Page 14 of Murder in Moonlight
She widened her eyes at him. “Why? Afraid I’ll implicate you?”
She could, too. The body was still warm, implying the murder was recent, probably occurring while they had blundered about the garden. Which made his blood run cold. All the same, the alternative was even more chilling—that it had happened before either of them entered the library. Constance could have killed him then. And in her eyes, if she were innocent of the crime, so could he.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid you will implicate me.”
Their eyes met. There was no fear in hers, just speculation. “Guilt or chivalry?” she murmured. “And would I ever know?”
“Go,” he said, before he changed his mind.
A moment longer she hesitated, then flitted away around the house to the drawing room window.
Alone, Solomon hastily rifled through the man’s pockets, and found nothing at all. But his gold watch remained in his waistcoat pocket, and his jeweled sleeve buttons in his shirt cuffs. Unlikely it was a robbery.
Solomon rose. For the first time it struck him that the fingers of the dead man’s left hand were curled. He walked around the body and crouched again to investigate. Winsom was clutching a square of fine, embroidered cloth—a lady’s handkerchief. Solomon pocketed it and rose once more.
On impulse, he walked toward the nearest side of the house, trying the locked side door and then the French windows of the dining room, which were also locked. As were the front door, the orangery door, and the kitchen door.
Constance had, fortunately, left the drawing room door slightly open for him. He went in, closed it, and set off for the kitchen.
He found a boy asleep on a makeshift bed, close to the kitchen stove, and roused him without fuss. “Go and wake Richards and the housekeeper and Mrs. Winsom’s maid. Tell them there’s an emergency and they must come to the drawing room immediately. They needn’t bother about proper dress.”
Fuzzy with sleep, the boy still jumped up to obey, pulling on his own clothes, and lurching off toward the stairs with the candle Solomon gave him. Solomon followed more slowly, back upstairs and across the hall to the drawing room. He paused only to light a lamp on the way, and then another in the drawing room.
It was going to be a long night.
*
Alice Bolton wassurprised to discover she had been asleep, even if only for a moment. She had expected to lie awake for hours, yet she clearly hadn’t, for her husband joining her in the marital bed actually woke her.
She kept her breathing even, so Thomas would not know he had disturbed her. She was not ready to talk to him, though she did wonder where he had been. Not quarreling with Walter, she hoped. More probably, he was answering a call of nature. Or poring over yet more figures from the wretched bank.
But then, it seemed Thomas was not the only member of the party up late. Alice could hear footsteps and whispers in the passageway, and then surely, distant hooves from outside, as if someone were riding away from Greenforth in the middle of the night. Unusual but not alarming.
She closed her eyes again, hoping her even breathing would carry her back into the arms of Morpheus. It almost had when the wailing started, a terrible, drawn-out shout of grief followed by an almost continuous howl.
“What on earth…?”
“It’s Deborah,” Thomas said irritably from the pillow next to her. “No one else would ever make a racket like that. Shouldn’t you go to her?”
Alice tried to keep the distaste out of her voice. “Presumably Walter is there.”
“Even Walter can’t be expected to deal with a hysterical woman all by himself.”
His words were petulant and uncharacteristically sarcastic. Oh yes, he knew something…
Alice rose with exaggerated patience. With an air of great generosity, he lit the lamp for her. She donned her dressing down, tying it at her waist with unnecessary force, before wordlessly snatching the lamp from him and leaving the room.
It was not difficult to trace the howling. Nor was she the only other member of the household up. Servants and guests milled uselessly in the passage in varying stages of dress and undress, wavering lights from candles and lamps flickering over white, frightened faces.
“What is it?” Alice demanded of Peter Albright, resplendent in a deep purple, frogged dressing gown. “What ails Deborah? Is Walter with her?”
“Walter isnotwith her,” Peter said, his voice sad and rather self-consciously portentous. “He will never be with her again. Or with us.”
She had to reach out with her free hand to grasp the wall, as though the world had tilted impossibly. “What?What do you mean? Speak plainly, for God’s sake.”
“It is my sad duty to tell you that the lord has seen fit to—”
“My father is dead,” said Miriam Albright from her mother’s bedroom doorway. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “My father is dead. Where is Ellen? Does she know?”
