Betrayal at Blackcrest (25 page)

“Tell me,” I said.

“I shall do you that honor, before—well, we both know what I must do.”

I made no reply. He tilted his head to one side. His lips stretched into a smile, and that smile remained fixed as he spoke.

“When I met Delia, I had two problems. One of them was a woman, a cheap little barmaid I had inadvertently become involved with. She was a fascinating creature, vile, a guttersnipe, straight out of the pages of
Of Human Bondage
. She was determined to make me marry her. She gave me an ultimatum: marriage or a smashing lawsuit. I had—uh, how shall I put it?—aborted her. Myself. I knew the procedures. I couldn't let her carry out her threat, and I certainly had no intentions of marrying her. My first problem.”

“And your second?”

“Derek. Self-righteous, smug, hypocritical. I'd always hated him, ever since we were children together. Derek was the good one. Derek was the one who was patted on the head and rewarded for his good conduct. I was punished. I was the black sheep. The situation never changed. I am still the black sheep, and Derek is Andy's heir. Blackcrest means something to me. I was never a part of it. I was always the outsider. I want it. After I inherit it, I may burn it down, but I want to walk through this house one time and know that it's mine, know that I'll never be an outsider again. Frightfully simple, psychologically, I know. Stems back to my childhood and all that. But I want it. I couldn't stand by and see Derek inherit it. My second problem.”

“How did Delia come into it?” I asked. My voice was barely audible.

“Tottie was planning to come to Hawkestown. She had obtained a job at the Tea Shoppe through a friend of hers. She intended to use it as her base, as a constant warning to me of what she could do if I didn't come to heel, and come to heel fast. I stalled her off—for a while. During that time I courted your cousin.”

“She told me she was seeing Derek Hawke.”

“Brilliant,” he said. “She followed instructions brilliantly. We talked for hours that first night at the party. I told her I was in the middle of a difficult book and was uncertain about the whole premise of the plot. She was absorbed, listening to me as I explained. Could a woman—my heroine—build a case against a man she'd never met. Could she pretend to be passionately in love with him, convince her roommate that she was going to leave to marry him, then disappear for a while so that the man would, ultimately, be accused of her murder when she failed to show up? Delia was certain it was possible. I said it wasn't. She said she could prove it.”

“So she told me she was seeing Derek,” I said.

“Yes.”

“All the while she was seeing you.”

“All the while,” he repeated.

“She had no idea what she was doing,” I said. “No idea—”

“She thought it was a great lark. She was ‘contributing to literature.' It was quite a lot of fun for her. I've never met anyone who was quite so simple, quite so naïve—charmingly so, of course, but naïve. She was like putty in my hands.”

“How did you talk her into quitting the show and leaving? She was a responsible person—for all her frivolity. She wouldn't just quit like that as part of a lark.”

“She fell in love with me. I asked her to marry me. I told her I couldn't marry until I finished the book—artistic temperament—and I asked her to keep on helping me. She would ‘live' the book while I wrote it. She was worried about you. She didn't want to upset you, but I convinced her that after you found out about it you'd understand. We would invite you to our wedding—the real wedding—and everything would end happily ever after for all concerned.”

I remembered how elated Delia had been during those weeks when she was going with “Derek Hawke.” She seemed to sparkle with new life, and she was unable to talk of anything but the fascinating man who had given her a whole new outlook. “Derek Hawke” was the only man on earth, the prince charming she had been waiting for all her life. “Derek” was Alex, of course, and Alex had used all his powerful charm on her, using it like a weapon to draw her to him. I could see how easily she would succumb to that charm, and I could see how the “deception” would appeal to that frothy, childish streak in her nature.

“So she came to Hawkestown,” I said. “She sent the telegram. She went to see the vicar.…”

“Oh, yes. That was part of the ‘research.' She gave me copious details about both encounters. I told her they would be perfect for the book. She was as delighted as a child. We were really building up a case against Derek, she said. I told her Derek was an eccentric cousin who was in on the scheme, letting me use his name. She wanted to meet him. Of course, I couldn't permit that.”

“Of course not,” I said.

“She did everything I told her to—perfectly.”

“And you killed her.”

“Correction. I killed Tottie.”

“Tottie? But Tottie is alive. I met her—”

“Your cousin is a marvelous actress. Her talents are wasted in the music halls.”

19

I could only stare at him, a wild elation sweeping over me as I realized what he had just said. I remembered the flippant, vivacious girl at the Tea Shoppe. I remembered her saucy mannerisms and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. There had been an affinity between us at once, and I had warmed to her immediately. I remembered the cheap makeup and the junky jewelry, the dime-store perfume and the artificial black hair. Of course it had been Delia. I could see that now, so clearly. How delighted she must have been to be able to fool me with her blatant masquerade.

“Delia is alive—”

“Very much so. Full of life, if you'll pardon a bad pun. I left her an hour or so ago. She told me you called. She delivered your message.”

“I didn't know. I spoke to her. I saw her. I didn't know—”

“She was quite amused by your visit to the Tea Shoppe. She knew you were here, of course. She assured me that you'd come. It was only a matter of time. You'd come, and when you found no trace of her, you would accuse Derek Hawke of murder. It worked out exactly as planned. You did your part well, too, Deborah. Quite well.”

“The grave—” I said.

“Tottie came to Hawkestown. I met her at the station. I wooed her. I said I had decided to marry her. I wanted to take her to see the family estate. I brought her here. I brought her down to the cellars. You know the rest.”

“Honora saw you. She thought you were Derek.”

“Correct.”

“You killed her, too.”

“At first—when you told me about what she'd seen—I thought I'd have to kill her, and then I realized she was my best witness. What she saw fit perfectly into my scheme. She saw
Derek
go down into the cellars with a woman, and of course I intended for Derek to be blamed for the murder of your cousin. Derek and I look very much alike. She thought
he
had taken the woman down here, and she was there to tell the world about it. I didn't kill Honora. It was what it appeared to be, an accident, a tragic accident.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Come, Deborah. Why should I lie—now?”

“I saw someone at the top of the servants' stairs last night.”

“I doubt it. You must have imagined it.”

He was right, of course. I had imagined it. I had been nervous and frightened, and the curtain had flapped out, throwing a shadow across the wall. I had imagined the footstep on the main staircase, too. It was an old house, full of strange noises, and the storm had not helped matters any. There had been nothing in the corridors last night besides me, and my fear.

“To continue,” he said, “I murdered Tottie. She was a slut. She deserved everything she got. But—and this is that brilliant stroke of genius I mentioned—Tottie arrived in Hawkestown. Tottie took a job at the Tea Shoppe. Tottie is very much alive, but
Delia
had vanished. Everything is nicely in place.”

“But Derek—”

“Derek will be accused of murder. Your murder. You've done exactly what I intended for you to do. You've asked questions, aroused suspicion. You've been searching for your missing cousin. When the police look for your body, they'll find not one, but two. Everyone will assume the other body is that of your cousin. You see, I planned it right down to the last detail, including your part.”

“You intended to murder me? From the first?”

“From the very first.”

“That night when you changed my tire—you knew?”

“Of course I did. That was a coincidence, meeting you like that.” He laughed quietly. “I knew you'd come, but I was growing anxious. Six weeks had passed, and there had been no sign of you, and then I saw your car stranded on the road, and I knew immediately it was you. I was overjoyed. I could hardly contain my elation.”

He stepped closer to me and lowered his voice.

“You were an essential part of the plan. The whole thing evolved around you. The woman I chose had to be gullible, but she also had to have a close friend or relative who would sound the alarm when she vanished. Delia talked about you that first night, about how close the two of you were.”

He touched my cheek with gentle fingers.

“You were doomed,” he said. “Long before I met you.”

The horrible logic of the scheme dawned on me. It was diabolical. It was clever. I could see how it would work. Derek would be accused of murder, and the police would find two bodies in the cellars. Only a madman could have conceived the scheme. Only a madman could have carried it out with such cool deliberation. Alex was mad. I had been bewitched by his boyish charm, drawn by his magnetic appeal, but that was a cover for the real man, the man who revealed himself only in the sensational pages of his bloodthirsty, sadistic books.

He was standing very close to me. I could feel the warmth of his body and smell the odor of him. I stared over his shoulder at the yellow light flickering on the wet stone walls. Black shadows danced there in bizarre patterns, dark demons celebrating this evil. The currents of icy air swirled down the passage, making soft, whispering noises. I was about to die. It was not real. It couldn't be real.

Alex heaved his chest. He stood back a little and rubbed his thumb along his lower lip, his eyes pensive. He seemed to be deliberating the best way to kill me. I leaned against the wall, watching him, unable to do anything but study the features of his face. The evil was there now, the charming mask abandoned.

“You … you can do it,” I said.

“But of course I can.”

“You won't … you won't get away with it.”

“Deborah, don't speak in clichés. Of course I'll get away with it. There is absolutely nothing to associate me with the crimes—besides my brief public association with you. When it all comes out, I'll be very shocked. I'll tell them the truth—part of it, at least. I'll say you believed my cousin had murdered Delia, that you were looking for proof. I'll hammer the last nail in Derek's coffin. So you see, it all works out, smooth, perfect. I've disposed of both problems, Tottie dead and Derek imprisoned for the rest of his life. Nice.”

“You're insane,” I whispered.

“They say genius is akin to madness. Perhaps you're right. Surely you'll concede the genius of the plot. There'll be no loose ends and no clumsy errors.”

“Delia—”

“Tottie,” he corrected. “Tottie and I are leaving for Italy first thing in the morning. She doesn't know we're going yet, but I'll convince her the trip is necessary—a break, a holiday. A week from now I'll return, alone. Who cares about a vulgar little barmaid? I'll say she ran off with a wine merchant, deserted me. They will have started searching for you by the time I get back. Perhaps they will have found you.”

“You intend to kill her, too.”

“It's reasonable, isn't it?”

“Reasonable? You
are
mad.”

He sighed wearily. Telling me his scheme in its every detail had given him great satisfaction. He had been able to flaunt and brag about his “brilliance,” and his own words had nourished his warped ego. Now the time for talk was over. He was weary of it. In the flickering glow of the oil lamp his face was diabolically handsome, diabolically evil. His wide mouth was still spread in the fixed smile, and there was a dark glitter in his eyes.

“I've left nothing out,” he said, “forgotten nothing.”

“You forgot this,” I said.

I pointed the gun at his chest.

“I'll shoot,” I said. My voice trembled.

He reached over and took the gun from my hand.

“Don't be absurd,” he said. “You surely didn't think it was loaded? Grant me that much intelligence.”

“You were playing with me—all along. The protests, the warnings, the concern for my welfare …”

“Of course I was playing with you. It gave me great pleasure. You were so very predictable, Deborah. I knew you'd never think to check and see if the gun was loaded. I knew you were headstrong, bold. I knew if I warned you to take no risks you'd go ahead anyway and act like one of the heroines I'd compared you to.”

“You can't—”

“No one saw me come here. No one knows, besides Delia. She thinks I've come to tell you the whole story—which I have. I repeat, no one saw me come. Perhaps you've heard about the secret passage. I came in through it.” He indicated the huge room at the end of the passageway, the room where I had found the scarf. The currents of icy air were coming from there, and I knew he must have opened a secret door. “In the woods on the other side of the gardens, there's a crevice in the side of the hill. It opens onto a tunnel that comes out in the room. I used it before, when I planted the scarf. I'll go back the way I came. No one will be any the wiser. Now, Deborah, the time has come—”

I stared at him, unable to speak, unable to move.