to descend from above, the regulation boots of a uniformed constable.
“Hello, Mother,” Christopher said from behind me. “Let me take that.”
His steps approached, and then his voice said, “Excuse me, Pippa.”
I stepped out of the way. Christopher breezed past with a large tray full of cups and saucers and a steaming teapot. Hughes followed, carrying an assortment of teatime delicacies. Small, crustless sandwiches and biscuits and the like. Without Cook, I guess we wouldn’t be getting a hot breakfast today. Elevenses it was, a little early.
“Hello, Christopher,” Aunt Roz beamed as she brought up the rear.
Meanwhile, the constable—the same one who had been squatting on the grass outside—reached the bottom of the staircase and stopped in front of me. “Miss.”
I glanced down at the object in his hand. “What have you got there?”
There was a wooden handle, as far as I could see, and on one end, something wrapped around it, or screwed onto the top of it. A bolt or something like that.
“Trench club,” the young policeman said, in a vaguely apologetic way.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with the concept. Come again?”
He opened his mouth to tell me, but by then, Tom had reached us, with Sammy right on his heels. “Trench club, you said?”
