Page 35 of Murder in Moonlight
If Grey did not kill Walter Winsom, who did?
She went over the possibilities, so deep in thought that it was a moment before she registered the faint sounds beyond her door.
A whisper of soft footsteps, the creak of a floorboard.
Did she imagine they halted at her door?
She stared toward it, though she could see nothing in the darkness. She wished she had not closed the curtains. And just in case someone was at the door, listening, she was afraid to situp and make noise lighting the lamp at her bedside. Instead, she listened intently.
The footsteps moved on, barely heard above the beating of her heart.
At once, she leapt out of bed, lit the lamp, turned it down as low as it would go, and threw on her dressing gown.
She eased open her door, peering into the darkness, straining to hear and see. Surely a dim light moved, somewhere in the well of the staircase?
Picking up the lamp in fingers that were not quite steady, she set out to follow, keeping the lamp shaded as much as she could with the wide lapel of her dressing gown. From the stairs, she heard the swinging of the heavy baize door that led to the servants’ quarters and the kitchen.
Perhaps she had only heard a servant, Mrs. Winsom’s maid, perhaps, returning to her own quarters? Only the footsteps had not come from Mrs. Winsom’s room, but from the other direction. Though perhaps a servant would risk using the main staircase instead of the back stairs in the middle of the night.
Had the murderer gone to the kitchen for another knife? Her blood ran cold. Heart thumping, she listened at the baize door. Hearing nothing, she pushed it open warily. A dim light shone from the foot of the stairs. She leaned over the banister and saw the still figure, lamp in hand, with perfect clarity.
Solomon Grey.
Chapter Eight
What on earth…? By the light of his own lamp, he moved across the kitchen as if he knew his way. Silently, Constance set down her dim lamp on the table at the top of the stairs, where it was shaded by the wall, and peered over the banister toward the light.
In the corner beside the stove, it shone down on a small, still figure, sound asleep on a thin mattress roll. Owen the boot boy.
Fear clawed at her stomach so hard it hurt. But before she could move or make any sound at all, Grey moved away from him again. With one hand, he picked up a hard chair and carried it silently some distance from the boy and set it down against the wall. Then he sat in it and blew out his lamp.
From sheer instinct, Constance straightened and blew hers out too. Darkness closed around all of them. But it had finally come to her what Grey was doing. From his chair, he would be able see the sleeping boy. If there were any light.
He could not, however, see her, at least not when she wasn’t stretching over the banister.
He was watching over the boy, not harming him.
Why?
Because Mrs. Winsom had announced to everyone at dinner that Owen the boot boy slept in the kitchen. He might very well have seen who stole the knife that killed his master.
Constance lowered herself to the far side of the first wide step, where the table and her useless lamp now resided. Withluck, no one would see her either. She thought with longing of her warm, comfortable bed as she drew up her feet, laid her head against the wall, and closed her eyes.
She did not rate her chances of sleep as very high, and yet the movement of the baize door definitely woke her with a start.
Dear God, she was right.Someone is coming to kill the boy!
She shrank against the wall, her heart hammering.
An indistinct figure eased through the door in the paler darkness. He—or she—carried no light but seemed to need none, almost gliding sure-footed down the stairs into the kitchen.
Constance extended her legs till her feet touched the step below then grasped the spar of the banister and hauled herself to her feet. Whoever this was would be desperate, quick, and quiet. Did Grey even know he was here?
Holding the skirts of her dressing gown off the floor in one hand, and clinging to the banister with the other, she crept downstairs. As she reached the bottom, she released the banister and felt warily around for a weapon. She should have thought to bring her lamp from the table at the top…
Her fingers had just closed around a heavy candlestick when all hell seemed to break loose.
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