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Gregory, clearly upset, stood at the kitchen door the moment they arrived home.
“What has happened?” Vic asked.
“Claire set her house on fire. It has burned to the ground. Fortunately, the houses around it survived. However, the fire inspector wishes to speak to you in the morning. They believe the fire was purposely set. Witnesses saw a petite young woman tossing a liquid that smelled like alcohol on the sides of the house and then setting it on fire. When they tried to stop her, she pulled a gun and threatened to shoot them, telling them this was her house, and no one but her would ever enter it again.”
“Dear God, did she return to the house?” David demanded.
“No, she came here and is presently in the parlor being well watched by Tubs and Jacko, as the children work on the castle.” Gregory rubbed his temples. “She evidently plans to sleep with Maddy.”
“The hell she will,” Xavier replied. He then focused on Vic and David. “You are both too close to this situation. We need to take Claire now, before she sets our house on fire.”
“That would be the natural progression.” Vic admitted, and glanced at David for his agreement. Vic had never seen him so tormented, but he nodded.
Xavier released a heavy sigh. “Gregory, I need to use your phone.”
Gregory led him to his room and dialed the number as Xavier called it off, then he handed Xavier the phone and he stepped back. “Would you like me to leave or stay, sir?”
“Stay for this call, but my next call I will need you to leave once you’ve dialed the number for me.”
“I understand.”
“Frederick. We cannot wait. I need to send the package now. Matters have escalated. The package and I will be leaving with fresh horses and a rested driver in no more than ten minutes. We should arrive in four hours. Davy will not be the driver. It will be a young man named Casey. Please tell the guards in advance. I do not wish Casey to die over this nonsense.”
“Can you tell me what has happened?” Frederick asked.
“Not now, I will tell you when I arrive.” Xavier hung up and handed the phone to Gregory. He quickly placed it on the hooks. Then he lifted it up and dialed in the new number as Xavier read it off.
Barns answered at once.
“Thank God you are still there,” Xavier snapped.
Barnes replied. “I just got a report that a house belonging to Victor Hamilton was set on fire.”
“Yes, Vic’s sister, Claire, has become unhinged. I am taking her to an asylum the moment I finish this call. I believe she had servants. Could you have some of your men check the house and ensure they all got out?”
“I’ll have it done right away. I am glad you are taking her to an asylum, I was going to suggest that when I drove you home last night, but I didn’t want to speak with Maddy in the carriage.”
“Yes, this was already in the plans, only Claire reacted one day in advance. We had intended to take her there tomorrow morning, but we are going to take her now. No way in hell would I let her sleep in my house.”
“Is someone watching her?”
“Jacko and Tubs.”
“Then all should be good.”
“With Claire, you never know. If she’d burn her own house down simply because Vic cannot legally put the title in her name, she would have no trouble setting our house on fire.”
“If you require help, let me know,” Barns stated and hung up.
Xavier hurried back to the kitchen. “Casey, get Vic’s carriage ready to go.”
“It’s ready,” he stated.
Both Gregory and Casey followed Xavier to the hallway. He nodded at their immediate assistance. “First, I’ll get my mother and great-grandmother out of the parlor and place them in the library. Next, we should declare bed time and take the children upstairs to our bathroom and lock them in. The bathroom is well sealed. However, there is ventilation in the ceiling, so the children can continue to breathe fresh air. Gregory, I want Sara and the other maids to stay with the children in the bathroom. Perhaps take some food as well.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir,” he stated and in less than two minutes most of the maids were quietly rushing up the stairs and readying the bathroom for occupation.
Sara rushed to Gregory. “We have sufficient food for two days and milk for the younger ones. All the maids are upstairs, waiting in the upper hallway in case they need to hurry a child along or a child attempts to enter his regular room instead.”
“Well done, Sara. Just remain in the hallway until Xavier declares it bedtime.”
“Would it not be better for me to do so? I am the one who normally puts them to bed.”
“Excellent idea. I will suggest it to Xavier. However, I expect Claire will try to follow Maddy, so I will need to distract her.”
Xavier exited the room with his mother and great-grandmother and quickly moved them to the library. “Stay here. If you smell an odor like the sewer, climb out the window and go across the street to our office.”
“Can you tell us what has happened?” Vivian asked.
“No time.”
“Does it concern Claire? She seems almost wild tonight.”
“Just lock this door and stay far away from her,” Xavier warned.
“Gregory, I need you to distract Claire while we get the children out of the room.”
“To keep with their regular routine, Sara should remove the children from the room and I should delay Claire by asking her about her house.”
Xavier gripped his arm. “Excellent. But be very careful. It is highly likely that she plans to kill everyone in this house tonight.”
Gregory seemed to grow an inch. “That will not happen, sir. Not on my watch.”
The removal of the children went like clockwork. While Ham had reason to question why he needed to go upstairs rather than to his own bed, he never said a word. He just did as his mother requested.
As was the plan, once the last child was in the giant bathroom with all the female servants to care for them, Pete sealed the door, per his father’s orders and sat in a chair outside the door.
Xavier stuck his head in their master suite. “Did you take a head count?”
“Yes, sir. All little soldiers and maids are accounted for.”
“Any idea where Vic might be?” Xavier asked.
“He said he was going to do a perimeter sweep on the outside.”
“Good, thank you.” Xavier rushed downstairs.
Gregory stood before the parlor door holding a large canister of activated charcoal. “Tubs and Jacko have secured Claire, but by her attempts to smash the back of her legs against the floor, we believe she does have toxic Rupert’s Drops in the seam of her hem.”
Xavier opened the door and found Tubs holding Claire’s legs while Vic carefully cut the hem of her dress off and removed small sponge cushions holding Rubert’s Drops. Noticing a window open, he deduced that Vic had prioritized stopping Claire from killing everyone over doing a perimeter sweep.
Vic looked up. “Any chance you have some chloroform? We really need to knock her out.”
“I could do it with one blow, but it might make her crazier than she is now,” Tubs warned.
The only reason why the hellcat wasn’t screaming for help was because someone, probably Jacko, had stuffed her mouth with a cloth, then wrapped cotton string around and around, thus preventing her from spitting the cloth out.
“Sorry, the chloroform is upstairs in our bathroom, which is in lockdown to protect the children and maids,” Tubs explained.
“Never mind. We got this,” Vic assured him. “You should step out, because if one of these damn drops gets its tip tweaked, everyone in here will die.”
“I’d rather you step out.” Xavier said.
Vic shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve got to remove all these Rupert’s Drops. I’ve got the steadiest hands of anyone here. Jacko is keeping her secured in the chair. Tubs has secured her feet, so she cannot slam her legs against the floor. And I’m carefully removing the hem stitching to remove the damn drops. To be honest, we are very lucky we aren’t all dead. At first, we laid her on the floor, only she tried to raise her legs and slam them down. Fortunately, Tubs grabbed her legs before she could break the drops.” She glanced at Tubs and smiled. “Once again he saved us.”
Tubs grinned in return.
“Xavier, please leave this room. I need to concentrate and remove each one perfectly.”
Xavier stepped from the parlor and discovered Gregory standing in the hall. “Gregory, we’ve a mass of Rupert Drops to deal with. Any chance you bought the small cast iron crate I requested last week?”
“It arrived this morning. I placed it in the carriage house, uncertain of its purpose, Gregory replied.”
“I want it inside the parlor, so I can place the drops into the crate.”
“I will have Casey bring it at once,” he stated and hurried off.
When Casey brought in the heavy steel case, Xavier yelled a warning that they were coming in as he opened the door.
“Xavier, you are not helping!” Vic stated.
“This is a cast iron trunk with excellent seals around the rim. While you remove the drops from the hem, I will place them in the trunk.”
“Thank you for the trunk. That is very helpful. But I will put the drops inside.”
“You presently have twelve drops sitting on the floor just waiting to be knocked over. Allow me to assist you, for if you were to die, I would rather die with you, than live in regret for the rest of my life.”
After a heavy sigh, she met his gaze. “I understand your feelings, for they are mine as well. Go ahead and place them in the steel box...carefully.”
A half-hour later, the last Rupert’s Drop was removed from the hem of Claire’s dress. “Now I need to carefully remove her skirt to ensure there is nothing else tucked away.” For the first time since she had entered through the parlor window, she focused on Claire. “I’m sorry I have to do this, but I have to ensure you have no more tricks up your sleeves. And I cannot risk sending Tubs, Jacko, and Xavier out of the room. So, you are just going to have to bear the humiliation.”
Clare released a screeching tone that had dogs barking for several blocks.
Upon removing Claire’s clothes, she found nothing else. However, when she assessed Claire’s hair she discovered three more drops. “Damnation! We’ve got three more and they aren’t protected. We are damn lucky they didn’t break when we laid her down.”
Xavier and Tubs evaluated the problem He touched the hair further out. “I see why they didn’t move. They are trapped within her hair. The biggest danger will be when we try to remove them. Tubs, her head will need to be kept completely still.”
“Hold on,” Vic said. “This does not feel like her hair. See how the color on top is slightly different from the ringlets down her back?”
“Tubs’ keep her head still. Xavier, she’s wearing a wig. We need to lift it up equally from both sides.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll gently carry it to the trunk and put it inside.”
“I don’t like this plan at all,” Jacko declared. “Can’t we just dump her in the Thames.”
“She’s my sister. I know she wanted to kill us all, but if I don’t do everything feasible to make her better, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“All right,” Xavier sighed. “Let us figure out how to do this. Is the wig attached to her, or is it just sitting on her head?”
Vic carefully felt about the hair while Tubs kept Claire from moving her head.
“I think it’s just a cap.”
Jacko lost his temper. “No offense, but I’m not crazy about risking my life trying to save Claire, if you don’t know for sure we’ll be safe.”
“I agree,” Vic replied, then met his angry gaze. “Jacko, you should step out. You have a wife and children who love you.”
Xavier spoke up. “Vic’s right, you should go.”
“What about Tubs. He has a wife and child, too.”
Xavier looked at Tubs, but the giant shook his head. “I’m staying.”
“Thank you, Tubs,” Vic whispered.
Tub’s focused on the location of the drops. “I think we can do this. Instead of pulling off the hair piece, let’s cut the dangerous section out and only lift that up. It will be much safer than tugging at the cap.”
“Yes,” Vic said. “Thank you, Tubs. We can do this!”
Tubs looked at Xavier. “Grab a child’s chair from the dining room. Then we will make her sit in it, so Vic will have a better angle to cut from.”
Xavier grabbed one of the children’s chairs and with Tubs continuing to hold her head and Vic ready to secure her to the chair, they moved in unison and soon the angry hellcat was seated and securely tied to her small chair.
Vic wasted no time in cutting away the cap of danger. She then gently lifted it off and carried it to the trunk. Xavier opened the trunk as she slowly settled it on one of the cushions. Then Xavier closed and locked the trunk and they all sighed in relief.
When they left the room with a naked, partially bald Claire, Gregory quickly found her a robe to wear. “Why is she naked and what happened to her hair?”
When Vic explained the reason for both, Gregory calmed and spoke to Xavier. “Casey is ready and waiting for you.”
Gregory then patted Tubs’ back. “Good job keeping her still.”
Tubs nodded. “Had she not burned down her house, I would have said she planned to escape with Maddy after she killed the rest of us. However, there is no question in my mind. She clearly planned to kill us all, including herself and Maddy.”
“Let’s not share any of that with the rest of the household,” Gregory stated. “It would only cause unnecessary panic.” He then focused on Xavier. “Shall I let the maids and children out?”
Xavier gave him a nod. As Gregory headed upstairs, Xavier hurried to the library and knocked on the door, letting Vivian and Charlotte know that all was safe, and they could open the door now.
He sighed heavily as he faced Tubs. “Place Claire in the carriage trunk, I don’t have the energy to fight with her. And the insane always have excessive energy.”
Tubs nodded and hurried off.
Xavier sensed something was wrong. “Damn it, where’s Vic?”
No one answered him. “Vic!” Xavier bellowed.
Just then Tubs returned from the carriage. “I put Claire in the trunk, but then Vic showed up. She’s sitting in the carriage, crying.”
Xavier groaned. “No. She’s been through enough today, I don’t have the energy to fight with her about this. Tubs...”
The big guy shook his head letting him know he wouldn’t help remove Vic from the carriage.
“Vic’s not my boss, I’ll do it,” Jacko stated.
Xavier followed him out and held the carriage door open while Jacko and Vic swatted each other like feral cats a few times before Jacko got the upper hand. “Damn it, Vic. I’m just trying to save you some misery and heartache.”
“You had no right to lock her in the trunk!”
“We had every right,” Jacko snapped. “She had enough Rupert drops to kill everyone in this house five times over.”
Vic stopped fighting. “She didn’t know what she was doing!”
“Yes, she’s gone off the deep end. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us need to die.”
Vic climbed out of the carriage and plowed into Xavier. “I’m sorry, but you need to do this without me.”
“I know,” Xavier stated and kissed her on her head. “Go inside and try to sleep.”
Vic snorted. There was no chance in hell that she would be able to sleep, but she knew at least one other person in the house who wouldn’t be able to sleep either. She climbed up the stairs and entered David’s room. He was crying on little Danny.
“Don’t drown him, David. He’s one special little boy.”
David smiled at her. “He truly is. He’s like a little angel. I’m hoping he can heal broken hearts.”
“That’s a big task for a little baby,” she warned.
“It is,” he admitted. “Would you like to hold him? I know you are hurting too.”
“I am,” her voice trembled. “Can we hug each other while we both hold Danny?” Vic asked.
“If you want,” he said and slipped his left arm around her waist while she did the same, only slipping her right arm around him. Vic held Danny’s head with her left hand while David ensured little Danny remained in their laps.
Suddenly, tears flowed down Vic’s cheeks. “I don’t recall ever hurting this much before. She is my baby sister. I was supposed to watch out for her, to keep her safe.”
“I understand exactly, because I was her husband, and instead of fixing her, I left her. And now we have both lost her.”
“I won’t except that. Not until Dr. Frederick gives up all hope. I will continue to believe Claire will get better.”
“Then I will believe the same. A positive attitude goes a long way when you need to turn the tables.”