Ghost Walk

by Alanna Knight

  There was no way I could politely refuse that invitation. I was beginning to feel that confidences were implied. Perhaps the reality of marriage was more complicated than Annette had expected and I already suspected that I was the only friend she had.

  And there was a stronger reason for going to visit them. I had to know more about this Danny McQuinn.

  If only Jack were here, he would know what to do. And then I thought how this information plus all the tortuous explanations of Sister Mary Michael’s mistake, the discovery of the Claddagh ring and now this impostor on our wedding eve would cast its grim shadow over our wedding.

  There just wasn’t time to wait for Jack and have his counsel. I would have to do it alone, come what may.

  At that moment, all I could think of was saving poor Annette Verney – or McQuinn as she now believed herself to be – from the heartbreak knowledge would bring and that might destroy her for ever.

  The fact that I might also be in terrible danger did not even occur to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I felt dreadful. I could hardly stagger up the farm road. My head throbbed, I was parched with a burning throat, and I ached in every limb.

  Was this dreadful sickness all in my mind, brought about by shock?

  As I walked through the kitchen, Jess, busy at the stove, merely glanced in my direction, nodded but didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. I was glad of that. Conversation was the last thing I wanted as I crawled up the stairs and lay down on my bed.

  If only my head didn’t feel as if my brains were about to burst out, then perhaps I could think clearly what to do next.

  Groaning, I looked over at the cases lying open, waiting. I hadn’t the strength to lift a finger let alone deal with packing wedding garments.

  Tomorrow at this time I would be at the altar in the kirk down the road exchanging my vows with Jack. If only his instructions had been clearer about the whereabouts of his suit for the wedding and I hadn’t been so involved with my own affairs I might have thought about opening that cupboard.

  Then Jack would have been here and he would have known what to do.

  ‘Soup’s on the table,’ Jess called upstairs.

  I tottered down, feeling very sick. But if I admitted to being ill then I knew that would cause such alarm and despondency in view of tomorrow’s wedding, an all-enveloping fuss that I certainly was unable to cope with.

  The table was set for one. Jess had returned to the stove and was taking a tray out of the oven.

  ‘Go ahead, lass. I had mine earlier. Andrew took sandwiches with him. He’s got a lot to do with the sheep up on the hill today and he doesn’t have time to break off.’

  She sighed. ‘Two of the hands are down with this influenza. I hoped we’d escape – there’s a lot of it about and that’s not usual in the summer.’

  Andrew’s absence was bad news. In two hours, after I had a little rest which I hoped would make me better, I would be going across to Annette’s cottage on the Verney estate. I had hoped to take Thane along to please Alexander.

  Now I would have to go alone and before then I had to think of some means of confronting Danny’s impostor.

  At the moment, logical thought was like fighting my way through burning treacle and by the time I was ready to leave, I hadn’t slept at all but had gone through and discarded any number of strategies of how I was to get Danny alone and get to the truth without involving poor Annette. Uppermost in my mind and most important of all was to find out the whereabouts of the real Danny McQuinn.

  I now knew one thing for certain. The motive for Father McQuinn’s murder had become crystal clear: He – and Mrs Aiden – had known the real Danny and whatever the reason for this deception, it suggested that the stakes were much higher than those involving a mere fortune hunter.

  I kept returning again and again to the most realistic fear: a Fenian plot as both Vince and Jack had hinted. And an Irishman just arrived from Dublin suggested a very strong connecting link with the security concerns at Verney Castle.

  How well Blayney fitted the equation, as Jack had called it, that the police were investigating as I thought again about the passenger muffled up to the ears who, I was now certain, had thrown the real Dr Blayney off the train and taken his place as Lord Verney’s new secretary.

  If the false Danny was involved in bigger issues than laying his hands on Annette’s considerable fortune, then the indications were that he was working for the Fenians and in league with Blayney.

  As for the Danny who had been my husband and might still be, was he still alive? Although I now feared I already knew the answer to that vital question.

  Somehow, despite my weak legs and raging headache, I reached the cottage. Expecting to find Annette there alone, her conversation having indicated that her husband was going in to Edinburgh, I was surprised to find the door open and the false Danny rose to greet me.

  He bowed but I ignored the proffered hand and demanded,

  ‘Where is Annette?’

  ‘She will be with us shortly. Won’t you be seated. Annette is bringing Alexander down. A fine boy, don’t you think, a worthy heir to the Verney title?’

  I wasn’t interested in his small talk.

  I sat down at the table, glad of its support. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  The question seemed to surprise him. He smiled spread his hands wide. ‘I thought you knew that. I’m Danny McQuinn – Annette’s husband.’

  Aware that there was not much time and that Annette might appear at any minute with Alexander at her side and that I had not the slightest idea what would happen next, I said, ‘You might be her husband but you are certainly not the Danny McQuinn who knew Eildon and whose cousin was the parish priest. That Danny McQuinn was – my – husband.’

  Regarding me narrowly, all affability vanished, he said, ‘So I gather – somewhat late in the day for my comfort, I can tell you.’

  ‘Where is Danny? What have you done with him?’ I cried.

  He shrugged. ‘The last time I saw him, he was lying on a bed in a shack in Arizona. He was a dying man –’

  ‘How dying?’ I demanded. ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘Mercy, no. The Indians had saved me the trouble. He had been caught in an ambush while he was searching for the grave of his dead wife and baby that someone at the reservation had told him about.’

  That sounded like my Danny. I gulped back the tears. ‘When – when was that?’

  ‘Three years ago. I had known Danny from my Pinkerton days. But alas, I had got into a tricky situation with the law and when we met again, my name was on every Wanted poster across two states. I couldn’t afford to linger and seeing that Danny was not likely to last the night I decided on a change of roles. The dead man would be me and I would be him, safe from the law.’

  ‘How did you expect to get away with that? I demanded.

  ‘Setting fire to the shack was one obvious way –’

  ‘You cruel devil!’ I yelled, longing to strike him.

  ‘I didn’t manage – there wasn’t time. The sheriff’s posse was right behind me so I rode like hell across that red desert until I picked up a train heading towards New York. Using my new identity I got a job in a shipping office –’

  He stopped and smiled. ‘You know the rest. I met Annette Verney, an heiress who found me so irresistible that she persuaded me to elope with her.’

  ‘What an opportunity for a fortune hunter!’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what I was temporarily. But there were better pickings than Annette’s fortune, which she has just turned over to me.’

  He pointed across the table. ‘The papers are there ready for me to take into Edinburgh. I’ve had a long wait – I didn’t know she was under age back in New York and that I’d have two years to wait for my reward. Seemed a wise move to come to Britain and keep busy finding out all about the Verneys. An interesting family, so old, so wealthy –’

  He paused and smiled. ‘And with only one son –
the heir to it all.’

  There was something in his expression that made me say, ‘Leave Alexander out of this.’

  He shook his head. ‘Now that would be a pity. I have to confess that kidnapping is something I’m rather good at. Wealthy parents will pay anything for the return of a child, especially an only son – or daughter. I was doing rather well – for a time.’

  His face darkened, angry at the memory and I said, ‘You didn’t get the money and so you killed the child.’

  He shrugged. ‘Something like that. I’d been tricked – there was no money. Those rich parents had been warned. Things were hotting up in that New York shipping office so meeting Annette suggested a good chance to extend a lucrative career overseas.’

  And suddenly it was all becoming clear, the diabolical plan he had in mind even before he went on.

  ‘Annette was expendable, but what wouldn’t a family like the Verneys give to keep their only son and heir alive and returned to them in one piece? Certainly it would be worth a few million dollars in anyone’s language.

  He wagged a finger at me.

  ‘I haven’t been idle and I’ve been in Edinburgh longer than Annette suspects, long enough to make certain useful contacts. You see, your Danny was a member of Caen na Gael, pro-Irish Americans devoted to the Fenian cause. Kidnap the Verney heir and blame it on the Fenians, especially with the Jubilee coming up, and everyone expecting trouble again from that quarter.

  ‘I prefer to work alone but this time a partner was crucial. And from him I learned that there was a snag. The village priest was a relative of the real Danny. And before my plan could succeed it was necessary that he and anyone else who knew the real Danny must be got rid of.’

  ‘Which is where Dr Blayney came into your calculations.’

  He looked at me wide eyed for a moment, no doubt taken aback by my clever deductions. The idea seemed to amuse him and he laughed.

  ‘By a kind stroke of fate there was a new man, a stranger coming to Eildon, so my accomplice changed places with him –’

  ‘He pushed him off the train and made it look like a suicide,’ I said.

  He nodded in agreement. ‘It worked well, didn’t it?’

  I had to keep him talking. There was so much more I needed to know. But where was Annette, I thought frantically. Why hadn’t she arrived? And I suspected from his frowning glances towards the door that he was getting concerned too, wondering about her long absence.

  Playing for time, I asked, ‘Why are you telling me all this? Do you expect me to keep it all a secret – for Annette’s sake, perhaps?’

  Across the table, a jeering smile from this man with a face like a Mexican bandit. ‘No. I am telling you all this because you asked and because there is not the slightest possibility of you ever telling anyone else or leaving this room alive,’ he added coldly.

  My heart was thumping loud enough for him to hear it, but I gasped out; ‘And how do you propose to accomplish that? Killing is one thing you may be good at, but disposing of the body is quite another matter –’

  He shrugged. ‘I am given to understand that that will be an easy matter. There’s a quarry not far away with a very deep dark pool.’

  ‘And how do you propose to get me there? Am I to walk or be carried?’

  In answer he began to walk towards me, I jumped to my feet. But it was other footsteps I heard – outside!

  Annette and Alexander. Too late to warn them!

  The door opened – but it was Father Boyle who rushed in.

  I was saved.

  ‘Father Boyle!’ I screamed. Thank God –

  But the false Danny was shouting, ‘Where the hell have you been all this time? And where’s the kid?’

  I looked at them in horror.

  ‘I did my best, Hank,’ Boyle whined. ‘Thought it was going to be easy, just like we planned. No one suspected a thing. But the Verneys wouldn’t even let me see him –’

  ‘I thought Annette was in charge of him –’

  ‘Not today,’ was the grim response. ‘The kid’s mother was there and half the servants. I couldn’t take them all on and grab him –’

  ‘You weren’t expected to grab him. You were to be taking him out for his usual Latin lesson.’

  ‘Listen to me, will you. Seems the lad has a fever – covered in spots, that infernal birthday party, all those damned kids, like as not. There was no way he was getting out of bed, lesson or no.’

  ‘Damnation – damnation!’ Hank, the false Danny, looked ready for murder –

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Boyle and, as if aware of me for the first time, he pointed. ‘What about her? I thought you were going to get rid of her like we said.’ And looking towards the door, ‘We haven’t much time. We should get on with it –’

  They turned to me standing with my back to the table. Knowing they were going to kill me it wasn’t much comfort to know that I had learned the truth too late.

  Father Boyle, not Dr Blayney, was the passenger on the train, muffled to the ears, who had killed the real priest. Even the reason for stealing his jacket and shirt was now perfectly obvious. He needed the priest’s clerical garb. The book in a foreign language which had puzzled Ned Fraser was probably a Latin testament. And this was the man Mrs Fraser had overheard talking to Mrs Aiden when she had called on her on the evening of Father McQuinn’s death. The vital clue in our conversation I had struggled to recall had come too late.

  I groaned inwardly. Having got it all wrong, when I told Father Boyle that I was Danny McQuinn’s widow I now realised I had signed my own death warrant. Like Father McQuinn and Mrs Aiden, they couldn’t afford to let me live.

  I heard Hank say: ‘Now that you’re here we might as well get on with it. I have to go into Edinburgh and collect the money before Annette finds out. It all fits in great. She’ll be only too glad of my gallant gesture to hand it over to the kidnappers for part of the kid’s ransom.’

  He chuckled at the thought as his partner snarled, ‘And I’m coming with you. I want my share, don’t forget –’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Hank as he sprang across, grabbed me. His hands were around my throat. Knowing I had run out of time and I wasn’t breathing properly any more, in that fight for survival I saw their backs were to the door.

  As one last hopeless gesture I would try the oldest trick in the world and distract their attention by gasping, ‘Annette!’

  It was as if my prayers had all been answered, for the door behind them opened and Annette stood there.

  ‘Stop – stop or I’ll kill you both. I mean it.’

  And she held up a rifle. ‘It’s loaded –’

  Hank laughed, released his grip on me and said: ‘Annette – you wouldn’t –’

  ‘Oh yes, I would and I will.’

  ‘Come on, honey. You don’t really know how to use that thing,’ he added in a wheedling tone.

  ‘Try me! My guardian shoots over the estate every day and I learned how to handle a rifle long ago.’

  But I saw doubt in both their faces. Could she really use that rifle – our last hope. He still didn’t believe her, but confident in her love for him he said: ‘You wouldn’t kill your adoring husband?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t – if you were my adoring husband. But you’re just a criminal, a murderer. You wanted to talk to Cousin Verney. I was curious so I followed you to the stables. I saw you with – with – this man. I overheard everything.’

  At that Hank waited no longer. He sprang forward. The rifle fired and he fell back, cursing, clutching his side.

  Annette stared at him in horror. She thought she had killed him and for a moment she was thrown off balance by the realisation. It was a moment wasted, for we still had his partner to deal with.

  Without a second glance at the injured Hank, he leapt forward to seize the rifle from Annette. I ran to her side, but we were no match for him, he felled Annette with one blow.

  Now it was my turn. I grappled with him knowing it was
useless. Within the next few moments I would be dead.

  But the door Annette had left open sprung wide –

  A grey shadow sprang into the room.

  ‘Thane!’

  ‘Bloody dog,’ the false priest yelled and raised the gun. Through the smoke Thane was caught in mid-air. The bullet hit him in the chest. I saw blood on his fur. He staggered then shook himself and kept moving slowly forward.

  I heard myself scream: ‘No!’

  I jumped across and tried to seize the man’s rifle as he tried to shake me off, to raise it again.

  For a moment that seemed like eternity I struggled with him. He pulled free and hit me across the head. As I crashed to the floor, I heard the rifle crack again.

  My last sight was of Thane moving through the air and falling, falling on top of Boyle’s assassin.

  He lay still.

  The rifle fired again and my world exploded into darkness.

  So this was death.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Once again, I was to be proved wrong. I was alive and when I opened my eyes again I was in my bedroom at the farm.

  Had it all been one of my lurid nightmares? Faces, mostly out of focus, swarmed into view but before I could summon up enough strength to speak to them, they drifted away.

  Jack, his father, Dr Dalrymple with a stethoscope cold on my chest, shaking his head sadly to shadowy figures in the room behind him.

  Jess emerged most often, laying cold cloths on my burning forehead.

  Once or twice I even thought I saw Thane but I was too weak to call out to him.

  Besides Thane was dead. I had seen the bullet strike him. Perhaps I was in heaven, perhaps we both were, although I burned with a ferocity that suggested hell and made Dante’s Inferno look like a Sunday school picnic on a bright summer day.

  Once the cloud in my brain began to clear and I could grapple with logical thought, I felt bitter resentment too.

  I am never ill. Determined to stagger out of bed I was glad of the proximity of that bathroom as I hung on to the furniture which behaved in a very odd way.