Page 54 of Evil at the Essex House
There was no response from the note we had left for Tom the next morning, and because we’d be going to the Savoy anyway come early evening, and because the Schlomskys had not been in touch to request our presence again, we didn’t go near the Strand until it was almost time for me to meet Wolfgang for supper.
By then, Christopher had tweaked and polished me in front of the mirror for an hour. I was wearing the new evening frock I had purchased for Cousin Francis and Constance Peckham’s engagement party in July, the frock I hadn’t had the chance to wear at the time, because of the murder.
It was a rather stunning salmon pink confection with a very simple cut—V-neck, straight arms, slightly uneven hem, just enough for some movement. It ended right below the knee. There were no variations in fabric, no different top and bottom, nothing like that. It was all of a piece and all very simple. What made it special was the decoration: tiny beads the same color as the fabric over most of the dress, making the whole thing sparkle with depth in the light, but with a pattern in warmish brown along the neckline, the arm holes, and the hem. The same darker color was used to make patterns of reeds here and there: from the shoulder down toward the middle, and in both directions from the beaded ‘belt’ that circled my hips.
“Stunning,” Christopher told me when I was standing in front of him after he had finished putting on my face. “He won’t know what hit him.”
I smirked, somewhat complacently, as I looked at myself in the mirror. “I’d like to see St George come up with anything derogative to say about this.”
He had likened my apple green evening frock to a Bramley and made snide comments about my banana yellow frock, as well. That had been deliberate, admittedly. Christopher had asked him to, but he had been able to come up with something nasty to say, so the thought must have been there in his head all along, or he would have been stumped. And he had managed the Bramley comment all on his own. But this, this was beyond his nastiness.
“So would I,” Christopher agreed, looking me down and up again.
I tilted my head. “You haven’t heard from him, have you?”
“Crispin? Not since we spoke on the telephone yesterday afternoon.”
“He doesn’t know that I’m going out again with Wolfgang?”
“I haven’t told him,” Christopher said.
“Good.” Then I wouldn’t have to worry about Crispin taking a hand in removing me from Wolfgang’s company later tonight. Christopher at least would be polite when he did it. With Crispin, all bets were off. “So you don’t know if he’s planning to show up in London tonight, or not.”
“I haven’t heard,” Christopher said. “But you spoke to him yourself yesterday. I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up, after that. But he hasn’t said one way or the other.”
“Uncle Harold might be successful in keeping him in Wiltshire.”
“Might,” Christopher agreed, and was kind enough not to comment on my wistful tone. “I wouldn’t count on it. Crispin usually manages to do what he wants to do.”
“He didn’t really know Flossie well.”
Christopher shook his head. “But he knows us well. And how likely is it that he’ll let you and me go to Southwark on our own—without Tom’s backup—to look for a ransom drop and a blackmailer?”
Not very likely, I supposed. Although— “He’s younger than both of us. If anyone should stay home, it’s him. He’s the baby.”
“Better not let him hear you say that,” Christopher advised with a quirk of the lips. “He’s more used to taking care of himself than either of us, I daresay. He gets up to a lot more trouble than we do. And he usually does it alone. We have each other.”
“You go to drag balls alone.”
“And when there’s been trouble, I have had Tom there to pull me out,” Christopher said. “So far.”
“It was St George and I who got you out of the drag ball in June before the raid started.”
“And dragged me straight into a murder,” Christopher answered. “Besides, I don’t think you can take credit for that, Pippa. It was a coincidence. You had no idea that there was going to be a raid that night. We just happened to leave early.”
I shrugged. He was right, so there was no point in persisting. “Perhaps we’ll just hope that Uncle Harold has St George under lock and key tonight, then.”
“Perhaps we won’t,” Christopher said. “I’d much rather take the Hispano-Suiza to London Bridge at eleven, than the train. I’d feel much safer in Crispin’s motorcar. The docks district at midnight isn’t a place I’d like to linger with no way home.”
“We can always run across the bridge.”
“And be thrown into the water by the kidnappers,” Christopher said. After a moment he sighed, “I know how you feel about him, Pippa. But I’d rather have him—and the H6—in London tonight than in Wiltshire. And if that means that you have to put up with him, then so be it.”
I made a face. “Have it your way.” He had a point, after all. About the motorcar and all that, and why we’d rather have the H6 here with us tonight. If Crispin came along, too—as he would have to—then that was just something I would have to deal with.
“Off to see the Schlomskys, then,” Christopher suggested, “before supper?”
“We may as well,” I told him, and let him escort me out.
