Chapter Thirteen

U h-oh . Solomon’s chivalric urge to rescue her took him by surprise. Yet he waited, curious to see what she would do or say, and well aware she was used to looking after herself.

She had gone very still. “If I am writing to anyone, it must be because I have something to say. Though I fail to see that my correspondence is any business of yours.”

Randolph waved the letter almost in her face. “This is your handwriting. You cannot deny it.”

“I haven’t.” She held out her hand. “My letter, if you please. Since you are making such a fuss, I shall post it myself.”

Randolph twitched it out of her reach. Solomon released the newel post and strolled toward them.

“Why?” Randolph asked tightly. “Who are you, Constance? What are you?”

“Aren’t you making something of an assumption?” Solomon said quietly. “For instance, Mrs. Goldrich and I might wonder how it is you recognize the address of—er…a notorious courtesan. We would not mention such a thing, of course, since that would be rude.” Casually, he removed the letter from Randolph’s apparently nerveless fingers and presented it to Constance.

Randolph flushed hotly. “I have never—”

“Mrs. Goldrich does not question your charities,” Solomon interrupted.

Constance cast him a glance of considerable respect, which for some reason meant more to him than the knowledge that he was not being strictly honest. Damn the woman, she was a bad influence on him.

The sound of the baize door to the servants’ quarters seemed to remind Randolph the conversation could be overheard. He stepped back from Constance, and they all glanced down the hallway. Richards made his stately way toward the study and entered without knocking.

“Wretched policemen,” Randolph muttered. “What do they want with Richards? They’re disrupting the whole running of the house. This is too hard on my mother. Does she not have enough to bear?”

“I think you all do,” Constance said with unexpected kindness. She even touched Randolph’s arm in quick sympathy. “But you need to know, don’t you?”

He met her gaze in silence. He looked suddenly very young, very lost. “I’m not sure I want to. Nothing will ever be the same.”

The boy was having to grow up, not before time, perhaps, but before he was ready. Solomon could not imagine his doing this to himself, even in a fit of rage. And the stealing of the knife rather pointed away from rage to planning.

“Why the kitchen knife?” Solomon said aloud.

A spasm crossed Randolph’s face, but he was listening. So was Constance.

“There must surely be better weapons in the house. Shotguns? Pistols? Hunting knives?”

Randolph nodded. “All these things. And antique swords. My father collected them at one time. Whoever did it was obviously trying to cast the blame upon the servants, though it didn’t work.”

“Actually,” Constance said in an odd voice, “I think it did.”

Solomon followed her gaze. Harris and Flynn had both emerged from the study, and between them, pale and shocked, walked Richards. Flynn took his arm as though to prevent his bolting.

“What the hell ?” Randolph muttered beneath his breath. He was already striding down the hall, Solomon and Constance at his heels. “Inspector! What are you doing?”

“I’ve arrested Richards on suspicion of the murder of your father,” Harris said calmly. He did not even slow down in his march toward the green baize door.

“You can’t!” Randolph exploded, following. “It’s preposterous! Richards has been with us for a decade!”

“I am aware of that, sir. And it’s possible further investigation will prove his innocence, but for now, everything points to him. My sergeant has suggested locking him in his pantry, meantime.” The inspector pushed open the heavy door to the servants’ quarters and held it for Flynn and the white-faced Richards to pass through.

In the kitchen, something like a copper pot fell to the floor, and the voice of Mrs. Corben the cook could be heard scolding. Flynn paused on the half landing beside a closed door Solomon had never noticed in his brief forays below stairs. The door was locked, which was interesting. Harris produced two rings of keys that he had presumably just taken from the butler.

Without a word, Richards pointed to the middle key of the smaller ring. The larger disappeared back into the inspector’s pocket while he unlocked the door. The pantry was not large. It contained a few shelves of bottles, others of silver, an upholstered armchair, and a desk—on which were laid out an open book that appeared to be a diary, and several lists.

Randolph bundled in after Richards and the policemen. Sighing, Solomon stood aside to invite Constance to precede him. She did without hesitation, leaving Solomon to squash in after her.

Before he managed to close the door and create a modicum of space to stand in, he was pressed far too close to her. He could smell her skin, some soft, alluring perfume, and grew suddenly aware of just how lovely was her long, vulnerable nape.

He almost fell back against the door. Fortunately, no one was paying him any attention.

“What the devil…?” Harris began irascibly as he glared around the suddenly full room. “Why are—”

“On what grounds have you charged my butler?” Randolph demanded.

Solomon thought better of him for his defense of the servant, but clearly Harris did not.

“On the grounds that he had access to the knife,” he said impatiently, “clear opportunity, and the strongest of motives.”

“Utter nonsense! What motive could he possibly have for murdering his master?”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Harris said. “He didn’t tell anyone. Sergeant Flynn here went to Winsom and Bolton’s bank today, and among other things learned about the dismissal of one Harold Framley.”

“Framley?” Randolph seemed to struggle for the memory.

“Indeed. Apparently this man swore at your father in the street one day when he was out with his family. He’d been dismissed for fraud.”

“I remember,” Randolph snapped. “But what has that to do with Richards?”

“They’re half-brothers,” Harris said with an air of understandable triumph. “Different fathers.”

Constance cast a startled glance over her shoulder at Solomon.

“We know,” Harris continued, “because Sergeant Flynn here had the gumption to call on the Framley family. After his dismissal, Framley’s fall was spectacular. He could not get other work because everyone knew why he’d been dismissed, although he was never charged. He and his family were evicted from their home, and his wife took the children and went back to her mother. Framley took to drink, lived on the streets rather than seek help from the Richardses, and was finally killed when he fell drunk in front of a carriage in January.”

It was a harrowing tale, and it silenced the room. Richards himself sat where Flynn had put him, in the hard chair at the desk, his face set, his mouth turned down.

“He was never charged,” the butler said hoarsely at last. “It was never proved against him.”

Randolph was staring at him as though truly seeing him for the first time. Then he blinked. “It still doesn’t make sense. If Richards was so angry about it, why did he never speak before? Surely my father would have listened to so trusted a servant! And why wait so long to take his revenge?”

“Matters we would like explained,” Harris said dismissively. “Our investigation is not completed, but…”

Solomon lost the thread at that point because Constance stepped back into him once more. At the same time, she glanced again over her shoulder and twitched her head toward the door in unmistakable command.

Somehow, Solomon reached behind him, opened the door a crack, and slid through with mingled relief and disappointment. Constance flitted past him and almost bounded up the stairs.

He followed quickly, hissing, “What’s the rush?”

By way of answering, she lifted one hand and showed him a set of keys he had last seen in the inspector’s possession. That silenced him until they were on the other side of the baize door. The parlor maid scurried past them.

“Worth a try, don’t you think?” Constance murmured, a wicked gleam in her eye. She walked straight toward the locked door that led to the old wing.

Laughter caught in Solomon’s throat. As he caught up with her, he glanced around the hall. Only the footman by the front door was visible, and he was gazing out of the little window beside his desk.

“Old habits dying hard?” he asked. The door was out of the footman’s line of vision and, hopefully, of his hearing.

Constance was on to the second key, which didn’t work either. “A girl’s got to live, though I wouldn’t like you to think I picked clients’ pockets… Aha. Three was always my lucky number.”

The key turned, she lifted the latch, and they both slipped through the door. Solomon closed it behind him.

*

When the inspector went to explain Richards’s arrest to Mrs. Winsom, Sergeant Flynn sat down in the study and took out the ledgers he had removed from the bank. The manager had been most unhappy and only agreed to it because they were copies and because Flynn had promised to tell Mr. Bolton he had them.

He hadn’t seen Bolton yet. He wanted a head start, as it were. Flynn understood the basics of bookkeeping—it had helped in many cases of petty theft and fraud. But as he skimmed the many columns of the bank’s huge ledger, he found himself literally scratching his head. He wondered if he would ever get his poor brain around this lot. The sheer size of the numbers was off-putting in itself.

He opened the other ledger, hoping this would somehow explain everything. It didn’t seem to.

He was almost glad to hear the impetuous footsteps in the hall. He glanced up, and the door flew open to reveal Ellen Winsom.

She was furious, two angry spots of color flushing her cheeks, her eyes fiery. Her beauty took his breath away.

“Where is Inspector Harris?” she demanded as he stumbled to his feet.

“With your mother, I believe.”

She seemed about to storm out again, but she hesitated, her fingers twisting the door handle. “Have you really arrested Richards?”

“Yes, miss.”

“But why?”

Suddenly all the anger had left her and she resembled nothing so much as a bewildered child. It made her easier to deal with. He explained the butler’s motive and his suspicious secrecy.

“Why is it so suspicious?” she asked at once. “Wouldn’t you keep quiet if your brother was a thief and a drunk?”

“Perhaps. But you must admit, it requires further investigation.”

“While poor Richards is locked in his own pantry? Can’t you see what this will do to his authority with the servants?”

Flynn blinked. “If he’s guilty, miss, that will be the least of his worries.”

“And if he isn’t?” she challenged.

He sighed. “Do you really think we can take that risk? What if he attacks other members of your family? Or Mr. Bolton, whom he must see as at least as responsible as your father.”

She whitened, sinking slowly into the chair on the other side of his desk. “This is all a nightmare. I keep thinking—praying—I’ll wake up. But I don’t.”

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said gently. “I wish this hadn’t happened, but I can’t change it. I can only— we can only—try to catch whoever it was who took your father from you.”

“Don’t be kind to me,” she spat, dashing her sleeve across her eyes. “It’s so much easier to be angry with you than with—” She broke off, shuddering. She dropped her arm and looked straight at him. Her eyes were beautiful, sparkling with tears. “I’m sorry I was rude to you.”

“You weren’t, miss,” he said gently.

Her eyes fell, clearly landing on the ledgers in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to make head or tail of the bank’s finances.”

“Ask Mr. Bolton.”

“Limited use, miss,” he said carefully.

“Because he is still a suspect, too? Even though you’ve arrested Richards?”

“We haven’t charged Richards yet.”

The boldness was back in her eyes. “Then you still suspect me, too?”

He could not prevent the flush rising to his face. He could think of nothing to say.

Her smile was not childlike at all. “How can you do this work?” she wondered. Her voice contained mostly puzzlement, but it was not free of distaste.

“Because someone has to,” he said, a shade more harshly than he meant to.

Without a word, she stood up and left the room.

*

Daylight somehow leaked in the boarded windows of the old wing, creating an odd, dappled effect on the walls and the floor. Between that and the two candles that Solomon lit with a match, Constance could see they were in a large, wood-paneled room, empty of all furniture except a bare old sideboard against one wall. A narrow staircase ran up the left-hand side. Flecks of dust danced in the sunshine.

Constance shivered. “I don’t like this part of the house either. It should have ghosts, only they’ve all been scared off. I’ll look around down here, if you want to see what’s upstairs.”

Grey moved away from her side, taking one of the candles, and she immediately wanted to grab his arm and drag him back.

Instead, she forced herself to walk across the room to the sideboard. The shelves were empty of everything except dust. She opened the drawers, felt inside them, then above and beneath them. There was nothing in the cupboard either, or on the floor underneath so far as she could see. She stood up again and wandered toward the fireplace. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, except some reason for Richards to come here.

She felt along the high mantelshelf, then peered rather warily up the chimney. She was reluctant to put her hand up in case it dislodged a deluge of old soot and rubble. Last resort, she decided, and turned toward the stairs.

It struck her that Richards might have crept in to watch Walter making love to his mistress—some men liked that sort of thing—but then, why had he come this morning? To cover up some peephole he had made? She could not quite imagine the dignified butler in such a situation, but she had been surprised before. Nor could she really see him plunging a knife into his master’s back, even for his brother.

As she neared the top of the stairs, a shadow fell over her and she almost cried out. It was Grey, emerging from the door at the top of the stairs. Weak with relief, she looked beyond him and said, “You found the love nest, then? He didn’t dismantle it. I wonder if he would hide it to preserve Winsom’s reputation, even to spare Deborah some humiliation.”

“He does not appear to be so selfless. Nothing downstairs?”

“Not as much as a scrap of paper. Did you look in the dressing table?”

“There’s nothing there, apart from what’s on the top. Nothing in the bedding or under the mattress, either.”

At the end of the landing, another, even narrower stair led upward. Grey went first and she followed, her heart beating foolishly fast.

“The attic might be open to the main part of the house,” he murmured.

It wasn’t. They saw at once where the passage had been bricked off. Constance was secretly touched when he insisted on sticking his head into the first of the three rooms before standing aside for her to enter and then going to the second himself. She wasn’t used to anyone looking out for her, taking care of her… Though perhaps that was exaggeration, more wishful thinking than anything else.

Oddly, this room was full of old furniture. Constance wondered if this were where the love nest furnishings had come from. It meant there were many drawers, cupboards, and shelves to look in. But there was so much dust that she didn’t hold out much hope. Everything looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed for years.

As they entered the final room together, Constance said, “I wonder Walter wasn’t afraid of all this stuff falling through rotting floorboards on top him, especially in the throes of passion.”

If she had hoped to embarrass Solomon, she was disappointed. His glance was merely sardonic. “The rot looks to have been just in that one patch where the repair was done. Shutting it off completely seems an overreaction. I would have thought the Winsoms would enjoy having a larger house.”

“Perhaps they didn’t have the money to renovate as they wished to,” Constance mused, lifting the embroidered cover on a wooden cradle. “So they just concentrated on the more gracious part.”

“Perhaps.”

He brushed past her, large and lithe as a cat. She tried not to look. Not that she needed to—she was so aware of him that she could almost see him on the backs of her eyelids. He opened a wardrobe and reached up to the top shelf.

Constance, finding nothing in the cradle, moved past him to a chest of drawers. Her wide skirts brushed against his legs, but he did not appear to notice.

The top drawer was empty. She began to think there was nothing to find. Perhaps they should just be looking for a peephole after all. She opened the second drawer down, already preparing to close it again before she registered that it was not empty.

A bundle of cloth lay in the middle of it, scrunched up like a ball.

When she reached out and touched it, something pricked her finger.

“Solomon,” she said huskily, unraveling the cloth with both hands. It wasn’t scrunched at all, just carefully wrapped around several objects. A glittering diamond hairpin. One lady’s silk stocking. Two perfume bottles, one square and masculine in style, the other curved and prettily decorated.

Solomon stood behind her, leaning over her shoulder.

Her mouth felt dry. “A bizarre little hoard,” she managed. “Richardson’s?”

She glanced over her shoulder and couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t looking at the “treasure” but at her face. His eyes were so profound that she felt she was drowning, and God, they were beautiful enough that you wanted to. She had never found a man’s face to be beautiful before, but his was.

She licked her dry lips, and he looked deliberately downward at her find.

“Probably,” he said. “Why else would he have come this morning?”

“True, but why didn’t he take it away with him when he had the chance? He saw me on the floor below.”

He shrugged, still so close that she felt even that slight movement reverberate through her whole body. “He thought he had frightened you off.”

“I might have told Randolph or his sisters about his behavior.”

“In the midst of all this…grief? I think he knew you would not. It doesn’t seem to have entered his head that you would tell me, let alone come back.”

With an effort, she forced herself to turn back to the “treasure.” Her heart was beating like a captured bird’s. He reached past her, his arm touching hers as he spread out the items on the cloth.

“Apart from the diamond pin, none of this can have much value,” he observed. “Do you suppose Alice Bolton’s handkerchief once resided here too?”

She moved slightly further away from him, just so she could think. “You mean he killed Walter and planted the handkerchief to cast the blame on her? What a…horrible thought. Why her? Why not Mrs. Winsom? I’m sure that must be her pin.”

“A husband might easily carry something of his wife’s. It wouldn’t necessarily have the same meaning as clasping someone else’s handkerchief.”

Constance frowned. “He wanted everyone to know about the affair, as well as blaming her for the murder…”

“Maybe.” He picked up the square bottle and pulled out the stopper. After a quick sniff and a grimace, he passed it to her.

“Walter’s cologne,” she said without doubt, taking the top from his slender fingers and re-stoppering the bottle.

He passed her the other. “Mrs. Winsom?”

“Alice,” she said, frowning. Something bothered her about that, only she couldn’t think what. “How did Deborah discover the affair? Alice said she knew, but how? She can’t ever have come here, or the love nest would have been dismantled.”

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“Probably not, but what is Richards doing with all this stuff? Was he deciding whom to murder and whom to blame, giving himself a few options?”

“Why don’t we ask him?”

Constance met his gaze. “Inspector Harris wouldn’t like it. And I stole the wrong set of keys.”

“Can you give them back as easily?”

“Don’t you think I should own up?”

“It depends how often you intend to do it.”

“You are a surprising man, Mr. Grey.”

“I thought I was Solomon.”

Good God , was she blushing? “A slip of the tongue. I would hate to oblige you to call me Constance.”

“Why?”

“You would not be comfortable.”

“Would I not, Constance? How well do you imagine you know me?”

“How well do you imagine you know me ?” she countered.

His rare smile dawned, weakening her knees all over again. “Not as well as I would like. But we seem to have gone beyond the formalities. Shall we get out of here with our treasure?”

She had almost forgotten she disliked the place.