I don’t know how long I stayed there in the cell. Time seemed to have no meaning. There was just the darkness, and me, and that presence out there. The last echo had vanished. I listened for other sounds in the darkness, but my heart was pounding so loudly that I could not be sure that I heard anything else. I could not hear, but I could feel. I could feel that other presence, feel its evil. The evil was all around me. It seemed to come closer and closer, waiting to claim me, waiting to destroy me. My fear was a tangible thing.
Time passed. Nothing happened. There were no new noises. My body grew stiff from standing in one position for so long. Tiny pinpricks of pain jabbed my legs, and I knew they would soon be cramped if I did not move them. It was cold, terribly cold, and the clammy air swirled into the cell in icy currents. I had not noticed this coldness yesterday morning. There had certainly been no currents then, only the horrible stillness.
I had turned the flashlight off, but gradually my eyes had become accustomed to the dreadful darkness in the cell. It was no larger than eight feet square, and the ceiling was not six feet from the floor. The top of my head almost touched it. After a while I could see the outlines of the chains, dark black against the grayish black of the wall. Manacles dangled from the end of them, and I wondered what wrists had been fastened in those terrible iron bands, what person or persons had been confined in this cell, staring at the walls in darkness and surely feeling no more terror than I felt at this moment.
Centuries had passed since this cell was built. Customs had changed radically, but man had not changed at all. One of Derek Hawke’s ancestors had ruled here, a blackhearted tyrant who could confine his victims in a cell, leave them to die while he carried on with his treachery, and Hawke was no different. The twentieth century had given him a civilized facade. He could not be so open in his treachery, so flamboyant in his vices, but he was no different from that earlier Hawke. These thoughts raced through my mind as I waited, listening, trembling.
I stood up straight. I rubbed my arms. The gun in my hand seemed an afterthought, a foolish piece of excess baggage that was of no use at all. I had forgotten I even had it, the fingers that gripped it numb now. Fifteen minutes had passed, perhaps thirty. No one had come down the passage. No footsteps had echoed along the walls. I switched on the flashlight. The beam landed directly on the grave in the corner of the cell.
There was no question about it. It was a grave. The mound of earth on top was loose, that around it tightly packed. I remembered the shovel I had seen earlier, its blade caked with dried mud. I stared at the mound of earth. I had been inches away from it as I leaned against the wall. It had been at my feet.
I felt none of the things I thought I should feel. I should scream, I told myself. I should faint. I was emotionless. I stared at the grave, and I thought: It is over. My part is done. I can go now. Later I can grieve.
I stepped out of the cell. I stepped directly into his arms. I did not see his face. I tried to cry out, but no sound came. I dropped the flashlight. It shattered. We were in darkness. His arms were holding me to him.
He released me. He struck a match. In its glow I could see the wide mouth, the twisted nose, the dark eyes, and the brows with their arrogant slant. He held the match over the wick of an old oil lamp. I wondered where he had found the lamp. The wick caught, glowed. The light spread slowly. He shielded the flame for a moment and then set the lamp on the floor. That flickering glow cast shadows all around us. They danced on the walls. His face was in shadow. I could see only the dark eyes.
“Deborah,” he said.
“My God! Alex. I thought you were Derek Hawke.”
They were so alike. The features were so similar.
“Did you?” He laughed quietly.
“You frightened me. I thought—”
“Did I, now?” he said.
I knew then. I sensed it. He had said nothing more, but I knew. I could feel it. Always before there had been a gentle rush of warmth the moment I heard his voice, the moment I looked into those laughing eyes. It was not there now. Now there was an instinctive fear, and it was so strong that I backed away. The dark eyes looked at me. There was no laughter in them now. I backed against the wall and stood there, looking at his face, so shadowed, so like Derek’s.
“You,” I said.
“Yes. I wondered when you would discover it.”
“How? Why? What … what do you intend to do?”
“One question at a time, please,” he said. His voice was casual, a light, mocking voice that I had once found so pleasant.
“Delia—” I whispered.
“I met her at a party in Soho. She was an ardent fan of mine, had read every single book. She was beautiful and bright and full of sparkle, surrounded by a crowd of admiring males, but when she discovered who I was, she left the crowd. She came to me. Her eyes were full of awe, and she babbled for thirty minutes about the books, asked me how I got my plots, all the typical questions. I knew then that she was the one I needed. I had everything figured out, down to the last detail. I needed a woman, an actress, someone I could trust to do the job and do it without flaw.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“My dear Deborah, do concentrate. It’s my very best plot, much too good to be used in one of the books. Intricate, complicated, a stroke of genius.” His voice had a hard, arrogant quality I had never heard in it before. I did not know this man. I had never known Alex Tanner. “Perhaps I shall use it someday,” he continued, “though not in one of those cheap thrillers. No, this is too good for that.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“I shall do you that honor, before—well, we both know what I must do.”
I made no reply. He tilted his head to one side. His lips stretched into a smile, and that smile remained fixed as he spoke.
“When I met Delia, I had two problems. One of them was a woman, a cheap little barmaid I had inadvertently become involved with. She was a fascinating creature, vile, a guttersnipe, straight out of the pages of Of Human Bondage. She was determined to make me marry her. She gave me an ultimatum: marriage or a smashing lawsuit. I had—uh, how shall I put it?—aborted her. Myself. I knew the procedures. I couldn’t let her carry out her threat, and I certainly had no intentions of marrying her. My first problem.”
“And your second?”
“Derek. Self-righteous, smug, hypocritical. I’d always hated him, ever since we were children together. Derek was the good one. Derek was the one who was patted on the head and rewarded for his good conduct. I was punished. I was the black sheep. The situation never changed. I am still the black sheep, and Derek is Andy’s heir. Blackcrest means something to me. I was never a part of it. I was always the outsider. I want it. After I inherit it, I may burn it down, but I want to walk through this house one time and know that it’s mine, know that I’ll never be an outsider again. Frightfully simple, psychologically, I know. Stems back to my childhood and all that. But I want it. I couldn’t stand by and see Derek inherit it. My second problem.”
“How did Delia come into it?” I asked. My voice was barely audible.
“Tottie was planning to come to Hawkestown. She had obtained a job at the Tea Shoppe through a friend of hers. She intended to use it as her base, as a constant warning to me of what she could do if I didn’t come to heel, and come to heel fast. I stalled her off—for a while. During that time I courted your cousin.”
“She told me she was seeing Derek Hawke.”
“Brilliant,” he said. “She followed instructions brilliantly. We talked for hours that first night at the party. I told her I was in the middle of a difficult book and was uncertain about the whole premise of the plot. She was absorbed, listening to me as I explained. Could a woman—my heroine—build a case against a man she’d never met. Could she pretend to be passionately in love with him, convince her roommate that she was going to leave to marry him, then disappear for a while so that the man would, ultimately, be accused of her murder whe
n she failed to show up? Delia was certain it was possible. I said it wasn’t. She said she could prove it.”
“So she told me she was seeing Derek,” I said.
“Yes.”
“All the while she was seeing you.”
“All the while,” he repeated.
“She had no idea what she was doing,” I said. “No idea—”
“She thought it was a great lark. She was ‘contributing to literature.’ It was quite a lot of fun for her. I’ve never met anyone who was quite so simple, quite so naïve—charmingly so, of course, but naïve. She was like putty in my hands.”
“How did you talk her into quitting the show and leaving? She was a responsible person—for all her frivolity. She wouldn’t just quit like that as part of a lark.”
“She fell in love with me. I asked her to marry me. I told her I couldn’t marry until I finished the book—artistic temperament—and I asked her to keep on helping me. She would ‘live’ the book while I wrote it. She was worried about you. She didn’t want to upset you, but I convinced her that after you found out about it you’d understand. We would invite you to our wedding—the real wedding—and everything would end happily ever after for all concerned.”
I remembered how elated Delia had been during those weeks when she was going with “Derek Hawke.” She seemed to sparkle with new life, and she was unable to talk of anything but the fascinating man who had given her a whole new outlook. “Derek Hawke” was the only man on earth, the prince charming she had been waiting for all her life. “Derek” was Alex, of course, and Alex had used all his powerful charm on her, using it like a weapon to draw her to him. I could see how easily she would succumb to that charm, and I could see how the “deception” would appeal to that frothy, childish streak in her nature.
“So she came to Hawkestown,” I said. “She sent the telegram. She went to see the vicar.…”
“Oh, yes. That was part of the ‘research.’ She gave me copious details about both encounters. I told her they would be perfect for the book. She was as delighted as a child. We were really building up a case against Derek, she said. I told her Derek was an eccentric cousin who was in on the scheme, letting me use his name. She wanted to meet him. Of course, I couldn’t permit that.”
“Of course not,” I said.
“She did everything I told her to—perfectly.”
“And you killed her.”
“Correction. I killed Tottie.”
“Tottie? But Tottie is alive. I met her—”
“Your cousin is a marvelous actress. Her talents are wasted in the music halls.”
19
I could only stare at him, a wild elation sweeping over me as I realized what he had just said. I remembered the flippant, vivacious girl at the Tea Shoppe. I remembered her saucy mannerisms and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. There had been an affinity between us at once, and I had warmed to her immediately. I remembered the cheap makeup and the junky jewelry, the dime-store perfume and the artificial black hair. Of course it had been Delia. I could see that now, so clearly. How delighted she must have been to be able to fool me with her blatant masquerade.
“Delia is alive—”
“Very much so. Full of life, if you’ll pardon a bad pun. I left her an hour or so ago. She told me you called. She delivered your message.”
“I didn’t know. I spoke to her. I saw her. I didn’t know—”
“She was quite amused by your visit to the Tea Shoppe. She knew you were here, of course. She assured me that you’d come. It was only a matter of time. You’d come, and when you found no trace of her, you would accuse Derek Hawke of murder. It worked out exactly as planned. You did your part well, too, Deborah. Quite well.”
“The grave—” I said.
“Tottie came to Hawkestown. I met her at the station. I wooed her. I said I had decided to marry her. I wanted to take her to see the family estate. I brought her here. I brought her down to the cellars. You know the rest.”
“Honora saw you. She thought you were Derek.”
“Correct.”
“You killed her, too.”
“At first—when you told me about what she’d seen—I thought I’d have to kill her, and then I realized she was my best witness. What she saw fit perfectly into my scheme. She saw Derek go down into the cellars with a woman, and of course I intended for Derek to be blamed for the murder of your cousin. Derek and I look very much alike. She thought he had taken the woman down here, and she was there to tell the world about it. I didn’t kill Honora. It was what it appeared to be, an accident, a tragic accident.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Come, Deborah. Why should I lie—now?”
“I saw someone at the top of the servants’ stairs last night.”
“I doubt it. You must have imagined it.”
He was right, of course. I had imagined it. I had been nervous and frightened, and the curtain had flapped out, throwing a shadow across the wall. I had imagined the footstep on the main staircase, too. It was an old house, full of strange noises, and the storm had not helped matters any. There had been nothing in the corridors last night besides me, and my fear.
“To continue,” he said, “I murdered Tottie. She was a slut. She deserved everything she got. But—and this is that brilliant stroke of genius I mentioned—Tottie arrived in Hawkestown. Tottie took a job at the Tea Shoppe. Tottie is very much alive, but Delia had vanished. Everything is nicely in place.”
“But Derek—”
“Derek will be accused of murder. Your murder. You’ve done exactly what I intended for you to do. You’ve asked questions, aroused suspicion. You’ve been searching for your missing cousin. When the police look for your body, they’ll find not one, but two. Everyone will assume the other body is that of your cousin. You see, I planned it right down to the last detail, including your part.”
“You intended to murder me? From the first?”
“From the very first.”
“That night when you changed my tire—you knew?”
“Of course I did. That was a coincidence, meeting you like that.” He laughed quietly. “I knew you’d come, but I was growing anxious. Six weeks had passed, and there had been no sign of you, and then I saw your car stranded on the road, and I knew immediately it was you. I was overjoyed. I could hardly contain my elation.”
He stepped closer to me and lowered his voice.
“You were an essential part of the plan. The whole thing evolved around you. The woman I chose had to be gullible, but she also had to have a close friend or relative who would sound the alarm when she vanished. Delia talked about you that first night, about how close the two of you were.”
He touched my cheek with gentle fingers.
“You were doomed,” he said. “Long before I met you.”
The horrible logic of the scheme dawned on me. It was diabolical. It was clever. I could see how it would work. Derek would be accused of murder, and the police would find two bodies in the cellars. Only a madman could have conceived the scheme. Only a madman could have carried it out with such cool deliberation. Alex was mad. I had been bewitched by his boyish charm, drawn by his magnetic appeal, but that was a cover for the real man, the man who revealed himself only in the sensational pages of his bloodthirsty, sadistic books.
He was standing very close to me. I could feel the warmth of his body and smell the odor of him. I stared over his shoulder at the yellow light flickering on the wet stone walls. Black shadows danced there in bizarre patterns, dark demons celebrating this evil. The currents of icy air swirled down the passage, making soft, whispering noises. I was about to die. It was not real. It couldn’t be real.
Alex heaved his chest. He stood back a little and rubbed his thumb along his lower lip, his eyes pensive. He seemed to be deliberating the best way to kill me. I leaned against the wall, watching him, unable to do anything but study the features of his face. The evil was there now, the charming mask abandoned.
“But of course I can.”
“You won’t … you won’t get away with it.”
“Deborah, don’t speak in clichés. Of course I’ll get away with it. There is absolutely nothing to associate me with the crimes—besides my brief public association with you. When it all comes out, I’ll be very shocked. I’ll tell them the truth—part of it, at least. I’ll say you believed my cousin had murdered Delia, that you were looking for proof. I’ll hammer the last nail in Derek’s coffin. So you see, it all works out, smooth, perfect. I’ve disposed of both problems, Tottie dead and Derek imprisoned for the rest of his life. Nice.”
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
“They say genius is akin to madness. Perhaps you’re right. Surely you’ll concede the genius of the plot. There’ll be no loose ends and no clumsy errors.”
“Delia—”
“Tottie,” he corrected. “Tottie and I are leaving for Italy first thing in the morning. She doesn’t know we’re going yet, but I’ll convince her the trip is necessary—a break, a holiday. A week from now I’ll return, alone. Who cares about a vulgar little barmaid? I’ll say she ran off with a wine merchant, deserted me. They will have started searching for you by the time I get back. Perhaps they will have found you.”
“You intend to kill her, too.”
“It’s reasonable, isn’t it?”
“Reasonable? You are mad.”
He sighed wearily. Telling me his scheme in its every detail had given him great satisfaction. He had been able to flaunt and brag about his “brilliance,” and his own words had nourished his warped ego. Now the time for talk was over. He was weary of it. In the flickering glow of the oil lamp his face was diabolically handsome, diabolically evil. His wide mouth was still spread in the fixed smile, and there was a dark glitter in his eyes.
“I’ve left nothing out,” he said, “forgotten nothing.”
“You forgot this,” I said.
Betrayal at Blackcrest Page 19