Free Murder at the Breakers by Alyssa Maxwell Page B

out onto the balcony last night? Should we search there, too?”
    I whisked my hand to my side and turned to find Lucy still on all fours, staring up at me curiously. “Uh, no. I was just checking the floor where the rug ends.” I swept my foot back and forth several times. “Don’t see it anywhere.”
    Lucy nodded and returned to raking her fingers through the Persian rug’s thick nap. Pretending to stare down at the nearest chair cushion, I once again set my hand in the dent and smoothed my palm up and down, my fingers spread. The rough edges abrading my skin and a crackling paint chip told me the hollow had been recently made.
    I wondered how long before Uncle Cornelius made it disappear, and whether I could convince Jesse to come out here with the candelabrum before that happened.
    “I give up, Lucy. It’s possible my earring fell off downstairs, or even on my way home.”
    “Have you checked outside, miss? You know, in the grass, where . . .” Her voice trailed off. She rose to her feet.
    “I guess I’ll come back when the rain stops. Or maybe when I return home my housekeeper will have miraculously found it. Would you please find my carriage jacket so I can be on my way?”
    “Of course, miss.”
    Downstairs, she helped me on with my overgarment and ran to open the front door for me. “Will you give Katie my regards, miss? Tell her I say hello?”
    I remembered then that Katie and Lucy had been roommates up in the third floor servants’ quarters, both here and in the New York mansion. None of her former coworkers had contacted Katie all summer; maybe they were afraid to involve themselves in her troubles, fearing their jobs would be at risk. I offered Lucy a smile. “I’d be happy to, and Katie will be glad to hear it. She’d be happier still if you paid her a visit sometime. Gull Manor isn’t far from here.”
    “I’ll . . . uh . . . I’ll try, miss, when I have some time off. Do you want Parker to walk you out with the umbrella?”
    I turned my collar up. “No, thanks. I’ll just make a dash.”
     
    Nanny fussed over me when I arrived home, scolding me halfheartedly for traipsing about in the rain. I only half listened to her lecture while I considered all I had learned on my travels.
    “Theodore Mason had as much or more reason as Brady to want Alvin Goddard dead,” I said as Nanny removed the pins from my hair and tossed a towel over my head.
    “I’ve known Teddy Mason for forty years,” she said mildly. “He didn’t kill anyone.”
    “Oh, I believe you. But the point is that he could have just as easily as Brady. The evidence against both men is purely coincidental . . . or what do they call it? Oh, yes. Circumstantial.” But the last word became gibberish as Nanny moved behind my chair and rubbed my hair with the towel none too gently, wobbling my head this way and that.
    “Circum-who?” She released the towel so that it flopped over my face, and stooped to pick up my dripping half boots from the floor beside me.
    “Circum stantial, Nanny.” I peeked out from a corner of the damp fabric. “I’ll wager you can find him—find where Mason has gone. Couldn’t you, Nanny? I didn’t want to ask anyone at The Breakers. Too obvious.”
    She set my boots before the drawing room fire. “I suppose I could inquire with a friend or two.”
    “Humph. Word spreads along the servants’ gossip route faster than a speeding locomotive, and no one is better connected than you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you discovered who killed Alvin Goddard before suppertime.”
    “Well, if I do, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, I’ll make some honey cakes to take to Brady tomorrow.”
     
    The next morning brought clear skies, and Nanny and I set out together to the Point, to Brady’s third-floor flat in the colonial that had been our childhood home. My parents still owned the house, but rented out the two lower stories to a retired sailor and a pair of widowed sisters, respectively.