The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

  This jubilation persists only as far as the corridor, my whistling faltering with each step farther away from the brightness of the entrance hall. The footman’s presence has transformed Blackheath, its leaping shadows and blind corners populating my imagination with a hundred horrible deaths at his hands. Every little noise is enough to set my already overburdened heart racing. By the time I reach my parlor, I’m soaked with sweat, a knot in my chest.

  Closing the door behind me, I let out a long shuddering breath. At this rate, the footman won’t need to kill me, my health will give out first.

  The parlor’s a beautiful room, a chaise longue and an armchair beneath a chandelier reflecting the flames of a roaring fire. A sideboard is laid with spirits and mixers, sliced fruit, bitters, and a bucket of half-melted ice. Beside that sits a teetering pile of roast beef sandwiches, mustard running down the severed edges. My stomach would drag me toward the food, but my body’s collapsing beneath me.

  I need to rest.

  The armchair takes my weight with ill temper, the legs bowing under the strain. Rain’s thumping the windows, the sky bruised black and purple. Are these the same drops that fell yesterday, the same clouds? Do rabbits dig the same warrens, disturbing the same insects? Do the same birds fly the same patterns, crashing into the same windows? If this is a trap, what kind of prey is worthy of it?

  “I could do with a drink,” I mutter, rubbing my throbbing temples.

  “Here you go,” says a woman from directly behind me, the drink arriving over my shoulder in a small hand, the fingers bony and calloused.

  I attempt to turn, but there’s too much of Ravencourt and too little of the seat.

  The woman shakes the glass impatiently, rattling the ice inside.

  “You should drink this before the ice melts,” she says.

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m suspicious of taking a drink from a woman I don’t know,” I say.

  She lowers her lips to my ear, her breath warm on my neck.

  “But you do know me,” she whispers. “I was in the carriage with the butler. My name’s Anna.”

  “Anna!” I say, trying to raise myself from the seat.

  Her hand is an anvil on my shoulder, pushing me back down onto the cushions.

  “Don’t bother. By the time you get up, I’ll be gone,” she says. “We’ll meet soon, but I need you to stop looking for me.”

  “Stop looking, why?”

  “Because you’re not the only one searching,” she says, withdrawing a little. “The footman’s hunting me as well, and he knows we’re working together. If you keep looking, you’re going to lead him straight to me. We’re both safe while I’m hidden, so call off the dogs.”

  I feel her presence recede, steps moving toward the far door.

  “Wait,” I cry. “Do you know who I am, or why we’re here? Please, there must be something you can tell me.”

  She pauses, considering it.

  “The only memory I woke up with was a name,” she says. “I think it’s yours.”

  My hands clutch the armrests.

  “What was it?” I ask.

  “Aiden Bishop,” she says. “Now, I’ve done as you asked, so do as I ask. Stop looking for me.”

  17

  “Aiden Bishop,” I say, wrapping my tongue around the vowels. “Aiden…Bishop. Aiden, Aiden, Aiden.”

  I’ve been trying different combinations, intonations, and deliveries of my name for the last half hour, hoping to lure some memories from my recalcitrant mind. Thus far, all I’ve managed to do is give myself a dry mouth. It’s a frustrating way to pass the time, but I’ve few alternatives. One thirty has come and gone, with no word from Helena Hardcastle to explain her absence. I summoned a maid to fetch her, but was informed that nobody’s seen the lady of the house since this morning. The damn woman has disappeared.

  To make matters worse, neither Cunningham nor Madeline Aubert has visited me, and while I’d hardly expected Evelyn’s maid to answer my summons, Cunningham’s been gone for hours. I can’t imagine what’s keeping him, but I’m growing impatient. We’ve so much to do, and little time left to do it.

  “’Allo, Cecil,” says a rasping voice. “Is Helena still here? I heard you were meeting with her.”

  Standing at the door is an elderly lady buried beneath a huge red coat, hat, and mud-spattered Wellington boots that almost reach her knees. Her cheeks are raw with cold, a scowl frozen on her face.

  “I haven’t seen her, I’m afraid,” I say. “I’m still waiting for her.”

  “You too, eh? Bloody woman was supposed to meet me in the garden this morning, left me shivering on a bench for an hour instead,” she says, stomping over to the fire. She’s wearing so many layers a spark will send her up like a Viking funeral.

  “Wonder where she’s got to?” she says, tugging off her gloves and tossing them on the seat next to mine. “It’s not like there’s a lot to do in Blackheath. Fancy a drink?”

  “Still working on this one,” I say, waving my glass in her direction.

  “You’ve got the right idea. I got it into my head to go for a stroll, but when I came back, I couldn’t get anybody to open the front door. I’ve been banging on windows for the last half hour, but there’s not a servant to be seen. The whole thing’s positively American.”

  Decanters scrape free of their fittings, glasses thumping down on the wood. Ice tinkles against glass, crackling as alcohol is poured on top. There’s a fizz and a satisfying plop, followed by a gulp and a long sigh of pleasure from the old lady.

  “That’s the stuff,” she says, a fresh round of clinking glass suggesting the first was a warm-up. “I told Helena this party was a terrible idea, but she wouldn’t hear of it and now look: Peter’s hiding in the gatehouse, Michael’s holding the party together with his fingernails, and Evelyn’s playing dress-up. The entire thing will be a disaster, mark my words.”

  Drink in hand, the elderly lady resumes her position in front of the fire. She’s shrunken magnificently after discarding a few layers, revealing pink cheeks and small pink hands, a crop of gray hair running wild on her head.

  “What’s this then,” she says, lifting a white card off the mantel. “Were you going to write to me, Cecil?”

  “Sorry?”

  She hands me the card, a simple message written on the front.

  Meet Millicent Derby

  A.

  Anna’s work, no doubt.

  First burning socks and now introductions. As strange as it is having somebody scattering breadcrumbs throughout my day, it’s nice to know I have a friend in this place, even if it does put paid to my theory about Mrs. Derby being one of my rivals, or even another host. This old lady’s much too herself to be anybody else underneath.

  Then why was she sniffing around the kitchen, asking questions about the maids?

  “I asked Cunningham to invite you for drinks,” I say smoothly, taking a sip of my whiskey. “He must have got distracted while writing the message down.”

  “That’s what happens when you trust the lower classes with important tasks,” sniffs Millicent, dropping into a nearby chair. “Mark my words, Cecil, one day you’ll find he’s emptied your accounts and done a bunk with one of your maids. Look at that damnable Ted Stanwin. Used to waft about this place like a soft breeze when he was a groundskeeper, now you’d think he owns the place. The nerve of it.”

  “Stanwin’s an objectionable fellow, I agree, but I’ve a soft spot for the household staff,” I say. “They’ve treated me with a great deal of kindness. Besides, word has it you were down in the kitchen earlier, so you can’t find them all bad.”

  She waves her glass at me, splashing whiskey over my objection.

  “Oh, that. Yes…” She trails off, sipping her drink to buy herself time. “I think one of the maids stole something from my room, that’s all. It’s like I s
ay, you never know what’s going on underneath. Remember my husband?”

  “Vaguely,” I say, admiring the elegance with which she’s switched topic. Whatever she was doing in the kitchen, I doubt it had anything to do with theft.

  “Same thing,” she sniffs. “Dreadful lower-class upbringing, yet built himself forty-odd cotton mills without ever being anything less than an absolute ass. In fifty years of marriage, I didn’t smile till the day I buried him and haven’t stopped since.”

  She’s interrupted by a creaking sound from the corridor, followed by the squeak of hinges.

  “Maybe that’s Helena,” says Millicent, pushing herself out of the chair. “Her room is next door.”

  “I thought the Hardcastles were staying in the gatehouse?”

  “Peter’s staying in the gatehouse,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Helena’s staying here, insisted on it, by all accounts. Was never much of a marriage, but it’s disintegrating quickly. I tell you, Cecil, it was worth coming for the scandal alone.”

  The old lady heads into the corridor, calling out Helena’s name, only to fall suddenly silent. “What on earth…” she mutters, before poking her head into my parlor again. “Get up, Cecil,” she says nervously. “Something odd is going on.”

  Concern drags me to my feet and into the hall, where Helena’s bedroom door creaks back and forth in a breeze. The lock has been shattered, splinters of wood crunching underfoot.

  “Somebody broke in,” hisses Millicent, staying behind me.

  Using my cane, I slowly push the door open, allowing us to peer inside.

  The room’s empty, and has been for some time by the looks of things. The curtains are still drawn, light delivered secondhand from the lamps lining the corridor. A four-poster bed is neatly made, a vanity table overflowing with face creams, powders, and cosmetics of every sort.

  Satisfied that it’s safe, Millicent appears from behind me, offering me a level glance best described as a belligerent apology, before making her way around the bed to wrestle the heavy curtains open, banishing the gloom.

  The only thing that’s been disturbed is a chestnut bureau with a roll-down top, its drawers hanging open. Among the ink bottles, envelopes, and ribbons scattered on it, there’s a large lacquered case with two revolver-shaped hollows in the cushion. The revolvers themselves are nowhere to be seen, though I suspect Evelyn brought one of them to the graveyard. She did say it was her mother’s.

  “Well, at least we know what they wanted,” says Millicent, tapping the case. “Doesn’t make any damn sense, though. If somebody wanted a gun, they could just as easily steal one from the stables. There’s dozens of them. Nobody would bat an eyelid.”

  Pushing aside the case, Millicent unearths a moleskin day planner and begins leafing through the pages, running her finger across the meetings and events, reminders and notes crammed inside. The contents would suggest a busy, if rather dull life, if it weren’t for the torn-out last page.

  “That’s curious. Today’s appointments are missing,” she says, her irritation giving way to suspicion. “Now, why would Helena rip those out?”

  “You believe she did it herself?” I say.

  “What use would anybody else have for them?” says Millicent. “Mark my words: Helena has something foolish in mind, and she doesn’t want anybody finding out about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Cecil, I’m going to have to find her and talk her out of it. As usual.”

  Tossing the planner on the bed, she stalks out of the bedroom and up the corridor. I barely notice her leave. I’m more concerned with the black smudged fingerprints on the pages.

  My valet’s been here, and it appears he’s looking for Helena Hardcastle as well.

  18

  The world’s shriveling beyond the windows, darkening at the edges and blackening at the center. The hunters are beginning to emerge from the forest, waddling across the lawn like overgrown birds. Having grown impatient in my parlor waiting for Cunningham’s return, I’m heading to the library to inspect the encyclopedia.

  It’s already a decision I regret.

  A day of walking has sapped all my strength, this ponderous body growing heavier by the second. To make matters worse, the house is alive with activity, maids plumping cushions and arranging flowers, darting this way and that like schools of startled fish. I’m embarrassed by their vigor, cowed by their grace.

  By the time I enter the entrance hall, it’s filled with hunters shaking the rain from their caps, puddles forming at their feet. They’re soaking wet and gray with cold, the life washed right out of them. They’ve clearly endured a miserable afternoon.

  I pass into the group nervously, my eyes downcast, wondering if any of these scowling faces belongs to the footman. Lucy Harper told me he had a broken nose when he visited the kitchen, which gives me some hope that my hosts are fighting back, not to mention an easy way of picking him out.

  Seeing no disfigurement, I continue more confidently, the hunters standing aside, allowing me to shuffle through on my way to the library, where the heavy curtains have been drawn and a fire set in the grate, the air touched with a faint perfume. Fat candles sit on plates, plumes of warm light pockmarking the shadows, illuminating three women curled up on chairs, engrossed in the books open on their laps.

  Heading to the bookshelf where the encyclopedia should be, I grope about in the darkness, finding only an empty space. Taking a candle from a nearby table, I pass the flame across the shelf hoping it has been moved, but it’s definitely gone. I let out a long breath, deflating like the bellows of some awful contraption. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much hope I’d invested in the encyclopedia, or in the idea of meeting my future hosts face-to-face. It wasn’t only their knowledge I craved, but the chance to study them, as one might one’s own twisted reflections in a hall of mirrors. Surely in such observation, I’d find some repeated quality, a fragment of my true self carried through into each man, unsullied by the personalities of their hosts? Without that opportunity, I’m not certain how to identify the edges of myself, the dividing lines between my personality and that of my host. For all I know, the only difference between myself and the footman is the mind I’m sharing.

  The day’s leaning on my shoulders, forcing me into a chair opposite the fire. Stacked logs pop and crackle, heat shimmering and sagging in the air.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Among the flames lies the encyclopedia, burned to ash but holding its shape, a breath away from crumbling.

  The footman’s work no doubt.

  I feel like I’ve been struck, which was no doubt the intention. Everywhere I go, he seems to be a step ahead of me. And yet, simply winning isn’t enough. He needs me to know it. He needs me to be afraid. For some reason, he needs me to suffer.

  Still reeling from this blatant act of contempt, I lose myself in the flames, piling all my misgivings onto the bonfire until Cunningham calls me from the doorway.

  “Lord Ravencourt?”

  “Where the devil have you been?” I snap, my temper slipping away from me completely.

  He strolls around my chair, taking a spot near the fire to warm his hands. He looks to have been caught in the storm, and though he’s changed his clothes, his damp hair is still wild from the towel.

  “It’s good to see Ravencourt’s temper is still intact,” he says placidly. “I’d feel positively adrift without my daily dressing down.”

  “Don’t play the victim with me,” I say, wagging my finger at him. “You’ve been gone hours.”

  “Good work takes time,” he says, tossing an object onto my lap.

  Holding it up to the light, I stare into the empty eyes of a porcelain beak mask, my anger evaporating immediately.

  Cunningham lowers his voice, glancing at the women, who are watching us with open curiosity. “It belongs to a chap called Philip Sutcliffe,” he says. “One of the ser
vants spotted it in his wardrobe, so I crept into his room when he left for the hunt. Sure enough, the top hat and greatcoat were in there as well, along with a note promising to meet Lord Hardcastle at the ball. I thought we could intercept him.”

  Slapping my hand against my knee, I grin at him like a maniac. “Good work, Cunningham, good work indeed.”

  “I thought you’d be happy,” he says. “Unfortunately, that’s where my good news ends. The note waiting for Miss Hardcastle at the well, it was…odd, to say the least.”

  “Odd, how so?” I say, holding the beak mask over my face. The porcelain’s cold, clammy against my skin, but aside from that it’s a good fit.

  “The rain had smeared it, but best I could tell, it said, ‘Stay away from Millicent Derby,’ with a simple little drawing of a castle beneath it. Nothing else.”

  “That’s a peculiar sort of warning,” I say. “I wonder who it’s from?”

  “Warning? I took it as a threat,” says Cunningham.

  “You think Millicent Derby’s going to take after Evelyn with her knitting needles?” I say, raising an eyebrow.

  “Don’t dismiss her because she’s old,” he says, prodding some life into the dwindling fire with a poker. “At one time, half the people in this house were under Millicent Derby’s thumb. There wasn’t a dirty secret she couldn’t ferret out, or a dirty trick she wouldn’t use. Ted Stanwin was an amateur in comparison.”

  “You’ve had dealings with her?”

  “Ravencourt has and he doesn’t trust her,” he says. “The man’s a bastard, but he’s no fool.”

  “That’s good to know,” I say. “Did you meet with Sebastian Bell?”

  “Not yet. I’ll catch him this evening. I wasn’t able to turn over anything about the mysterious Anna either.”

  “Oh, no need. She found me earlier today,” I say, picking at a loose piece of leather on the arm of the chair.