Free Murder at the Breakers by Alyssa Maxwell Page A

innocent.”
    “I imagine the family wishes to press charges.”
    Bateman shrugged a shoulder. “That’s doubtful. Nothing was ever found, so there’s no proof Mason did it.”
    “Were his room and all his possessions searched?”
    “Of course, miss. But if he did take anything, he’d already disposed of it. Probably pawned the bunch of it up in Providence.”
    “Then what made Mr. Goddard so certain it was Mason?”
    “Opportunity, miss. No one had as much free rein in the house as Mason. And—” He broke off, shuffling his feet.
    “What?” Quickly surmising the reasons someone suddenly took to stealing, I played a hunch. “Did Mason have financial troubles?”
    “He, ah . . .” Bateman threw a glance over his shoulder at the doorway. “Seems he’d taken to gambling on his free time. Horses, mostly. Oh, and greyhounds.”
    “Oh, dear.” Bateman was fidgeting now, eager to be away, but I had another question for him. “Was he very upset to be dismissed?”
    The man’s gaze sharpened. I could see his mind working, trying to divine my meaning. “He was furious, miss. But that doesn’t mean . . .”
    Doesn’t mean he was driven to murder? Possibly not—probably not—but as easy as it had been for Brady to sneak in last night, who was to say the Vanderbilts’ head butler, who knew the house better than the family themselves, couldn’t have done likewise? I’d always liked Mason, but as Jesse had implied, all avenues needed exploring.
    “No, of course it doesn’t,” I conceded, wondering where Mason could be found, if he was still in town. I lifted my teacup in both hands to warm my palms against the nearly translucent porcelain. “I suppose I’m trying to prove a point, at least in my own mind. And it’s that opportunity does not necessarily a criminal make.”
    Our gazes met for an instant before his angled away. Obviously I wasn’t just talking about Mason. Bateman probably believed Brady was guilty, but it was never proper for a servant to express an opinion, especially of a personal nature. It was time to let the man resume his duties.
    “If it’s all right, Bateman, I need to run upstairs. I believe I lost something last night . . . in all the commotion. One of my earrings. They were a present from my parents and I’d surely hate to lose it.”
    “I’ll send Lucy up with you to help you search.”
    I didn’t bother objecting. It didn’t matter if I had an audience or not, or that my earring would not be found in Uncle Cornelius’s bedroom—that it was, in fact, safe at home in my jewelry box.
    A few minutes later, as Lucy got down on her hands and knees and began combing the bedroom floor, she apologized nonstop for the rug having been thoroughly swept and scrubbed that morning.
    “We were awfully intent on cleaning up the spilled spirits and candle wax. If your earring had been here, miss, there’s a good chance it was swept up into one of our dustpans and tossed in the garbage.”
    “I’m sure not, Lucy. One of you would have noticed it.” I felt a tad guilty, because while the eager girl focused her attention downward, I looked upward, studying the dent in the frame of the balcony door. That was why I had come, to examine that depression in the wood and compare it in size and shape with the candelabrum Brady had used to see his way across the room. I placed my hand up against it. My palm fit easily inside, and I judged the depth to be about a quarter inch, suggesting a good, strong swing against the frame. But with what?
    The base of the candelabrum might easily span four or so inches, but not the main shaft, nor the slender branches. If someone swung the piece by those branches and struck the wood hard enough to make that dent, wouldn’t the delicate, curving silver have snapped? And if someone had held the candelabrum farther down, they could not have gotten enough momentum for the base to have made such a defined depression in the wood.
    “Miss Emmaline, did you step