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 whisky lies a subtle bitter taste.
Rashton recognises it immediately.
‘Strychnine,’ I say, staring into the victim’s twisted, smiling face. He looks delighted by the news, as though he’s sat 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 tight 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 recognise 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 do we 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 footman’s crosshairs if I can.’
‘Of course I’ll go, 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 stablemaster’s cottage and then sought out Ravencourt in his parlour. 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 without a backward glance. Evelyn’s messy bedroom is 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 his experience. The constable’s hands immediately seek out hiding spots behind cabinets and around the bedframe, my feet tapping the floorboards in hopes of locating a loose panel. Even so, after a thorough search, I come up empty.
There’s nothing.