Page 84 of Murder in Moonlight
Randolph. From what she had heard, only Randolph had the courage to open the kennel door, and why would he? Why would anyone? Just in the vague hope of causing mischief? Or had it really been an attack against Solomon? Or against Mrs. Winsom?
She thought about who had been in the hall when Mrs. Winsom had been shouting for her son.
Where had Davidson been? Where had Alice Bolton been? And did it matter? The dog must have been released long before that. Only, who was brave enough to open the kennel door?
Both the chief suspects seemed on edge. Davidson, who cast her several covert glances, might have been waiting for her todenounce his unacceptable behavior. Certainly, he didn’t seem terribly interested in the tale of Monster and Grey, though he kept a pleasant smile on his face. Alice seemed distracted, merely pronouncing herself glad no harm had been done and that all was well in the end.
“I do trust you’ll lock him up more securely, Randolph,” she said. “He is not really asafedog, is he?”
Randolph scowled at his plate full of chicken in an excellent wine sauce but agreed that Monster was a little unpredictable.
As soon as she decently could, Constance excused herself and walked around to the kennels. Monster was lying down in his own vast kennel. He opened one sleepy eye as Constance approached but didn’t otherwise stir. He also ignored the calls of the hunting dogs who were running and playing around their own separate paddock in the sunshine.
Keeping a sensible distance, Constance eyed the apparently undamaged kennel door, which was bolted. The far end of the kennel was open to the paddock beyond, so she walked around the fence, looking for holes or even recent repairs. The repairs she did find looked weathered and old.
As she returned to the front of the kennel, Randolph was approaching along the path.
“He’s exhausted, poor old fellow,” he said, when the dog thumped his tail but didn’t otherwise move.
“How did he get out, Randolph?” Constance asked.
He sighed. “No idea.” He cast her a glance. “A lot of weird things have been happening at Greenforth since I came home.”
That was an understatement. But she was distracted from asking him what precisely he meant by Solomon’s strolling along the path to join them.
Randolph’s expression changed. It wasn’t unfriendly. “Mr. Grey, come to visit your newest friend?”
“I thought I might look in on him.”
Monster swished his tail against the straw again.
“I owe you an apology,” Randolph said awkwardly. “You and my mother both, though it was you who was left to face down the beast. I know he’s scary, but you seem to have handled him just right.”
“Oh, I think he probably handled me. Certainly he had me playing ‘catch’ with him.”
Randolph grinned, and Constance remembered why she had liked him in the first place, why she had hoped he was family. She’d set about finding out all wrong, of course. She had lied from the beginning, because it had seemed the only way, but she saw now that even if he were her brother, her deceit was unforgivable. It hurt, but she had only herself to blame.
“I should have warned everyone,” Randolph said, his smile fading. “I just didn’t want to upset my mother. I never even thought of her walking in the woods, for she never does so, even at the best of times. I assumed he would come back when he was hungry, and so asked Hudson the gamekeeper to keep an eye out and bolt him in as soon as he was home.”
Constance’s eyes widened. “When? When did he get out?”
Randolph shifted from one foot to the other. “Yesterday evening, I think. I went to feed him before our dinner, as I usually do, and he was gone. I thought Hudson, who helps me look after him, must have left the door unbolted by accident. He saidImust have.”
She remembered seeing him yesterday coming from the direction of the kennels. She had been with Solomon and deliberately avoided him. And when they met later, he had been on edge. He must have been worried about the dog, and then she flummoxed him further with their possible relationship.
Guilt twinged. “So he was out in the woods all night?”
Randolph nodded miserably. “That’s what bothers me. Why didn’t he come home? He likes me—hetrustsme.”
Solomon stirred. “Has he done this before?”
“He bolts sometimes. Usually takes his chance when the kennel door is open to feed him or something. He nearly always heads into the woods. I often take him there myself because he likes all the scents. But when he gets out on his own, healwayscomes back for his dinner. Even the time he leapt at the kennelman and trampled him to escape, he came back.”
“Do you think someone frightened him?” Solomon asked.
“I think it’s more likely he did the frightening.”
“Who else feeds him?” Constance asked. “Apart from you and your gamekeeper?”
