with a wavering light as the wind chased the clouds across the sun and away again.
“Who wore blue?” Charlotte pressed, closing the door behind them.
“I can’t remember,” Emily answered. “Anyway, you might wear blue slippers under another color, if it was the closest you had, or the most comfortable. None of them, except perhaps Eudora, have enough money to buy slippers for every dress.”
“How do you know?”
Emily gave her a sideways look. “Don’t be naive. Because I’m observant. You may not, but I know what is this season’s fashion and what is last … and what things cost. And I know good silk from cheap, or wool from bombazine or mixture.”
“So who wore blue?”
“I’m trying to think!”
“I don’t think it was Kezia.”
“Why not? Because you like her? I think she could have just the nerve to do it,” Emily argued. “I don’t think Iona McGinley would. She’s all dreams and romantic notions. She’d rather talk about things and prompt other people than do them herself.”
“Maybe,” Charlotte conceded. “Although that could be a pose. But I had a rather more practical reason for thinking it was not Kezia. She’s rather well built. With a maid’s dress over her own she’d look … well, pretty enormous. Gracie would have noticed her size. Anyway, whose dress would go over hers? Are any of the ladies’ maids really stout?”
“No. Maybe you’re right. That leaves Eudora herself, which is very likely, or Iona.”
“Or Justine,” Charlotte added.
“Justine? Why on earth would Justine kill Ainsley Greville?” Emily said derisively, her eyes wide. “She isn’t Irish. She’d never even met him before the previous day, and she was going to marry his son, for heaven’s sake!”
“I can’t think of any reason at all. I don’t think there is even very much money.”
“Don’t be squalid.” Emily’s mouth turned down at the corners.
“People have been known to kill for money,” Charlotte pointed out.
Emily ignored her, which expressed her opinion very clearly.
“Blue gown,” Charlotte repeated.
“I’m thinking! I haven’t seen Eudora in blue. She prefers warm colors and greens. I don’t think blue would suit her.” She shrugged. “Not that that means she wouldn’t wear it, of course. People wear the most awful things sometimes. Do you remember Hetty Appleby, with the mouse-colored hair, wearing yellow? She looked like a cheese!”
“No.”
“Really, you are so unobservant sometimes,” Emily said in disgust. “I don’t know how you are ever the least use to Thomas.”
“Justine wore cream with blue,” Charlotte replied.
“I think we agreed Justine had no earthly reason. And I remember now, Iona wore blue, dark blue like the sea at night. All very romantic. Fergal Moynihan could hardly take his eyes off her.”
“He’d have been like that whatever she wore. We’d better go and look at their shoes.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because Iona will be in her room, for a start,” Emily pointed out. “We can hardly interrupt her and say ‘Please may we look through your wardrobe to see if we can find a pair of blue-heeled slippers, because we think you were wearing them when you killed Ainsley Greville in his bath?’ ”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You go when we are all at luncheon,” Emily commanded. “I shall keep everyone occupied at the table. You excuse yourself, blame a headache or something.”
“What do you mean ‘keep everybody occupied’?” Charlotte said with a touch of sarcasm. “If they are at luncheon, they will be occupied anyway.”
“I’ll see they don’t leave. I can’t very well plead a headache, even if I have a real one. What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”
“No, of course not,” Charlotte replied indignantly. “I don’t want it to be Eudora, for Thomas’s sake, and I don’t want it to be Justine, because I like her.”
“I don’t want it to be anybody,” Emily agreed. “Because I think Ainsley Greville was a complete bounder. But wanting has nothing to do with it.”
“I know that! I’ll find the slippers during luncheon.”
When Pitt had left her, Grade’s brief moment of feeling better vanished. There was only one good thing about it. She was quite sure the “maid” she had seen was not Doll Evans. She had not been tall enough for Doll, she was sure of that now. And she did not think Doll would take anyone’s shoes, but if she had worn slippers with heels like that, she would have been even taller. Only now did she realize how afraid she had been that Doll had gone into the bathroom and hit Greville over the head and then pulled him under the water. She had certainly had provocation. Gracie had no sympathy with Ainsley Greville at all. Anyone who could do that to a girl, and to his own child, deserved a lot of pain in return. It was just a pity so many other people had to suffer as well. But maybe nobody ever suffered without taking other people with them.
