The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

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.

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 tapestry concealing 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 fêtes 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 towards 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 towards 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 armours herself. Of all Blackheath’s tricks, being exposed to every unpleasant side of a person you once considered a friend is surely the cruellest.

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 mistrusting, but she drops the pins into her apron pocket before curtsying and leaving the room.

Taking me by the arm, Evelyn leads me towards 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 glance, 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 to the house, but I don’t know who that is yet.’

‘She’s...’ She shakes her head. ‘Nothing, I shouldn’t even be talking to you.’

She turns for the door, but I catch her by the wrist, pulling her back rather more forcefully than I’d intended. Anger flashes on her face and I immediately release her, raising my hands.

‘Ted Stanwin told me everything,’ I say desperately, trying to keep her from storming out of the room.

I need a plausible explanation for the things I know, and Derby overheard Stanwin and Evelyn arguing this morning. If I’m very lucky, the blackmailer has a hand in all of this. It’s not much of a stretch. He has a hand in everything else that’s happening today.

Evelyn’s still, watchful, like a deer in the woods that’s just heard a branch snap.

‘He said you were planning to kill yourself by the reflecting pool this evening, but that made no sense,’ I press on, trusting to Stanwin’s formidable reputation to sell the story. ‘Forgive me for being blunt, Miss Hardcastle, but if you were serious about ending your life, you’d already be dead, not playing the dutiful hostess to people you despise. My second idea was that you wanted everybody to see it happen, but then why not do it in the ballroom, during the party? I couldn’t make sense of it until I stood on the edge of the reflecting pool and realised how dark it was, how easily it could conceal something dropped into it.’

Scorn glitters in her eyes.

‘And what is it you want, Mr Rashton? Money?’

‘I’m trying to help you,’ I insist. ‘I know you intend to go to the reflecting pool at 11 p.m., press a black revolver to your stomach and collapse into the pool. I know you won’t actually pull the trigger of the black revolver and a starter’s pistol will make the sound of the gunshot everybody hears, just as I know you plan to drop the starter’s pistol into the water when you’re done. The vial of blood will be hung from a long cord around your neck and will crack open when you hit it with the revolver, providing the gore.

‘I’m guessing the syringe I found in the sack is filled with some combination of muscle relaxant and sedative to help you play dead, making it easy for Doctor Dickie – who I assume is being paid handsomely for his trouble – to make it official on the death certificate, forgoing the need for an unpleasant inquest. One would imagine that a week or so after your death, you’ll be back in France enjoying a nice glass of white wine.’

A couple of maids are carrying slopping buckets of dirty water towards the doors, their gossip coming to an abrupt halt as they notice us. They pass by with uncertain dips, Evelyn steering me further into the corner.

For the first time, I see fear on her face.

‘I admit I didn’t want to marry Ravencourt and I knew I couldn’t keep my family from forcing me into it unless I disappeared, but why would anybody want to kill me?’ she asks, the cigarette still trembling in her hand.

I study her face for a lie, but I might as well be turning a microscope on a patch of fog. This woman has been lying to everybody for days. I wouldn’t recognise the truth even if it did manage to escape her lips.

‘I have certain suspicions but I need proof,’ I say. ‘That’s why I need you to go through with your plan.’

‘Go through with it, are you mad?’ she exclaims, lowering her voice as all eyes turn towards us. ‘Why would I go through with it after what you’ve just told me?’

‘Because you won’t be safe until we draw the conspirators out and for that they need to believe their plan has succeeded.’

‘I’ll be safe when I’m a hundred miles from here.’

‘And how will you get there?’ I ask. ‘What happens if the carriage driver is part of the plot, or a servant? Whispers carry in this house and when the murderers get word you’re trying to leave, they’ll push forward with their plan and kill you. Believe me, running will only delay the inevitable. I can put a stop to it here and now, but only if you go along with it all. Point a gun at your stomach and play dead for half an hour. Who knows, you may even get to stay dead and escape Ravencourt as you planned.’

She has her hand pressed to her forehead, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. When she speaks again, it’s in a quieter voice, somehow emptier.

‘I’m caught between the devil and the deep-blue sea, aren’t I?’ she says. ‘Very well, I’ll go through with it, but there’s something I need to know first. Why are you helping me, Mr Rashton?’

‘I’m a policeman.’

‘Yes, but you’re not a saint and only a saint would put themselves in the middle of all this.’

‘Then consider it a favour to Sebastian Bell,’ I say.

Surprise softens her expression. ‘Bell? What on earth has the dear doctor got to do with this?’

‘I don’t know yet, but he was attacked last night and I doubt it’s a coincidence.’

‘Perhaps, but why is that your concern?’

‘He wants to be a better person,’ I say. ‘That’s a rare thing in this house. I admire it.’

‘As do I,’ she says, pausing to weigh up the man in front of her. ‘Very well, tell me your plan, but first I want your word that I’ll be safe. I’m putting my life in your hands, and that’s not something I submit to without guarantee.’

‘How do you know my word is worth anything?’

‘I’ve been around dishonourable men my entire life,’ she says simply. ‘You’re not one of them. Now, give me your word.’

‘You have it.’

‘And a drink,’ she continues. ‘I’m going to need a little courage to see this through.’

‘More than a little,’ I say. ‘I want you to befriend Jonathan Derby. He has a silver pistol we’ll be needing.’