The Bet

by Rebecca King

  Barnabas stood and thoughtfully refilled their glasses. “I think you are right, son. But we have to tread very carefully on this. To begin with, we don’t want to alert them to the fact that we are trying to find them. I think we need help to get a permanent watch put onto those woods so we can see who is coming and going, or showing an unhealthy interest in the place. It is private property. As the land owner, I will take steps to make sure the fences are heightened, and the appropriate signs are put up warning everyone to stay away from the place. However, that may not be enough to thwart them. This has been going on for years, don’t forget. Whoever is behind it must be elderly by now.”

  “Or there are a lot of them,” Myles replied.

  Barnabas nodded. “I know. If they are prepared to go out there on a night like this they won’t respect a fence and a warning sign. They will just clamber over everything and scare off anybody who ventures too close.”

  Myles paused then and realised that was what his father was getting at. “Like Estelle.”

  Barnabas sighed. “Can you remember old Mrs Harrington, the nice old but rather eccentric lady who used to peg her washing out on the line when it was snowing and only fetched it in when it was stiff with ice?”

  Myles grinned. “Quite distinctly.”

  Barnabas smiled at him. “Well, she began to ramble on about lights in the woods. People listened at first and gossiped a bit but nobody really believed her. She became more and more wild about it and insisted to anybody who would listen that there were horrible creatures in those woods, and they meant harm. People assumed she was going out of her mind, but because she didn’t have any relatives, they couldn’t do anything about getting her looked after. The doctor insisted she was quite compos mentis and was quite capable of looking after herself. Right up until the end, she insisted that someone used those woods, and they were dangerous.”

  “I was sorry to see her go,” Myles replied sadly.

  “We all were, especially given there are so many questions about her death,” Barnabas said.

  “What? I thought she died in her sleep.” Myles froze in the act of taking a sip of his brandy and looked over the top of his goblet at his father. “She didn’t?”

  Barnabas shook his head slowly. “It is what people were told to quell the gossip. The facts were strange. She was found sitting up in her chair in the kitchen beside the fireplace. No cause of death could be found other than a tiny mark on the back of her head but nobody could decide what it was. It wasn’t a lump or a cut; nothing like that.”

  “Did anybody find out?” Myles asked.

  Barnabas shook his head. “It wasn’t only the wound that worried everybody, she had twigs and leaves on the bottom of her skirt just like your lady had. There was also a look of sheer terror on her face. I don’t mean fear, but outright terror. As though she had been scared to death. I can remember the doctor saying that she looked as though she had been petrified at the point of death. There was no obvious sign of injury, though, just the foliage stuck to her clothing and the look of fear. The doctor put natural causes on the death certificate because he couldn’t find any other cause. He couldn’t put that ‘terror’ had killed her now could he?”

  “Good Lord,” Myles whispered. He thought about the small, now abandoned, cottage located on the outskirts of the village between the village and the woods, and shook his head.

  “I think that she might have said too much to the wrong people about those lights,” Barnabas sighed. “I don’t mind saying that it gives me a very unusual feeling to have seen those lights out there tonight. It reminds me of what Mrs Harrington used to say. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.” He looked at his son. “Mrs Harrington’s cottage has never been sold, nor has anybody lived there since.”

  “I know it is falling to ruin,” Myles replied with a nod. “I wonder why the family have never sold it. I heard her son inherited it.”

  “Yes, but he died in the war. I don’t think any other relatives have been found. It just sits there, rotting away.”

  Myles heard the starkness in his father’s voice and looked up.

  “You think there is something odd about that.” Myles knew he was right.

  Barnabas sighed. “I just know that every property that becomes available in that village is taken up very quickly. Nary a property stands empty for more than a week. Mrs Harrington’s has stood empty for over ten years now. It is unfortunate, especially seeing as the house stands in quite a nice location.”

  Myles nodded. “Right next to the Whistling Woods.”

  “Whoever is wearing those cloaks has a lot to hide,” Barnabas warned.

  “They are also arrogant,” Myles added. “Once they had been seen they had no qualms about following me home and letting me know that they knew who I was. I cannot help but feel that I was being warned.”

  Barnabas nodded. He took a long slug of his brandy and dropped the cup onto the table before him. Leaning forward, he looked at his son. “It is an arrogant thing to do seeing as we own the woods they are trespassing onto. I warn you now, Myles, that if they are not stopped then those woods are going to come down. That will put a stop to them once and for all.”

  Myles nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He leaned forward and carefully turned his attention to the next pressing matter of the evening: his return from London.

  Before he could say anything, Barnabas pierced him with a hard look.

  “Now, about that letter, care to show me what you received?”

  Myles dug deep into his pocket to retrieve the missive he had shoved in there before he had left London. He handed it to his sire, and watched Barnabas read it.

  “This is a reasonable parody of Gerald’s hand, I’ll grant you. But it isn’t his,” Barnabas murmured as he squinted at the paper. “I can see how you were fooled.”

  “I don’t understand why anybody would want to send it,” Myles replied with a sigh. He knew from the pensive look on his father’s face that he was thinking carefully about something that was deeply troubling.

  “I do,” Barnabas muttered.

  Before he could say anything else the study door opened.

  Myles stood and turned to look at the new arrival.

  “Good God, it’s you,” he murmured, and sat back down again with a heavy thump.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Evening.”

  “I thought you were in Scotland,” Myles said with a frown.

  He watched Gerald and Barnabas trade a look before Gerald closed the door and came to join them.

  “I was about to leave,” Gerald replied.

  Myles waited for his uncle to explain further but Barnabas spoke instead.

  “Come and sit down, Gerald, and look at this. I take it that you didn’t send it?”

  Barnabas handed the letter to his brother and watched a look of complete astonishment sweep over Gerald’s face that was so instinctive Barnabas knew immediately that his brother knew nothing about it.

  “I don’t know who sent this but it certainly isn’t me,” Gerald announced flatly as he slapped it down onto the small table beside Barnabas and went to pour himself a large brandy. “I should like to know who has sent that in my name, though. I shall have the cretins in front of a magistrate, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my being a trifle rude, uncle, but what brings you here? I thought you were off to Scotland to the hunting lodge,” Myles asked once Gerald had taken a seat on the chaise between him and his father.

  “I was, but then I received this.” Gerald dug around in the pocket of his waistcoat and handed a folded sheet of parchment to Myles.

  Myles felt a familiar sinking sensation when he read Gerald’s name written in the same scrawling script as his own note. Curious, and growing increasingly worried by the second, he read it fully.

  Dear Uncle,

  Father has taken poorly. It is serious, I am afraid. Please hurry to the hall, he is asking for you. I fe
ar the worst will be upon us soon.

  Yours,

  Myles.

  “Good Lord,” Myles muttered. He read the missive one more time before he picked up the letter he had received and placed both pieces of parchment side by side on a table between them so they could all look at them. “They have definitely been written by the same hand, and it isn’t my handwriting either.”

  “Why would anybody do this?” Barnabas asked looking every inch as concerned as Myles felt.

  “Well, they wanted us here, in this house, didn’t they?” Gerald snorted. “And they got us here too. I mean, what better way could they use to get us both to rush over here like fools? I don’t know about you but I dropped everything, and I was just about to leave for my hunting break as well.”

  “While I am deeply touched that you would both be so determined to see me in my final hours, I am strangely disconcerted that someone is putting about news of my imminent demise,” Barnabas grumbled.

  “Why would someone want us to come here? I was only here three days ago. It seems foolhardy to wait until I reached London, and then go to the time and trouble of sending a note all that way to call me back here, just as some kind of game.”

  “Damned cruel trick if you ask me,” Gerald muttered.

  Myles heartily agreed with his sentiments. Immediately, his thoughts turned to the lights outside. Deep in the back of his mind, a tendril of a thought began to filter through his confusion. It took root and began to blossom like a seed in the spring-time. He suspected that Estelle’s flight out of the woods, the hooded cloaks, and the reason he had received the deceiving note were all connected somehow, but he couldn’t see how just yet.

  I don’t know if I am seeing shadows and links where there are none, he mused as he studied the flames in the fireplace. I certainly hate to think I am the victim of somebody’s sick prank like this, but what other reason could anybody have to get us all here together like this?

  Nobody knew he was going to come back to London – not unless they knew Myles well enough to know that he would drop everything and rush home as quickly as he had.

  “When did you receive your letter?” Myles asked his uncle.

  “Yesterday,” Gerald replied. “I drove all day to get here. I was damned angry to walk in and find him eating his breakfast without a care in the world, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “I am sorry my being alive has put you out so,” Barnabas replied dryly.

  Gerald threw him a glare but didn’t speak. Instead, he shook his head and pointed to the letters. “What I want to know is who else has received one of those?”

  “Well, Vernon is already here. He is in the music room, I think. Then Eva is here, as always. She has gone to bed early with a headache,” Barnabas explained.

  “Has anybody heard from Beatrice?” Myles looked at his father who shook his head.

  “Not as yet, no. I doubt we will given how this weather has turned.”

  “What about Isaac?” Myles looked at Gerald, who snorted.

  “He is here. He was about to come with me to the shoot and drove half of the way here. Stupid boy finds the whole ruse hilarious.”

  “I don’t,” Barnabas retorted dourly.

  “Neither do I,” Myles replied swiftly. “In fact, this is most alarming.”

  “Well, I suppose there has been no harm done really, has there?” Gerald murmured hesitantly when a somewhat tense atmosphere had settled over them and refused to lift.

  “Do you think so? I had only just arrived in London a couple of hours previous. I had just eaten a meal and was conversing with my friends when this arrived. It caused great consternation and a lot of worry.” Myles snorted and then froze. “Good Lord.”

  “Good Lord what?” Barnabas’ voice was sharp.

  Myles stared at him. “Someone has been following me.”

  “What? How? Who?” Gerald snapped. “I hoped to Hades they haven’t been following me.”

  Barnabas lifted his brows at him. “Have you got something to hide?”

  “No, why should I?” Gerald replied, his voice a little too high-pitched and his gaze a little too furtive for him to be truthful.

  Myles snorted. “I was in the tavern when I received my note. Someone knew I was there.”

  “Or someone was waiting for you to arrive there,” Barnabas reported.

  “Why would anybody want to follow you to London?” Gerald demanded.

  “How did you receive your letter?” Barnabas asked.

  Gerald shrugged. “I had an early breakfast. Cragton said the post had come early and that a letter had been delivered. I didn’t think to ask how. When I read the note I told Isaac that we had to come here instead.”

  “You didn’t find out what the person looked like who delivered it?” Barnabas cursed when Gerald shook his head. He looked at Myles. “You?”

  Myles shook his head. “The bar maid brought it to me. She said it had just been delivered. I was too curious to receive a note in the tavern and opened it. By the time I had read it, all I could think about was getting home. I didn’t stop to consider anything else.”

  “How strange,” Gerald sighed.

  “Well, someone knew you were there and not here,” Barnabas replied and then turned to his brother. “Just like they knew to make sure you got the note before you left for Scotland.”

  “If it had arrived half an hour later they would have missed me,” Gerald replied.

  “So someone knows what we are doing,” Myles sighed. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”

  “Me neither,” Gerald and Barnabas replied in unison.

  Myles met his father’s gaze. He knew his father was also thinking about the hooded figures.

  “They can’t be linked, can they?” he asked with a frown.

  “I should like to say not, but in all honesty I cannot,” Barnabas replied. “Until we get some answers, we have to assume someone bodes one of us ill. Because they have mentioned my demise, we have to assume that it is a credible threat.”

  “Well, first thing in the morning, I am going to head off to Scotland and I won’t be stopping for anything until I get there,” Gerald snorted. “I defy anybody to try to stop me this time.”

  He drained the last of his brandy and slammed the goblet onto the table beside the letters angrily before he turned to the door. “It isn’t me, or Isaac, and if it isn’t Vernon, Eva, or either of you two then it has to be Beatrice, doesn’t it?”

  Myles almost groaned at that. He should have suspected that Gerald would raise issue with his sister, Beatrice. He always did whenever he came to visit. His altercations with his elder sister were legendary amongst the family. In fact, the last time the two of them had come to blows Barnabas had banished them both to the garden and told them to stay out of the house until they had resolved their differences. It had been one of the most fraught Christmases he had ever experienced.

  “You cannot just lay blame without having proof,” Barnabas warned. “We all know you don’t like her but it isn’t fair to point an accusatory finger in her direction without any evidence to support your theory.”

  It was on the tip of Myles’ tongue to say ‘here, here’, but Gerald was already at the door. Before he could open it, it swung inward and the woman in question stormed into the room.

  Myles’ eyes widened as he absorbed Beatrice’s rather unkempt appearance.

  “Well?” She slammed to a halt in the middle of the room. She levelled a glare on Barnabas that could have withered ivy. “You are not dead then,” she snapped in her usual uncouth manner.

  Barnabas slowly shook his head. Rather than say anything else he held his hand out. “Let me see your letter then. I take it you have received one too?”

  “What do you mean ‘too’?” Beatrice blustered. “What’s going on here?”

  Rather than wait for anyone to answer, she rummaged around in her bag and withdrew a crumbled piece of parchment which she slapped into Barnabas’ outstretched hand.
While he read the note and passed it to Myles, she turned her attention to the letters already on the table.

  Myles read the note, which was practically identical to the ones Myles and Gerald had received, and placed it carefully on the table next to the others.

  “All by the same hand, all meant to get you to the house as quickly as you can so we are all here together. So, it can’t be Beatrice,” Barnabas murmured. Although he spoke to the room at large, his eyes were on Gerald.

  “What can’t be me?” Beatrice demanded.

  She whirled to face him, clearly outraged at having been summoned to the house in the first place. Myles knew she invariably turned up to receive presents on special occasions, or leave another raft of bills for Barnabas to pay once she had pleaded poverty for an hour or two. Otherwise, in weather like this, everyone knew Beatrice wouldn’t leave her house voluntarily.

  “I am touched you care so much,” Barnabas said quietly, and he was. It was a rare display of affection from a woman who could often be called prickly at best.

  Beatrice, unsurprisingly, didn’t deign to answer.

  “Do you have any idea who delivered yours?” Myles asked, waving a hand toward the parchment.

  Beatrice snorted and glared at him. “My maid brought it up to me late this afternoon. I thought it was the post so I opened it.”

  She shrugged as if to say that it didn’t matter, but didn’t seem to be aware of the lingering worry that narrowed her eyes and turned her complexion pale. She glared at Gerald but, uncharacteristically, refrained from laying any portion of the blame on him – unlike Gerald had tried to do earlier.

  Myles knew now that someone outside of the family had to have sent the notes mainly because what constituted as the Martin-Howe family were now in the building, and had all travelled many miles to get there. There was nobody else who might know them well enough to be aware of what their social plans to be able to get hold of them at a precise moment in time.

  “Well, what tomfoolery is this?” Beatrice snapped eventually. She glared at Gerald as though this was his fault.