by Rebecca King
Estelle shuddered as she watched the men pocket the guns, and stayed close to Myles as they made their way back up to the attic. She couldn’t see anybody wanting to hide in the uppermost part of the house where there was no escape route but, if the men wanted to search it then she was in no position to object.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered as they stepped into the attic and were immediately engulfed in darkness.
“None of us do but we have to do this,” Isaac sighed.
With that, they began to search.
The attic had been separated into several storage rooms. It was evident, even without stepping into some of them, that they hadn’t been used in quite some time. Some of the rooms were so full of old ornaments and furniture it was impossible to even get through the door. The dust covering every surface remained undisturbed, and stayed that way.
“I know I said I was going to give you a tour but this isn’t the way I foresaw doing it,” Myles grumbled as he brushed cobwebs off his jacket.
“I have to say that I have seen better,” she replied with a wry smile.
Myles’ lips twitched and he huffed a soft laugh. “Come on. I think it is safe to say that nobody is hiding in here.”
Isaac was already standing beside the door by the time they reached it. He shook his head silently.
“Let’s check the staff’s rooms next.”
Estelle realised then that this was going to take a very, very long time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Estelle yawned as she left the kitchen and waited for Myles and Isaac to join her. The staff had all been gathered together and told the news by a grim looking Myles. The deathly silence that had followed had left everyone wary and suspicious. It was a relief to be able to step away from it, for just a few minutes at least.
“I need to speak with my father,” Myles sighed.
“He has locked the body in the room, sir,” Cranbury explained. “I think he is in his study now. Miss Beatrice is up as well, sir, and has been told the dreadful news.”
“How did she take it?” Isaac demanded. “Has she stopped dancing yet?”
Cranbury’s face showed not one flicker of emotion as he allowed that comment to go unnoticed.
“She is in the study, sir, with the master,” Cranbury intoned before he bowed and returned to the kitchen.
“I think we need to move your father, Isaac,” Myles sighed.
Isaac nodded but didn’t speak. He looked just as weary as Myles felt and, now that the first shock of grief had worn off, stunned.
“I will come with you,” Isaac sighed. It was clearly the last thing he wanted to do but he had a duty to his father to ensure that his body was handled with due care and attention.
Myles nodded. “Let’s go and fetch Barnabas.”
Minutes later, everyone, including Beatrice, climbed back up the stairs.
“Myles?” Estelle murmured. She slammed to a stop at the end of the hallway which led to her room and stared at what troubled her.
Myles looked at her and followed the direction of her stare. When he looked, though, he couldn’t see anything.
“What is it?” He ignored Isaac, Barnabas and Beatrice who all came to a halt behind them.
“I thought you said this house is locked up tightly?” Estelle whispered.
“It is,” Barnabas retorted flatly, as though upset anybody could doubt it.
Estelle pointed to the wet patch on the floor. “Who has that come from then?”
Everyone crept forward.
“Good Lord, it’s a footstep,” Barnabas snorted.
Myles squatted down beside the clear print of a booted foot on the highly polished floor. It was still wet. “It is recent,” he murmured.
“Something like that stands out on a floor like this,” Estelle reasoned. “It looks as though someone has been outside and come in with their muddy boots on.”
“But they can’t have done. This house is secure,” Barnabas replied.
“Well, someone made this,” Myles retorted flatly. “If the staff have all been inside like they were instructed and, as far as everyone is aware, the house is locked up tight, someone in this house has let an outsider in.”
“But I thought you said they cannot get across the moat?” Estelle interjected.
“They can’t,” Myles replied darkly.
“They might have stood outside while the body was found and the house was searched,” Isaac warned. “But who, and why?”
“This house is so blasted big anybody could hide in any one of the spare rooms and never been found. We can’t search the entire property on the hour, you know. If they waited outside while the house was searched they would know when everyone was instructed to remain inside. Therefore, they wouldn’t be seen,” Barnabas reasoned.
“So someone is back in this house and hiding again?” Beatrice cried with a very dramatic shiver. “I hate to say it but the accommodation you provide for your guests is sadly lacking, brother.”
“Well, nobody asked you to come here,” Barnabas retorted flatly.
Myles sighed heavily, but was ignored by the bickering siblings.
“I only came because I thought you were dying,” Beatrice snapped.
“What? So you could claim an inheritance?” Barnabas retorted.
“Look, can we just stop this now, children?” Isaac interrupted. “I think it is more important we find out who is hiding in this house.”
“Quite right,” Myles said. He issued Barnabas and Beatrice a dark glare in warning and turned his attention back to the boot print.
“It is too small to be a man’s boot,” he said. He placed his own foot beside it to demonstrate the size difference.
“I don’t know,” Barnabas added. “It isn’t much smaller than my own. This could be a shorter man’s footprint, you know.” He placed his foot beside it and proved a point to all of them.
“We are no further forward, really, are we? I mean, that could be from either a woman or a small man,” Estelle reasoned.
Nobody argued so she assumed she had everyone’s agreement.
“I don’t like this at all,” Beatrice whispered with a shiver.
As far as Estelle could see that ruled out Isaac, Myles, Barnabas, Beatrice, and herself, because their feet were either too big or too small.
“It is a pity the whole household couldn’t put their feet against it. You know, to check for size,” she murmured thoughtfully.
“We can measure it,” Isaac sighed. “This is drying quickly so won’t be more than a smudge soon. We don’t have the time to round everyone up.”
Barnabas took off his cravat and positioned it on the floor next to the boot mark. Myles cut the fabric to size and lay it over the wet footprint. While it wasn’t perfect, it did leave an imprint on the fabric and gave them all a good idea of the size.
“Cut it out while it is still wet, and then we can keep the cravat as proof of the size.”
Myles did as his father instructed, and then folded up the cravat and placed it carefully in his jacket pocket.
“So, we have just wasted the last three hours searching a house only for the person we are looking for to be outside all the time,” Isaac snorted, his anger building once more. As before, he whirled an accusatory glare on Estelle. “What do you know? You said we should go and search downstairs. Were you giving us hints of where to find your friend?”
“The killer is no friend of mine,” Estelle replied hurriedly. She instinctively backed away from the menace on Isaac’s face and walked straight into Myles, who placed a supportive arm around her waist.
Isaac didn’t say anything else but the look he gave her chilled her to her core. Estelle felt her cheeks burn.
“I was with you all morning. How could I have anything to do with this?” she demanded.
Isaac remained silent because they both knew she was right. She had been with a member of the household since she had first woken up this morning. He had watched her leave her bed ch
amber.
“Look, we are here to deal with Gerald’s body and take another look at his bed chamber. Then we can all go downstairs and have a nice cup of tea while everyone settles down. It isn’t going to solve anything to continue to throw wild accusations at each other. All it will do is cause offence, and we cannot start infighting right now. We already have a killer in our midst,” Myles warned them all.
Before any further disagreements could break out, he nudged Estelle to Gerald’s room.
Estelle shivered. The last thing she wanted was to go back in there but there was no choice. She had to stay with everyone else.
“First things first, we need to get some footmen to move him down to the cold store in the cellar,” Barnabas sighed as they all entered the room.
Once the door was closed, a stilted silence settled over everyone.
“We need to deal with the knife first. It isn’t right that he has to lie face down because of that,” Myles sighed.
“Should we take it out?” Beatrice murmured, completely unperturbed by seeing her arch-enemy, even if he was her brother, dead.
“Well, he can’t stay face down, and we can’t turn him over with that in his back, can we?” Barnabas snapped.
Sympathising with his father’s emotional state, Myles carefully studied the room before he did anything with the body.
“There wasn’t a struggle. This room is as neat as a pin,” he murmured.
“Well, there couldn’t have been a struggle. Someone stabbed him in the back, the bounders. They would hardly announce their arrival. The blackguard waited until his back was turned and then-” Barnabas broke off and hissed a breath.
Given the lack of any other significant detail giving them any clue as to who had killed Gerald, Myles couldn’t argue with his father’s deduction.
“Do you think they were lying in wait for him?” Beatrice asked rather nervously.
“I don’t know,” Barnabas murmured. “I don’t think Gerald would have allowed anybody in here for a chat. He was a stickler for his own personal space. Whoever did this must have crept into the room before Gerald came down for breakfast, while he was still getting ready. From the look of his clothing, he was ready, he just hadn’t left yet.”
“Who was about this morning?” Myles asked his father.
“Well, the maids had all been a couple of hours earlier to light the fires,” Barnabas explained.
Myles clutched his head, his thoughts whirling around in a confusing jumble of chaotic emotions, doubts and questions. He wasn’t sure where to begin to make sense of it all. Ruthlessly pushing aside as much of the emotion as he could, he paced around the room, searching for anything, any small clue that would give him some hint as to who did this. When nothing became obvious, he knew it was time to set all of that to one side and do what they could for Gerald.
Shaking his head, he resumed his position beside the body, carefully positioning himself so he blocked his father’s view from what he was about to do. Slowly, he withdrew the long, serrated edge of the hunting blade out of his uncle’s back. Wrapping it in his cravat, he placed it on the dresser and then rolled his uncle’s limp and lifeless body over until he was on his back. Carefully lowering Gerald’s lids to cover the deathly stare, Myles swept a throw off the bottom of the bed and draped it over the body.
“From the look of it, he was heading toward the dresser,” Beatrice murmured. She didn’t look at anybody or wait for instruction and began to poke about in the drawers. “Apart from clothing, there is nothing in here,” she murmured several minutes later.
“He isn’t wearing his cravat yet,” Isaac said with a nod to the body. “He must have been going to fetch it to put it on before he came down to breakfast.”
Myles searched Gerald’s pockets but they were completely empty. Isaac scoured the rest of the room once more but came up empty handed.
“Nothing,” he murmured when he had satisfied his curiosity.
Gerald was dead. Murdered. In cold blood. By a knife in his back. In his bedroom, and there were no clues as to who killed him, or why.
“Well, I think we need to go downstairs and draw up a list of culprits. You know, like who is most likely to have done this, and why,” Beatrice suggested.
Estelle could feel Isaac’s gaze boring into the side of her face but refused to look at him. Instead, she focused on Myles, who was her only supporter. While the others hadn’t said as much outright, she suspected they too doubted her.
Myles nodded. “Everybody in this house, apart from Barnabas and me, could be the murderer. It is our house, and I too received a letter calling me home, so we cannot be suspected of doing this.”
“Hah!” Beatrice snorted. “There is nothing to say that you received a letter in London, Myles, and you know it. I mean, who else is there to vouch for your honesty? Your friends in London wouldn’t know if you had asked the barmaid to bring you the letter and claim it had just been delivered. You have to admit that it is a damned odd thing to happen. After all, who would know which tavern you were in at what part of any day since your arrival? Are you expecting us to believe that someone followed you all the way to London just to give you a letter?”
When she put it like that, Estelle had to concede Beatrice had a very valid argument, although she had no idea what letter she was talking about.
“We all have to be considered guilty until we can all prove our innocence,” Barnabas argued.
“Well, I didn’t do it,” Isaac snorted.
Myles turned on him in very much the same way Isaac had accused Estelle earlier.
“Well, you are not going to be considered innocent yourself just because Gerald is your father, Isaac. Everybody knew you and Gerald were always at odds. Why, the only reason you were going shooting with him was to try to persuade Gerald to give you another sizeable loan, and I use the term ‘loan’ broadly, you understand, because we all know you don’t pay him back.”
“Balderdash,” Isaac snorted, but without heat. “I may have borrowed funds from my father every now and then but that is a private arrangement between me and him. It isn’t a reason for me to kill him.”
“But I know Gerald was going to refuse to give you another penny,” Barnabas replied flatly. “You and I both know he was fed up of your profligate ways and was pressuring you into joining the clergy, if not purchase a commission. He said you would be better of having to fend for yourself for a while. He knew you were going with him to Scotland to demand some more money again. This time, though, he had no intention of letting you have anything. So, if anybody has a good reason to want Gerald dead it is you. After all, you are likely to be his main beneficiary now, aren’t you?”
Isaac opened his mouth to argue, but the prospect of being handed the family wealth rendered him silent. He slumped into a chair beside the window without uttering a word.
“Who else has he argued with recently, besides Beatrice?” Myles asked.
Barnabas threw Myles a dry look. “Gerald fell out with everybody one way or another at some point during his visits, you know that.”
“I know,” Myles sighed. “Beatrice hates – hated – him. Isaac only hung around for the money Gerald gave him. The only people I can be sure of right now are you and me. Even Estelle-”
He ignored Isaac’s and Beatrice’s angry protestations, and stared at his father when Barnabas jerked, his face thoughtful.
“Do you think-?”
“I don’t know,” Myles replied honestly. “I should like to say no to her too, but in all honesty, I cannot help but think it highly suspicious that she has arrived the night before my uncle is murdered in cold blood. While she was at the breakfast table when I got there this morning, I have no idea how long she had been there. Nor do I have any idea when Gerald was killed. He is still warm, but what does that mean? He could have been here for an hour at least. That puts both Isaac and Estelle in doubt because they certainly hadn’t been at the table for an hour when I got there.”
Estelle f
elt her cheeks blush. Where she might have once been somewhat bolstered by Isaac and Beatrice’s discomfort at being accused of Gerald’s death, that bemusement vanished when she had the finger firmly pointed at her.
“I cannot believe any of the staff would do this.” Barnabas waved a hand to the body. “There has been no discontent of late with any of them. Why, they are the most trustworthy and reliable people a man could employ. No, I cannot contemplate any of the servants would kill.”
“We cannot discount anybody, father.”
“I suppose we need to address everybody, including the servants, don’t we?” Barnabas turned his gaze to the swaying trees outside. “How long this storm is going to last is anybody’s guess, but until this clears one thing is certain-”
Myles nodded; his face grim. “We are all stuck in the house with a killer.”
Fear flooded Barnabas’ eyes. “Do you think they were warning me? You know – the letters. They predicted my death,” Barnabas whispered.
“I cannot say. It is evident that the killer has pre-planned this, but who his victims are besides Gerald, nobody could possibly know. Until we can find this person, or persons because there may be more than one, it would be wise to keep your door locked, and a weapon with you at all times. Don’t stay in any room without locking the door and pocketing the key either.”
“What about me?” Beatrice cried. “I cannot go walking around this place with a gun in my hand.”
“She is right,” Isaac replied. “She is likely to shoot herself.”
Beatrice threw him a filthy glare but was prevented from speaking by Barnabas, who immediately launched to his feet, his voice loud when he spoke.
“This is my house, damn it. I refuse to skulk about like a criminal just because someone cannot be trusted. Why? Why do this? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know, father.” Myles sighed heavily. “I think this weather might work to our advantage, though.”
“Now, why would you think that?” Barnabas demanded impatiently. “We could all be dead by morning.”