Page 78 of Mischief at Marsden Manor
“Do you?”
“Of course I do. I dust the feathers, and then I dust the vase, and then I pick up the vase and dust the pedestal, and then I put the vase back.”
Collins nodded. There was a trace of something I wanted to call disappointment on his face, although it didn’t come across in his voice. “Thank you, Nellie. That was all I needed.”
Nellie nodded and turned on her heel with a flick of her apron. The white bow on the back of her gray dress bounced as she walked away. I expected Constable Collins to withdraw back into Dominic Rivers’s room now that he had had his question answered, but he stood where he was and watched until Nellie had disappeared through the baize door at the end of the hall before he seemed to wake up.
“What was that about?” I wanted to know.
The tips of his ears turned hot, and he made an apologetic sort of face. But before he could say anything—because that part of it was simple to guess; he thought Nellie was attractive, and had gotten caught up in looking at her—I added, “Not that. I know what that was. Why did you want to know about the rooms and the dusting?”
“Oh.” His face cleared. “Fingerprints on the vase. Small ones, likely from a woman. I found them on other things in Mr. Rivers’s room, too. But if they’re Nellie’s, that explains it. They likely don’t have anything to do with his murder.”
“Not if she picks up the vase every week,” I agreed. “Her fingerprints would be all over it. It’s not as if she’d wear gloves to do the dusting.”
Collins shook his head. “Another dead end. Pardon the pun.”
“No problem.” I have a tendency to make dead puns myself, if it comes to that. “You should probably get Nellie’s fingerprints anyway, just to compare. But whoever picked up the vase and whacked Rivers with it must have been wearing gloves, don’t you think? If you didn’t find any fingerprints other than Nellie’s.”
“I don’t know that they’re Nellie’s yet,” Collins said. “They might be Jenny’s or Edna’s. I’ll have to get them all, I suppose.”
He sighed.
“All of ours, too,” I said, “I suppose?”
He made a face and I added, “There was just the one set of prints on the vase?”
He nodded. “Nothing on the door knob, either. But gloves aren’t hard to come by. Several people are still wearing what they wore to ride out this morning.”
Yes, indeed. There were gloves in quite a few pockets throughout the house, I imagined. And gloves weren’t the only option for keeping fingerprints off surfaces, either. Collins had used a handkerchief, and most men carry one of those. Nellie was wearing a handy apron. I could have used a fold of my skirt, and so could any of the other women in the house—at least the ones who had changed out of their jodhpurs, and that was most of them by now.
While I cogitated, Collins had turned his attention to Aunt Roz.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “this is my aunt, Lady Herbert Astley. Constable Collins, Aunt Roz, from the Marsden-on-Crane constabulary. We’re old friends. He helped Tom with that unfortunate affair at the Dower House in May.”
“Of course.” Aunt Roz smiled, a friendly smile, and stuck out a friendly hand. To shake, not to kiss. Collins looked a bit nonplussed—perhaps he had expected Lady Herbert to behave more like Lady Euphemia or Lady Peckham, Constance’s late mother—but he took it and shook.
“A pleasure, Lady Herbert. Detective Sergeant Gardiner was a standup chap.”
“We’ve always thought so,” Aunt Roz murmured. “He was my son Robbie’s best friend, you know.”
“Is that so?” It looked like Collins was having a think, before he added, carefully, “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, ma’am.”
“Cousin Robbie died in France,” I said. “It’s just Francis and Christopher left now.”
“I’m sure you wish he were here,” Aunt Roz told Collins. “Thomas, I mean. Two murders in a single day must be a lot to handle.”
The constable nodded. “Yes, ma’am, Lady Herbert. But I’ve got reinforcements coming from the village. We’ll get through it.”
“We’ll let you get back to it,” Aunt Roz said graciously. She headed for the end of the hallway and the staircase. I took the time to give Constable Collins a reassuring smile before I followed.
“Thank you, Constable. Let us know when you want those fingerprints.”
“You’ll be the first,” Collins said, and withdrew back into Dominic Rivers’s room.
As I followed Aunt Roz down the hallway to the top of the stairs, I reflected that asau revoirsgo, it was a rather ominous one.
Downstairs in the drawing room,Uncle Herbert had pulled Francis back inside after their talk, and Constance had joined them. Francis looked a bit better, or at least he looked a bit less likely to go off half-cocked than the last time I had seen him. He held Constance’s hand and was talking to her, whilstUncle Herbert was watching his wife cross the floor towards him.
