Page 67 of Murder in Moonlight
Constance, meanwhile, wentstraight to her own room and seized the “treasure,” which she had wrapped in a shawl of her own, and went in search of Mr. Grey.Solomon. She smiled for no reason as she moved from room to room and eventually found him playing billiards with Ivor Davidson.
Both gentlemen had their coats off. Solomon was walking around the table, cue in hand. He spared her only the briefestglance, but inclined his head as if he understood the presence of the shawl in her arms.
“Mrs. Goldrich,” Davidson greeted her. “I challenge you to a game.”
Constance had already made her own assessment of the game, which was almost over. “You can’t expect me to play anyone but the winner. In any case, I suspect we shouldn’t really be playing at all in a house of mourning.”
Davidson kept his eyes on the table. “Special circumstances, I think you’ll agree.”
Solomon leaned across the table and struck his cue against the white ball, which cannoned across the table and knocked one of the two remaining red balls into the corner pocket. He straightened, walked past Davidson, and quite casually potted the final ball.
“Drat you, Grey—this speaks of a misspent youth,” Davidson said. “Revenge, if you please.”
“Only if Mrs. Goldrich does not defeat me, though I fear she will.”
Davidson sighed and replaced his cue in the stand. “Then I shall seek some other amusement for half an hour.” He picked up his coat, bowed, and sauntered out.
“I take it you don’t want to play?” Solomon said, reaching for his own coat.
“No. It’s time we took this”—she lifted the shawl bundle slightly—“to Harris. And to Richards. Deborah didn’t find the love nest in the old wing. She was led to believe they used a spare bedroom—now Mr. Davidson’s, in fact—by discovering an earring in the bed there. And a pillow smelling of her husband’s cologne. Miriam told me.”
Solomon paused, one arm in his coat, and looked at her. “They might have used both places to meet.”
“Why risk it? Besides…I don’t think Walter would have hurt Deborah in that particular way. The old wing is almost separate, as if he could think of it as not his wife’s roof.”
Solomon shrugged into his coat. “Could Miriam be lying?”
“I don’t think so, though it’s hard to tell. She is very…suppressed.”
“What do you suppose she is suppressing?”
“Anger,” Constance said. “She’s angry about something.”
“About her father’s affair? Angry enough to give him away to her mother? You think she, not Richards, took and hid these things? And Alice’s earring?”
“Maybe. Let’s see what Richards says. He was still skulking there.” Constance walked toward the door, but Solomon stood where he was.
“Do you think she could have killed her father?”
“I’m beginning to think she could,” Constance said.
Solomon moved forward at last, and they hurried to the study. Neither of the policemen were there. Constance went in and dropped the purloined keys on the floor behind the desk, ignoring Solomon’s sardonic smile from the doorway.
“You don’t suppose they’ve gone back to the inn for the night?” she said. “Or taken Richards off to jail?”
“Let’s see.” They went on to the green baize door, where they almost collided with a footman. He muttered a hasty apology and hurried on to the dining room. Whatever the upheavals, the business of feeding the family and their guests went on.
Voices came from the door on the landing, low and intense, and then Richards’s, high with stress. “I don’t care what you think! I know I didn’t kill him!”
Solomon’s eyebrows arched as he glanced at Constance. Then he pushed open the door to the pantry, and she sailed in, Solomon at her heels.
Richards, seated at his desk, stared at them without comprehension. He looked like a man in a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake. The two policemen stood opposite him, Harris upright, Flynn leaning negligently back against the shelves.
The inspector glowered. “This is beyond a joke. You are both facing a charge of interference in police—”
“We found something, inspector,” Solomon said, “which may be of interest to you. To all of you,” he added, as Constance plonked her bundle on the desk in front of Richards. As she untied the shawl, she saw the precise moment when Richards’s expression changed.
He recognized his own cloth wrapping, knew what was inside. His already pale, strained face whitened to his lips.
