The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes by Cathy Ace

giving too much significance to the stain on his jeans, and the mark on his legs.”
    â€œ We ?” said Bud. “ You’re the one doing that, Cait. I’m just helping you see it’s not possible for a bar to have been hit across his legs while he was on the stairs. I think your new theory is much more likely.”
    I jumped down from the table to join Bud. “Okay then, so let’s go back upstairs and see what he might have knocked against within a couple of minutes of his fall. He couldn’t have covered much ground in that time, so we could go up the stairs he came down and hunt about at the top. Oh, wait a minute . . . let me think.” I held up my hand as my mind whirred.
    â€œI wasn’t saying a word,” whispered Bud.
    â€œSsh. Think about it, Bud. David Davies’s body was at the bottom of the up stairs—Dilys said so—not at the bottom of the down stairs. Why would that be?”
    Bud shrugged. “We just walked down the up stairs, Cait. Why wouldn’t, or couldn’t, he do the same thing?”
    â€œBecause we didn’t know the difference, because we don’t live here, and it’s the middle of the night, so we weren’t likely to be found out by the delightful Dilys. Besides, even if we had known, we’re guests here and we leave in a few days, so what’s the worst she can do to us? David lived here. He was her son-in-law, and I bet he’d get it in the neck from her if she ever found him using the wrong stairs. Also, it was the middle of the afternoon. It would have been very risky for him to use the wrong stairs.”
    Bud shook his head. “I know you have a brain the size of a planet, and you’re a genius and belong to Mensa, and all that, but you really do overthink things sometimes, Cait. David Davies, if we’re to believe what little we’ve heard, wasn’t someone who was well liked by Dilys Jones, and maybe that’s because he was habitually misusing her stairs. Just saying it sounds ridiculous, I realize that. Stairs are stairs, for heaven’s sake. Of course I get that using the ones nearest the dining room means that the food gets there hotter, but, other than that, there really cannot be a good reason for her rules being observed. And this is me saying this, Cait, and you know what I’m like for obeying the rules.”
    â€œExcept when it comes to stealing trifle in the wee hours.” I smirked.
    Bud shivered. “That aside, maybe when there was a huge staff of people running up and down with dishes and multiple servings, it would have made more sense to have an in-door and an out-door for the kitchen, like they do in modern restaurants, and associated up and down staircases. But these days? It seems to be just her carrying food from one place to another, so why all the fuss? She can’t run into herself.”
    â€œMaybe Rhian, her daughter, usually helps?” I suggested. “Despite the fact that no one wanted to talk about the nature of David’s death very much, there’s no denying that tonight’s dinner wasn’t what had been planned. Delicious though it was.”
    Bud dropped his shoulders and admitted, “Yes, maybe you have a point there.” Then he lifted his head and added, “But I still think that David Davies sounds like the kind of guy who’d quite happily jog down the up stairs if they got him where he wanted to go. And hang what his mother-in-law might say to him if she found him breaking her rules.”
    â€œWhy was David Davies in the kitchen, or coming down the stairs to it, at least?”
    â€œOh come on, Cait. That’s no great mystery. His wife might have been down here, or he might have had any of a number of other reasons to be coming here—you know, like being hungry and wanting to nibble on something? Or he might have been looking for someone he thought was down here—anyone who lives here.