Page 99 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
“The trench club…” Sammy began.
“Was found in my room. That’s what Constable Hemings said.”
“There were fingerprints on the handle?—”
“Not Crispin’s. And not mine. Besides, I don’t believe you. Nobody would have been stupid enough to leave a weapon with their fingerprints on it. Not someone who was thinking clearly enough to substitute the croquet mallet in the first place. Certainly not Crispin. He’s too smart for that.”
Tom smirked. Sammy sighed. “If not Lord St George, then who?”
“I told you,” I said, or perhaps I hadn’t. I had been over all this so many times in my head by now that I had gotten confused. “I don’t know who did it. But it wasn’t Christopher, Crispin, or Francis. They all have alibis.”
“You spent the night alone.”
I nodded. “But I had no reason to kill her. I love them—or I love Francis and Christopher, at least; I can take or leave St George. But I wouldn’t commit murder to get them out of taking responsibility for siring a child out of wedlock. Besides, Abigail met St George at Sutherland House in March. If she was still looking for her baby’s father in July, that means Crispin isn’t it. And if Crispin isn’t it, then Christopher isn’t it. And if Christopher isn’t it?—”
“Mister Astley…” Sammy began, and I shook my head.
“It’s not Francis. I know you don’t like him, but just like I have to admit that St George isn’t guilty, it’s time for you to admit that Francis isn’t, either. He has an alibi.”
Sammy looked sour. “His fiancée would lie for him even if he were guilty.”
“He’s not, so that’s moot. And it’s not just that he was with Constance. He was so drunk last night that Wilkins had to help him across the grass. We put him in the library because he couldn’t make it up the stairs. He wouldn’t have been sober enough to kill anyone even several hours later. He certainly wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to switch the murder weapon for the mallet.”
Nor would he have tried to frame me with it. Francis loved me.
Sammy accepted defeat. Not graciously, but he accepted it. “Moving on,” he said.
I nodded. “Good idea. Were there really fingerprints on the trench club?”
“No,” Sammy grumbled. “It was wiped clean. Same as the mallet.”
“I don’t quite understand why someone would bother to substitute the mallet for the trench club, and then leave the trench club in my room. If you were going to leave the actual murder weapon, why substitute the mallet in the first place?”
“Opportunity,” Tom said before Sammy could open his mouth.
I tilted my head. “Opportunity?”
“The trench club was a weapon of opportunity. Something handy. But also something that might be traced back to whoever used it, so he or she fetched the mallet and tried to make that look like the murder weapon.”
I nodded. I followed so far. That’s what we’d always believed anyway. Or at least what we had believed since Doctor White had told us the mallet was not the murder weapon.
“Then something happened, some reason or opportunity presented itself that made it seem like a good idea to hide the club in your room.”
“Hughes,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” Had Hughes realized that I had overheard her conversation with—or blackmail of—Uncle Herbert, and decided to frame me for murder?
But that would mean that Hughes had killed Abigail, and that made no sense whatsoever.
“Never mind,” I said. “Carry on.”
Tom’s lips curved, as if he knew exactly the progression of thoughts that had made their way through my head. He didn’t say anything about it, however. “Your room was mostly empty all morning, so it might have been simple opportunity. It might be that someone knew you’d slept alone and had no alibi, so you’d make a handy scapegoat. Or it might be personal. Someone wanted you, specifically, to look guilty.”
“I did see someone in my room earlier,” I said. “It was while a few of the Marsdens were still making their way downstairs. We’d sat in the kitchen—Christopher, Francis, and I, and Crispin, along with Aunt Roz and Uncle Harold—and when the others went to the front of the house, I went back out on the terrasse. And someone was upstairs in my room. I saw a shadow against the window.”
“Someone might remember who was where at what time,” Tom said to Sammy, and the latter looked unhappy about taking the suggestion, but nodded.
