City of Light (City of Mystery) Read Online Free Page B

Especially murder
weapons.”
    “Which exonerates
the maid,” Tom said.
    Emma frowned. “I
don’t follow.”
    “Her fingerprints
should be all over the knife.  It would be suspicious if they weren’t.  So she
had no reason to wipe it clean.”
    “You’re making the
rather daring assumption that she was rational,” Emma said. “Or that anyone is
can be rational in the middle of a murder scene.  She’s a maid.  Perhaps she
just cleans things compulsively, as a matter of course, and has never heard the
word ‘fingerprint’ in her whole life.”
    “What do the French
have?” Davy asked.
    Trevor picked up the
letter.  “From the blood splatter they conclude that the victim was struck from
behind, spun and fell.  Just as you suggested, Tom, so bully there. They agree
with our interpretation that the killer entered without a weapon and grabbed
whatever was close at hand.”
    “He came to see the
maid,” Emma ventured.  “Entered at a time he knew she would be in the kitchen,
but the cook was there too – which makes no sense.  It’s dinner hour, of course
the cook would be in the kitchen.”
    “No, I like where
you’re going with that, Emma,” Trevor said, twisting in his seat to look at
her. “I shall write and ask Rayley if anyone thought to inquire if there had
been a change of plans.  Perhaps this was the cook’s normal night of leisure
and our killer believed he would encounter the maid alone.  But he stumbles
upon the cook instead.”
    “A tryst gone bad,”
Tom said.  “Possible.”
    “So he’s dismayed to
find the cook instead of his lover,” Emma said.  “That’s a disappointment to
his romantic plans, but scarcely incentive to murder.”
    “Besides,” Davy
said, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table too, in a mimic of Tom’s
casual posture.  He’s becoming more comfortable in Geraldine’s home, Trevor
noted with silent satisfaction.  Emma, who lived here, and Tom, who was a
member of the family, walked through these large and elegant rooms with
confidence, but the first time Davy visited he had been clearly intimidated by
his surroundings, standing at attention like a schoolboy until Gerry had insisted
he take a seat. They all came from such different walks of life, his three
young charges, and yet the Murder Games were proving to be a great equalizer.
    “Besides,” Davy was
saying.  “If he was her lover, why would the maid tell the French police that
she didn’t know him?”
    This brought an
explosion of laughter from around the table, Tom doubling over so far in mirth
that he nearly tumbled from his seat.  “Davy, I hate to be the one to deliver
the news,” Tom said, when he could finally talk.  “But sometimes the fairer sex
is also the more devious one.  Women lie.”
    “Well, in this case
it would be rather warranted, wouldn’t it?” Emma said sharply, although she was
wiping tears away too. “I can’t imagine telling your employer, much less the
police, that your lover had killed the family cook.  Good cooks are too hard to
find.”
    “Presumably they are
more plentiful in Paris,” Tom said.  “But Emma is quite right.  Perhaps the
maid and the killer were in cahoots of some kind and when the caper went awry,
she dared not confess.”
    “Or perhaps they’re
all just mad,” Davy said, showing great equanimity even after having been the
butt of the latest joke.  “The French, you know.”
    “The most likely
theory yet, in my opinion,” Gerry said, with such a broad smile at Davy that
the boy actually blushed. “They’re French and thus barking mad and that’s the
whole of it.”
    “Did she scream?”
Emma asked.
    “Letter doesn’t
say,” Trevor says.
    “You certainly let
out a bellow, old girl,” Tom said, with a little wink that Trevor was the only
one to notice.  “First the murderer yells out, then Gage, but your shriek was
the one that startled Davy and me half out of our chairs.”
    “My point
precisely,” Emma