PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER’S OUTLINE

P atricia Wildman is a 22-year-old American girl from upstate NY. She is a widow, grieving the recent death of her husband, Dr. Dennis Verner. She gets off the train at Lambton and is met in a driving rain and storm by Richard Deguy. He apologizes for not having met her in London but says that his grandmother, the 103-year-old Dowager Duchess, was not feeling well, hence the telegram at her hotel. Richard Deguy’s twin sister, Carla, stayed at the estate with the Dowager Duchess, who keeps on hanging on and is still sharp. After all, the family motto is Ung Viveray (one will survive or one will live).

Asked how she got along, Patricia says that this is her first visit to England. She would love to have seen more of London, but her visit was marred by almost being killed by a car that came around the corner as she was crossing the street. She escaped only by throwing herself between two parked cars.

They drive away, down a deserted road, and presently are on the road through the great Pemberley Woods. The Dowager Duchess wants to see Patricia as soon as she gets to Pemberley House. Patricia is here because the 7th Duke of Greystoke died, leaving no sons or daughters, and she is in direct line, though her grand-father James was the illegitimate son of 6th Duke. James had fled England and come to America, making his fortune there. Patricia gets the estate and the title of Baroness of Lambton, all other titles becoming extinct. The Deguys are the children of the boy adopted by the Duchess and so are not the children of the 6th Duke of Greystoke, who died in 1909. Patricia feels funny about this, but it’s not her fault, and her parents’ deaths left her penniless, since the fortune is tied up in big criminal and surgical research college her father ran.

Patricia’s father was a Manhattan surgeon, scientist, and criminologist. Her mother was a woman who got involved in some sort of crime and was saved by her father, who then married her and retired to the clinic/research college in upstate New York. Patricia Wildman was born and raised there. Both her parents recently disappeared in a private plane crash over the Arctic, and Patricia, alone and without money, has now come to England to pursue her legacy.

Richard Deguy tells Patricia of the ghost of Bess of Pemberley, who married four times, founding lines whose sons and daughters became nobility, except for one, who kept the Pemberley estate. On the anniversary of her death, she appears, and this is in a day or two, but Patricia is not to worry, although the ghost appears only to members of the family in a direct line, and Patricia will be the only one there who is such. But he laughs about it, there are more serious matters; there are some poachers about, and the gamekeeper, Parker, a very appropriate name, is out looking for them now. In fact, the chauffer, Austin, is down with a lame leg. Two poachers came after him and he was hurt getting away. The police have been to the estate but have done nothing.

They go around a corner and two people step out, masked, on cycles, with guns. Richard sends the car off the road, skids around, turns, and comes back the opposite way. Richard’s car hits one cycle, but the rider is only slightly hurt. The masked cyclists shoot out the tires; the car skids and hits a tree hard. Patricia is knocked out and Richard gets away. She wakes up, and the two cyclists drag her out of the car and take her off to a ruined tower. (The tower has an underground tunnel and a secret room fixed up, but Patricia doesn’t know about this.)

Patricia passes out again and when she awakes one of her captors is with her, Ernie (short for Ernestine, Belville, daughter of the second son of a lord; this is not revealed to Patricia). Patricia is blindfolded so that she can’t identify Ernie. Ernie questions her, goes through her papers, and believes her story. Then the other man, Jack Hare, comes back, says that he can’t find Austin and Ernie tells him Austin wasn’t driving the car; he swears, she calls him stupid. They’re worried about Patricia: what will she say? Patricia is pretending to be unconscious again; Jack tweaks a hair, and she “wakes up,” but she is still blindfolded. Jack says he’s not had any strange for a long time and this gives Ernie ideas. Ernie says they’ll both jump her but make it fast. It’s a good idea because then the cops will think they’re just poachers. Ernie goes down on Patricia, but Patricia, although unwillingly stimulated by Ernie, is her father’s daughter. She snaps some of the ropes and pulls out the stakes holding her spread-eagled to the ground, rips off her blindfold, and starts attacking Ernie and Jack with the sticks before they can pull their guns. Ernie and Jack flee in disarray.

Patricia staggers out into the rain, wanders around, finds the road, walks along a while, and then finds Richard at the wrecked car. Richard puts her in the car out of the rain, locks it, and sets off on foot to get help. There shouldn’t be any more trouble since the attackers would fear the police and be on their way.

The police arrive and take Patricia and Richard to the Pemberley estate. Doctor Augustus Moran, their personal physician who lives in the house and attends to the Duchess, makes an examination and will give her a sedative after the police question her. She sees Peter Parker, the gamekeeper, and hears him talking to police about the trouble they’ve had with poachers—actually, there really are poachers but Ernie and Jack have just been seen a few times when they’ve been poking around the house. Patricia reports that one is a woman called Ernie and the other is a man called Jack, and the police seem concerned about this.

The next day she is up, sunshine, and the doctor sees her again with Richard and Carla. They say they’ve not told the Dowager, they fear the excitement will be too much for her 103-year-old heart. Patricia agrees to be silent about the attack, says she doesn’t need a tranquilizer; she’s complimented on being tough, shown around the house a little. The Dowager, the grandchildren, Austin the chauffer, Doctor Moran, and two maids and a butler live in the private part of the house which is shut off from the public part, where visitors come by on weekdays. Guides take care of the public side, staff keeps the place clean, and there are guards, but it is mostly separate except that Richard and Carla administer the public side.

Patricia sees great paintings of her ancestors, many d’Arcys and Darcys and Claytons, and Richard comments that her grandfather and father are not among them. She sees a portrait of Bess of Pemberley, and notices that Bess resembles Carla a bit. She sees the 6th Duke, a tall man with a curved nose, red beard, and grey eyes. The Duchess, as a woman of thirty, is beautiful, dark-eyed, aquiline-nosed, with a strong personality showing in her portrait; she is of a rich, Christianized Jewish family. The relationship of the Deguy twins is described but Patricia notes their resemblance to the Duchess’ portrait. Patricia also sees the portraits of Fitzwilliam Darcy, and his wife, Elizabeth Bennet.

She goes up to meet the Duchess in her hothouse rooms. Attended by Doctor Moran, the Duchess is less feeble than Patricia expected; she is still sharp, her mind good, and she is somewhat spiteful. The Duchess hopes that Patricia will take good care of her grandchildren. Patricia says she’s not sure she’ll accept the inheritance; most of the estate except Pemberley House itself will be sold to pay death taxes. The Duchess is surprised.

The relationship between the doctor and the old Duchess seems like that of old lovers more than that of patient and doctor. Patricia thinks, my God, this woman was born four years after the Civil War ended; she lived under Queen Victoria for 32 years; she remembers Gladstone and Disraeli, Bismarck, and the famous around-the-world trip of Phileas Fogg; she was sixteen years old when the first automobile with an internal combustion engine was made, and she could conceivably live for another seven or so years. Patricia talks with her for a little while, about her father and mother, his criminology activities, at which the Duchess says that inheritance will out, one way or another. The Duchess tells of the activities of the late 6th Duke’s illegitimate son James Wildman, including the kidnapping of her son, Arthur [William Cecil Arthur Clayton]; how the Great Detective from London was called in to solve the mystery; how she came back from France and was reconciled with the Duke; how her son refused to see her; and how she adopted and raised the father of the present Deguys. Then the doctor tells her she has to rest.

Patricia leaves. The good weather is gone and the clouds are piling up. Wind, dark, Derbyshire country, gloomy, with tall tors in the distance. Her room is nice. Richard makes a comment about the ghost again. She falls asleep and dreams of her dead husband; he takes her to bed. She wakes up seeing his face change into Richard’s, or is it Carla’s, with some tinge of Ernie Belville’s?

She gets up after her nap and is served tea, but Richard drinks bourbon. It’s un-English, but he dislikes Scotch. Bourbon is not easy to get in England. Carla tells of the Duchess hinting around that there’s something she’d like to confess before she dies, but may leave it to be revealed in her private papers to be opened after she dies. [The events she wishes to confess are those described in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” which took place in 1899.] Carla is wild to hear the ancient scandal and then wonders if it’s her affair with Edward, Prince of Wales, which the Duchess never mentioned, about which Carla heard from an eighty-year-old friend of the Duchess, who heard it from her mother. The Duchess was first married at age sixteen to Marquess Blackwater, and apparently had an affair with the Prince of Wales. Her husband found out about it somehow and died of a broken heart, some say; others say it was a hushed-up suicide. Then in 1888, the Duchess married the older but prominent and wealthy 6th Duke of Greystoke. Carla says she’s not sure this is what the Duchess might wish to confess, since all that occurred so long ago and surely nobody would think less of the Duchess now, and besides the Duchess isn’t really Victorian, she’s pretty liberal and modern in many things.

Carla and Richard seem to share a secret about this. Patricia becomes somewhat annoyed with them. But what they’re giggling about is that they know they’re really the biological grandchildren of the Duchess, that she had a child by a man who claimed to be a Vicomte but was an adventurer and crook extraordinaire, although he was of an ancient and honorable Breton family, the Deguys (on his mother’s side). [They don’t tell Patricia any of this.] But this isn’t what the Duchess is going to tell, or it’s not the thing she’s holding back.

Richard gets half loaded; he and Carla go along with Patricia when she goes for a walk. They meet Peter Parker, the gamekeeper, who is obviously attracted to the beautiful bronze-haired, bronze-skinned woman with big brown eyes that have striking gold flecks in them. He tells them of the hunt for poachers, though there is some doubt that Ernie and Jack were poachers. The mention of Ernie triggers Patricia’s memories of the attack the night before. That wasn’t the first time Patricia had lesbian intercourse; she remembers being with her good friend at the age of fifteen, and these memories merge with those of Ernie. Patricia is troubled by the memories of Ernie because of the situation and doubt about Ernie’s cleanliness, but not deeply shocked; she was too responsive for that. She belongs to a generation, many of whom are sexually more free, even if her father was a rigid, moral person—too rigid, perhaps, because of the training by her grandfather James Wildman, who had overreacted in his repentance of his criminal activity re Arthur, the 7th Duke.

Peter Parker says that he doubts any poachers are about in the daytime, because there are police and visitors around. The two kidnappers are either long gone or holed-up. Austin walks by, a little, dark, scarred, tough man. Richard says then that he’s an ex-convict, taken on by Doctor Moran. The Duchess was told of his past and says she’s not worried. In fact, she often talks to Austin, and loves to hear of his criminal exploits. The old girl has a criminal streak in her, Richard says. Richard and Carla leave Patricia with Parker.

Patricia and Parker go to the ruins, Mary’s Tower, where Mary, Queen of Scots used to sit often. It’s surrounded by great oaks now, but in the old days, being up on a hill and from the top of the Tower, one could see quite a lot, and still can, through the trees. Parker, 42 years old, is very attracted to her. They see two lovers who think they’re hidden [Richard and Rosamond]; she sees them first from her vantage point, and then he does; he’s very embarrassed. He runs the couple off but she begs him to leave them alone; but he says it’s his duty to do so, although the old Duchess and her grandchildren are lecherous.

They go back to Pemberley House and at supper Patricia is told that the ghost is supposed to walk tonight, the anniversary of her death. This will be the first night of three nights of anticipated appearances of the ghost. Peter Parker sees Patricia later, and warns her in veiled terms. The old Duchess and Doctor Moran reminisce about old times, and Patricia reflects that he must have been her lover. She must have taken him when she was a middleaged woman and he was young. She was 31 in 1900, and he was born in 1907, when she was 38; so when he was 22 in 1929, she was 60, but she was wealthy and he was entranced by her, apparently, although he must have had other women. But he must be perverted to have taken her on and be so fascinated by her, or perhaps it was just a matter of money. She was willing to buy a young lover. Now, he’s 65 and she’s 103, a doctor and patient with lecherous memories to share.

Patricia has distaste for the whole crew, except for Parker, whom she sees when she goes to the window to escape Richard. He’s making a play for her, but she remembers what she saw that afternoon and is angry at him. Parker, seeing her, looks funny.

That night she goes to bed in her chamber on the second floor with its lascivious paintings of satyrs and nymphs by Caravaggio, the Old Italian master. It storms, a tradition on the anniversary of Bess’ murder by her fourth husband. She’s been told the ghost stories, but she’s finally able to go to sleep after discarding the reading materials by the bed, which are mostly old erotic classics.

It is tonight that Ernie and Jack try to get to Austin, who sleeps inside the house. Lightning wakes up Patricia, and the thunder, and wind blows open the French windows. She goes to close the windows and catches a glimpse of two figures outside, but she can’t make them out. She thinks she should call the police, but what if it’s Richard and his lover meeting again; she wouldn’t want to interfere. She looks at the clock; it’s 11, and the ghost is supposed to appear at 12. What if it’s Richard and Carla, not Rosamond, and they’re going to play a joke on her, or something even more serious. She’s very scared and the evil carved bedposts of Bess of Pemberley’s bed, and the salacious paintings and the torture scenes, all of these scare her. Maybe she should get Parker, to whom she’s very attracted, and find out what’s going on.

Patricia decides not to call the police; she doesn’t want to make Richard and Carla mad, but would like to spoil their little joke, and so she decides she’ll investigate, and puts on a robe, which the wind flips up exposing her, which she can see by lightning in the mirror [keep this trick in mind, she’s always seeing herself in a mirror]. But at the third lightning flash, she also sees in the mirror, or thinks she sees, a pale figure of a woman at the end of the room. Patricia whirls, terrified, but the figure is gone. Is her mind playing tricks? She goes down the hall and out onto the huge porch. She’s going to give Richard and Carla hell because any ruckus could cause the old woman to die, although she’s not very fond of the ancient lecherous acid-tongued bitch. She goes further down and then sees the two, whom she now realizes are not Richard and Carla. She thinks they are Ernie and that fellow Jack, creeping about. Then they go into a window they force open and she has to give the alarm now. They’re evidently after Austin. She goes back inside and rings through to Parker, who comes at once with a rifle. They hear a terrible row, and shots, and then Austin comes jumping out the window, naked. Following Austin out the window are Ernie, then Jack, then Parker, and they exchange more shots.

Patricia runs back into the house and is about to call the police. Ernie and Jack get away. Patricia is told to keep things quiet. The old doctor comes downstairs, and Patricia suspects that he and the old Duchess, unthinkable as it is, may have been having sex, but then she sees that it’s the 45-year-old housekeeper, Mrs. Abingdon, with the doctor. They were both surprised in bed. So the old doctor is a horny bastard.

Richard is angry that his grandmother might learn of this and become too excited. He and Carla are soaking wet, and obviously have been out doing something. [They were out arranging for the illegal abortion of Rosamond’s baby; they would have gotten old Doctor Moran in on it, but he’s too apt to try to blackmail them, so they didn’t. They have buried the baby in a room under Mary’s Tower, not knowing that there is also money buried there. Ernie and Jack sometimes hole up in another room near it, never suspecting that the money they seek is under their feet, although their main hideout is in nearby Bakewell or some other village. But later, seeing where the earth floor is disturbed, they dig down, find the body, and then the money.]

The next day, there is much uproar, especially at the sexual discoveries: old Doctor Moran and Mrs. Abingdon, and Austin in bed with another man, a gardener who lives off the estate. All are concerned not to tell the Duchess anything, and Patricia suspects something but is lied to. She is so disgusted she’s ready to quit and leave, but still, she can clear out the whole place when she’s Baroness and heiress. They’ve all been up much of the night before, and so everyone goes their own way. Patricia avoids everyone and spends the rest of the day alone, taking her meal by herself in her chamber.

That night [the second night of appearances by the ghost] Patricia goes to bed and sleeps deeply. The room is fully darkened, the curtains pulled all the way across the French windows. She half wakes up and feels drugged. It is 12 midnight. The ghost of Bess comes toward her. Both Patricia and the ghost are naked, and Bess feels up Patricia, fingering her, kissing and sucking on her bronzed breasts, and going down on her. Patricia responds and reciprocates, and then struggles up out of her haze to hear banging on the door. It’s Parker, who came after being summoned by Miss Neston, the maid, who heard cries coming from Patricia’s room. Patricia finds that she’s wet between the legs and wonders if it’s the result of a wet dream—if it was a wet dream.

The reading of the will is to be in two days, though Patricia knows the contents pretty well. What she doesn’t know is that if she dies, then the Duchess can pass the estate and titles on to her adopted grandson by admitting that he is her real grandchild. But she must get rid of Patricia before this, without suspicion, and schemes how to do this. If Patricia clearly dies by accident, then fine, and she knows that Parker is really a policeman because Doctor Moran has been investigating and discovered it.

So the Duchess, Richard, and Carla are out to get her and must work fast and furious because of the uproar over the two unknowns (Ernie and Jack). They can’t delay, because if the old Duchess dies first, her will won’t mean a thing even if Patricia dies. If Patricia dies first, then everything will revert to the Dowager Duchess, who can then pass it on to the children of her body, so she must present proofs of her claim. Patricia doesn’t know any of this, of course.

The next day, with the old Duchess reminiscing, and Doctor Moran attending, Patricia can’t keep from thinking about seeing the old doctor and his huge member and Mrs. Abingdon, and she has sexual feelings because she’s only had two sexual experiences since her husband was killed, and Ernie wasn’t exactly enjoyable, although her body unwillingly responded. Or is it three? Does the ghost of Bess last night count, or was it a dream?

The old Duchess tells of her love affair with the Prince of Wales, his liking for perversions, Milverton finding out about it, his attempt at blackmail, her first husband’s (the Marquess Blackwater) heartbreak and suicide. She was heartbroken then, but that was almost 88 years ago that he died, in 1885. It was an appallingly long time ago, and now time and distance and loss of pain have done their work, destroyed her love, and she sees it as pathetic. Why should he have killed himself just because she had an affair, and especially with the greatest man in England? And before she even got married, because she was faithful after marriage, but his suicide was a terrible act of faithlessness to her. So she sees things differently now. Anyway, she vowed vengeance on Milverton, and when she heard that a friend of hers was being blackmailed, she returned from the South of France and shot him dead, emptying six bullets into him. She heard later that somebody else had been there and robbed the safe. Two burglars got blamed for the murder, and they escaped the police. And what can anybody do about that murder now? She’ll deny it if Patricia tells. It was 74 years ago, in 1899, so who cares now? Patricia is appalled, and also wonders why the Duchess is telling her this. To scare her into leaving now and renouncing her inheritance? If so, she’s doing a good job. This house is, if not evil, filled with a history of ancient evil and with living evil people: the Duchess, Austin, Doctor Moran, and Carla and Richard, who are up to no good. Why could the house not have had wonderful people as it did two hundred years ago, people like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet? Like Charles and Jane Bingley? But even then, the house had its bad apples, such as George Wickham, if Jane Austen’s pseudo-biographical novel about her distant ancestors is to be believed. Now, the only good people are the butler, the maid, and the gamekeeper.

Patricia goes to bed that night [the third and final night that the ghost of Bess is due to appear] and tries to read, but is restless. She wanders the room and on a lark, begins tapping the walls, since she’s heard from Parker and the Duchess—and also had read in many guidebooks—that many secret passageways were used by dwellers during religious persecutions, royalist roundhead civil war days, and since then. But she finds nothing suspicious, and rings for tea before bed. The maid brings the tea, she tries to read again, but she falls asleep at once, drugged.

The ghost comes to Patricia once again, crawling into bed with her, and Patricia can feel the ghost’s warm flesh. Dazed, she wonders why a ghost’s flesh would be warm, but responds anyway, licking hard ghostly nipples and dark areolae, tonguing down smooth, alabaster flesh, plunging her tongue into the ghost’s wet mound. The ghost rolls her over and lowers her vulva to Patricia’s waiting lips, lowering her red mouth to Patricia’s wet mound, and the two finger and eat each other in a vigorous sixty-nine, their moans and soft cries filling the cold room. Then after Patricia’s warm rush of orgasm, the ghost gets up and begins to leave. Patricia blinks, dizzy, disoriented, and she tries to follow, but the ghost is gone. Patricia is frightened, and falls down the stairs, feels a cord against her ankles, then it’s gone, and she’s being carried, naked, and the butler and Mrs. Abingdon appear.

Doctor Moran is called, and Patricia doesn’t want him to give her any medicine, but she can’t resist, and takes the medicine. She wakes up in darkness in her room, and there seem to be figures in the room, and then they leave, and she knows it’s by the secret door since she can see the main door to her room by the moonlight and nobody exits by it. The storm has broken up and the moon is shining through in patches. She starts to be able to move a little bit, and then a man comes in; he has a moustache and he’s naked and she knows it’s Dr. Moran.

Moran is in on the plot to do away with Patricia, and had given her a cocktail of various portions to confuse her. He’s decided it’s a shame to waste her magnificent body and so has come to help himself, not knowing that Richard and Carla had the same idea earlier. But he’s underestimated Patricia, and although she’s wobbly and disoriented from the drug, she fights him off, doing some serious damage to him, including his bits-and-pieces, in the process.

Injured and furious, he leaves and prepares to carry out his dirty work while Patricia passes out again. The plan is to get her out of her room, take her outside, shoot her, and put her body down in a pit near Pemberley House. They’ll have to cover their footprints, of course. Richard and Carla are to help; they are all in on it. The doctor’s reward will be a solid pension from the Deguy twins once they inherit, and Carla has promised to keep him sexually satisfied, both with Mrs. Abingdon or some other woman and herself.

But they’ve been cheating each other with the abuse—or attempted abuse—of Patricia.

Patricia, still drugged, is carried by Richard and Moran with Carla following. They wear slippers covered with towels, and Carla expunges the prints. On the grass they don’t worry about it, and they also go up gravel paths, only having to wipe out the prints when they go across a woody stretch to Queen Mary’s Tower. They have Patricia walking now, at gunpoint, although she’s still very drugged and disoriented. Patricia tries to scream out, and while she’s being led by Carla and Richard they are feeling her up. These are vile people, feeling her up as they lead her off to her death.

The party is about to run head-on into Ernie and Jack, who are desperate to make one last try at Austin, because they must have the loot. Moran, Richard, Carla, and Patricia see a light from the Tower. Richard and Carla are upset because the light is coming from the room where the dead embryo is buried. Richard and Carla sneak off to the Tower, overhear some things, and Carla comes back to report. She tells Moran that it’s a man and a woman in the Tower with flashlights. They’ve noticed the overturned earth there, dug up the dead baby, but continued digging and found bags full of money and bullion, the result of the Great Train Robbery. Much enlightenment comes to Patricia.

Dr. Moran has his air gun (inherited from his grandfather Col. Sebastian Moran, no doubt) and says not only can they all get the estate and title, but also the money; they’ll have to kill the two in the Tower and then they’ll be rich. No need to tell the Duchess about this, of course; it turns out the Duchess doesn’t know their plans to kill Patricia. The Duchess really believes in the ghost and hopes that Patricia will be scared away by this and the veiled threats and will take off.

Jack Hare hears the approaching party and there’s a battle with no shots fired on either side, for fear of rousing the authorities. Patricia comes out of her paralysis and runs, her gown tearing off in branches and bushes as she runs through the woods. Jack gets his knife into Richard and is shot by Dr. Moran with the air rifle. Ernie throws a gold bar and caves in Moran’s skull. Carla shoots Ernie, wounding her, and Ernie runs off into the woods. She runs past Patricia, who follows, and both are followed by Carla, shooting at them deep in the woods, where it is difficult to see and locate anyone.

The storm is raging now. Ernie and Carla are after each other and Patricia, because neither can allow Patricia to remain alive. Patricia, naked, holes up, but Ernie finds her and they tangle, a half-sexual, half-fight to the death. Patricia has been through a lot, been drugged and weakened, but she’s a big girl, fantastic genetic heritage on both her father’s and mother’s sides, magnificent physique, and skilled as a result of her father’s rigorous physical and mental training program. She eventually snaps Ernie’s arm with a vengeance for what she did to her. Ernie starts to run away and disappears into the woods. Patricia pursues her, only stopping to arm herself by breaking off the longest, straightest tree branch she can find. The tip of the branch is quite sharp, which is good since Patricia doesn’t have the tools or the time to sharpen the branch. She resembles a famous relative of hers, a jungle lord, as she races naked through the woods of Pemberley. She sees no sign of Ernie, and then hears a sound from the tree branches above her. Patricia swings around and plants her makeshift spear on the ground pointing upward, and as Ernie drops toward her, she’s impaled as gravity brings her down and the deadly stick is thrust between her legs.

Patricia’s violently sick at the killing—this is the first time she’s killed another human being—but it was necessary and although she remembers her father’s policy of humane rehabilitation, she also knows that he did end up killing his foes when he had to, or least giving them the chance to hoist themselves by their own petard, which they usually did. Besides... the bitch Ernie assaulted her and later tried to kill her. Ernie got what she deserved and Patricia has a hard time feeling bad about it.

Patricia hears rustling in the woods and is brought back to reality. Ernie is dead but Carla is still out there, looking for her with intent to kill. Unknown to Patricia, Moran is out there too, because he was only knocked out and the old bastard is tough. And Moran, knowing he’s not in the will except for a small sum and free lodging, and therefore won’t be suspected, and can get his hands on the Robbery money, is out to kill both. But Austin shows up and Moran has to shoot him first before pursuing Patricia and Carla.

Carla sees Patricia over Ernie’s body and starts chasing her. Carla has a gun but doesn’t shoot; she still wants to avoid attracting the attention of the authorities, although she must not be thinking clearly. There are too many bodies and too much carnage now to cover up anything, and when dawn comes everyone’s schemes will come to light. Carla isn’t thinking of this, though. Patricia would stay and fight but Carla is brandishing the gun and Patricia doesn’t know that Carla has no plans to shoot if she can avoid it. So the chase is on.

Patricia is now even more exhausted after the battle with Ernie, and Carla manages to cut her off. They begin a battle-royal similar to the combat that Patricia just had with Ernie, blood and flesh and gore flying. Patricia is much larger and stronger, but she’s almost done in after all the drugs and the battle with Ernie. And Carla is lithe, sinuous, and agile. Under normal circumstances it would be no contest, but under these conditions Carla is giving Patricia a serious run for her money. Carla’s clothes are shredded and torn off in the fight, and both women are naked, chests heaving with exertion.

Finally Patricia gets Carla in a half-nelson and is about to break her neck, when a bullet silently pierces Carla’s chest, a fountain of blood blooming from between her breasts. Carla goes limp and slides to the ground. Carla’s breath is wheezy and gurgling as she’s dying, and Patricia tells her she deserves it for drugging her and taking advantage of her the previous two nights. Carla tells Patricia she wouldn’t have minded, but it wasn’t her, and she dies.

Moran comes upon them, air gun in hand. From a distance and in the dark, he had thought there was only one target he was aiming at. Cursing, he now realizes that Patricia is there too, and begins fumbling to reload. Patricia runs off, but the old man is after her. She makes it to the ruins of the Tower and he follows her in. They play a game of cat-and-mouse in the turning and twisting corridors and winding staircases, with Patricia being backed up to the top of the Tower. She slips and falls, and Moran has her in his sights, when Parker the gamekeeper tackles the old man and quickly knocks him screaming over the railing and onto the stone below where his head is caved in.

Parker puts his jacket around Patricia and takes her in his arms, but if he’s expecting sobbing and crying, he’s going to be disappointed.

Patricia and Parker go back to the estate just before dawn breaks. They find the old Duchess dead with a look of horror, and Patricia sees a white apparition fading away. Parker laughs but Patricia swears that Bess did appear to the Duchess and she died of fright, though why Bess should appear to a nonmember of the family, or one not in the direct line of descent, is strange. And then realizes what was strange about the ghost; it was the Duchess herself, not Bess, and so Pemberley House has a new ghost.

Epilogue: All the elements of the mystery are cleared up except that the ghost of Bess may or may not have existed. Legend has it that if someone can show Bess’ ghost love, instead of terror, she will go away.

The larger section of Pemberley House is still open for public historical tours, but a plaque at the gates to Pemberley House informs visitors that the other side of the estate houses the firm Empire State Investigations. Patricia and Parker are in her private suite—she has decided to take Bess’ rooms on a permanent basis—with a bottle of champagne, and they go to bed.

They are enjoying themselves when the red phone rings. Parker objects but Patricia picks up the phone. The red phone is a private hotline, not the firm’s public line. If someone is calling it, it must be vitally important.

She answers the phone and almost drops the receiver in shock when she hears her “late” father’s voice on the other end of the line.

THE END