Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [63]
“They’ll make me,” wailed Rose.
“Not if we run away.”
She handed Rose a handkerchief. Rose scrubbed her eyes and sat up. “Run away?”
“Why not? We could go back home after this is all over and really make sure our typing is perfect. Then we wait till your parents are off visiting someone and off we go.”
“But they’ll put Captain Cathcart on the job and he’ll find us!”
“I think not, if we talk to him first. Think of it! You and me independent and free as the air, living in London.”
Rose smiled. “I am feeling better already. But I wonder who was out to get me this evening.”
Kerridge had taken a statement from John when a constable entered the study and said that Miss Frederica Sutherland was anxious to speak to him on a matter of importance.
“Show her in,” said Kerridge wearily.
Frederica entered the room swathed in a pink satin robe. “I thought you ought to know,” she began.
“Know what? Pray take a seat, Miss Sutherland.”
“I saw him.”
“Who?”
“Sir Gerald Burke.”
“When, and what was he doing?”
“It was like this. I wanted a cup of cocoa, but it was late and the servants can get very uppity if you haven’t ordered in advance.”
“Go on.”
“I thought I would go down to the kitchens and make myself some. I opened my bedroom door a crack to make sure there was no one about. John the footman passed me carrying a tray. I waited to make sure he had really gone but I heard footsteps. I saw Sir Gerald go up the stairs after John, and then I heard a voice call, ‘John/ I thought that there were really too many people about, so I went back to bed.”
“The voice that called out—man or woman?”
“I couldn’t say. Could have been either. It sounded muffled somehow.”
“Thank you, Miss Sutherland. We may have to speak to you again in the morning.”
After she had left, Kerridge drew forward a plan of the guests’ rooms. “That’s odd,” he said. “Burke had no reason to be in that tower. He’s in the other one, the east tower.”
“Maybe he was visiting one of the ladies,” said Judd. “Although he looked a bit of a daisy to me.”
“We’d better see him and find out what he was doing. Where’s Curzon and that list?”
At that moment the door opened and the butler walked in. “I cannot find it,” he said. “The list has gone.”
Kerridge sighed. “Go and take another look. Send Sir Gerald Burke.”
“He may be asleep.”
“Then wake him!” snapped Kerridge.
After ten minutes, Gerald appeared. He held out his wrists. “Put the handcuffs on,” he said. “It’s a fair cop. Isn’t that what they say?”
“Only in penny dreadfuls,” said Kerridge. “Do sit down and tell us what you were doing in the west tower. \bu followed the footman, John, up the stairs. And yet your room is in the east tower.”
Gerald wrapped himself more closely in an elaborately embroidered dressing-gown. He extracted a long cigarette-lighter, a gold cigarette-case and a box of matches from his pocket and proceeded to light a cigarette with maddening slowness.
“Sir Gerald. I am waiting!”
“I lost the way,” said Gerald. “Simple. I was half-way up when I saw the Tnimpington female’s card. So easy to get lost in this pseudo-medieval horror.”
Kerridge consulted his notes. Harry had told him about Lady Hedley’s conversation with Rose and how Mary Gore-Desmond had been a guest of the Hedleys during the season.
He stared at Gerald, who smiled back through a wreath of cigarette smoke. Kerridge decided to take one of his leaps in the dark. “You were very friendly with Miss Gore-Desmond when she was staying with the Hedleys, were you not? In fact, her parents thought you might make a match of it.”
“Ridiculous. I admit I did squire her about a bit. It was Hedley’s idea. He said he’d promised her parents to try to get her engaged but he said that maybe she would look more attractive to the fellows if I could be seen paying her a bit of attention. But she began to take me seriously and I knew I’d better get out or that desperate little thing would be suing me for breach of promise or something. Too, too fatiguing. Not as if she had much of a dowry, either.