Page 59 of Peril in Piccadilly
“Let me guess. Luncheon with Wolfie?”
“What else? Don’t distract me, St George. I went in, Christopher stayed out, and when we came back outside after the meal, I didn’t see him anywhere.”
“No, why would you?” Crispin asked reasonably. “He wouldn’t stand outside Sweetings and wait for you to finish eating.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. Not under normal circumstances. Today, however, he was supposed to wait for Wolfgang, and then follow him home?—”
“Oho!” He sounded gleeful. “Trouble in paradise, is it?”
“There’s no need to sound so pleased,” I grumbled, although of course I knew—now—why such a thing might make him happy. “He moved out of the Savoy, all right? Several weeks ago, according to the doorman. But he still sends me notes on Savoy letterhead. Almost as if he wants me to believe?—”
“—that he’s still staying there. How very unusual, indeed. I would be intrigued, too.”
Yes, of course he would be. So would anyone with an ounce of curiosity in them. “He was dressed as Kitty,” I said. “Christopher, I mean. He didn’t think Wolfgang would be likely to recognize him. I didn’t, either. But he didn’t come home for tea, and then he didn’t come home for supper, and now it’s late, and…”
“And you’re alone and worried.”
“If you want to put it like that,” I said.
“How would you put it?”
“Fine. I’m alone, and yes, I’m worried. Not enough to do anything about it?—”
“What do you call ringing me up?”
“I call it making inquiries,” I said. “I suppose you haven’t heard from him at any point today?”
“Should I have done?”
A loaded question, that one. I decided it would be better if I refrained from answering it.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said instead. “Perhaps nothing. But I thought, if he followed Wolfgang around City, that there might have been a point where he would have wanted or needed to take shelter. Call boxes are handy for that. And if he was inside one, pretending to use the telephone, I thought it just possible that he might have actually rung someone up.”
“And you thought that would be me?”
“Well, he couldn’t phone me,” I pointed out. “The flat is not on the exchange. Tom isn’t either. I don’t think he’d ring up Scotland Yard to pass the time, not unless something was wrong. I already checked with Aunt Roz. So I thought he might have phoned you. You are his best friend, after all.”
“Aside from you,” Crispin muttered. “And Gardiner, I suppose.”
“Tom and Christopher are…” I hesitated. “I wouldn’t call them best friends. And if they’re together and he simply forgot to inform me of that fact, no one will be happier than me?—”
“Except Tom,” Crispin said, and this time I absolutely could not miss the innuendo.
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” I complained. “Besides, I don’t know whether they’re at that point yet. I don’t even know if Tom knows?—”
“—that Kit likes him? He’d have to be stupid not to, and he isn’t.”
“It isn’t always easy to tell,” I said sourly. “Some people are good at hiding their feelings.”
There was a beat. I wondered whether he had heard something in my voice, or whether the hint of accusation was only audible to me.
“Kit isn’t,” he said after a moment. “He makes no secret of the fact that he can’t keep his eyes off Gardiner. And the way he came rushing down to Dorset last month, after Kit rang him up, I don’t think it’s only him.”
No, I didn’t think so, either. “It’s a big step, though. Especially for a Scotland Yard detective. There are situations where he would be expected to arrest Christopher, not drag him off home to protect him.”
Crispin didn’t say anything to that. “What do you plan to do now?” he asked after a moment.
I took a breath while I thought about it. “I don’t know that there’s much I can do. I don’t know where Wolfgang lives, so I can’t go there and ask him whether he’s seen Christopher…”
