“What about Michael Hardcastle, was he there?”
“Michael? Why, I don’t know…”
A hand goes to a curl of hair, twisting it around her finger while she thinks. It’s a familiar gesture, one that fills Rashton with such an overpowering love it’s almost enough to push me aside completely.
“He was in bed, I think,” she says eventually. “Sick with something or other, one of those childish things.”
She takes my hand in both of her own, holding me fast in those beautiful blue eyes.
“Are you doing something dangerous, Jim?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Are you doing it for Charles?”
“Partly.”
“Will you ever tell me about it?”
“Yes, when I know what needs to be said.”
Standing on her tiptoes, she kisses me on the nose.
“Then you better get going,” she says, rubbing her lipstick off my skin. “I know what you’re like when you’ve got a bone to dig up, and you won’t be happy until you have it.”
“Thank you.”
“Say it with the story, and say it soon.”
“I will,” I say.
It’s Rashton who kisses her now. When I do wrestle this body back from him, I’m flushed and embarrassed, Grace grinning at me with a wicked glint in her eye. It’s all I can do to leave her there, but for the first time since this began, I have my hands around the truth, and unless I dig my fingers in, I’m worried it’ll slip free. I need to talk to Anna.
I make my way along the cobbled path around the rear of the gatehouse, shaking the rain from my trench coat before hanging it on the rack in the kitchen. Footsteps echo through the floor, heartbeats in the wood. A commotion’s coming from the sitting room on my right, the place where Dance and his cronies met Peter Hardcastle this morning. My first assumption is that one of them has returned, but opening the door, I find Anna standing over Peter Hardcastle, who’s slumped in the same chair I found him in earlier.
He’s dead.
“Anna,” I say quietly.
She turns to greet me, shock on her face.
“I heard a noise and came down…” she says, gesturing at the body. Unlike myself, she’s not spent the day wading through blood and finding a body has hit her hard.
“Why don’t you go splash some water on your face?” I say, touching her lightly on the arm. “I’ll have a nose around.”
She nods at me gratefully, offering the body one last lingering look before hurrying out of the room. I can’t say I blame her. His once handsome features are frightfully twisted, his right eye barely open, his left eye fully exposed. His hands are gripping the arms of the chair, his back arched in pain. Whatever happened here took his dignity and his life at the same time.
My first thought would be heart attack, but Rashton’s instincts make me cautious.
I reach out to close his eyes, but can’t bring myself to touch him. With so few hosts left, I’d rather not tempt Death’s gaze back toward me.
There’s a folded letter sticking out of his top pocket, and plucking it free, I read the message inside.
I couldn’t marry Ravencourt and I couldn’t forgive my family for making me do so. They brought this on themselves.
Evelyn Hardcastle
A draft is blowing in through an open window. Mud smears the frame, suggesting somebody made their escape through it. About the only note of disturbance I can see is a drawer that’s been left hanging open. It’s the one I rifled through as Dance, and sure enough, Peter’s organizer is missing. First, somebody tore a page out of Helena’s planner, and now they’ve taken Peter’s. Something Helena did today is worth killing to cover up. That’s useful information. Horrific, but useful.
Putting the letter in my pocket, I poke my head out of the window, looking for some evidence of the murderer’s identity. There’s not much to see, aside from a few footsteps in the dirt, already washing away in the rain. From their shape and size, whoever fled the gatehouse was a woman in pointed boots, which might give the note some credence except that I know Evelyn is with Bell.
She couldn’t have done this.
I take a seat opposite Peter Hardcastle, as Dance did this morning. Despite the late hour, the memory of that gathering is still about the room. The glasses we drank from haven’t been removed from the table, and the cigar smoke still hangs in the air. Hardcastle’s wearing the same clothes I last saw him in, meaning he never got changed for the hunt, so it’s likely he’s been dead for a couple of hours. One by one I dab my finger into the dregs of the drinks, tasting each of them with the tip of my tongue. They’re all fine, except for Lord Hardcastle’s. Behind the charred whiskey lays a subtle bitter taste.
Rashton recognizes it immediately.
“Strychnine,” I say, staring into the victim’s twisted, smiling face. He looks delighted by the news, as though he’s sitting here all this time waiting for somebody to tell him how he died. He’d probably also want to know who killed him. I have an idea about that, but for the moment an idea’s all it is.
“Is he telling you anything?” asks Anna, passing me a towel.
She’s still a little pale, but her voice is stronger, suggesting she’s recovered from her initial shock. Even so, she keeps her distance from the body, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
“Somebody poisoned him with strychnine,” I say. “Bell supplied it.”
“Bell? Your first host? You think he’s tied up in all of this?”
“Not willingly,” I say, drying my hair. “He’s too much of a coward to tangle himself up in murder. Strychnine is often sold in small quantities as rat poison. If the killer was part of the household, they could have requested a significant amount under the guise of getting Blackheath up and running. Bell would have no reason to be suspicious until the bodies started appearing. That probably explains why somebody tried to kill him.”
“How do you know all of this?” says Anna, astonished.
“Rashton knows it,” I say, tapping my forehead. “He worked on a strychnine case a few years back. Nasty business. Matter of inheritance.”
“And you can just…remember it?”
I nod, still thinking through the implications of the poisoning.
“Somebody lured Bell out to the forest last night, intending to silence him,” I say to myself. “But the good doctor managed to escape with only the injuries to his arms, losing his pursuer in the darkness. Lucky fellow.”
Anna’s looking at me strangely.
“What’s wrong?” I say, frowning.
“It’s the way you were speaking…” She falters. “It wasn’t… I didn’t recognize you. Aiden, how much of you is still in there?”
“Enough,” I say impatiently, handing her the letter I found in Hardcastle’s pocket. “You should see this. Somebody wants us to believe this is Evelyn’s doing. The murderer’s trying to wrap it all up in a nice little bow.”
She drags her gaze away from me and reads the letter.
“What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong?” she says, after she’s finished. “What if somebody means to knock off the entire Hardcastle family, and Evelyn is just the first.”
“You think Helena’s hiding?”
“If she’s got any sense, that’s exactly what she’s doing.”
I let my mind bat the idea around for a while, trying to see it from every angle. Or at least, I try. It’s too heavy. Too ponderous. I can’t see what could be on the other side.
“What should we do next?” she asks.
“I need you to tell Evelyn that the butler’s awake and that he needs to speak with her, privately,” I say, getting to my feet.
“But the butler isn’t awake, and he doesn’t want to speak with her.”
“No, but I do, and I’d rather stay out of the foot
man’s crosshairs if I can.”
“I’ll take any excuse to leave this room, but you need to watch the butler and Gold in my place,” she says.
“I will.”
“And what are you going to say to Evelyn when she gets here?”
“I’m going to tell her how she dies.”
50
It’s 5:42 p.m., and Anna hasn’t returned.
It’s been over three hours since she left. Three hours of fidgeting and worrying, the shotgun laid across my lap, leaping into my hands at the slightest noise, making it a near-constant presence in my arms. I don’t know how Anna did it.
This place is never at rest. The wind claws its way through the cracks in the windows, howling up and down the corridor. Timbers creak, floorboards stretch, shifting under their own weight as though the gatehouse were an old man trying to rise out of his chair. Time and again I heard steps approaching, only to open the door and find I’d been tricked by the banging of a loose shutter or a tree branch rapping on the window.
But these noises have stopped provoking any reaction in me, because I no longer believe my friend is coming back. An hour into my vigil, I reassured myself she was simply struggling to locate Evelyn following her walk with Bell. After two hours, I reasoned she might be running errands—a theory I tried to confirm by piecing together her day from our previous encounters. By her own account, she met Gold first, Derby in the forest, and then Dance, before collecting me from the attic. After that, she talked with the butler for the first time in the carriage on the way here, left the note for Bell in the stable master’s cottage, and sought out Ravencourt in his parlor. There was another conversation with the butler after that, but it wasn’t until the footman attacked Dance in the evening that I saw her again.
For six days she’s been disappearing every afternoon, and I haven’t noticed.
Now, passing my third hour in this room, darkness pressing against the glass, I’m certain she’s in trouble and that the footman’s lurking somewhere behind it. Having seen her with our enemy, I know she’s alive, though that’s cold comfort. Whatever the footman did to Gold broke his mind, and I cannot bear the thought of Anna undergoing similar torment.
Shotgun in hand, I pace the room, trying to stay one step ahead of my dread long enough to come up with a plan. The easiest thing would be to wait here, knowing the footman will come for the butler eventually, but in doing so I’d waste the hours I need to solve Evelyn’s murder. And what use is saving Anna if I can’t free her from this house? As desperate as I feel, I must first attend to Evelyn and trust Anna to take care of herself while I do so.
The butler whimpers, his eyes fluttering open.
For a moment, we simply stare at each other, trading guilt and confusion.
By leaving him and Gold unguarded, I’m condemning them to madness and death, but I can see no other way.
As he falls asleep, I lay the shotgun on the bed by his side. I’ve seen him die, but I don’t have to accept it. My conscience demands I give him a fighting chance, at the very least.
Snatching my coat off the chair, I depart for Blackheath, where I find Evelyn’s messy bedroom exactly as I left it, the fire burned so low there’s barely any light to see by. Adding a few logs, I begin my search.
My hand is shaking, though this time it’s not Derby’s lust at work; it’s my own excitement. If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll know who’s responsible for Evelyn’s death. Freedom will be within touching distance.
Derby may have searched this room earlier, but he had neither Rashton’s training nor experience. The constable’s hands immediately seek out hiding spots behind cabinets and around the bedframe, my feet tapping the floorboards in the hope of locating a loose panel. Even so, after a thorough search, I come up empty.
There’s nothing.
Turning on the spot, my eyes sweep the furnishings, searching for something I’ve missed. I can’t be wrong about the suicide; no other explanation makes sense. That’s when my gaze alights on the communicating door into Helena’s bedroom. Taking an oil lamp, I pass through, repeating my search.
I’ve almost given up hope when I lift the mattress off the bed and find a cotton bag tied to one of the bars. Unpicking the drawstring, I find two guns inside. One is a harmless starting pistol, the stalwart of village fetes everywhere. The other is the black revolver Evelyn took from her mother’s room, the one she had in the forest this morning and will carry into the graveyard this evening. It’s loaded. A single bullet missing from the chamber.
There’s also a vial of blood and a small syringe filled with a clear liquid.
My heart is racing.
“I was right,” I mutter.
It’s the stirring of the curtains that saves my life.
The breeze from the opened door touches my neck an instant before a step sounds behind me. Throwing myself to the floor, I hear a knife slashing through the air. Rolling onto my back, I bring the revolver up in time to see the footman fleeing into the corridor.
Letting my head drop onto the floorboards, I rest the gun on my stomach and thank my lucky stars. If I’d noticed the curtains a second later, this would all be over.
I give myself a chance to recover my breath, then get to my feet, replacing the two weapons and the syringe in the bag, but taking the vial of blood. Cautiously departing the bedroom, I ask around for Evelyn until somebody points me toward the ballroom, which is echoing with loud banging, a stage being finished by builders. The french doors have been thrown open in hopes of evacuating the paint fumes and dust, maids scrubbing their youth away on the floor.
I spot Evelyn by the stage, speaking with the bandleader. She’s still in the green dress she wears during the day, but Madeline Aubert is standing behind her with a mouthful of pins, hurriedly jabbing them into escaping locks of hair, trying to fashion the style she’ll wear tonight.
“Miss Hardcastle,” I call out, crossing the room.
Dismissing the bandleader with a friendly smile and a squeeze of the arm, she turns toward me.
“Evelyn, please,” she says, holding out her hand. “And you are?”
“Jim Rashton.”
“Ah, yes, the policeman,” she says, her smile vanishing. “Is everything well? You look a little flushed.”
“I’m not used to the hustle and bustle of polite society,” I say.
I shake her hand lightly, surprised by how cold it is.
“How can I help you, Mr. Rashton?” she asks.
Her voice is distant, almost annoyed. I feel like a squashed insect she’s discovered on the bottom of her shoe.
As with Ravencourt, I’m struck by the disdain with which Evelyn armors herself. Of all Blackheath’s tricks, being exposed to every unpleasant side of a person you once considered a friend is surely the cruelest.
The thought brings me pause.
Evelyn was kind to Bell, and the memory of that kindness has driven me ever since, but the Plague Doctor said he’d experimented with different combinations of hosts over many different loops. If Ravencourt had been my first host, as he surely was at some point, I’d have known nothing of Evelyn beyond her contempt. Derby drew only anger, and I doubt she’d have spared any kindness for servants like the butler, or Gold. That means there were loops where I watched this woman die and felt almost nothing about it, my only concern being to solve her murder, rather than desperately trying to prevent it.
I almost envy them.
“May I speak with you?” I glance at Madeline. “Privately?”
“I really am awfully busy,” she says. “What’s this about?”
“I’d prefer to speak privately.”
“And I’d prefer to finish getting this ballroom ready before fifty people arrive and find there’s nowhere for them to dance,” she says sharply. “You can imagine which preference I’m giving greater weight to.”
Madeline smirks and pins another lock of Evelyn’s loose hair into place.
“Very well,” I say, producing the vial of blood I found in the cotton sack. “Let’s talk about this.”
I might as well have slapped her, but the shock slides off her face so quickly, I have trouble believing it was ever there.
“We’ll finish this later, Maddie,” says Evelyn, fixing me with a cool, level stare. “Go down to the kitchen and get yourself some food.”
Madeline’s gaze is equally misgiving, but she drops the pins into her apron pocket before curtsying and leaving the room.
Taking me by the arm, Evelyn leads me toward the corner of the ballroom, far from the ears of the servants.
“Is it your habit to root through people’s personal possessions, Mr. Rashton?” she asks, taking a cigarette from her case.
“Lately, yes,” I say.
“Maybe you need a hobby.”
“I have a hobby. I’m trying to save your life.”
“My life doesn’t need saving,” she says coolly. “Perhaps you should try gardening instead.”
“Or perhaps I should fake a suicide so I don’t have to marry Lord Ravencourt?” I say, pausing to enjoy the collapse of her supercilious expression. “That seems to be keeping you busy lately. It’s very clever. Unfortunately, somebody’s going to use that fake suicide to murder you, which is a great deal cleverer.”
Her mouth hangs open, her blue eyes sick with surprise.
Averting her gaze, she tries to light the cigarette held between her fingers, but her hand is trembling. I take the match from her and light it myself, the flame singeing my fingertips.
“Who put you up to this?” she hisses.
“What are you talking about?”
“My plan,” she says, snatching the vial of blood from my hand. “Who told you about it?”
“Why? Who else is involved?” I ask. “I know you invited somebody called Felicity Maddox to the house, but I don’t know who that is yet.”
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Page 34
