Page 31 of Evil at the Essex House
“Or we could simply ask Evans on our way through the lobby.”
“We can do that, too,” Christopher said and pushed to his feet.
There wasno answer when we knocked on Flossie’s door, and no indication that she had returned home in the time I had been inside our own flat with Christopher. Her parents were gone by now, too, clearly, and the flat was empty. When I reached out my hand to try the knob, Christopher hissed at me. I rolled my eyes but did it anyway. It didn’t turn and the door didn’t budge, and when I put my ear to it, there were no sounds from inside the flat.
“No, Mr. Astley,” Evans said a minute later, after we had taken the lift down to the lobby and Christopher had inquired as to whether Flossie had come back home.
“No correspondence?” I asked. “No visitors?”
“No, Miss Darling,” Evans said. And changed it to, “Not aside from her parents.”
“Do inform us when she comes back, will you, Evans?” Christopher took my arm and headed for the outside.
“Of course, Mr. Astley,” Evans said, and swung the door open.
“Useless,” I said to Christopher as we walked up the pavement towards the call box on the corner. “Utterly useless. And you know, Christopher, I suspect he wouldn’t tell us even if he did know something.”
He glanced down at me. “Likely not, Pippa. Flossie’s doings are none of our concern, are they, any more than our doings are any of Flossie’s concern. If I found out that Evans was telling Flossie—or anyone else, for that matter—what I get up to every month, I would have his hide, and so would you.”
“Yes,” I said, “of course, but?—”
He shook his head. “No buts, Pippa. Goose, gander, and all of that. If you don’t want him to give away your secrets, or mine, you can’t expect him to give away other people’s secrets to us.”
I grumbled. “I suppose that makes sense. I’m just trying to help, though, Christopher. If something’s wrong…”
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Christopher said and came to a stop outside the call box. “We’ll ask Crispin what happened. Perhaps he took Flossie to the Savoy and it’s the elder Schlomskys who are lying.”
“Why would they do that?”
Christopher pulled open the door to the red box. “Why does anyone do anything? I assume you want inside with me?”
Of course I wanted inside with him. The London public call boxes are narrow, but we’re both young and slender. We’d make it work. I stepped inside, and Christopher followed. The door closed, and we maneuvered around one another, arms and hips brushing, as we got into position in front of the telephone. “Would you like to do the honors?” Christopher inquired.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I don’t imagine Uncle Harold would like it much if I were the one to ring up Crispin. You know how little he likes me.”
“It’s not as if Uncle Harold would answer his own telephone,” Christopher said, “It would be Tidwell, or perhaps Mrs. Mason, and it would make Crispin’s evening.”
“St George doesn’t need any more pandering to his insecurities. He’s already egocentric enough.”
Christopher shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He fed the telephone the appropriate coins and dealt with the exchange. Time passed, then… “Tidwell? Christopher Astley. Is my cousin in?”
Tidwell, Sutherland Hall’s butler, took himself off to hunt down his lordship somewhere in the vast hall, and we waited. Christopher repositioned the earpiece between us so I could hear, too. Several minutes passed, before?—
“Kit? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Christopher said, and amended it to, “Nothing you need worry about.”
“Then why are you interrupting my pining and plotting?”
Plotting?
“What are you plotting, St George?” I wanted to know. “Is it murder? Is it Lady Laetitia? Oh, please say it is! I’ll help you dispose of the body!”
A moment of silence hung in the air before he said, cautiously, “Darling?”
“Of course.”
