The Prisoner in the Castle

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  “Oh yes, of course, please come in—” His eyes were so dark they seemed almost black. “Are you cold?”

  She realized she was shivering. “It’s freezing.”

  “Would you like a sweater? Or a blanket?”

  He walked the few steps to a wingback chair and picked up a crocheted afghan. When he’d wrapped the cover around Maggie, he pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  Outside, the rain had turned to hail, pelting as if it might shatter the windows.

  “I love your hair,” he murmured, wrapping a loose strand around his fingers. The tips were cold as they brushed her cheek.

  Maggie raised her head. “I just want to feel normal. Just two people who fancy each other, sharing a kiss. I want to forget where we are and everything that’s happened…that’s happening. I want to escape.” His body was warm; she could smell the lingering trace of his aftershave.

  “You’re so beautiful. I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. I’d move mountains, cross rivers…I’d even kill Blue Men for you.”

  She smiled. “No talk of killing tonight. Please.”

  Sayid leaned closer. Maggie closed her eyes, but before the inevitable kiss, there was the distinct sound of a meow outside the door.

  She opened her eyes. “Is that Sooty?”

  “Ignore him.” Sayid leaned in again.

  But Sooty didn’t stop, his meows turning into a frantic wail. Maggie broke away from Sayid’s embrace and went to the door. She opened it. “Sooty? Sooty?”

  She saw the shadow of the black cat at a tapestry of a lady and a unicorn. He was pawing at it, his yowls growing in intensity.

  “Sooty, what on earth are you doing?” Maggie asked, walking toward him. Sayid followed behind her, holding a candle.

  “What’s above us?” she asked him.

  “The tallest turret.”

  “Maybe there’s a—” She pulled away the tapestry to reveal a wooden door.

  Sooty looked up at her, as if to say, Open the damn door, you silly human!

  Maggie whispered, “Sayid—someone might be up there—in trouble. We should go and see.”

  “Should we get the others?”

  “No, they’re too drunk—”

  “True, true.”

  “We saw the light up there last night…”

  “I thought it was the reflection of lightning in the window.” Sooty yowled again and pawed at the door. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

  She was frightened, to be sure, but also angry. Seven were dead; she wanted to find the murderer before any more lives were lost. “Let’s go up.”

  “It’s locked.” Sayid twisted the door handle back and forth.

  “Wait.” Maggie stood on her tiptoes and reached above the door frame as Sooty rubbed at her ankles, purring. A hunch led her fingers along the dusty wood until they touched something. “There’s a key.”

  When the key scraped the lock, the door creaked open, revealing a steep winding stairway, drenched in shadows. Sooty scrambled up the steps, as if he’d been there many times before. Maggie and Sayid exchanged a look. At the top they found another door. A tiny paring of light was just visible underneath.

  Sooty was pawing at it and Sayid reached out to open it, but Maggie’s hand stopped his. Heart pounding, she knocked, instead. Sayid gave her a puzzled look, then a low voice responded, “Come in.” Then, “Goodness gracious! I won’t eat you.”

  Maggie gnawed her lip, biting back a high, nervous laugh. She swung the door open, and the cat darted inside. She forced herself to step over the threshold. Sayid followed close on her heels. Her eyes adjusted to the light from candles and a few hurricane lamps.

  The room was dim, and it held a peculiar smell: tea, lavender, dust, and things from the past kept too long. The ceiling was quite low, and the walls were covered with floral wallpaper—enormous, blowsy cabbage roses and bluebells. The lack of taxidermy was a relief.

  Sooty shot straight to Mrs. McNaughton, seated on a faded chair in the tower’s rounded chamber, and leapt up on her lap. At that moment, Maggie realized another figure stood in the shadows, by a narrow window.

  The figure turned; it was a woman. “It took you two long enough to find me.” Her voice was definitely human, low and warm. She stepped toward them, her outline tall and graceful. A fine shawl was draped over her shoulders, worn velvet slippers on her feet. Closer, there was no mistaking her patrician features or her white-blond hair.

  “We had a bit of help from the cat,” Sayid offered.

  “Well, come in,” the woman told them. “I must be better than I thought at playing hide-and-seek—I was certain a house full of secret agents would have found me before now. Come, sit down. Quite the evening you’ve had downstairs, I hear.” She gestured to two worn silk-covered chairs across from the housekeeper.

  Maggie turned her attention to Mrs. McNaughton. “Are—are you all right? I know Mr. Asquith told Murdo certain…things he’d discovered.”

  “I’m fine,” the housekeeper answered, her hands stroking the cat’s midnight-black fur. But the tightness of her lips belied her assurance.

  “It’s kind of you to be concerned for her,” the silver-haired woman offered. “But secrets are often like unwanted guests—and they always come at the worst possible time. It’s all right—you’re safe here,” she said to Maggie and Sayid. “I won’t hurt you. You both look as though you’ve seen a ghost!” She laughed. “Please, please sit down.”

  “We thought you might be one,” Maggie admitted as she and Sayid sat on faded blue silk armchairs. “We noticed a light from the tower—we thought at the time it was a reflection, but it must have been yours. Have you been locked up here? And I could have sworn I’ve seen a figure out of the corner of my eye any number of times…”

  “Well, I’m not much to look at anymore.” The woman grimaced as she moved closer. The scars were more evident in the light. “But I’m still spry. And I haven’t been locked up. I come and go as I please—taking walks around the island. And I have been watching all of you. But you’re all too self-involved to have noticed me.”

  Maggie thought back to Anna’s insistence she felt watched, convinced she’d seen a figure the day of the fishing lessons, suspecting she’d glimpsed someone at the tomb. “We have seen you. We just didn’t believe our eyes.”

  Sayid finally found his voice. “You’re Lady Beatrix. Lady Beatrix Killoch.”

  “Yes.” The woman nodded. “However, I go by my maiden name now—Beatrix Granville.”

  “We—we thought you’d died,” Maggie managed.

  “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Beatrix laughed, then stopped abruptly, as if it were still too painful.

  “But it was in the papers,” pressed Sayid.

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the room. Beatrix turned to the tower’s long, thin window. Rain was drumming against it like skeleton fingers, and she waited for the answering growl of thunder. “Never believe everything you read in the papers, Doctor.”

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “Mrs. McNaughton has kept me informed of all of you,” the silver-haired woman replied. “She’s told me you and Miss Hope are the only two she trusts.”

  “But what happened?” Maggie asked Beatrix, thoroughly confused. “Why did you let people think you were dead? Why are you living here in the tower? And, Mrs. McNaughton—you knew this the whole time?”

  “When everything…happened,” Beatrix answered. “The murders…I was injured…” She glanced to the housekeeper; the cat had fallen asleep in her lap. “Fiona nursed me back to health.” The candlelight flickered over her face, pain undeniable.

  Maggie leaned forward. “But why let everyone believe you’d died?”

  “For a time, Miss Hope, I wished I had died with th
e rest of them—with all my heart. But then I realized I had no desire to return to my previous life. I’d be known as a monster. I couldn’t go back into society—I’d be forever branded the widow of a mass murderer. And so I decided to stay here on the island instead. Fiona and her husband have graciously allowed me to live with them. When the British government took over the island, in nineteen forty, I went into hiding up here.”

  “In light of your continued existence, I just have to ask.” Maggie’s brain whirled, as she tried to absorb all she’d just learned. “Is Marcus Killoch really dead? That’s not a fake body in the coffin?”

  “Oh, he’s dead and gone, to be sure,” Mrs. McNaughton assured her. Beatrix and Mrs. McNaughton exchanged a significant look. “That part the papers reported correctly.”

  The raindrops continued to ding against the window. “Lady Beatrix—” Maggie began.

  “Miss Granville is fine.”

  “Surely there’s no reason for you to hide.”

  “I’ve become used to the solitude, the seasons, the sea. I didn’t want to change things.” She took a ragged breath. “I didn’t want to answer questions. People can be so cruel…”

  I know. “Please,” Maggie urged. “Come downstairs with us.”

  “No, I like it up here. I have my books, my tea, a splendid view of the ocean…Besides, Fiona tells me things are getting a bit messy downstairs. Yet more murders—you’re up to seven dead now? I’ll stay up here where it’s safe, thank you!” Beatrix shuddered, then sighed. “We probably should have burned the whole place down when we had the chance. I always loathed it—it’s a monstrosity, isn’t it? Still, when you’re inside, you don’t have to look at it. And I can’t complain about the view.”

  “What happened that night?” Maggie asked. “Did it happen the way the newspaper accounts said? Your husband killed the guests and then shot himself?”

  “There were ten men, plus Marcus, who died. We don’t speak of it,” said Beatrix, sitting beside Mrs. McNaughton. The two women grasped hands.

  “Bea,” Mrs. McNaughton offered. “You know I’ve always thought sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

  “Some things can’t be made clean, Fiona. And what could possibly come of talking about it?”

  “Part of it—well, it’s my secret to tell,” Mrs. McNaughton insisted. After a long moment, the silver-haired woman pulled her shawl tighter around her and nodded.

  “Marcus and Bea had an arranged marriage,” Mrs. McNaughton told them. “He was a terrible man, Marcus Killoch. And he had terrible friends. They did just as they pleased. No one ever stopped them. They…did things. You saw the pictures.”

  “Did you know what was going on?” Maggie asked Beatrix.

  “As Fiona said, we had a sham marriage, for appearances’ sake only,” she answered. “Marcus always had quite…unusual tastes. But as long as he went elsewhere for his fun and didn’t bother me, I ignored what he did. After the Great War, however, his appetites became more…voracious. The usual ladies from London he invited here to the castle didn’t satisfy. He took to paying girls from Mallaig to come to the island. Unspeakable things happened in that ballroom. Usually staff was barred—”

  “The dumbwaiters.” Maggie nodded. “And the orchestra gallery’s curtain.”

  “Fiona was working for us then—and she was so young and pretty.” Beatrix glanced to the housekeeper with a soft smile. “Eventually, Marcus stalked her and brought her into his fold. But Angus and Fiona were engaged to be married, you see—she a maid and he the ghillie.”

  Mrs. McNaughton lifted her eyes. “When I went missing that night, Angus came looking for me—opened up the door to the ballroom and saw what Sir Marcus and his friends were doing to us girls—”

  There was a peal of thunder. Maggie had to remind herself to keep breathing. “And—” Once again Beatrix and Mrs. McNaughton exchanged looks, their faces clouded. “Angus—he found a rifle and killed them all. He saved us.” Mrs. McNaughton’s fingers crept to the cross at her throat, and her eyes looked lost in the labyrinth of memories. “Saved me.” Maggie blinked as she struggled to absorb this new revelation.

  Mrs. McNaughton took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress and wiped at her nose. “I keep asking myself, Why didn’t I ever do anything?”

  Beatrix put a comforting arm around the housekeeper’s shoulder. “Shhhhh…There was nothing you could do, Fi.” Then she turned to Maggie and Sayid. “You can’t tell anyone. You mustn’t. You need to keep our secret. Please.”

  “No one dared say no,” Mrs. McNaughton said, lifting her eyes. They burned into Maggie’s. “No one dared stop them. He was Sir Marcus, and they were all powerful men. With a lot of money and influence. Here on the island, they just ran wild, like animals, killing and rutting…”

  Sayid leaned forward. “What about the police?”

  “The police in Mallaig were paid off handsomely to turn a blind eye. That’s what money gets you—a different set of rules. They knew what was happening to the girls from Mallaig and Fort William—to us servant girls. And they didn’t give a damn, as long as they got their payout. We did what we had to, to survive. You couldn’t think about it. During the day, when it wasn’t happening, I’d make myself forget. When it was happening, it was like I floated out of myself, like I was looking down from some high point on the ceiling. And then, when it’s all over, you put it away, in a box. So there was normal life and then there was—that.”

  Mrs. McNaughton covered her face with her fingers. “Oh my God, the ballroom…I’d lift up and out of my body, not part of it at all. I cut off a portion of myself and I left it in that cursed ballroom. Or so I prayed.” She dropped her hands and looked to Maggie. “Murdo said…there was a picture?”

  “It’s burned,” Maggie assured her. “Destroyed. And I can burn all the photographs of all the other girls, too.”

  “Yes, bless you, please do that. That chapter of my life needs to be closed.” She sighed in relief. “Angus saved me.” She laughed, a bitter chortle. “I didn’t think I was good enough for him. He saved me that night. And then he saved my life when he stayed with me, married me. Raised Murdo as his own—never held it against me or the child. We never spoke of it again.” She swayed, clutching her cross. “I pray. I pray…When the memories return, I pray.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Maggie offered. But seeing the agony etched on the woman’s face, she realized how useless her words were.

  “When the police finally came,” Beatrix added, “there was no one alive—at least no male aristocrats—to dispute our story. All ten of the men and my husband were dead. Angus had shot them all. The girls kept quiet. And Fiona hid me and tended to me and kept my secret.” She choked back a sob. “Marcus was an evil man. He deserved to die. I can think of no death more appropriate for him and his lot—being hunted down like the prey he used to shoot and kill.”

  There was sadness in her voice, the echoes of terror, but also, Maggie realized, a small but unmistakable glow of pride.

  “So our murderer then—it’s not Murdo and it’s not Marcus.” Bewildered, Sayid rubbed at the back of his neck. “Who is it, then? Have you seen anything? Do you know anything?”

  “How could I know anything, up here in this tower?”

  “You said you love the view,” Maggie pointed out, looking to the window. “Have you seen any unidentified people on the grounds? Anything unusual at all?”

  Beatrix frowned. “Well, someone’s been going to the boat. Not openly. At night, with a flashlight. I don’t know who it is—or if it’s a man or woman. But I’ve seen a figure coming and going.”

  “The boat Dr. Jaeger was on,” Maggie said, realizing, remembering the long antenna. “The boat in the bay—it has a radio.”

  We’re in touch with SOE already. So who would need to use it? Oh, God…“A German agent could be using the radio,” Maggie pos
ited, “for a pickup. So it’s possible we don’t have only a murderer here.” More pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. “We might have a Nazi spy on the island.” Sayid’s mouth opened, and Beatrix and Mrs. McNaughton looked at her in shock.

  Maggie jumped to her feet. “We need to destroy the radio! Now!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Wish we had a baseball bat,” Maggie said, eyeing the radio on Captain Evans’s desk. They’d done away with the formality of asking Mrs. McNaughton for the key and simply broke in.

  “I don’t know what that is.” Sayid looked around for something, anything, to smash the machinery. “And whatever it may be, I doubt anybody in Scotland has one.”

  “It’s like a cricket bat,” Maggie said, picking up one of Evans’s walking sticks and testing it. “Maybe McNaughton has a tool in the shed we can use?” Sayid nodded and left.

  But first…Maggie flipped on several switches and the set buzzed to life, red and yellow lights blinking as the device warmed up. She experimented with the dials, trying to pick up a signal. The radio hummed, then crackled. She gave a sigh of relief—the set was still working, despite the severe weather conditions. She could send one last message to SOE before she destroyed it.

  She flipped a switch to Transmit and called over the noise of the storm, “Mayday!” The weather was blocking the radio waves, making it nearly impossible for a signal to penetrate. And yet, she couldn’t give up…

  Once again, she flipped the switch back to Transmit. “Mayday! Mayday!” Nothing. She flipped the switch over again. “This is Scarra Island. We have six—no, now seven—dead. We believe there’s a German agent on the island, one who’s killing us off one by one and who I suspect will try to arrange a pickup off the island once the storm’s over. You need to get here ASAP…over!”

  There was only the hiss of radio waves.

  She hit Transmit once again. “Mayday, Mayday. We’re destroying the radios now.”