“Faber? I’d say you’re as much a fool as Dr. Grant at the asylum. Faber’s dead. Killed at Amiens with all the rest. I’m not Faber. I’m—”
“Uncle Vester.”
Drew turned to see Beaky standing just behind him. He was wrapped in a flannel dressing gown, likely Anderson’s, far too short for his gangly frame and large enough to go twice around him. Someone had given him slippers, as well. He squinted, still without his spectacles, and moved closer.
The moonlight shone silver on them all, and looking at the man with the color leeched out of him, Drew saw it too. It was the photograph all over again. The firm chin, the pale eyes, the hawklike nose that was nothing like his brothers’ or his nephew’s. The hair could be either blond or gray, it was all the same in this light. The lines of age and care softened in the dimness, but there was Sylvester Armstrong Bloodworth, captain in His Majesty’s armed forces in the late war. Presumed dead.
Beaky coughed and sputtered and then shook his head. “I—I don’t understand. Why in the world would you do it? What had we ever done to you? What had any of us ever done to you?”
Drew took the erstwhile milkman by the arm. “Do you want to tell him or shall I?”
“Tell him what you like,” the older man said, pulling free of Drew’s grip.
“What happened to you?” Bewildered, Beaky gaped at him, his brows starkly red against his still-purplish face. “We thought you were dead.”
“Dead?” his uncle spat. “Maybe so. Maybe so. There’s no doubt I’ve been in hell nearly twenty years.”
Beaky reached out a hand to him. “Why didn’t you come home? Grandmother never stopped waiting to hear.”
Sylvester Bloodworth started away from him and then sneered. “Touching. My brothers weren’t so sentimental, it seems. And you were happy enough to come into the estate, I warrant.”
“It would have been his even if everyone had known you were alive,” Drew said. “But then I expect you’re well aware of that.”
“Oh, yes.” Sylvester’s eyes narrowed. “Lovely laws of England, leaving the younger brother out in the cold. The Lodge should be mine. It should have always been mine.”
“You could have come back home,” Beaky said. “You know you would have always had a place with us.”
“A place?” Sylvester muttered, and then his voice rose and cracked. “A place? I’ve been in a place. A place with smells and sounds and sights that would turn that red hair of yours white as mine. Shall I tell you about it?”
“Uncle,” Beaky breathed.
“I was there for an eternity, not knowing where I was, who I was. Hubert and Marcus, it must have pleased them to have me out of the way. A gibbering idiot caged up and neatly taken care of. Never mind how, so long as it was hushed up.”
“No,” Beaky protested. “It wasn’t like that. I remember when we found out you were dead, at least when we were told so. We all mourned, your brothers most of all. How could we have known we had been told wrong?”
“Don’t lie to me!” Sylvester roared. “Don’t you dare lie to me now! I saw the letter. Oh, yes. I’ve been in and out of the house, my house, often enough. I saw it there on your desk. Your uncle Hubert had been paying them off, making sure I was kept out of the way, and you carried on for him.”
“You didn’t know who you were,” Drew reminded him, “and I understand you had Faber’s identification on you. How could the army have known you were someone else? All of your men were dead.”
Sylvester wrinkled his forehead, straining to remember. “He’d landed on a mine, Faber had. He was so torn and bloodied I don’t think his mother would have known him then. I pulled him into my arms as he died. ‘So cold,’ he said. ‘So cold, Mr. Sylvester.’ I put my jacket round him, and when he was gone, I took his papers. I wanted his people to know what had happened to him. I stuck the papers inside my shirt and then . . .” His whole body trembled. “I don’t know. That was all. Then I was suddenly a gray old man locked away in Norfolk.”
“But your family didn’t know.”
“They could have checked. They could have come to see for themselves instead of having me locked away. They knew. They always knew.”
Beaky blinked at him. “It wasn’t like that. It was never like that. They thought you were Faber. We thought you were Faber and tried to do what we could. We—”
“You left me there.” Sylvester’s voice was barely a sob now. “I knew there was someplace I belonged. I told them so, but they never believed me. For the longest time I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t tell them where or who to ask, but then it started coming back to me. And I knew. I knew what you had done. What all of you had done.”
“So you found a way out and disappeared,” Drew said quietly. “Then you set yourself up as Blackstock, someone who had a reason to be up and around everywhere in the early morning when no one was about, meaning to dispose of your nephew and his wife.”
“I’d known about the old gas lighting in this wing since I was a boy. It wouldn’t take much to make use of it. Once my way was clear, I could go back to Bath where I’d made sure to be seen wandering a time or two. Nobody notices a vagabond on the road, not so long as he doesn’t trouble anyone. Who could say I hadn’t been round there ever since I left Norfolk? And if I should somehow come upon an item in the news that brought back my lost memory, who could deny that for truth?”
Drew nodded, looking away from the horror in Beaky’s eyes. “Your nephew and his wife lost due to an unfortunate fault in the heating system, you could suddenly remember you’re the last Bloodworth of Bloodworth Park Lodge and take possession of the money and the estate.”
“It was only fair,” Sylvester muttered.
“And the vicar? Miss Patterson? I expect they recognized you.”
Sylvester snorted. “I saw the look on the vicar’s face. I tried to stay clear of anyone I’d known before, just a wave and a nod as I went about my business, but I could tell he recognized me when he stepped in front of my wagon one morning. I was startled and shouted for him to mind where he was. And I had been so careful to make myself sound like a country man up till then. I telephoned him that night, asked if I could meet him at the church. I told him where I’d been and that I was confused and asked if he could advise me.”
Beaky looked grieved. “And of course he was willing to help.”
“I didn’t expect I’d have to deal with Miss Patterson too, I must admit.” Sylvester went on as if he hadn’t heard. “I bumped into her when she was coming out of the post office. I don’t know which of us was more surprised.”
“Of course,” Drew said. “She was your old governess.”
“She didn’t say anything at the time. I think she wasn’t quite sure at first, but then I saw her peering at me the next morning as I drove by. That was after the vicar, you know, and I could see the fear there in her eyes. When I went to see her, I told her I didn’t want her to be afraid. I said I only wanted to talk to her, to explain. She was always rather easy to get round, even when I was in the nursery.”
No one said anything at that. There was a general chill at the matter-of-factness in his tone.
“And the hound?” Drew asked finally. “That dog never made those prints.”
“Did you never read Doyle?” Sylvester asked, looking disdainfully at all of them. “‘The Adventure of the Priory School’?”
“Good heavens,” Delwyn said. “The horseshoes.”
Beaky squinted at everyone. “Wait. What?”
“Horseshoes,” Nick said as P.C. Watts gaped at him. “They used horseshoes that left tracks like cows’ hooves so the horses couldn’t be traced.”
Drew looked at Sylvester. “You used shoes that leave paw prints so you could walk about in the north wing and have it look as if no man had been there. An animal large enough to leave those prints would be unnatural indeed.”
“Unnatural, true,” Sylvester said. “As unnatural as two brothers keeping a third locked away, wouldn’t you say?�
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“I was at the asylum,” Nick said, his face grim. “Not exactly a palace, but they do as best they can with what they have. The sister I spoke to—”
“Liars,” Sylvester spat. “All of them. What do they know? They can’t know. They haven’t been there. They haven’t seen. They don’t carry it inside.” He pounded his head with both fists, punctuating each word. “Inside. Always there. Every minute. Every. Single. Day.”
Watts and Delwyn took hold of his arms, pulling his fists away from his head, pinning him until he was still once more. He half crouched in between them, some wild thing in its lair, and watched them, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
“Just calm yourself, sir,” Watts said, looking as if he feared the prisoner might bite. “Everything will be seen to. You’ll be looked after.”
“Looked after. Looked after.”
With a low moan, Sylvester shrank more deeply into himself. For a moment he was perfectly still, and then with a shriek he threw off his keepers and bolted back into the north wing.
“After him!” Watts shouted. “Don’t let him get away!”
“Stay where you are!” Sylvester Bloodworth stood wild-eyed in the black opening to the old wing. “Don’t move, the lot of you. I know this place. Follow me inside, and I promise you no one comes out.”
“Uncle Vester,” Beaky pled.
“I mean it,” Sylvester said. “Stay where you are.” He whistled, high and piercing, and with a startled yip the dog darted away from Delwyn and ran to him. The two of them vanished into the darkness.
“I’d best be after him,” Watts said, looking uncertain but duty-bound.
Drew stopped him. “We don’t know what he has in there. We’d do better to have a couple of us go round to the other side and wait to see if he—”
There was a terrific boom as the north wing went up in an explosion of heat and fire and shattered glass. Drew shielded his face with one arm and watched with the others as the flames shot up into the night sky.
“Uncle,” Beaky breathed. “Merciful God, Uncle!”
Drew grabbed his arm before he could rush into the inferno. “You can’t help him now.”
Beaky turned his face away. “Uncle Vester.”
“No, wait!” Nick said, and he pointed out behind the house. “Look there!”
Lit by the flames, hardly more than shadows against the dark, sloping hillside, Sylvester and the hound ran out onto the moor and disappeared into one of the dales.
“He’s got to be stopped,” Beaky said, taking a futile stride toward him.
Watts shook his head. “Unless you want to lose your entire house, sir, we’d best get this fire out right away.”
Beaky breathed out an almost-silent “Oh” and then stood a bit straighter.
The servants were peering out of the garage door, and most of the men were heading out to give whatever help they could.
“All right. Watts,” Beaky said, “drive into the village and round up whatever men and buckets you can. Get ahold of Mr. Tims and the fire brigade, if they didn’t already hear that blast.”
“Right you are, sir.”
Watts jumped into his car and, bell jingling, raced back toward the village.
Beaky turned to Delwyn. “Go and get Johnson, if you would, please, and the rest of the men.”
The gamekeeper squinted into the darkness toward the south side of the house. “Beg pardon, sir, but they’re just coming. I didn’t think they’d sleep through that blast.”
There were five or six of them, sturdy-looking workhands carrying buckets.
“Excellent,” Beaky said. “But all of you stay back. I don’t know if there’s anything else liable to blow.”
“I don’t think so,” Drew said. “There was just that one tank, and it was mostly empty. I’m rather surprised it hadn’t gone long before now.”
Beaky nodded, and then he laughed unsteadily. “Sabrina wanted to remodel anyway.”
Drew gave him a hearty swat on the back. “Stout fellow.”
Beaky moved a step closer, his expression troubled. “My uncle . . .”
Drew could hear the faint sound of the fire bell from the village and knew help was coming. He glanced toward Nick and then Delwyn. “What do you say? Shall we give it a go?”
“There’s a good moon,” the gamekeeper said, looking up. “But I don’t like to leave Iris. I know she has her shotgun and won’t let anyone in she doesn’t know, but I don’t like the idea of him going back there.”
Drew nodded. “You get her and bring her here. The ladies will look after her. I’m sure you can catch up to us after that.”
Delwyn looked to Beaky.
“Yes, go,” Beaky told him. “Hurry now.”
The gamekeeper ducked his head and loped into the darkness. The house servants and farmhands were already carrying water to douse the flames, and Drew and Nick headed toward the slope where they had last seen Sylvester Bloodworth.
Delwyn caught up with them not very much later, bringing a pair of lanterns to light their way. They searched for a full hour, around the stone church and in the kilns, anywhere that might conceal a man. Then Delwyn said it was just no use searching any longer in the dark, that they’d do best to start again at dawn.
The fire was burning itself out by the time they returned to the Lodge. Miss Windham was seeing that everyone had blankets, and Mrs. Norris had made sandwiches for the exhausted firefighters. Fortunately, the explosion had been confined to the far end of the north wing, and it seemed, once Johnson and his boy cleared the furnace, the only real damage to the main part of the house was that some of the windows had been shattered in the blast.
Drew was glad when Madeline hurried to him and pressed herself into his arms. There wasn’t much to be said.
No one slept that night, and when the sun came up again, Beaky, Drew, Nick, and P.C. Watts tracked the fugitive over the moor to Merlin Hill, the craggy precipice overlooking all the Bloodworth lands. There they found Sylvester Bloodworth spread-eagled on the bare rock, glittering in the morning light and early frost, eyes turned up to the open sky but seeing nothing. The black hound lay at his feet, whining softly.
“Exposure?” Nick asked.
Beaky looked up from where he knelt, his hand pressed over the still chest. “It wasn’t as cold as that last night.”
“He’d have been uncomfortable, sir,” Delwyn said. He hadn’t bothered to button his own coat that morning. He patted the head of the dog that had slunk over to him, leaning against his leg, still with his mournful eyes on the dead man. “But it shouldn’t have killed him. Not in just the few hours he was gone.”
“No.” Beaky removed his wool scarf and draped it over his uncle’s face. “No, it wasn’t that cold.”
Delwyn and Watts carried the body back to the Lodge and laid it out in the room that had once belonged to Sylvester Bloodworth, and Beaky set beside him the fading photograph of a young man with clear eyes and a firm chin and a surprisingly gentle mouth. The Victoria Cross was still draped over one corner of the frame.
Twenty
Drew and Madeline stood at the graveside with Delwyn and Iris as the body of Jack Midgley, poacher, thief, accessory to murder, and God knew what else was lowered into a humble grave near his cottage, the place hallowed only by his daughter’s tears.
“I’m sorry, Da,” she whispered as she tossed a handful of earth onto the plain pine box. She hid her face against Delwyn’s chest while two of the hands from the Lodge began covering the box with dirt.
“He chose his own way, love,” he said when it was all done. “You couldn’t make him do anything but what he wanted.”
“I know.”
“I don’t like to think of you out here alone,” Drew told her. “I’m sure Mr. Bloodworth could find you a position at the Lodge, and then—”
“I don’t want his charity, Mr. Farthering,” she said, lifting her pale face to the sound of his voice. “Nor yours, I thank you very much. But
you needn’t worry. I won’t be alone.” She squeezed Delwyn’s hand. “Not for long.”
He looked somber, but there was a glimmer of light in his dark eyes. “We’ve had time to talk, Iris and me, since I brought her back to the Lodge that night. Or I should say, she’s finally listened to me.”
“Rhys,” she said, coloring faintly.
“It’s true, Iris, and you know it, but never mind that. We’re burying the past right here along with your father. Starting fresh and not looking back, right?”
Her color deepened, but she smiled. “Right.”
“We’re having the banns read come Sunday,” Delwyn told Drew.
“Really?” Drew glanced at Madeline, startled but somehow not completely surprised. “Best wishes to you both.”
“I’m so happy for you.” Madeline squeezed the girl’s hand. “You’ll be a lovely bride.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Iris said, suddenly shy.
“I’m a lucky man, Mrs. Farthering,” Delwyn said, pulling the girl to his side.
Madeline’s eyes twinkled. “I’d say you were blessed.”
“That may be, ma’am,” Delwyn agreed. “That may well be.” He looked at Drew with a hint of a grin. “Maybe those errands might not be so bad after all, eh?”
“Mine have always been quite an adventure,” Drew said, “and you seem the adventurous type. You might just give them a try.”
“I might,” the gamekeeper said, and then he gazed fondly at Iris. “We might.”
The funeral held the next day was just as quiet. Just as sparse. But there was something sadder about it. This time Drew and Madeline stood with Beaky and Sabrina and Nick as the October wind blustered through the family plot out behind Bloodworth Park Lodge, there among the marble monuments to Bloodworths long past and surrounded by all the staff. This coffin was not a cheap pine box, but a finely crafted casket with an engraved plaque. Sylvester Armstrong Bloodworth. The vicar from a neighboring parish read the service, asking God’s mercy on a soul who had borne much and sinned much and suffered much.
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