Drew kept moving down the corridor, pushing open doors, peering into rooms, finding them empty. Where could Joan be?
The place was eerily quiet. The Pikes had gone into Edinburgh, the servants had the evening off, and Kuznetsov was likely sound asleep. Or was he somehow involved in this mess after all? Would he be waiting round some dark corner with a gun or a kitchen knife?
“Where have you got to, young Miss Rainsby?” he singsonged half under his breath as he cracked open her door and looked inside. Empty. No Joan.
He frowned. Nick would have hailed him by now if she’d come down the back way. The roof? No, there was no escape from there, unless it was a very final one. Even from where he stood, he could hear the low roar of the sea below. Where could she—?
“Looking for me, Drew?”
He winced, turning slowly around to face Joan and the small pistol she had pointed at him. Doubtless it used the same type of bullet they’d find lodged in Jamie Tyler’s heart. “I think it’s time we talked.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t anything to say to you. Let me leave and I won’t use this.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’ll think of something.”
He glanced at the pistol. “Yours? The police have been all over the house several times now. You must have quite a fine hiding place for it.”
“I do. A little hollowed-out place in my bedpost. You have to know just where to press to make the door pop open. Inspector Ranald clearly did not know. Even my mother doesn’t know. It was a secret of the Rainsbys from years gone by. My father showed it me and gave me this to keep there. In case of burglars or something.”
“Joan—”
“Really, I have to go. I’m sure one of your stalwart little band has rung up the police, and they’re not likely to appreciate my recent activities.”
“Where will you go?” he asked again. Where was Shaw? “You know every constable in Scotland, England, and Wales will be looking for you within a few hours. Passport, traveling expenses, identification—all of it will have to be provided for. Do you think you can drive off an island?”
She stared at him, dark eyes cool, the pistol still pointed at his heart. “You’re a nice man, Mr. Farthering . . . even if you are a bit of a dope.”
“I do apologize for my shortcomings, but I would be remiss if I allowed you to believe that another murder at this juncture would be to your advantage. You could very easily kill me, I know, but you’d never get away with it.”
“I don’t know about that.” A slight smile touched her lips. “Besides, the hangman doesn’t much mind whether one commits one murder or a dozen. He gets his fee only once.”
“That’s a pity for the hangman,” someone said from the doorway.
Joan sprang back and then exhaled. “What do you want? Or are you too stupid to see you’ve stepped into the middle of something?”
Kuznetsov came into the room, dressed in a tweed jacket with a robin’s-egg-blue cravat and a Tyrolean hat. Traveling clothes. “I thought, seeing how things were going, you might want a bit of help. Would you care for a lift?” The Russian accent was gone. Now he sounded very English. “You’d better hurry if we’re going to get out of this at all.”
“You’d help me?” she asked, a glimmer of daring in her dark eyes. “Have you got a car?”
“In the drive. I wired one out of the garage. It may well be your own.”
Joan scowled at him.
“Anyhow,” he continued, “Mr. and Mrs. Pike won’t be back till late. Mr. Pike is about ready to toss me out a window as it is. Now, if you were to make it worth my while, I can get you out of the house and out of the country.”
She raised one eyebrow. “How?”
“My dear girl,” Kuznetsov said with a sly twinkle in his eye, “if a man is going to make his living by his wits, he had best acquaint himself with all the exits.”
“And you can get us out of the country?”
“I can. For half.”
“Half?”
“Half of whatever you’ve got squirreled away. If I’m not mistaken about a girl like you, whatever it is, it will keep us both rather nicely for some time to come.”
Her mouth tightened into a grim smile. “Agreed. I’ll just see to him and we’ll be off.”
Kuznetsov held out his hand. “I’ll do it.”
She hesitated, and he lunged for the pistol, trying to wrench it away from her. She set her jaw, straining to keep hold of it, hissing curses at him.
Drew sprang toward them. “Kuznetsov, don’t—”
There was a deafening crack, and Kuznetsov fell heavily against her, the weight of his body tearing the gun from her hands and sending it skittering under the bureau. She twisted away from him and bolted out of the room. Drew glanced after her, hearing the clatter of her steps on the stairway, and then he knelt by Kuznetsov. A vivid patch of red was spreading across his shirtfront.
“What were you thinking?” Drew demanded, dragging the coverlet from the bed and then wadding up one corner of it to press against the wound. He looked frantically toward the door, hoping someone had heard the shot and would bring help. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking?”
A smile ghosted across Kuznetsov’s face. “Saving,” he panted. “Saving you.”
“Me?” Drew pressed harder, trying to keep the blood in the man. The dark eyes were losing focus. “Why? Kuznetsov, why?”
The breath seeped out of the older man’s nostrils.
“Come on, man.” Drew shook him, still pressing down. He had to keep him from slipping away. “Tell me why.”
“Do you know what it means?” Kuznetsov wheezed. “My—my name?”
There was a sudden clamor in the corridor.
“Drew.” Madeline flew into the room and dropped to her knees at his side. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
He grabbed her hands, pressing them down on Kuznetsov’s chest in place of his own. “Put as much weight on the wound as you can.” He fished the pistol out from under the bureau and put it in her lap. “Use that if you need to. I don’t know if Joan will come back this way, but don’t let her past you if she does.”
Madeline’s eyes widened. “Drew.”
“Did you ring the police?”
She nodded.
“Where’s Nick?”
“Hurt. Carrie’s looking after him. I don’t think it’s bad.”
“All right. Don’t worry. Joan’s not armed now.” He kissed Madeline’s temple. “I’ll be back. I’ve got to stop her before she gets away.”
“You ought to hurry,” Kuznetsov muttered.
Drew shook one finger at him. “You stay right where you are, understand? No cashing out before you explain yourself.”
Kuznetsov merely closed his eyes and made no answer. Perhaps he would never wake again.
Drew sprinted into the corridor. “Joan? Joan!” He could hear her spike heels striking the floor as she hurried on ahead of him. Back to her room, of course. If she had all the valuables packed up, ready to be carried off, she’d want to take them along. It was an expensive business, this disappearing, and she’d need plenty of capital.
“Give it up, Joan! You’re only making things worse.”
He dashed after her, hearing a door slam just as he reached her quarters. She wasn’t there. Kuznetsov’s room? Somewhere else? There were nine or ten doors to choose from, all of them maddeningly white and maddeningly alike. Which one?
“Joan! Don’t be a fool! Come out!”
It was insanity. Why hadn’t she immediately run out of the house? That, too, would be insanity. She’d have been tracked down before morning. But this?
“Joan!”
The door at the far end of the hall, Lady Louisa’s door, flew open and the fugitive ran across to another door, flung it open and disappeared inside, slamming the door after her. Drew was right behind her.
The roof.
She had fastened the latch on the hallway door, but it was easily forced. That left only the spiral staircase, which led up to the roof. She was already at the top of the gleaming white metal steps, using the key she’d got from her mother’s bedroom to open the door to the outside.
“Joan, wait!” If she got outside and locked the door after herself, he’d never get to her in time. “Wait. Listen to me.”
Her eyes wild, she got the door open but fumbled with the key when she pulled it out of the lock. It fell to the bottom of the spiral stairs. He was nearly on her now as she stumbled out onto the roof, her dress stark white against the black velvet of the night sky.
“Joan.” He reached toward her. “Please. You don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t I? You know as well as I do I’ll never get away now. Kuznetsov, if that’s even his real name, was my last hope and he sold me out. May as well make an end of it now.”
“You don’t know what might happen in a trial. Once you give your side of it—”
“You mean they might put me away for life rather than hang me? That would be jolly, wouldn’t it? Well, it doesn’t matter. I haven’t any excuses. My father wasn’t a brute. My mother never humiliated me in front of my friends. I wasn’t starved and beaten and locked up in a garret until I was sixteen. If they were at fault in any of this, it was through indulgence. But I finally found something they wouldn’t let me have.”
“Jamie Tyler.”
Her mouth tightened. “They couldn’t keep me from marrying him, but they could keep me from having enough money to hold on to him. I knew what he was. I didn’t care. Don’t you see? I didn’t care that he was a gigolo. I didn’t care how many women he’d had or how many fathers and husbands had paid him off, I wanted him. And to get him I needed money. He wouldn’t have minded waiting if he’d known I’d get it all eventually, but when Dad told me he’d cut me off if I married Jamie, and Mother backed him up, what else could I do?”
“Some would suggest murder isn’t the best alternative,” Drew said. “What about Mr. Barnaby?”
“He was the easiest part of all this,” she said, and she looked slyly pleased with herself. “It’s quite astounding what a bit of flattery, a touch of ‘Oh, what a big, strong man you are’ will do with these middle-aged, straitlaced types. Get them to believe you’re a young innocent helpless to resist their charms and there’s nothing you can’t make them do for you.”
“I see. And I suppose you convinced him it would be worth his while to claim your father had requested a new will, the provisions making your mother a suspect in his death. Then afterwards, having no more use of him, he had to be made away with. So you were the one he had a tête-à-tête with that night, and it was you who brought him that bottle of wine.”
She smirked. “Our gardener keeps cyanide for killing wasps. He never missed the bit I borrowed.” She glanced behind her, and the crash of the surf on the rocks below all at once seemed very near. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to turn around and go back down the stairs, I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Again he put up one hand. “Wait. Just wait. I understand why you killed your father and why you killed Barnaby, but why Tyler? If you loved him as much as you claim, why did you kill him?”
She pressed her lips together, saying nothing.
“Tell me,” Drew said.
“It was stupid. I went to tell him he didn’t have to worry any longer. There was no one to stand between us, and he needn’t stay away anymore.”
“I take it he didn’t welcome the news.”
Her eyes flashed fire. “He said it was best that we moved on. That I would need some time to recover from what had happened with my parents and that neither of us should make any rash decisions when everything was in such turmoil. He—” her voice cracked—“he patted my shoulder and said it would be better this way. Better if we let each other go.”
“And you weren’t going to let him go.”
“After all I’d done for him? For us? He couldn’t just leave me.”
“Did he know?” Drew moved a half step closer to her. “Did you tell him what you’d done for him? Everything you’d done for him?”
“I didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes. He knew what I’d done and it frightened him. I frightened him.”
The man may have been a cad, but at least he’d drawn the line at murder.
“He told me again that we ought to end it, and I said I’d make him sorry if he went. He didn’t believe me. Not until I’d turned the gun on myself and told him I wouldn’t go on without him. He told me not to be a fool and tried to take it from me. And . . . and . . .” There was a tight hardness in the lines of her mouth, but her eyes brimmed with tears.
“The gun went off,” Drew said at last.
“I wouldn’t have done it. He knew I would never have killed myself. He looked so surprised when he was shot. And then he just fell.” Her mouth turned down into a pout. “It wasn’t fair. It was all taken care of. I’d got all the money and the estate and no one would have been the wiser, and then he had to go and spoil everything by being careless with a gun.”
“Thoughtless of him,” Drew murmured, studying her face, her petulant, cruel-mouthed face. How had he ever thought her naïve and in need of protection? “Then what did you do? I thought perhaps the killer had tossed the gun into the sea, but you had that little hiding place so you needn’t worry about the gun being found. Pity your mother was already in jail. You might have blamed that on her, as well.”
Joan thrust out her chin. “If it weren’t for her, Jamie wouldn’t be dead. He and I wouldn’t have quarreled and he wouldn’t have been killed. She ought to hang. It’s only fair.”
“I’m curious,” Drew said, moving another step closer. “How did you manage it? Making it look as if your mother had gone out that night when she hadn’t? Or should I say when she couldn’t?”
Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You’re so smart, you tell me.”
“I’ve no doubt that whatever you gave her for her headache that night was meant to put her out. Did you give her something to make her feel ill in the first place?”
“I mashed up a strawberry in her soup. The broth was strong enough to cover the taste. She’s allergic, you know, and it gave her an awful headache. I’d done it before when I wanted her out of the way, so I knew it would do the trick.”
“I thought it might be something along those lines,” Drew said. “I must admit, though, I’m rather stuck as to what you did with her while she was unconscious. Or was it something as simple as having the maid lie for you?”
“Agnes?” Joan snorted. “I could never trust that ninny with something that important. It was simple enough, though. All I did was roll Mother over against the wall, wedged a bit into the space beside the mattress, and toss the pillows and coverlet over her. That way it appeared, if one didn’t look too hard, as if the bed were empty.”
“Ah,” Drew said, “I should have known.”
“Agnes, the ninny, barely gawked at the bed. And when she saw the bathroom was empty, she went searching all over the rest of the house.”
“Deftly played, as well as that business about the path down to the cottage. But what if MacArthur had had an alibi he could speak about?”
Her mouth twisted up on one side. “I guess that’s where the joke’s on me. I thought he didn’t want to speak because he’d been with that blond girl.”
“But she had been at the bookshop that night, so we knew Mac wasn’t telling the truth about it. Worked out nicely for you, I’d say.”
He moved a step closer still. Joan stiffened, springing back from him. Closer to the edge of the roof.
“Don’t do it,” she warned. “I’d sooner end up in the sea than at the end of a rope.”
“I thought you said you never meant to kill yourself, that the gun was merely for show.”
“That was when Jamie was still alive.” Her expression turned hard. “None of my options are very attractive at the moment, are they? I’d rather go out on my own terms.”
He moved closer again, and she backed up against the low wall that encircled the rooftop.
“I mean it now. Don’t imagine I don’t. If you have any other questions, best ask them now. It won’t do you much good to ask them later.”
He held up both hands, not wanting to goad her into doing anything foolish. “I just want to know about Tyler. Seems to me that as long as you were funneling money into his pockets, there was no need for you to marry him. Neither of you appeared to have a moral objection to carrying on as you were. Why go through all this for just a veneer of respectability?”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” She smiled faintly, and for just that instant she seemed the ingénue he had first imagined her to be. “He’d have found someone else before long. Do you think he wanted to live over the grocer’s the rest of his life? This is what he wanted.” She gestured toward the mansion beneath their feet. “If we were married, he would have been able to live here. He would have been able to go wherever he wanted without someone telling him he wasn’t allowed or that he’d better use the trade entrance.”
Drew remembered the first time he’d spoken to Tyler, there in front of the clubhouse at Muirfield. “The dining room is only for members and their guests.” How that must have galled the man year after year.
“And for that,” Drew said, inching closer, “he needed you.”
“I would have given him everything he wanted, and he would have loved me.” Again she lifted her chin, eyes fierce as she glared at him. “Don’t you dare pity me.”
“Very well,” he said mildly. “If you won’t have pity, perhaps you’d prefer truth. He would have hated you. Perhaps not right away, but in time.”
“No,” she breathed.
“And you would have despised him for being someone you could buy. But it seems he wasn’t quite what any of us thought. He wouldn’t take you and your money once he realized how you got it.”
“It’s not true. He would have. He would have loved me. I fixed everything so he would love me and never leave.” She drew a sobbing breath. “He would have loved me.”
“I suppose we’ll never know for certain now. But it’s getting a bit late, don’t you think? You’ve left rather a mess downstairs, and I think the police will want to have a chat with you before bedtime.”
He held out his hand to her, and she stepped farther away, against the wall. She glanced back, out over the rushing sea below, and then turned to him again. She was utterly calm now.
“I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Not ever again.” She smiled only the slightest bit, the smile of a porcelain doll or a shop mannequin, and stepped up onto the wall.
“Joan. Look here, don’t be a fool.” He looked around, desperate for help from someone, anyone. Dear God, please. “You don’t want to do that. You don’t—”
He leapt at her just as she stepped into the empty air, catching her around the middle and then realizing too late that they were overbalanced. Together they tumbled into the darkness below.