Page 92 of Peril in Piccadilly
I shook my head. “Nobody hurt me. I drank a cup of laced coffee and fell asleep. Now I’m awake. The only thing I want, is to go home. If you’ll just let us off at Ramsgate, St George can escort me to London while the rest of you go back out to search for Wolfgang.”
They exchanged glances, but in the end, that’s what ended up happening. The lifeboat crew didn’t want to leave Wolfgang for dead, I supposed, and Tom and Finchley were still hoping that they might arrest him. Nor were we as far from shore as I had been afraid of. I probably wouldn’t have been able to swim it, but perhaps Wolfgang could do. At any rate, it didn’t take forever to get there. The crew set Crispin and myself off on the dock, and turned the boat around. Tom left with a promise to come and find us when he was back in London, to tell us what had been the eventual outcome.
“This way,” Crispin told me as the boat pulled away from the dock again. He put a hand to my lower back and guided me in the direction of the car park outside the lifeboat station, where the Hispano-Suiza was waiting. The knocking of the lifeboat’s engine faded slowly across the water as we picked our way across grass and gravel.
“They’ll find him,” he added after a moment, as if he knew in which direction my thoughts had strayed.
I flicked him a look out of the corner of my eye. “What if they don’t?”
“Then they don’t,” Crispin said, and flicked one back. “Do you care?”
I did, but then again I didn’t. “He kidnapped me, and I suppose he did try to kill me. Or if not that, at least there was a concerted effort to maim.”
Crispin nodded.
“I suppose it would be only fair that he should pay for that.”
“More than fair,” Crispin agreed.
“Although I think I’d rather he pay in prison than by drowning.”
“Of course you would.” His tone said that he, personally, was good with either outcome.
“On the other hand,” I said, “facing him across the Old Bailey and having to detail all the things he said and did, sounds like rather an onerous time. So perhaps it would be better if Tom and Finchley didn’t find him.”
Crispin grunted something noncommittal. Up ahead, the Hispano-Suiza came into view, the blue color making itself clearer as we got closer, and he stopped beside the passenger door and opened it for me.
“But then there’s the fact that he’s my cousin,” I said as I got in, “and I’d hate to lose what little family I have left.”
He stared at me. “What on earth do you mean by that?”
I told him what I meant, in a shaking voice that got progressively shakier as I went along. “Christopher’s missing, and what if we can’t find him? And if Christopher’s gone, Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert might blame me, and so might Francis, and then they won’t want to see me anymore. And you’re marrying Laetitia, so you won’t be allowed to have anything to do with me after December?—”
“Aunt Roslyn would never do that,” Crispin interrupted. “She’s not the type to abandon a child over something he or she can’t help. Not like some people.”
He shut my car door with a slam, and under normal circumstances I would have tried to pursue the topic, since there was clearly some underlying bitterness there, judging from his tone. But he was on his way around the motorcar before I could say anything else. Once he arrived on the other side, he continued as if nothing had happened, and I forgot all about what he had said earlier. “And as for me, it’s not as if I’ll be a loss to you, Darling. You’ll be happy to see the back of me, I’m sure.”
He slid behind the wheel and closed the door behind himself without looking at me.
I snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, St George. I’ll admit that we haven’t had the easiest time of it. But we’re doing better now. We haven’t tried to kill one another once today.”
Or yesterday, either.
“That’s only because I was worried about you,” Crispin said, inserting the key into the ignition. “Once we get back to London, I’m certain we’ll be bickering as usual.”
No doubt. And on that topic— “Would you happen to know where Thornton Heath is located?”
He glanced over at me, eyebrow arching at the sudden change of subject. “South of London? Yes, of course I do.”
“Is it on the way back? Can you take me there?”
“To Thornton Heath?” His brows drew together. “Why?”
“It was where they kept Flossie Schlomsky during the time she was gone,” I said.
He nodded. “And?”
“It occurred to me that it’s a ready-made place to keep someone who’s missing. Boarded up windows, extra locks on the doors, everything someone might need for an extended involuntary stay.”
