Page 44 of Murder in Moonlight
“Good for you. Then you like it here?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.Muchbetter than the orphanage. I’m never cold or hungry here.”
A twinge of pity shook her. She remembered the cold and the hunger, too. She remembered them without a roof over her head. There had been a time when she would have welcomed an orphanage, only she had never been an orphan. She hauled her mind back to the boy in front of her.
“No, and you have that cozy bed next to the stove, too. Must be lovely in winter.”
He grinned. “It is. It’s cold up in the attic, sometimes, and through there where the maids sleep. I wonder if I can still sleep here when I’m a footman?”
“You would have to ask Mr. Richards.”
He nodded, moving on to the shiny boot’s partner, which had already been wiped clean of mud.
“Do you ever wake up and find someone else in the kitchen?” she asked.
“Only when I sleep in, and I haven’t done that for months.”
“Then last night was the first time?”
“I never saw anyone take Cook’s knife.”
So he’d thought about it. And he was studiously avoiding her gaze, focused entirely on the boot.
“No, I know you’d have told Mr. Richards or Mrs. Farrow if you had,” said Constance, who knew no such thing. If he were afraid, it was not of a murderer, though. It was probably of teasing by the other servants. She gazed thoughtfully at the boot in his hands. “Do you collect all the shoes for cleaning?”
“Yes. I look outside all the bedchamber doors and bring them all down first thing. At four or five in the morning. And then I put them back before the ladies and gents get up.”
“When did you collect these ones, then?”
“They’re the family’s. Sometimes Miss Wilson, the mistress’s maid, or Mr. Laird, the master’s valet, bring me their things at all sorts of odd times.”
“Did you have to scrape a lot of mud off them?” she asked, picking up an elegant lady’s shoe and examining the sole.
“Not bad. These boots had a fair bit.”
“Were they Mr. Winsom’s?”
The boy’s face fell as he remembered what had happened. But he shook his head. “No, these are Mr. Randolph’s. He likes his boots kept shiny. I did his other pair yesterday. They were filthy.”
“Were they?” Constance said, trying to keep her voice light and casual. “Dirtier than everyone else’s?”
“Except for the mistress’s. She must have been gardening in them. She loves her garden, does Mrs. Winsom.”
“It is beautiful,” Constance said, her mind racing. “Then even the morning after Mr. Winsom died, you were up early collecting shoes and boots?”
“No one told me not to,” he said defensively.
“Even though you were up in the middle of the night waking Mr. Richards and Mrs. Farrow?”
He shrugged. “People still need clean shoes, and Mrs. Corben’s still got to cook breakfast on a decent fire.”
“Very true, and you are clearly a very conscientious worker.” She decided to risk a question further. “The night your master died, who else left their shoes for cleaning?”
Chapter Ten
“Ivor Davidson,” shecrowed to Grey when she tracked him down in the garden. “He, Randolph, and Mrs. Winsom all had muddy shoes the night of the murder.”
Grey sat on the swing, trailing one foot with him across the grass as he moved gently back and forth. Although his gaze remained on her face with polite interest, he did not look particularly excited by her discovery.
