by Mae Ronan
“What’s going on?” Gwen demanded.
“Oh, nothing,” Korbes answered lightly. “Nothing at all.”
“What are you doing, Jonah?”
“Killing you,” he said. “You were so very upset, when you found Toby at the bottom of the stairs – well, you came right into the kitchen, and cut yourself open with this knife.”
He brandished the knife in the air, and it glinted in the harsh light.
Gwen looked from Korbes to Isabela. With the pounding in her head, and the fluttering in her stomach, she could not comprehend.
“He will kill you,” Isabela said. “And then he will kill me. But me – I think he will just throw my body into the river, so no one will find me. Then he will be Jonah Brago, Gwendolyn Isles’ only living relative – and he will be one-hundred-and-fifty thousand pounds richer.”
“Amazing!” Korbes exclaimed. “Now, that’s intelligence. You’re a right detective, you are!”
Isabela only glared.
“Ah well,” said Korbes, giving the knife a last scrape upon the whetstone. Then he took it up full in his hand, and approached Gwen.
“Was fifty thousand not enough for you?” Gwen asked acridly, spitting up into his face.
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t. Now give me your hands.”
“But – what about my father? He loved you as a brother!”
“And I love your father very dearly,” said Korbes. “But I don’t love you. Perhaps I would have, if you had ever been civil to me – but you weren’t, so I don’t. Just maybe you should blame yourself!” He sighed, and pricked his finger on the end of the knife. “Now give me your hands!”
Gwen would not comply; but it did not take much at all, for him to wrench her hands upward. He drew the knife quickly across either of her wrists, and then dropped them down again.
“It won’t be long,” he said kindly. “Only a few minutes.”
He went to sit beside Isabela. She would not look at him; but only kept her eyes upon Gwen, who was falling quickly into her last slumber.
“You read me rightly,” said Korbes. “After I’ve rested a moment, you and I will walk down to the bridge. I’ll break your neck – and you won’t feel a thing.”
He was gazing intently at Gwen, as her eyes slid finally shut; and was just preparing to loose Isabela from the chair, when there started up a great many lights, out in the drive. Loud voices came booming; and the front door went crashing down. A small army of bluecoats came rushing into the house.
Jane Olly stood at their head. She looked disinterestedly at the bodies of Toby and Gwen; but then pointed to Korbes, who was still sitting near Isabela, with his mouth hanging open like a confounded dog.
“That’s him,” she said. “I heard him talking at Bluebeard’s Castle, about how he would kill that man.”
She gestured to Toby Markus; then motioned towards Gwen, and added, “I suppose he killed my cousin, too.”
A few officers surged round Korbes; and next moment, he stood with his hands cuffed, and his shoulders grasped tightly by a great big man named Lieutenant Daniel.
The men unbound Isabela, and allowed her to go to Gwen. They left her to herself, while they walked Korbes out of the house.
Isabela knelt down beside Gwen, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. But she started when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She opened her eyes, and saw Jane Olly standing before her, with a most curious expression upon her sallow face.
“You’re very pretty,” she said. “Even prettier than Gwen.”
With that, she began to skip across the kitchen, whistling “James Hatley” – on her way to see Jonah Korbes shoved into the waiting brougham.
THE END.
