For a moment he thought he saw fear in Murray’s eyes, and had to wonder what Browning had over him to make him so fearful of losing the damned foliage.
“I know that Browning is your employer,” he knew from the slight widening of Murray’s eyes that he had hit on the truth, and shook his head in disgust. “Unless you want to be accomplice to murder, I suggest that you get the hell out of here. Browning lied to you about me having that plant. He set you up on a wild goose chase too. I have no doubt that he is over at Miss Northolt’s house as we speak, trying to kill her. Unfortunately for you, you are in the area too, and have undoubtedly been seen by one of my neighbours. Browning is trying to pin the murders he has committed onto you.”
“Browning? I don’t know a Browning.” The lie was written in the depths of Murray’s eyes, and was betrayed further by the rather panicked way his gaze flicked randomly around the garden.
Ben rather suspected that the amateur botanist was not used to a life of crime because the gun in his hand either pointed at the sky, or the ground, but was rarely pointed straight at Ben. Unfortunately for Murray, Ben was determined that he was going to get back to Beatrice as quickly as possible and had no qualms about doing what was necessary to get Murray out of the way.
He sidled further along the garden until he reached the low wall that separated the lawn from the vegetable garden. Once there, he leaned casually against it. Although his heart was racing, he glared defiantly at Murray and didn’t move.
“I know that Browning has something on you that is forcing you to do this but, if you stop and think about it for a moment, are you really prepared to spend your life behind bars for him? Browning set you up, you see? The plant isn’t here. He has sent you on a wild goose chase. You will, however, be implicated in the murder of Beatrice Northolt, if you delay me from getting back there.” It was a random guess at what was actually going on, but he was positive that he was right.
“I am not going to be implicated in anything,” Murray snapped defiantly.
“You must be the killer then,” Ben replied, and silently prayed that he wasn’t.
Murray started to look doubtful, but then straightened his shoulders and glared back at Ben with such hatred in his eyes that Ben wondered if Murray was indeed the killer.
Determined not to be delayed a moment longer, Ben suddenly sidestepped and lifted a large rock off the top of the wall, which he hurled at the man before him. The movement was so swift that Murray barely had time to do anything other than pull the trigger. The loud retort of the gun spooked a flock of birds which flew out of the trees in a flurry of feathers and startled squawks, but Ben didn’t care about anything other than getting Murray out of the way so that he could get back to Beatrice.
The fist he threw at Murray’s face landed with such force that the man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he immediately slumped onto the floor without a murmur. Ben kicked the gun out of the way and covered it over with a couple of rocks before he raced toward the woods for the second time that morning.
Beatrice fought against the hard hands that drew her backward. At first, she clung on to the door jamb and refused to let go. Size for size she was about the same as the man behind her. However, she was no match for his maniacal strength. When he suddenly lunged backward, her fingers clawed desperately at the wood, but she was eventually forced to let go.
Her scream was loud in the silence of the house but she knew that Maud wasn’t able to hear her. Tears streamed down her face. She wondered if this was it; this was the moment that she was going to die. She wished she had at least one chance to tell Ben how she truly felt about him.
“Let me go!” She screamed, and took a breath to scream again only for a large hand to slam cruelly over her mouth. It pressed so tightly against her lips that she could barely breathe. She tasted blood and began to claw desperately at the fingers. The painful jab of something against her side made her cry out, but she couldn’t twist her head, she couldn’t move enough to speak or breathe.
In a desperate attempt to do something to gain some air, she kicked her legs out wildly before her and began to squirm as she fought for breath. Stars began to dance behind her eyes and her stomach churned sickeningly. If she vomited now, she was certainly going to choke and, although she swallowed, she couldn’t draw in the air she was starved of.
With the last of her energies, she kicked back against the man and threw herself forward. Luckily, it was enough to dislodge the cruel hand from her mouth and she drew in several lungs full of air as she fell into a heap on the floor. The world swam alarmingly and she couldn’t get her thoughts together to focus on what to do.
“Where is it?” The man growled next to her ear. She glared over her shoulder into the once friendly eyes of the man she now knew was Richard Browning. To her consternation, he was several years younger than he had pretended to be, although must still be in his late sixties.
“I don’t have it. It was removed by the police,” she gasped. Right at that moment she hated him so much that she could have clawed his eyes out, but she was so scared that she could barely move. It was ridiculous really because right now she was in the middle of a fight for her life.
“I know it is still here. It was seen in the study,” he growled in a voice that was several notches deeper than it had been the other day.
“Go and see for yourself if you don’t believe me,” she spat defiantly and dropped her head to be able to draw in several more deep breaths.
Her scream was loud when her head was suddenly yanked back by the hair. She clutched at the ruthless fingers that drew her head backward in a desperate attempt to alleviate the pain. There was no choice but to scramble and crawl along as he dragged her by her hair toward the study.
He shoved her into the room before him and glanced around once they were inside. His curse was loud and she knew that he was going to reach out to her again, however this time she was determined that he wouldn’t touch her. She scrambled over the piles of papers and books, and threw a handful toward his head. They smacked him in the face and fluttered around him.
“You cannot get away from me, so I don’t know where you think you are going,” Browning snarled.
Once she was safely on the opposite side of the large desk, she turned to face him. As long as she kept the desk between them she knew she was safe. Unless he was going to clamber over the top of it, she could hold him off until either Ben returned, or she figured out what she was going to do. Hopefully, once he established that the flower wasn’t in the house, he would leave because there was no reason to be there. She could only hope that he didn’t intend to make her his next victim.
“Staying here is just going to put you behind bars,” Beatrice snapped. “They know all about you.”
“You know nothing,” Browning declared arrogantly. “You and your meddling boyfriend just don’t know when to keep your noses out of things. I know that the stupid fool Mottram brought you the damned flower. I just want what’s mine to be returned to me; the rightful owner.”
“You don’t own that plant, Browning, and you and I both know it. You have killed all of the men involved in growing it in the hopes that you could declare ownership without risk of being challenged by anyone. After all, if nobody is alive to tell the truth, there is nobody to stop you from claiming the plant as your own and selling it for a greedy profit. Everyone knows that you are in serious financial difficulty, and need funds to keep the roof on that miserable hole you call a house. Your spending and foreign travels might have brought rare finds and some riches, but they aren’t enough to cover your expenses. You are in debt, you are in trouble, and you desperately need that rare plant so that you can consider yourself better than all the rest. It doesn’t matter to you that you have had to kill for it. You are a murderer, nothing more.” Her voice dipped with cold fury. Her words were spat across the table in a voice that was raw with fear, desperation, and such deep anger, that she almost wished that he would lunge at her again so she
could start to throw things at him.
She eyed the contents of the table briefly and felt a little better at the sight of the floor to ceiling shelving behind her that was literally crammed full of heavy books of all shapes and sizes. Although they wouldn’t probably be enough to render him useless, they could give him a few nasty surprises. One thing was for certain, at the moment, they were at a stand-off. He wasn’t going to leave, and she wasn’t going to give in.
“You know nothing. Now, what did you do with that plant?”
Beatrice snorted. “I have told you.”
“My man has gone to your lover’s house, so don’t expect him to come and rescue you. By now, your lover boy will be unable to rescue himself, let alone anyone else.”
Beatrice’s heart lurched into her throat and she stared at him while her heart bled with grief as she considered the possibility that Ben might be the killer’s fourth victim. Just the mere thought of it almost brought her to her knees. She couldn’t even consider just how devastated she was going to be without him. It seemed so cruel, and all because of one person’s greed.
“You will have nothing, you know,” Beatrice declared firmly. “I have a very valuable document, signed by Jules Sanders, Brian Mottram and Bernard Murray that states quite categorically that you had nothing to do with the creation of the rare plant species. They purchased the parent plants off you, and declared the sums of money that were handed to you in payment. It has been witnessed by to separate people, and is a legally binding document. What Mottram and Sanders did with the parent plants they bought off you is purely their business, and certainly nothing that you should consider able to claim as your own work. No matter how much you try to bully Murray into helping you.”
Now that she was talking about it, she was able to plot things out a little more. It was a wild guess to insinuate that Murray was culpable in the murders too, but she knew she had hit the nail on the head when Browning’s lip suddenly curled at the mention of Murray’s name.
“You stupid woman, you know nothing at all. What do you know about the world? You live here in this God forsaken place, all by yourself. What have you seen of the world? What do you know about what it takes to get a plant like the ones I find?”
“I know that it costs a considerable amount of money to travel to somewhere like Brazil, or Mexico, and even more money to transport rare plants back into the country. Unfortunately for you, you cannot afford to go anymore. You don’t have the money. My guess is that once you found out that Jules Sanders and his friend had created this rare species, you saw it as your meal ticket to travel abroad and find yet more rare species to send home and sell for greedy profit. Not only would it get you out of the country so you couldn’t be arrested for the murders of innocent people, but you would solve a lot of your financial woes.”
“Shut up,” Browning suddenly yelled. The red veins in his eyes stood out and his mouth flapped open several times as he tried to speak past his rage, but couldn’t. The wild desperation she could see on his face unnerved her greatly and she struggled not to allow the panic to take hold.
“You have a hold over Murray over something and forced him to vouch for you, and help you lure people to their deaths. Unfortunately for him, I have no doubt that you have him lined up as your next victim.”
“Murray is stupid. He borrowed some money off me but couldn’t repay it. It was easy to get that fool to do as I wanted,” Browning boasted. “He thinks I will let him off the hook. Hah! He knows nothing.”
“I think that you are going to spend a very long time behind bars, Browning. Three murders mean three life sentences.”
“You can make that four murders,” Browning whispered, and started to sidle around the desk toward her.
Beatrice side-stepped so that the length of the desk remained between them. She simply refused to take her eyes off him. The next few minutes of her life would decide whether she was going to live or die. At some point throughout the last couple of minutes, some inner survival instinct kicked in and demanded that she simply not give in to this man.
When he stepped toward her, she lifted the heaviest book within reach and hurled it across the room. It didn’t move all that quickly though, and unfortunately Browning had no difficulty in side-stepping it. His smirk of pleasure made her shiver. When he eyed the length of the table in consideration, she knew what he was planning to do and glanced around for the next heaviest book she could find.
In that moment, a movement by the door drew both of their gazes. A sob escaped her as Ben lunged into the room and threw himself at Browning. Both men went down with a heavy thud, but Ben was too angry to care about a few bruises. The last few minutes had been the worst of his entire life, and he knew that the feelings that swept through him would remain with him for the rest of his life.
He had seen enough of Beatrice through the crack in the door to know that the bastard had tried to strangle her. The dark red marks across her throat and mouth, along with the almost hunted look in her eyes, infuriated him, and he took the opportunity to vent some of his rage on the man who tried desperately to fight back, but was no match for Ben’s fury.
Fist, after fist, after fist, rained down on the man before him. Beatrice stumbled and slid over the assorted papers and books on the floor and finally reached the doorway. Once she was free of the mess she raced into the sitting room and picked up the poker from the pot beside the fireplace.
Unfortunately, by the time she returned, the situation in the house had changed. A strange man now stood in the doorway. He was bleeding heavily from a gash to his forehead. His slightly dazed eyes were alight with anger, and he turned toward her with a feral snarl of rage. She knew instinctively that this was Bernard Murray, and didn’t think about what she was doing as she swung the heavy poker at his head with as much force as she could muster.
The resounding thudding noise it made as it came into contact with his skull was enough to make her wince, but lifted the poker again in preparation to take another swing anyway. Two or three strikes later, Murray surrendered to unconsciousness once more and collapsed without a murmur.
Before she even got to the hallway she could hear the grunts from the men within the study. She glanced back at Murray, and briefly wondered if she should restrain him in some way, but the need to help Ben was more important. Her grip on the poker was so tight that it started to make her knuckles ache, but the dull throbbing was firmly pushed to the back of her mind as she entered the study.
Ben had received a couple of blows to his face, the small cuts from which were oozing down his cheeks, but the man on the floor was considerably worse.
“Ben,” she snapped and hefted the poker.
It took a moment for Ben to come out of his daze but when she repeated his name, his head turned toward her. He spotted the poker she held and landed one particularly heavy thump on the man beneath him before he pushed to his feet. He took the poker off her and turned back to the man on the floor who had yet to move.
“Get up!” He snarled. “Get up now, or I swear to God that you will be buried in the garden by tea-time.”
“No, he won’t Ben,” Mark growled from the doorway.
Beatrice screamed and spun around with such speed that the world swam alarmingly. She swallowed around a suddenly painful throat and felt the sting of tears at the sight of help in the doorway.
Mark stalked into the room with a pair of handcuffs hanging from his hand. “Richard Browning, I am arresting you for the murders of Jules Sanders, Brian Mottram and Sigmund Hargraves, and the attempted murder of Beatrice Northolt. Stand up.”
When Browning didn’t immediately comply, Ben and Mark hauled him unceremoniously to his feet and shoved him face first down onto the desk. Once his arms were secured tightly behind his back, Browning was then dragged toward the front door to Fred, and a small army of constables who were waiting in the driveway.
Both Beatrice and Ben stood to one side and watched solemnly as a dazed Murray was also handcuffe
d and ushered out of the door. Mark stepped forward and instructed one of the constables to fetch Doctor Woods, before he turned toward them.
“Let’s go and sit down, then you can tell me what happened.”
Beatrice swallowed past the rawness in her throat and stared at Ben in horror. “Maud? What about Maud?”
“She is dazed but otherwise unharmed. I will feel better though once Doctor Woods has seen all of you,” Mark replied with a sigh.
“Is she outside now?”
“She is in her room.” Mark waved them both unceremoniously into the sitting room. “I know that this has been very difficult for you both but, if I can get a gist of what happened this morning, I can go and interview Murray and Browning at the station and formally charge them knowing that I have included all of the charges. I can then leave you to recover in private, and you can finally relax knowing that this entire ordeal is now finally over.”
“How did you get here so quickly?” Ben demanded.
“We were on our way to pay an early morning visit to Murray’s house when Fred saw Billy Green walking down the Main Street. He was counting a large wad of cash and had a huge grin on his face. Because Billy is one of the local scoundrels, Fred realised something odd was going on and stopped him for questioning. He reluctantly admitted that he had been paid to tell you that your house was on fire. We asked him who it was who had paid him, but he said he had no idea. However, the description he gave us matched that of Richard Browning.”
Beatrice stood on legs that trembled and had to wait a minute for the world to settle again before she could walk across the room.
“Where are you going?” Ben demanded with a scowl.
“I need to fetch something,” she whispered and stumbled past Isaac, who was now standing in the doorway. He shared a glance with Mark and followed her, not because they suspected her of anything but because she looked as though she was about to fall down.
Ben swiped at the blood on his face but didn’t bother to look at it. His gaze remained locked on the doorway and he willed himself to be patient, he really did, but even the few short minutes she had been gone felt like a lifetime to him. Right now he needed her to be by his side, and nowhere else. His scowl was fierce by the time she returned clutching a sheaf of papers.
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