Chapter Nine

T he footman, clearly under orders as to how to treat the police when they arrived, was instructing them in a very superior manner to go to the tradesmen’s entrance.

Constance heard a voice arguing indignantly from the front step, until another voice interrupted. “Oh, for the love of—” And abruptly, the footman fell back as the door flew wide open, almost knocking him off his feet. A man in a worn overcoat walked into the house, a younger man trotting at his heels.

“You may inform your mistress that Inspector Harris and Sergeant Flynn are here,” the first man said briskly. “I shall be happy to see her as soon as she is able. In the meantime, you had better take my sergeant to your superior, a butler or a housekeeper—” He broke off, blinking, as his roving gaze landed on Constance and Grey.

He groaned, though his dismay was nothing compared to her own. “Oh no. Please tell me the Tizsas are not here too?”

“The Tizsas are not here,” Constance said kindly, advancing on him. She might as well brazen it out. “How do you do, inspector?” She glanced at the footman, whose mouth had fallen open. “Perhaps you could arrange for tea and some breakfast for these gentlemen? I suspect they have had a long journey.”

Inspector Harris was not a man who revealed his own thoughts easily, but even he was looking slightly dazed by the easy way the notorious Constance Silver ordered the servants of a respectable lady—and was immediately obeyed, too. The young sergeant strode off with the outraged footman toward the servants’ quarters.

“Good morning, inspector,” Grey said in his quiet, imperturbable way. “Perhaps you would care to come to the morning room for the moment? I am not sure what plans have been made for you, if any.”

Constance led the way, almost surprised by the strength of her desire to stay at Greenforth and solve the mystery. Though once Harris revealed her identity, she and her baggage would be on the front step. Or in the backyard, more likely.

Harris rarely minced his words. He swung on Constance at once, even while Grey was closing the morning room door. “Him, I can understand. But I’ve been led to believe that this is a highly respected family. Why are you here? How are you here?”

The jibes did not hurt Constance. How could they, in the circumstances? The inspector was merely looking for information. And she could not think how to make him keep the secret of her true identity. Allure would not work. He had all a law officer’s disapproval of her trade. Nor could she tease him—he was too serious about his profession.

Perhaps she could persuade him of an ambition to reform? Only, how would that play to the outraged Winsoms when he spoke to them about it? She shrank from admitting the humiliating truth, that she was searching for her unknown father…

Grey cleared his throat. “Mrs. Silver is here at my request, inspector. I have been conducting an investigation of my own—not a criminal one, of course—and I asked for her help. Naturally, she is not known to these people by her own name, but as Mrs. Goldrich. I would be grateful if you kept that to yourself.”

Constance gazed at him in wonder. He had lied for her, so that there was at least the possibility of her staying. Whether from reluctant friendship or simply because she was useful, she did not mind. Either way, she was warmed.

Grey did not so much as glance at her. He was holding the inspector’s stern gaze without difficulty or embarrassment. He even smiled, very faintly. “You may regard her as my employee, in a strictly business sense.”

Harris’s face cleared. Of course, if she was being paid, that explained everything to him. Though he still snapped, “I am conducting a murder inquiry in this house. If necessary, you will both be investigated like anyone else.”

“If she is guilty, of course I release you from any obligation to me,” Grey said smoothly. “But the truth is, Mrs. Silver and I found the body of Mr. Winsom together. The family and the guests believe I was alone.”

Harris’s lips twisted. “Preserving the lady’s reputation, Mr. Grey?”

He didn’t even smile. “Yes. Mrs. Goldrich is a respectable widow.”

“Of course she is. So respectable you obtained an invitation for her.”

“I obtained the invitation,” Constance said, growing irritated with being discussed as though she weren’t present. “Through Mr. and Mrs. Winsom’s son, Randolph.”

Harris’s gaze flickered to her. “That, I believe. Well, you had better tell me what happened here.”

“Mr. Grey will tell you,” Constance said. “I’ll fetch my notes from the library.”

The hallway was almost eerily empty as Constance crossed to the library, where she discovered her notes where she had left them. The two sheets bore signs of being well thumbed, as though everyone had been making sure they were accurate and she had not slipped in anything to make their positions appear worse.

There was still no one in sight as she returned to the morning room, not even the footman who should have been guarding the door. A vague hum of conversation did seem to emanate from the breakfast parlor, so presumably everyone was gossiping in there about the arrival of the detectives from Scotland Yard.

In the morning room, Grey had clearly described the discovery of the body, and was just handing Harris the handkerchief he had discovered clutched in Winsom’s fingers.

Harris spread it out on the arm of his chair. “A.B.?”

“Alice Bolton seems likeliest,” Grey said, “the only person I know of with those initials. She is a guest here, a family friend and wife of Winsom’s partner, Thomas Bolton.”

“Why would he have her handkerchief?” Harris wondered.

“I suppose he might have found it in the garden and just picked it up,” Constance said, dropping her notes onto the inspector’s lap. “But we think there may have been an affair between them. We have no proof.”

Harris grunted and picked up the notes. He read quickly, flipping over to the next page, and then back again. “You don’t expect me to take all this as gospel, do you?”

“No,” Grey said.

“Good.” Harris glanced up at Constance. “However, it’s a good place to start, and lists, you might say, all the dramatis personae . Excluding servants, I notice. What do you make of them?”

“Most seem to have been with the family for at least two years, considerably more in the case of the butler, Richards, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Farrow. Less, perhaps, for the boot boy. Which reminds me, he might have seen who took the knife, for he sleeps in the kitchen. It worried us and Richards enough for us all to keep watch on him last night.”

Harris stiffened. “Really? And did anyone attack him?”

“No. But I still think he should be looked after.”

“You’re probably right,” Harris said. “Well, thank you. That will be all for now.”

Constance met Grey’s amused gaze, but neither chose to quarrel with the inspector’s dismissal.

“I’m going to breakfast,” she announced. “I shall sing your praises, inspector.”

Grey, though he held the door for her, did not announce his intentions, merely followed her out.

“Thank you,” she murmured as they walked toward the breakfast parlor.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “We agreed to do this together. And I believe he will keep your secret—for now, at least.”

His cool matter-of-factness did not upset her. She was happy to allow him it. She parted from him with a sunny smile, and he walked on to let himself out of the front door.

Constance entered the breakfast parlor. Everyone else, apart from Mrs. Winsom, was around the table, though their clearly earnest conversation cut off at once. They all stared at her.

“I have met the police,” she confided with an air of triumph. “The man in charge is one Inspector Harris, and he seems to be both polite and intelligent. Mr. Grey knows him,” she added, walking to the sideboard and collecting a warm plate.

“How?” Mrs. Bolton asked with distaste.

“Oh, something to do with diamonds that were stolen from him some years ago.”

Bolton sniffed. “Then let us hope this Harris is one of the competent policemen he dealt with.”

“He seems very competent,” Constance replied, helping herself to some eggs and a slice of toast before walking over to the table and sitting beside Ellen. “And there is a sergeant called Flynn, who is talking to the servants.”

Miriam jumped to her feet. “Without any of us present?” she exclaimed in outrage. “I don’t think so!” She marched off, a surprisingly martial glint in her eye.

“Richards and Mrs. Farrow will be there,” Randolph called after her. “There is no need—” But she had already gone. Randolph shrugged and exchanged meaningful glances with Albright.

Ellen sighed.

Constance poured herself some coffee from the pot on the table and ate her breakfast.

*

In the last year, Inspector Harris had grown used to expressing dismay whenever he ran in to either of the Tizsas during any of his cases—which happened with alarming frequency. Not that he truly objected. Though they tended to complicate matters, they had too often supplied the insight and imagination that solved those cases for him to be truly angry. Transferring the same almost -banter to the man he had last seen in their company had seemed natural, but in truth, Solomon Grey was a very different kettle of fish.

Cool, wealthy, and inherently intimidating, he was unique in that Harris did not know quite what to make of him.

Or of Constance Silver, if the truth be told. His days of arresting women of the streets were behind him, and in any case, she was more of an expensive brothel keeper. Although for some reason, that disparaging description made him uncomfortable, too. Not because it was inaccurate, but because he was all too aware of the poverty and the risks surrounding prostitution. As far as he knew, the police had never had cause to go near Constance Silver’s establishment. Perhaps because she greased the right palms. More likely because there had been no complaints from neighbors or clients. She kept her own order and had even moved into discreet premises in Mayfair. Rumor said one could meet more aristocrats in her salons than in the queen’s drawing room. Harris didn’t doubt it.

But it did not make her immune from his investigation. At this stage, any in the house could be guilty. Any of them vouching for each other could be lying, and from this he did not exclude either Silver or Grey.

Goldrich . She had a sense of humor. He gave her that.

The victim’s widow was the first person he interviewed. Pale and stiff, she bristled with outrage at first, then drooped when her son stormed into the room, glowering. Since Mrs. Winsom had already told him the same story he had learned from Grey and from Constance Silver’s notes, he left her to it for now, and, with permission to use the dead man’s study for his interviews, he asked Mr. Randolph Winsom to join him there.

The study had clearly never been used as such. Though it contained a small desk and an equally small bookcase, it smelled faintly of old cigar smoke and was given over to masculine comfort—leather armchairs, a footstool, a tray of glasses and well-stocked decanters. This, Harris suspected, was where the victim had come to be alone and to relax, uninterrupted.

“Your father didn’t do much work here, did he?”

Randolph flared his nostrils. “We have other rooms. If he chose to work at home, he did so in the library. I can show you that if you prefer.”

“Perhaps later,” Harris said amiably. He had met Randolph’s type before—young, superior, overconfident in his privileged birth, education, and wealth. Harris sat down at one side of the desk and began by taking the wind out of his sails. “My sincere condolences, sir. An appalling thing to have happened. I know you will wish to give us every assistance in discovering who murdered your father.”

Randolph could only say, “Of course I will.”

“I understand you have all discussed it among yourselves. Mrs. Goldrich gave us your list of everyone’s whereabouts that night, which is most helpful.”

Randolph tried to look gratified. Harris gathered that he despised the list and had contributed to it only under the pressure of his peers.

“It’s a very useful starting point for us,” Harris explained, “but I’ve found over many years that people will often say one thing in public and another in private, where they will be guaranteed discretion.”

Randolph regarded him with blatant disbelief. “Discretion? Seriously?”

“Providing it does not affect the case.” Harris smiled very slightly. “And providing the secret is not the murderer’s. If someone does not tell me the truth, it means he has something to hide. So forgive me when I ask you where you were from around eleven of the clock on Thursday evening.”

“I went to my room just before eleven and prepared for bed.”

“But you did not go to bed, as you told everyone else?”

Randolph shifted in his seat. He seemed about to lie, then said abruptly, “No. Just after midnight I walked along the passage to see if Mrs. Goldrich was as wakeful as I.”

“Mrs. Goldrich being a particular friend of yours?” Harris asked genially.

The boy blushed, bless him. “I’ll not deny I admire her,” he said. “In fact, it was I who invited her to Greenforth when I was introduced to her in London. I don’t normally like the country. I don’t like country hours, and I suspected she didn’t, either. So I knocked on her door.”

“At what time, sir?”

He shrugged impatiently. “I don’t know precisely. Not long after midnight. The drawing room clock had chimed the hour a few minutes previously, and the house was quiet.”

“So you knocked on her door,” Harris prompted him.

“She didn’t answer, so I knocked again as loudly as I dared, then pushed open the door to see if she were asleep.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t scream the house down,” Harris said.

“Constance is not so chicken-hearted. At any rate, she had no chance to because she was not in her room. I learned later she had gone to the library to find a book to read, but by the time she came back, I was in my own room and probably sound asleep. For I definitely woke up to my mother’s screaming.”

“That must have been very harrowing.”

Randolph shuddered. It seemed genuine. “Thank God it wasn’t she who found him. Grey did. He claims he saw someone in the garden and went to investigate.”

“Your father was a banker, was he not? Did he do business with Mr. Grey?”

“Not yet, but I know he had it in mind.”

“Is that why he invited Mr. Grey here?”

“Oh no, my mother invited him. She thought he would entertain her guests, being widely traveled and very successful. She might even have thought he was a former slave in the West Indies—anti-slavery is one of her causes. But my father certainly didn’t object.”

“Hmm. Do you know anyone, anyone at all, who might have wanted to harm your father? Or had some kind of quarrel with him that just went too far?”

“A quarrel that went too far,” Randolph repeated, staring at him. “He was stabbed in the back with a kitchen knife! I call that much too far.”

“So you don’t know of anyone who hated him that much?”

“I don’t know anyone who hated him at all!”

“Then there were no quarrels within the family? I expect you butted heads with him occasionally.”

Randolph’s eyes fell. “Never in a major way. He wanted me to settle down to the business, but I wasn’t ready to do that. I wanted to spread my wings a little. He understood. Mostly.”

Harris nodded, as though he hadn’t seen the tightening of Randolph’s fist on the table. “Exactly how much did he understand?”

“I had to put up with the odd lecture, but he never stopped my allowance,” Randolph snapped. “And I don’t see how that is relevant.”

“Oh, I think you will see it if you think about it. This is an unpleasant duty of mine, but I do have to ask. I’m told your father was well thought of in banking circles. Winsom and Bolton was pretty successful. Did Mr. Bolton and your father always agree?”

“You will have to ask Mr. Bolton,” Randolph said haughtily.

“I’m asking you.”

“Then yes, so far as I know, but I wasn’t involved in their business.”

If Randolph was this defensive of his father’s partner, Harris doubted he would react well to questions about his mother or his father’s affair. There were better ways to find out about that. Instead, he asked, “Who inherits your father’s estate?”

Randolph stiffened in his chair. For a moment he seemed about to refuse an answer, or perhaps direct him to the family solicitor, to whom Harris certainly intended to speak anyway.

“I get the bulk of it,” Randolph muttered at last. “The house and the business. But my mother and my sisters will all receive sizeable sums. Enough to make them wealthy women, I believe, but I don’t know the details. I never expected him to die so soon.”

There was a tragic, almost childish note of loss and regret in his voice. Harris encountered it all too often in his work, but he never got used to it. Nor did he let it weigh too much with him. Many killers regretted what they had done.

*

After breakfast, Constance invaded the kitchen in search of Owen the boot boy. Inspector Harris’s underling, Sergeant Flynn, was seated at the kitchen table, his notebook on his lap while he drank a cup of tea and ate biscuits with the cook and her assistant. Since he didn’t glance in Constance’s direction, she paused for a moment to observe him.

Although not a particularly handsome young man, he had the kind of face one noticed, strong and full of character. And he was clearly personable, for he had somehow overcome the servants’ prejudice against the police far enough to be fed biscuits with his tea. Moreover, the cook and her assistant looked perfectly at ease with him.

Constance walked unchallenged toward the doors off the far side of the kitchen. In one room, she found the laundry maid up to her elbows in steaming-hot water. Her mouth fell open at sight of Constance, who merely smiled and left her to it. In the next room, Owen sat on a high stool at a workbench between two rows of shoes, energetically polishing a large black boot that he dropped in alarm as she walked in. He almost fell off the stool onto his feet.

“Sorry, Owen,” she said with a smile. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to make sure you were well after we disturbed you last night.”

“Oh yes, ma’am. Very well,” he said fervently.

Constance bent and picked up the fallen boot. “My, that’s a fine shine you achieved.”

“It’s Mr. Richards’s own recipe, ma’am. Brings leather up a treat.”

“I can see that. You must have learned your job very quickly.”

“I do all the shoes, ma’am,” he said proudly. “ And I keep the fire stoked.”

“You must be kept very busy. Please, don’t let me hold you up.”

Gratefully, he took the boot from her and hauled himself back onto the stool.

“How long have you been here at Greenforth?” she asked idly, eyeing the separate lines of dull and shiny footwear.

“Nearly a year now. I’m going to be a footman in a couple of years, and maybe learn to be a valet after that.”

“Good for you. Then you like it here?”

“Oh yes, ma’am. Much better 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?”