“During the night,” Piers replied.“At about two o’clock, we think, on the path up to the summer house.”
Hale regarded him with what looked like amusement.“Withy has sniffed out another puzzle.Who smacked the insolent footman?”
Claudia stared at her betrothed.“You’re very light-hearted about a man who could die.”
“I thought he was a mere servant?”Hale drawled, giving April a clear hint of a previous argument between the couple.
Interesting.
“He is still a human being,” Claudia retorted.
“Who is nursing him?”Meg asked calmly.
“The other servants are keeping a watch on him,” Piers said.“Fosterson says there isn’t much they can do right now.”
“Distressing,” Hubb pronounced with some feeling.“Most distressing.”
“It is,” Piers agreed.“For his sake and our own, we need to discover who did this to him.”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?”the professor asked.
“Unlikely,” Piers said.“But then there are a lot of unlikely things going on in this household.The servants—such as there are—never seem to sleep.Did any of you see Edward, or any of the other servants, last night, after about ten o’clock?”
“He looked as if he was locking the front door when we went up to bed,” Hale said.“Or at least, I assumed that’s what he was doing.He might have been going out.”
“Was he in livery?”April asked.
Hale blinked.“Yes.I’d have noticed if he wasn’t.”
“He was in livery,” Hubble said.
“Were you the last of us up to bed?”Piers asked.
“Yes, though not so long after you.Just before eleven, I think.”
So, between eleven and two, Edward had gone up to his quarters, changed out of his livery and left the house, taking the path to the summer house.What had he been doing in the three hours between?Indulging in a cat nap before an assignation?Or had he some more sinister purpose in going to the summer house?
“Were any of you wakeful last night?”Piers asked.“Did you see or hear anyone moving about the house?Leaving the house?Anyone walking up the side path that leads to the summer house?”
“Slept the whole night,” said the professor ruefully.“Thanks to our—er...lateness the evening before.”
“Must have been nearly one before I went to bed,” Mal Keith said.“Had some thoughts to write down—inspired by something you said, Withy.Made a lot of sense, and it would work brilliantly in my thesis.”
“Did you work in the library?”April asked.“Or in your own room?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Meg blushing and regretted the question, though she had meant to imply nothing by it.She was merely trying to work out which window he would have been near.
“Oh, my own room.I was ready for bed before the idea fully hit me.”
“Then I don’t suppose you saw or heard anything unusual,” Piers said.
“Never do, old fellow,” Mal said apologetically.“Not when I’m working.”
“True,” Piers agreed.“Anyone else?”
They all looked blank, shaking their heads.
“Do you ever hear any strange noises in this house?”April asked.
