Page 98 of Peril in Piccadilly
“Evans.” Crispin nodded back.
We were both a bit the worse for wear at this point. Crispin still hadn’t slept. I was still wearing the same gown and wrap I had left in last night, but now I had slept in it, traveled in a boat in it, and found another dead body in it, this one a malodorous one. I would never wear this gown again, as it clearly carried with it awful luck. All I wanted was to get upstairs, into a bath and a different set of clothing, and to sit down with a cup of tea and breathe. I imagined that Crispin wanted much the same thing, and hopefully Christopher’s wardrobe would be able to provide.
“Any messages?” I inquired on my way to the lift.
Evans shook his head. “But Detective Sergeant Gardiner arrived twenty minutes ago and went upstairs.”
Oh, really? Part of me wanted to chastise Evans about letting people other than Christopher and myself up to the flat without announcement—first there had been Crispin, and then there was his father, and now there was Tom—but I didn’t have it in me to argue. Besides, Tom probably had information I would want to hear, so it was just as well that he was here, really.
“Did he seem upset, Evans?”
“No more than usual,” Evans said, which seemed fair.
“Thank you, Evans.” Crispin shoved me into the lift and pulled the grille shut behind us.
“There’s no need to manhandle me,” I told him, but without any heat whatsoever. “I was going. I want to see Tom just as much as you do.”
“I’m sure you do, Darling.” He mashed his finger on the button for the second floor and stood back. “I want to get out of this suit. And bury it somewhere. I can’t get the smell out of my nostrils, and I’m certain it must have permeated the fabric.”
He gave his sleeve a sniff and made a face.
“At least you didn’t sniff me,” I said. “Although I do know exactly how you feel. This is the first time I’ve worn this frock since the night Flossie was killed, and I’m never wearing it again.”
He gave me an up-and-down look as the lift rose. “That’s just as well. It’s not very flattering, is it?”
“Says you,” I said, offended, and he grinned.
“Sorry, Darling. I like the Bramley. It matches your eyes.”
“It does not.” My eyes are more emerald or forest green than apple, and if he was referring to the second definition of green-eyed—as in jealousy—he couldn’t be more wrong.
We reached the second floor, and the lift stopped with a jolt. Crispin pulled back the grille and pushed open the door. I headed down the hallway towards the flat.
“At any rate,” I told him over my shoulder, “I’m certain Christopher has something that’ll fit you. At this point, he might not even need it back.”
I stopped in front of the door and fumbled in my handbag for the key.
“Don’t say that,” Crispin said, coming to a stop behind me. “We’ll get Gardiner on the case. Perhaps there really is a Shoreditch flat, and perhaps Kit’s in it. Perhaps Natterdorff had information about it in his luggage. I’m sure Gardiner and Finchley between them gathered up all of Natterdorff’s things…”
“Perhaps.” I turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. “It’s just difficult, Crispin?—”
And that was as far as I got before a shriek cut through the air, loud enough to pierce my eardrums, and the next second there was a rush of feet and then I found myself knocked back into Crispin—who had the wherewithal to hold on to me—while Christopher flung his arms around both of us.
“He was here when I arrived,”Tom said ten minutes later. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get in, don’t you know.”
No, of course he wouldn’t have done. I didn’t know why that thought hadn’t occurred to me before now.
I was curled up next to Christopher on the Chesterfield, close enough that our bodies were mashed together from shoulder through arm to hip, while Crispin exhibited a bit more restraint. He sat on Christopher’s other side, but not so close that they actually touched. Just close enough that he could reach out and reassure himself that Christopher was there if he wanted to.
“Where were you?” Tom added.
“We stopped off in Thornton Heath on our way back,” Crispin told him, while Christopher alternated between sipping tea from a cup and water from a glass, and alternating that again with eating.
“Did he not feed you?” I asked, and Christopher shook his head.
“A glass of water in the morning and evening, whenever he gave me another dose of sleeping draught, but no food.”
After a second he added, with a shrug, “I was asleep most of the time, so I didn’t notice how hungry I was.”
