Page 24 of The Meriwell Legacy
He strode forward; sharp and startlingly intense, his hazel gaze locked on her face. “I received a garbled message that one of the guests had died.” His gaze lingered on Constance for a moment more, then he drew breath and glanced at the door before which the footmen had come to attention.
Constance remembered how to breathe, found her tongue, and gestured to the door. “It’s Rosa Cleary. The maid who brought up her washing water found her quite obviously dead in her bed.”
Alaric frowned. “Last evening, I heard she’d retired early—that she’d suffered a turn. Had she sickened or been taken ill?”
Constance drew in a fortifying breath. “I don’t believe it was anything like that.” She reached into her pocket and drew out the key. “But come and look and see what you think.”
She unlocked and opened the door, then stood aside and waved him in. She followed and watched as his steps slowed, then halted. From the foot of the bed, he studied the body.
Constance closed the door, then went to the side of the bed. “After the maid screamed, I reached the room first. I made sure nothing was touched or altered.”
“Good.” The word was even, yet weighted with emotion; when he raised his gaze and met her eyes, she identified the emotion as impotent fury. “She was murdered, too.”
Not a question. Constance nodded. “I believe she was smothered.” She drew back the heavy curtain that framed the head of the bed and pointed to the pillow thus revealed. “With that.”
Alaric looked at the pillow. “Did you move it?”
“No—I haven’t touched it yet.” Constance glanced questioningly at him, and when he nodded, she gripped the pillowcase by one corner and carefully tugged it free.
He moved to her shoulder and watched as she turned the pillow over.
She held it up, angling it so the light from the window slanted across the pillowcase’s surface. They both studied the ivory cotton; several smudges of pale color were discernible, along with a more definite hint of an impression of parted lips, marked by the soft plum-colored lip paint Rosa had favored.
Constance glanced at the body. “She wasn’t that young—she wore powder on her face and rouge on her cheeks and painted her lips.”
He nodded. “And she was, beyond question, murdered.” After a second’s thought, he added, “Quite aside from by whom, what we don’t know is why. Why kill Rosa?”
She set the pillow down beside the bed. “As my maid suggested, the most likely reason, surely, is that Rosa somehow knew enough to at least guess who murdered Glynis.”
She paused, her expression suggesting she was thinking back, reviewing something. Then she offered, “That turn Rosa had last night—she insisted it was nothing, just a slight faint—but what if it wasn’t?” She met Alaric’s eyes. “We were in the corridor when the gentlemen came out of the billiard room. Could Rosa have seen something—something about one of the gentlemen—that shocked her and caused her to come over faint?”
He studied her green eyes, lit with compassion and determination. They were eyes he could get lost in, but…not yet. Not now. “You mean she recognized something about one of the gentlemen that made her suspect he was Glynis’s murderer—the man she’d glimpsed coming out of the shrubbery that night.”
“Yes. The first time she’d seen him—leaving the scene of Glynis’s murder—the light was poor. Last night, while the corridor wasn’t ablaze with light, it was better lit. She might have recognized him then, when she hadn’t before.”
“Striding out of the shrubbery entrance and striding out of the billiard room.” He tipped his head. “I grant it’s possible.”
Constance frowned and looked down at the body. “But if she recognized him, why didn’t she say? Rather than retire early—calling attention to her ‘turn’—and giving him a chance to creep in while she slept and smother her.”
Alaric looked down at the remains of what had once been a vibrant lady. Rosa Cleary hadn’t been a saint, but she’d by no means deserved to have her life cut short. He stirred. “Perhaps our speculation is misplaced, and it truly was just a turn. However, the murderer might have reasoned as we just did and decided he needed to ensure Rosa didn’t tell anyone of anything she recognized—now or later.”
He thought, then added, “I believe we can be certain of one thing—Rosa’s reaction last night was enough to sign her death warrant.”
Constance pointed to a small vial on the nightstand. “She very likely took a dose of laudanum to help her sleep. That would have made her even easier prey. No surprise she didn’t wake in time to scream.”
He nodded. “Given she saw the gentlemen exiting the billiard room last evening and had an obvious reaction of some kind, whether she recognized Glynis’s murderer or not didn’t matter. Our gentleman murderer thought that she had, or at some point would, and so he killed her.”
Constance met his eyes, and he read in hers her unqualified agreement.
He held her gaze for an instant more, then looked at Rosa’s body and grimly stated, “It’s time to get Sir Godfrey back.”
* * *
Together with Percy and Edward, Alaric and Constance were waiting in the library when Sir Godfrey arrived.
The portly magistrate stumped through the door, then leaned on his cane to bend a disgruntled eye on Percy. “What’s this, then, Mandeville? Another murder, you say?”
The dark rings beneath his eyes emphasizing his pallor, Percy flatly replied, “So we believe.” He gestured to the door. “You’d best come and take a look.”
