As his hand left her shoulder, Constance surged to her feet. “Rest assured, Mrs. Macomber, that we’ll speak with the inspector on your behalf.”
“Oh, thank you, dear. That would be such a relief!”
Constance whirled to the door, but found Carradale before her. She joined him in the corridor, then turned, looked back into the room, and beckoned. “Pearl.”
When Pearl slipped from the room, closing the door behind her, Constance said, “You are not under any circumstances to leave Mrs. Macomber alone.”
“Great heavens, miss—is she in danger?”
“We hope not,” Alaric said. “But better we take precautions and avoid any possible threat.” He nodded at Constance in agreement and encouragement.
She looked back at Pearl. “I’ll send someone else up shortly to spell you, but at all times, there needs to be at least one of you in the room.”
Pearl looked as determined as her mistress. She bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, miss.”
“If you need assistance in the meantime,” Alaric added, “just ring. Someone will come up.”
“Yes, my lord.” Pearl bobbed another curtsy, this time accompanied by a curious glance, then she opened the door and went back into the room.
Constance locked eyes with Alaric. “At last—we have a real clue.”
Grimly, he nodded. “And now I know why Percy’s so wretched. He lost his fiancée, and the idiot hasn’t said.”
Constance frowned. “Why wouldn’t he admit it?”
“That’s easily answered,” Alaric dryly replied. “Edward.” He met Constance’s gaze, hesitated, then explained, “Unless Glynis was the daughter of a viscount or better, Edward would insist the match was a mésalliance. It wasn’t—wouldn’t have been—but he would have described it in those terms to the wider Mandeville family. I’d take an oath Percy was trying to avoid that. But now, with Glynis gone…” Alaric’s lips twisted. “I’m going to find him and talk some sense into him. This can’t go on.”
“Indeed. And I’ll go and get those letters. I’ll have to find Stokes first and get the key from him.”
“I assume they’ll still be interviewing in the back parlor.”
“I’ll go and fetch them—or at least the key.”
Alaric hesitated. One part of him insisted that his need to find Percy should take second place to ensuring Constance didn’t run into any danger in her quest to lay hands on the potentially revealing letters. He looked into her eager face—read her confidence and her self-assurance—and accepted that she wouldn’t appreciate him hovering. And she was in a house swarming with servants and guests, and he had to be the one to find Percy.
And it was broad daylight.
He nodded. “Yes. All right. I’ll find Percy and drag him to see Stokes—I’ll meet you with the other three, wherever they might be.”
Constance nodded and hurried off toward the stairs.
Alaric turned and headed for the stairs at the end of the gallery. The last he’d seen, Percy had been on the croquet lawn.
* * *
On quitting the small parlor, Stokes had decided that five people in a single room was too many to mount an effective search. Rather than waste Philpott’s and Morgan’s time, he’d sent the pair to watch and observe the guests gathered about the croquet lawn. “Covertly, of course. See if you can get a handle on anyone the gentlemen, especially, seem to suspect.”
Stokes had glanced at Barnaby and Penelope. “Someone must at least suspect someone, even if they’re keeping it to themselves.”
Penelope and Barnaby hadn’t disagreed. Penelope had led the way toward the front hall, but on passing a set of minor stairs leading upward, Stokes had suggested that to avoid the hall and the chance of encountering any of the guests, they go up that way. On arriving on the first floor, they found themselves in what Penelope’s sketch identified as the married couples’ wing.
She studied her rough map. “We have to go past the main stairs, on past the end of the gallery, then turn left into the first corridor. The room Mrs. Cleary and Glynis shared is toward the end.”
Stokes squashed a cynical, world-weary smile; Penelope believed searching Rosa Cleary’s room, which had also been Glynis Johnson’s last abode, would yield some clue. In Stokes’s jaded opinion, that was highly unlikely, yet nevertheless, the search had to be made.
“I really do think,” Penelope said, bustling ahead, “that Rosa having shared a room with Glynis significantly increases the likelihood that Rosa knew something—enough, at least, to guess who Glynis’s killer was.” She paused, then added, “Mind you, it couldn’t have been something Glynis directly told Rosa, given Rosa showed no immediate suspicion of anyone when Glynis was found dead.”
“I agree.” Barnaby sauntered in his wife’s wake. “If Rosa had any firm idea of who the killer was, she would have said. Instead, she told Stonewall that she hadn’t seen the gentleman well enough to recognize him. If she was going to speak and risk drawing the attention of the killer, why offer such inconclusive information if she knew who he was. She wasn’t an inexperienced girl—she had to know she was putting herself at risk. She would have said if she’d known who he was or even had a strong suspicion.”
