It was what Jael had expected, yet realization left her stunned.
Her expression had betrayed her. He released her, stepped back a pace. Before Jael could speak, his fist smashed into her jaw. He caught her as she fell.
After escorting Lady Halliday back to the Hall, Mr. Crump of Bow Street took advantage of his opportunity to further explore the immediate vicinity; the pond and grotto and allegorical statues, among which he paused for a moment in silent admiration of a water nymph; the hothouse, where with equal appreciation he inspected orange trees and pineapples and gigantic purple plums. From there he moved on to Lady Margaret’s Garden, site of so many recent unexplained events. Pondering those events, for he was among the faction who found it difficult to believe that Ned had shot himself, he ventured through the gate. He’d had no time during his last visit for a prolonged tour of the site where all the recent mischief had begun.
An inspection of the fountain provided him no clues, nor did the misshapen dwarf plants and neatly tended flower beds. He crossed the arched bridge, followed the winding gravel path, so lost in rumination that he didn’t even light his pipe. The ruined red brick temple looked unwelcoming in the lengthening shadows, a perfect setting for ghostly hauntings and mysterious deaths.
Crump cast a wary glance around. Ghosts or no ghosts, he was a Bow Street Runner, with a job of work to do.
Were those voices, coming from the temple? Had he seen a flicker of movement through the open door? Crump crept quietly forward, reaching into his waistcoat.
With pistol drawn and cocked, he edged through the doorway. Once inside, he stopped and stared.
“And to think I once harbored a high opinion of your intelligence,” said Dulcie, irritably, as with Jael’s dagger she slashed through the ropes that bound the gypsy’s wrists. Jael had a great deal to say, also, about the Runner’s character, conclusions, and conduct. Her mouth was bloody, as was her language, and her temper foul.
Not a furtive rendezvous between murderer and underling, then, or at least he hoped it wasn’t, because Crump didn’t care to be the one who explained
that
to Sir John. He stiffened as a small hard object was pressed against his back.
“I’ll have that pistol, Mr. Crump,” came a muffled voice. “Set it down on the ground. Gently! That’s the dandy. Now, inside.” Crump stumbled forward, propelled by a sharp shove. The door slammed shut, leaving them in shadow. A key turned in the lock.
Crump grasped the doorknob, put his shoulder against the wood and shoved. The knob merely rattled, and the door refused to budge. Gloomily, he contemplated Sir John’s probable reaction to this turn of events. Delicately he inquired of the Baroness what had brought her to the temple, and who had left Jael trussed up like a chicken for the pot? More important, who had relieved him of his barking iron?
“There’s no time for that now.” Dulcie handed Jael the knife. Jael moved to the door, pushed Crump impatiently aside, attempted with her blade to pry open the lock. With a notion of redeeming himself, Crump suggested a light. “God in heaven, man,” sighed Dulcie. “Do you have windmills in your head?” Crump opened his mouth to defend himself and hesitated, recognizing the smell of lamp oil.
“Precisely,” said Lady Bligh. “Someone has splashed a flammable substance around the room.” She approached a wall mirror and tugged at it, to no avail. “The door is locked, the tunnel blocked from the inside, the windows too small and high off the ground to be of any use. In short, dear Crump, we are at point non plus.” From her crouched position in front of the door, Jael voiced a wish for a picklock. She stiffened. “Hush!”
Dulcie fell silent. Jael stood up slowly, her knife concealed in her skirts.
There came a series of thuds, as if some heavy object was being rammed against the door, with increasing force.
The wood gave way. A man stepped across the threshold. “What in Hades?” he remarked— And then tumbled forward, felled by a blow from a thick tree-limb.
Crump bent over the fallen man. Not dead but unconscious, he discovered, as result of a very nasty wound. He had no sympathy to spare for the villain who had meant them to burn alive, and obviously Cade had so intended, else why incarcerate them in this oil-drenched place?
Who had come to rescue them? Crump wanted to shake the fellow’s hand.
Not fellow but female, he realized, as he glanced up. Lady Halliday stood on the gravel path, the light of her lantern adding a garish illumination to the scene.
“Move him inside, Mr. Crump,” she said. Familiar with that tone of voice, which was often addressed to him by Sir John, Crump grasped the unconscious man and dragged him into the temple before he questioned why he should.
“It’s that glad I am to see you, my lady,” he grunted, busy with his task. “We’ve found ourselves in a bit of a predicament and I don’t mind admitting I couldn’t see our way clear.”
Amanda stopped just outside the temple door. “To be the plaything of fortune is most unpleasant, is it not? Lady Bligh, whatever are you doing here? How is Ned?”
Having arranged the comatose body to his satisfaction, Crump stood up — and froze. Amanda had set down her lantern. She now held a pistol in each hand. He recognized one of those pistols as his own. “I have been in a dreadful pucker,” she added. “Pray relieve my anxiety, Lady Bligh.”
She looked, and sounded, like the young woman he’d recently left weeping on her front doorstop. Crump wondered if this queer scene was a hallucination brought on by toxic fumes. Perhaps Lady Halliday had set out to apprehend Cade, and was unaware of the damning picture she presented. “Lass—”
“Do not attempt to disarm me,” Amanda warned him sternly. “It is unlikely you would succeed. Even if you
did
succeed, it wouldn’t be before I managed to shoot two of you. How provoking that the door is broken. Now I have to change my plans.” She frowned at Jael. “Who is
she
?”
“No one of significance. Merely my nephew Hubert’s
fiancée
,” replied Dulcie. “I can see that bullet-holes would be inconvenient for you. Burning down the temple was a much better idea. But don’t you think four corpses a wee bit difficult to explain?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be
four of you. I meant this for him.” Amanda jerked her head toward the unconscious man.
Crump doubted the fidelity of his ears. “But—”
Coolly, Amanda met his gaze. “But me no buts, Mr. Crump. You have underestimated me, as I intended that you should. Unfortunately, I in turn underestimated Ned. I was certain he was so besotted he would lie in my behalf. I additionally forgot to make allowances for the fact that he was accustomed to being shot at.”
Crump stared at Lady Halliday’s bewitching face, her cap of chestnut curls. She looked no different than she had ever done. He inched sideways and found himself staring into the muzzle of his own gun.
“I have warned you, Mr. Crump,” she said. “I will not do so again. You have but a few moments left. I suggest you use them to compose your mind.”
As Crump abandoned his fantasy that Amanda would at any moment break into merry laughter and admit she was cutting a sham, Dulcie spoke again. “You require that Connor is conscious? To repay him for interfering with your plans? Yes, I know that this is Connor, and that the murdered twin was Cade, who returned often to Greenwood to get funds from his brother and, most likely, Rosamond.
You
killed Cade, and meant Connor to hang for it, or if that did not serve, Giuseppe. You found the dueling pistols at the Hall, with the other things of Cade’s that Rosamond had enshrined. I’m not surprised she fainted when Crump showed her that gun.”
“Dear Rosamond,” Amanda murmured. “It was no more than she deserved for all the unkind things she said of me.”
“You arranged a rendezvous with Cade, and shot him,” continued Dulcie. “Unfortunately for your purposes, the corpse was erroneously identified. That would have caused you no little annoyance, especially when Connor returned and pretended to be Cade. You couldn’t expose his deception without betraying that you know which brother you had killed. Rosamond may have realized the truth, but she didn’t dare speak out. Then, to further complicate matters, Barbary appeared.”
“I must applaud you, Lady Bligh, for reasoning all this out,” remarked Amanda, while Crump stared at the unconscious man. “I suspected that Barbary must be the female Connor visited in London, rushing to Greenwood to try and learn who was responsible for her lover’s death. She is Mr. Crossthwaite’s daughter, hence his cooperation with her scheme, in case you haven’t reasoned that out yet. And now, pleasant as it is to carry on a sensible conversation — to act the part of a pea-brain has been amusing but most tedious — I must bring it to an end.”
“Wait.” Jael stirred. “It was you Sir Wesley saw?”
“After all,” Dulcie added, “it is only fair that you explain. Death may mean little to you, my dear, but for the prospective corpses it is a matter of considerable import. I credit you mean Giuseppe to take the blame for our deaths also? That may be beyond even your contriving, since Giuseppe has already gone to the Castle to confess all to Sir John. You left that silk scarf by the fountain to implicate him, did you not?”
“I realized from the beginning that Giuseppe was using me to further his own ends.” Amanda leaned against the door jamb, one pistol aimed at Dulcie, the other at Crump. “I also realized that his hatred of the Hallidays could be of benefit. No, don’t move!” This, to Jael. “Stand over there, by Lady Bligh.”
“You have the missing temple key,” continued Dulcie. “But it never was missing, was it? You had it in your possession all this time.”
Amanda looked amused. “What a clever guess. I picked it up the night Sir Wesley died. When he saw me here, with Cade. As I had anticipated, it was a sight sufficiently shocking to stop a weak heart — Cade had told me about the tryst Sir Wesley interrupted long ago. You look disapproving, Lady Bligh. Cade had no notion of what I planned.”
“Yet he accepted it,” Dulcie said. Jael stood silent as the allegorical nymph that Crump had recently admired.
“Cade was a charming man,” Amanda replied, indifferently. “And also a weak one. He was easily duped. I convinced him that I hadn’t planned his father’s death.”
“And then you disposed of him before he could realize otherwise.” The Baroness nodded, as if pleased to receive enlightenment on some obscure point. “He had served his purpose, which was to gain you access to a fortune. Were all the heirs removed, you believed Sir Wesley’s wealth would revert to you.”
“My felicitations, Lady Bligh: you are most astute.” Amanda took a step backward. “And now—”
“You’ve neglected to take Janthina into consideration,” Dulcie pointed out. “You still won’t inherit, even with both the brothers dead.”
“I’ve neglected nothing. Connor claimed the bitch was alive to try and make me show my hand. He was suspicious of me from the start. It may be he discovered that I was Cade’s mistress prior to my marriage with Sir Wesley. Ah, finally you look surprised. Cade arranged for me to meet his father. I was to be the means by which he regained the fortune he had lost.” Amanda smiled. “It was most amusing. Connor couldn’t confide his suspicions to his father, for fear of bringing on another heart-attack. Nor was he entirely certain of my guilt. The poor man found it difficult to reconcile the roles of murderess and feather-head. My mother often said that I should have gone upon the stage.”
Unnatural, that’s what it was, thought Crump. Lady Bligh was chatting with Amanda as casually as if they set in a breakfast chamber exchanging gossip over the tea-cups.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Connor stir. Amanda’s face was turned away from them. Crump held his breath.
Jael too had seen Connor’s movement; her eyes caught and held Crump’s. The Runner tensed.
Jael said, abruptly, “Connor did not lie.”
“About Janthina. He must have.” Amanda’s eyes widened. “Unless—”
Jael’s chill smile flashed.
Several things happened at once. Connor attempted to rise, and collided with Crump. As Amanda swung around to fire at him, Jael raised her arm and flung her blade.
An expression of astonishment on her face, Amanda crumpled to the ground. Her plump little hands clutched convulsively at the knife-handle that protruded from her bleeding breast.
Said Dulcie, “That was a damnably close thing.” She glanced at the doorway. “And your timing, John, is superb.”
The Chief Magistrate of Bow Street stared, appalled, at the scene before him. Only Dulcie remained standing. Crump, Jael and the remaining Halliday were in a tangle on the floor.
Crump disengaged himself, and staggered to his feet. Jael remained seated, the gentleman’s auburn head resting on her lap as her fingers explored the wound on his scalp.
He winced. “I owe you an apology.”
Jael ripped a strip from her petticoat and wound it round his head. “Don’t regard it, Connor. I believed as ill of you.”
“
Connor
?” echoed the Chief Magistrate.
Austen, who had refused to remain safely at the Castle, slipped under Sir John’s out-stretched arm and into the room. He stared at Amanda. “Crickey! Right in the heart.”
Sir John bent over the short, plump figure wrapped in a dark cloak, lying in a spreading pool of blood. From her chest protruded a dagger.
He recognized that knife. “Jael,” he said.
“Unerringly, Jael,” agreed Dulcie, “and we must all thank her for it. But you have not been properly introduced. John, allow me to present Janthina Halliday.”
The village of Greenwood was
en fête
. Word had gotten round that the person behind the recent misadventures was not one of their own. Ah, but she had been a deep one, that Lady Halliday, and may her poor scheming soul rest in peace. So saying, the villagers quaffed Abel Bagshot’s ale, and dismissed Amanda from their minds. Abel too drank deeply, not in tribute to the recently departed, but in relief at having gotten off — thanks to Lady Bligh — with no more serious penalty than a thunderous scold.