“Oh God!” John clutched the side of Ezra’s jacket and cried with his head lowered.
There was a scuffling sound near Giles. When they looked up, he was through the hatch and climbing the ladder into the building. Ainsley watched as Jonas snatched up the gun and ran after him.
“John,” Ainsley said, trying to pull him from Ezra’s body. “John!”
Finally, the man looked up.
“There’s nothing we can do for him now,” Ainsley said. “I have to go after Jonas. I need you to get out of the building as quickly as you can and fetch someone from the Edinburgh Police.”
John moved to stand.
“Quickly!”
With a renewed purpose, John nodded.
Ainsley crept down into the building first and ran down the first flight of stairs to the main hall. At the far end he could see Jonas sprinting in the darkness, only illuminated by the pale moonlight streaming in from the arched window at the end of the hall.
John appeared behind Ainsley. “Go now,” Ainsley mouthed, motioning for him to keep heading down to the ground floor. He watched for a moment as John ran down the flight of stairs, and hoped that help would arrive before Jonas made an irreversible mistake.
“Jonas!” Ainsley ran after him, trying to stay in the shadows at the side of the hall. “Jonas!” If Jonas heard him, he made no indication. Ainsley could just see him at the end of the hall, a black shape sliding further and further away. There was another corridor that joined with this one that would lead to the lecture halls. The shadow of Jonas disappeared at the corner.
Ainsley arrived at the corridor just in time to see Jonas, gun in his hand, duck into the operating theatre.
“Jonas!” Ainsley kept his voice low but the panic was real. Giles could have been anywhere and he had already proved he was capable of killing without a firearm.
Ten feet further down the hall, Ainsley paused and listened for a moment. What was that noise? Breathing.
Ainsley felt a sharp object at his throat and the forceful grasp of Giles behind him, pulling him through a doorway. Ainsley squinted against the brightness of the gaslights above the examination table. Once his eyes adjusted, Ainsley saw Jonas on the other side of the room amongst the spectator railings. A long counter separated them with an assortment of bell jars and scientific apparatus on top. Giles pulled Ainsley further into the room, ensuring the empty examination table was positioned between them.
“Fancy us all meeting here again,” Giles said from behind Ainsley.
Ainsley swallowed and felt the surgical knife pressing into the skin at his Adam’s apple.
“I guess this narrative works too,” Giles said. “Ainsley confronts you. You kill him in a rage. Then Ezra follows you to the roof and you kill him. All before killing yourself. Not my first choice, but still effective.”
“Let Peter go,” Jonas said carefully.
Giles clutched him tighter. “Why? Because he’s your best mate?”
“Because he pleaded for your life. Up on the roof. He told me not to kill you.”
“Another benevolent move, I must say,” Giles said from behind Ainsley.
Ainsley felt himself pulled backward as the knife eased into his skin.
“Giles, Giles, wait.” Ainsley raised his hands another inch to reinforce he was not a threat. “Don’t do this. We’ve been through too much together. All of us.”
Jonas did not lower the gun. Ainsley could see him with both hands up, cradling the piece of metal while keeping Giles squarely in his sights. He could not see Giles but he could feel the man loosen his grip slightly as Ainsley spoke.
“Remember”—Ainsley swallowed—“remember that time when we went drinking when we were supposed to be studying for our chemistry exam. Remember that?”
“Peter, now is not the time.” Jonas eyed them.
Ainsley stood a single finger up on one hand. “This is good, Jonas. Hear me out. Do you remember, Giles? You and I got so drunk we didn’t know what year it was, let alone the date.” Ainsley tried to turn his head to the side to look at Giles and was reminded of the blade at his throat. He looked to Jonas, who shook his head slightly in warning.
“You don’t remember?” Ainsley took on a positive tone in his voice. “We remember, don’t we, Jonas? We remember.” He gestured with his hand back and forth between them.
Jonas nodded his understanding of Ainsley’s meaning and raised the gun half an inch.
Ainsley felt Giles’s grip loosen slightly. “Jonas here was so pissed at me. I don’t remember what I did, maybe I said something, but he was coming for me. He tried to hit me, you remember that? But I ducked out of the way and he hit—”
Ainsley elbowed Giles in the ribs. Once the knife was away from his throat, Ainsley hit the floor and a single shot rang out.
When Ainsley looked up he saw Giles pushed back into the chalkboard. Jonas had hit him squarely in the chest. As the blood gathered in the fibres of his shirt, Giles looked at Jonas with wide, unfocused eyes. The surgical knife dropped from his hand and then he collapsed on the floor.
“You, Giles. I ducked out of the way and Jonas hit you.”
Jonas was at Ainsley’s side. Blood was coming from his neck. He raised a hand to his throat to feel the wound. The cut wasn’t very deep. “A flesh wound,” he said, wincing against the pain as he touched it.
Jonas helped him get to his feet. “Nice story,” he said. “I don’t remember any of that.”
“Because I made it up.” Ainsley looked to Giles on the floor. “It worked, didn’t it?”
As the fight-or-flight response lessened in the minds, they surveyed the scene. Ainsley tried not to replay the events over again in his mind, especially since he knew he’d not be able to help himself from focusing on the alternative outcome. Ainsley closed his eyes and took a breath. When he opened them again he saw the look of horror in Jonas’s eyes as they stood over the body.
“You had no choice,” Ainsley said. “I would have done the same for you.”
They locked eyes for a moment, the worry and fear evident in both of them. Would anyone believe their story or would Jonas have to now pay with his life for the deeds of a madman?
***
By the time Inspector Hearst showed up Jonas and Ainsley were seated on a pair of stools far from the body of Giles. While they waited, Jonas had disinfected Ainsley’s throat wound and applied a bandage. A pair of constables filed into the room after the inspector.
“Check him,” Inspector Hearst said, pointing to the body.
“The gun which shot him is right there,” Ainsley said, gesturing to the weapon that sat on the examination table directly in front of the policeman.
“Who shot him?”
Jonas stood. “I did, sir.”
The inspector looked taken aback by Jonas’s easy confession.
“He saved my life, sir,” Ainsley said and gestured to his bandage.
The friends had been careful not to touch the knife, which remained inches from Giles’s hand.
“He may have used such a knife to kill Professor Frobisher two days before his body was found,” Ainsley said. “There was so little blood in the professor’s office on the night Jonas was found there because the body was moved there.”
“We have a witness as well,” Jonas said, “who will tell you how I came to be at the university that night.”
The inspector looked at them with astonishment. “You figured this all out on your own then?”
Ainsley chuckled slightly and looked to Jonas. “Yes, Inspector, we did.”
A young officer ran into the room and stopped suddenly before he collided with the inspector.
“There’s been another murder, sir,” the constable said, out of breath.
“Where?”
“In New Town, sir. Heriot Row.”
Jonas and Ainsley looked to each other. “Margaret!”
Chapter 34
Mrs. Crane met them in the foyer as they raced in from the carriage.
“Where is she?” Jonas asked, walking past her and the constable next to her.
“The kitchen,” Mrs. Crane said, near to tears. “She’s in the kitchen.”
Ainsley followed closely at his heels as Jonas pushed open the kitchen door and saw Margaret on the floor. Her back was against the cupboard door but Ainsley could see the streaks of blood that dotted her nightgown and the scraping wounds that littered her exposed skin. She hugged her knees close and stared at something on the other side of the room. When they entered she looked up, revealing a tearstained face and quivering lower lip.
“She came for me,” Margaret said, shaking. “She attacked Mrs. Crane and then came for me. She was trying to kill the baby.”
On the other side of the room was Eloise, eyes wide and breathing heavily through a gag fastened around her head and face.
“I wanted to kill her so badly,” she confessed. She looked to Ainsley with wide, expectant eyes as he came to her side. “After everything that has happened, after all we have been through, I never wanted to kill someone so thoroughly.”
“But you didn’t, Margaret,” Ainsley said. “You possess the strength I never had.” He took her hands in both of his in an effort to stop the shaking.
“Are you hurt?” Jonas asked, kneeling at the opposite side.
“Just my arm,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s broken.”
Ainsley pulled out her arm for inspection and felt through the flesh. He shook his head. “It’s not broken.”
Jonas scooped her up in his arms, readjusting his grasp of her once he was standing.
“We still need to conduct our interview of the witness,” a constable at the door said.
“You may do so from the comfort of her room,” Jonas snapped. “This woman is still recovering from a terrible sickness, poison by that monster on the floor.”
Eloise closed her eyes upon hearing Jonas’s disgust for her and began crying uncontrollably. Ainsley walked across the room and helped the officer lift her to her feet.
“Is it true?” the young man asked, as Inspector Hearst entered the room. “This woman is the perpetrator of a poisoning?”
Ainsley looked between both officers. “I personally dropped off the scarf to your offices this afternoon and we have the names of the men who witnessed her touching the scarf,” he said. He reached for the gag to untie it.
“Leave it on,” Inspector Hearst said, raising a hand to stop him. “It’s no less than she deserves.”
***
Three days passed before Margaret was strong enough to travel. On their last evening in Edinburgh, Margaret insisted that Ainsley take her for one final walk around the neighbourhood before they were to head home on the train the next day. Ainsley was careful to ensure Margaret was warm enough and every few hundred feet he asked if she would prefer to head back.
“Just a little further,” she said, clinging to his arm and guiding him forward somewhat.
Ainsley knew they could easily hail a hansom but he worried nonetheless.
“What an interesting little adventure we’ve had, wouldn’t you say? A new round of stories to add to all the others,” she said.
Ainsley chuckled at the thought. The last year had not been boring, in the slightest way. They had come to a stone wall, with dark green ivy trailing over the top.
“What do you make of it all? Have the Marshalls been cursed for some unknown deed in days past?” she asked, walking slowly.
“Cursed?” Ainsley shrugged. “I wouldn’t believe such things. A little adventure never hurt anyone.”
She gave him a sideways glance.
“Well, a scar or two doesn’t change much,” he said.
“Now there is where you are wrong, dear brother.” Margaret stopped and turned to him. “We have changed considerably. We aren’t the people we were twelve months ago and we are all the better for it.”
Ainsley couldn’t help but smile. Her optimism hadn’t been tarnished one bit since her ordeal.
“Come,” she said, pulling at his arm, beckoning him to follow her. “Let us see how today shall change us.” She led him a little further down the pavement and then turned through a stone arch in the wall. Ainsley’s smile faded when he realized they had entered a churchyard and were headed for the front door.
Inside, a gathering of people waited for them expectantly at the end of a short aisle. Jonas stood slightly off-centre of a vicar in a freshly pressed suit with a small flower attached to his lapel.
“What is this?” Ainsley asked.
“Our happiness is better served when we endeavour to follow our own hearts and minds, isn’t that what you said to me?” Margaret smiled.
Ainsley was too dumbstruck to answer.
John stood next to Mrs. Crane, who cried softly into a lace handkerchief. Mr. Locke came into view at their side with a posy of flowers he presented to Margaret.
“Peter, it would be an honour for both of you to walk me down the aisle,” Margaret said, as she removed her shawl and laid it over the back of a pew. She met his gaze and tried hard to suppress her delight in having bested him.
“I …” Ainsley struggled to hide his emotions. He surveyed the scene before them. Three days had passed and no one had said anything to him. “Of course.”
Ainsley moved to her left side as Mr. Locke took his position on the right.
“One more change to round out the year,” Ainsley said.
A sudden look of fear came over Margaret as they paused at the end of the aisle. “Do you think Father will mind that I didn’t have him here?” she asked.
“To hell with what he minds,” Ainsley said rather loudly. “This is about you and Jonas, finally.”
After a moment’s thought, Margaret nodded and replaced her doubt with a cheerful smile. “Are you ready?”
Ainsley nodded. “Are you, dear Margaret?”
Epilogue
The next day Ainsley returned to London alone and found Marshall House quiet and dark upon his arrival. Aunt Louisa spied him from the second-floor landing as he climbed the stairs wearily.
“Where’s Margaret?” she asked.
“She elected to stay in Edinburgh,” Ainsley answered as he reached the top, “with her new husband.”
At the news, Aunt Louisa raised her chin and gave an indignant look. “I should have known something was up when I heard that Mr. Thornton had returned to London so quickly. I doubt it would have been the case if she had accepted his proposal like I instructed her too.”
Ainsley did not bother to hide his sigh of disdain. “Aunt Louisa, we Marshall children are the products of our mother and father alike. We cannot be ordered to do anything we don’t already have a mind to do.” He passed her in the hall and went straight for the nursery, where he knew Lucy would be sleeping.
He was surprised when he found Cassandra seated at the rocking chair coaxing the babe to sleep. “Hello, my love,” he said quietly as he crossed the room.
Cassandra smiled as he came to her and knelt in front of the chair at her feet.
“How is my heiress?” he asked, picking up her small hand and planting a gentle kiss over her knuckles.
“Very well, I suppose,” she said. “With many thanks to Mrs. Louisa Banks for sneaking me here most nights so I can rock her to sleep.”
Ainsley stole a peek at the sleeping Lucy, wrapped up in a few blanket layers.
“How has Father been doing?” he asked. “Difficult as ever, I imagine.”
Cassandra’s face fell at the mention of the invalid down the hall. “He is not doing well, Peter. The doctors have warned us it won’t be long now.”
Two weeks later, the doctor’s warnings came to fruition. Two days after that, the family was gathered around the newly dug grave at North Western Cemetery alongside the gravestone of Lady Charlotte Marshall. Margaret and Jonas had taken the train to London the day before to be there, but the eldest brother, Daniel, refused to look either in the eye. He was the first of the family to leave the grav
eside, beckoning Evelyn, his wife, to follow.
“Give it time,” Ainsley said reassuringly to Margaret as they watched him leave.
“How long do I have to endure this before you too join me in the ranks of shunned Marshall children?” Margaret gestured to Cassandra, who walked a cemetery path alongside Aunt Louisa. “I can’t be the only one casting a long shadow on the great Marshall name.” They kept their voice low so no one else gathered could hear them.
Ainsley smiled. “Not long, I should hope. I wouldn’t fret about it too much. Daniel has only spoken ten words to me since the Edinburgh papers announced the true nature of my trade, in all its gory details.”
Margaret laughed softly. “Oh, how I would have loved to witness him reading that.”
After a few moments of laughter, Margaret and Ainsley noticed the crowd had thinned and they were the only ones left at the graveside.
“What do we do now?” Margaret asked solemnly.
Gently, Ainsley grabbed her wrist and placed her arm under his and guided her away. “We live as we always have, to the best of our ability.”
“You mean by the skin of our teeth,” she teased.
Ainsley shrugged playfully. “That too.”
About Tracy L. Ward
A former journalist and graduate from Humber College's School for Writers, Tracy L. Ward has been hard at work developing her favourite protagonist, Peter Ainsley, and chronicling his adventures as a morgue surgeon in Victorian England. She is currently working on the sixth book in the Marshall House Mystery series set for release in 2017. To find out more about Tracy’s books follow her on https://www.facebook.com/TracyWard.Author or visit her website at http://www.gothicmysterywriter.blogspot.com
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