by Ella Edon
“But…it cannot be true,” he said to himself, feeling stupid. He sounded like a bad actor in the King’s Theater. He had never done this before. He shut his eyes, convincing himself to believe in the role. He was out here, having a monologue, discussing the possibility of Hanford as the murderer.
“It cannot be true,” he repeated more confidently. “Hanford couldn’t have killed my father. Where would he have got the poison? Unless he was known to visit the apothecary. Of course! That’s where he got it.” He raised his voice a little for the next part, hoping that the steward was alert, listening – he’d hate to have to enact this again.
“I will go to the authorities and tell them my suspicions. My uncle agrees with me – Hanford murdered my father and Lady Edmore… He did it to try to steal money, but Uncle got in first, and stopped him. Hanford?”
He banged on the door, and was unsurprised when it shot open, the man appearing with a stricken face at the doorway.
“Sir!” he said, and he was close to weeping. “Sir… What do you want of me, to disturb me at my dinner?”
Cutler looked down his nose at him, not having to pretend the indifference he felt. He had never liked Hanford, and a part of him almost wished he had been the killer. He was certainly an unappealing person – cold, hard, and disinterested in anything but the pursuit of wealth.
“I have realized that there was a secret, well-kept, in my childhood,” he said sternly. “My uncle all but confirmed it yesterday. You were there when my father and guardian died. You were the only person well-connected with the apothecary. And you could have stolen all the money in the accounts, had not my uncle forestalled you. You killed him, didn’t you?”
“What?” Hanford stared at him in horror. “No. No, sir! I swear it! I did not. It was not me. I think that your uncle…” He was stepping past Cutler, trying to get out of the room.
“My uncle what?” Cutler demanded, resting a hand on his shoulder to stop him escaping.
“Your uncle… I always suspected him. He arrived too soon, knew too much about the accounts. And he could have known any apothecary in London! How would you know if he had bought a poison there? Eh? I swear, I did nothing.”
Hanford was almost weeping, and Cutler felt his fear turn to contempt. He had always been afraid of Hanford’s cold disinterest, but seeing him now, pleading so fulsomely, made all of that fear turn to distaste. He looked away.
“He knew too much, you say?” he asked. “In what sense?”
“Your uncle descended on my books almost as soon as he arrived. He knew about the London account, and the investments in French glass. He knew about the second account in York, and how to access it. He must have been gleaning all that information for years! And he arrived promptly!”
“That’s true.” Cutler nodded. He hadn’t paid that much heed, but the fact that his uncle had been there on the same day the only adults in his life had passed away, was very noteworthy.
“I always suspected him,” Hanford added, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “He was too grasping, too interested by far.”
“And yet, you did his bidding unquestioningly, anyway,” Cutler said thinly. “You parceled me off to this house as soon as the will was read, with never a backward glance.”
“The will wasn’t read.”
Cutler stared at him. “What?”
“I mean to say, it was read, of course,” Mr. Hanford demurred. “I was there, and so was the solicitor, and the accountant from York. We all bore witness to it with your uncle. But he had been in the study the evening before, and well… I always wondered if…” His voice trailed off.
“If what?”
“It seemed strange that you, as his son, received nothing,” Hanford said and frowned. “I wondered if some words were not changed, some things added, between the reading and your father’s death.”
“You think my uncle altered the will?” Cutler stared at him. “To benefit himself?”
Mr. Hanford licked his lips. “I do not know any of this, sir,” he said cautiously. “In fact, I hope that tomorrow you will return to your senses and forget this conversation. You had no right to frighten me into revealing this to you, and I hope this will be the end of it.”
“It would be,” Cutler said mildly, “Except that Lady Raymonde just wrote it all down.”
“What?” Mr. Hanford stared at him in stark terror. “What? Where is she?”
“I am here,” Lady Raymonde said mildly. “And it’s amazing what having learned shorthand can do,” she added with a brief upward tilt of the lips. “We have recorded everything.”
Cutler stared at her, prouder than he had ever felt in his life before. She was holding a pen and paper, and she held it casually, her hood falling back to reveal her auburn mane. He smiled in spite of the danger.
“What will you do?” Mr. Hanford whispered. “You won’t…” He cast fearful eyes in the direction of Alford, and Cutler could almost guess what he was going to say.
“I will not tell my uncle that you said this,” Cutler promised. “Which means that, you won’t mind signing this report, will you?” He gestured at the paper. “It would be of great use to us in court, and, well, if your name is on it, I can always convince the judge to keep the author anonymous, should we require it.”
Mr. Hanford had gone white. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Cutler felt no remorse and neither did he feel relieved. As Hanford reached for the paper and pen, he felt nothing at all.
“Sign it, and give it back,” he said stiffly. “Or I will ensure you regret it.” He patted his side, though he had not brought his pistol with him. He had no desire whatever to shoot Hanford, even by mistake.
He wouldn’t have even wasted a bullet on me as a boy. I will do the same.
He watched as Hanford signed the note and then thrust it at him, his face settling back into patterns of defiant anger.
“You won’t get away with this,” Mr. Hanford said firmly. “You would do better to leave things as they are.”
“And I bet he promised you a good pension,” Cutler said, looking the man in the eye.
“He…” Mr. Hanford protested, but Cutler turned his back on him and walked down the steps, standing back for Raymonde to go down ahead of him.
They had more things to see to completion that night.
They went to his bedroom, locking the door behind them. The fire burned hot in the grate and Cutler stoked the flames, lighting a lamp. Raymonde looked up at him as he glanced over the signed letter.
“I will hide it,” he said.
Raymonde nodded, and gestured to the wardrobe. She pointed to a false bottom on her suitcase. Cutler nodded and slipped it inside. Nobody would think of searching for it there. Then he bent down to kiss her.
“You were incredible,” he whispered into her hair, and she squeezed him tight. When she looked up at him, her eyes were damp, her face flushed.
“You were, too,” she said. “And if you ever need cash, there’s a stage out there. Now, we have to go.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think the theater is paying folk like me,” he replied. “But, thank you. I will take that as a compliment.”
“It is one,” she laughed. They unlocked the door and headed out into the night.
As he walked briskly down the path, the night wind lifting his cloak and stinging his cheeks, Cutler felt the elation of their success start to cool; it was replaced with a nauseous unease. He swallowed hard and slowed his steps, falling in beside Raymonde. She looked very calm, and he wondered what she was thinking. They reached the horses and mounted up.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered to her.
She looked into his eyes. “We have to. We know he did it, now. It’s time he was brought to answer for what he did.”
“Yes,” Cutler agreed. The nausea didn’t go away, however – rather, it multiplied. He wanted more than anything he could imagine to bring his father’s murderer to light, but to do it by risking Raymonde was mor
e than he could handle. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, giving him reassurance.
“I’ll be fine.”
Cutler nodded. “Yes, you will,” he said softly. He didn’t know if he believed that. She needed to believe it.
It wasn’t safe, usually, to ride in the dark. But the path was straightforward, and Alford House was not far. The night was cloudless and bright, and Cutler felt himself relax, though the whispering wind in the trees still made him shudder uneasily.
They reached the manor grounds.
“The gate’s open,” Cutler whispered. He rode on ahead and up the path. If his uncle had ever grown sufficiently suspicious to post guards, he had not heard about it. He rode ahead, the sound of the horse’s hoofs crunching in gravel the only sound in the night.
“Right,” Cutler whispered as they reached the end of the path. He stared up at Alford House, feeling the nausea that had been plaguing him all evening growing and building inside him. He dismounted and waited while Raymonde did the same, knowing that this was the dangerous part and he could not bear it.
“We don’t have to do this,” he whispered to her, as he watched her dismount elegantly in the moonlight, her feet crunching on the gravel of the path.
“We are doing this.”
Cutler nodded. He felt awful, but he was unable to argue with that unshakeable confidence. What could he do? He took their horses and tied their reins to a tree, a loose slip-knot that could be easily undone.
Then, he crept around behind the hedge, and waited.
Raymonde walked up the steps to the front door. He watched as she paused there, and he felt his heart turn over. This was the place that had haunted his nightmares; a house he had not visited since the day he was given his commission to the army – a place haunted with the death of his father and Lady Edmore. The windows were blank eyes, condemning him. The gables, soaring from three floors overhead, looked menacing.
Raymonde knocked at the door.
Cutler held his breath. It was nine of the clock, and he was sure the servants would still be awake – his uncle had probably only just finished dinner. He clenched his hands, terrified of what would happen to her.
The door opened. Cutler swallowed hard. He watched the butler – a man whose name he didn’t know – speak in a voice too low to hear. Then Raymonde replied.
“Take me to see the Earl, if you please. He will know who I am.”
Cutler heard how brave and bold she sounded, and he felt his heart ache. He was frightened for her. He waited until the door had swallowed her up, taking the candlelight with it, and then he sprang to action.
“I hope this…works,” he muttered to himself, tugging at a metal handle. When he was a boy, there had always been a small window, leading through into the storage-cupboard. It was wide enough to admit a boy to slide in, designed to air the fruits and vegetables that were stored in there for the winter. He had used it sometimes, as a quick way into and out of the house unobserved. In all his years of childhood at this place, it had been unlocked.
“Damn…it,” he grunted, tugging the handle again. The window was unlocked – the handle was turned sideways – but he could not make it budge… It was stuck in place with rust. He groaned and grunted, wondering if perhaps he should break it. The most important part of the plan was that he get in at the same time as she did, so that he could be there and overhear what his uncle said.
“May Perdition have it…” he grunted, bending to pick up a rock to break the window. If somebody overheard, then everything would be ruined. He spotted something else – a long piece of metal – a prop for a tree or shrub. He pulled it out and jammed it into the window. Then, tugging, the window straining and squeaking, it came open. He sighed in relief.
“Now… I need to fit.”
He slid through – his body could slide in easily enough – but his head was a harder fit. An adult man could just pass in through the window, it seemed, but he was not going to get in without leaving some skin. He forced himself through the gap, feeling a sudden pain as the skin of his forehead grazed.
He was in.
Moving as quietly as he could, he let himself out of the pantry, almost knocking over a stack of jars in the dark. The flagstones under his feet were clean and slippery, and he tiptoed across them and up the stairs. He ran to the door and pulled it open, and then, there he was!
He was in the entrance-way.
One lamp burned in a sconce on the wall, shedding a soft glow. The marble floor was polished and slippery and he walked over it as quickly as he could, relieved when he reached the stairs just as he heard feet hurrying across the marble floor.
Tiptoeing up the carpeted stairs, relieved that they did not creak, he managed to reach the top. There, he paused. There were voices in the drawing-room.
He tiptoed closer.
One of the voices he recognized at once – low-pitched and clear, it was Raymonde’s. He stood where he was, heart thudding in his chest. The other voice, equally low and sibilant, was his uncle’s.
“You come to me, to confess this?”
Raymonde’s voice replied, clearly. “Yes. To whom else should I bring these suspicions?”
“I wonder,” his uncle’s voice replied. He heard a smooth humor there that chilled him. He took a few steps forward, reaching an alcove where he could stand and see into the open door. He felt his hands clench into fists as he saw his uncle.
He had always been tall, and though Raymonde was a tall woman, and elegant, he was much taller. He loomed over her, and he had approached her so closely that she stood with her back to the wall, while he stood perhaps two hands’ breadth away. He could see how scared Raymonde was.
“What do you wonder?” Her voice was strained, the first sign of her fear.
“I wonder why you came to me with this,” his uncle said and smiled. The room was lit by the glow of three lamps, and the brightness caught his teeth in that quick grin. “I wonder if, perhaps, you do not seek to align yourself with me for some other purpose?”
Cutler felt anger almost swallow him. If his uncle laid so much as a finger on Raymonde, he would strangle him with his bare hands.
“I have no other purpose,” Raymonde said clearly. “I only wished to tell you that I believe Mr. Hanford to have murdered your predecessor. The evidence is clear to me.”
“Ah.” Lord Stirling smiled again, showing white teeth. He raised a dark brow. “And, if I denounce Hanford, whom you obviously dislike…what do I hope to gain by it?”
Raymonde swallowed. “You gain that nobody will any longer suspect you.”
His uncle made a soft sound that could have been a laugh. He turned back to Raymonde and Cutler held his breath as he rested a hand on her hair.
“I think I am already safe from suspicion,” he said softly. “If I make a case about this, I would like a more tangible reward.”
Cutler felt his heart twist in hatred as his uncle stroked her neck. He was filled with horror and the impulse to kill. He had never felt anything like this, not even in the depths of war.
Wait, his mind told him, fighting to overcome the rage. Just wait. You haven’t achieved what you set out to do…not yet.
“What makes you think nobody suspects you?” Raymonde asked. Cutler felt admiration for her, even as he despised his uncle.
His uncle laughed again. “Nobody has come forward to accuse me in more than ten years,” he said. “I sometimes wonder at people, and how they see so little.”
Cutler almost stopped breathing. He was so close to a confession of murder! So close.
“There was something to see?” Raymonde asked. She rested a hand on his shoulder, looking up at him in fascination. As much as Cutler knew she was acting, he couldn’t help the fact that he was jealous.
His uncle took her hand and lifted it to his lips. Then he nodded. “There is always something to see,” he said. He looked into her eyes. “People are dolts, and they don’t think – they’re so willing to hand over control tha
t they don’t bother to think about why somebody has appeared to take it.”
“You killed the Earl, didn’t you?” Raymonde said.
Cutler almost stopped breathing. In all their discussion, an outright accusation had never been part of the plan.
His uncle’s face darkened. He stared at her. “What?” he whispered. “Why do you say that?”
Raymonde shrugged. “Well, it’s obvious, is it not? You appeared at the right moment, organized the reading of the will, took command here, sent the boy off to school…you were that person people didn’t think of accusing – the person who took the power they gave to you.”
His uncle took a step back. Cutler could see the new tension in his posture that he was afraid now.
