Otherwise Engaged by Amanda Quick
Amity gave him a cool smile and stepped briskly into the spacious, elegantly appointed front hall. Benedict followed her.
The butler escorted them into the library. A woman in a dove-gray gown stood at the window, looking out into the garden. Her once-dark hair was rapidly turning the same shade as her dress. She carried herself with a rigid elegance, as if the only thing that kept her upright was a steel corset.
“Dr. Norcott and his assistant, madam,” the butler said.
“Thank you, Briggs.”
Charlotte Warwick did not turn around. She waited until the butler closed the door.
“Have you come here to tell me that my son’s case is hopeless, Dr. Norcott?” she asked. “If so, you made an unnecessary journey. I have resigned myself to the knowledge that Virgil must spend the rest of his life at Cresswell Manor.”
“In that case, why did you insist that he be released into your custody?” Amity asked.
The shock that went through Charlotte was visible. She gasped and stiffened.
Recovering, she turned quickly, her lips parted in astonishment and, perhaps, panic.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte began. She stopped. Anger refocused her expression. “Who are you?” She glared at Benedict. “You are not Dr. Norcott.”
“Benedict Stanbridge, madam,” Benedict said. “My fiancée, Miss Doncaster. You may have heard of her. She is the woman who was recently kidnapped by your son.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. How dare you lie to get into this house?”
Charlotte reached for the velvet bell pull.
“I’d advise you not to summon your butler, madam,” Benedict said. “Not unless you want to be responsible for leaving Virgil free to commit more murders.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Charlotte said. She sounded as if she was having trouble breathing. “Get out of here.”
“We will leave as soon as you tell us where your son is hiding,” Benedict said. “If he is truly insane, he will not hang. He will be sent back to the asylum. We all know that you have the money it takes to ensure such an outcome.”
Charlotte collected herself. She went to stand behind her desk, gripping the back of the chair with clenched hands.
“It is none of your business, but let me be perfectly clear,” she said evenly. “My son is currently taking a cure for a disorder of the nervous system. His health is a private matter. I do not intend to discuss it, certainly not with you.”
“Your son has murdered at least four women that we know of and very probably his wife, as well,” Benedict said. “Three weeks ago he kidnapped my fiancée with the intention of murdering her, too.”
“No,” Charlotte insisted. “No, that’s not true. His nerves are far too delicate. He would never do something so violent.”
“What do you mean by delicate?” Amity asked.
“He cannot stand any great strain or pressure. It takes very little to agitate him. I have always handled the details of life for him, his finances, his social engagements, his household staff.”
“Your son enjoys the hobby of photography, doesn’t he?” Benedict said, unrelenting.
Charlotte hesitated. “My son possesses an artistic temperament. That explains his delicate nerves and his moods. He found his métier in photography. How did you know that? Not that it matters. It is a common enough hobby.”
“The day he tried to seize me I fought back,” Amity said. “He was badly injured.”
“He told me that he was attacked by a common whore,” Charlotte whispered. “It was an argument about money. He may have overreacted.”
Benedict tensed and started to move forward. Never taking her eyes off Charlotte, Amity put her hand on his arm. He stopped but she could feel the fierce energy roiling inside him.
Charlotte never noticed the byplay. She concentrated on the story she was telling. Amity knew that she was desperately trying to convince herself.
“He agreed to the . . . encounter,” Charlotte said, her voice very tight. “But there was a dispute over the fee. The whore went into a rage and attacked him.”
“I think you and I both know that is not what happened,” Amity said quietly. “Virgil kidnapped me. I barely managed to escape. Yes, I did defend myself with a blade. He was bleeding badly when I left him behind in the carriage. He sought the help of the only doctor he knew, the one he could be certain would keep his secret. Dr. Norcott treated his injuries and then summoned you.”
Charlotte sank into the chair, appalled. “You know that much?”
“We found Norcott’s body earlier today,” Benedict said. “His throat had been sliced open with one of his own scalpels. Just like the throats of the victims of the Bridegroom. We suspect that Virgil’s wife died in a similar manner, although the exact nature of her injuries was masked by the fact that he threw her out a window.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, it was an accident.”
“Norcott is dead.” Benedict said. “Now Virgil has evidently gone into hiding—with Norcott’s medical kit, I might add.”
Charlotte composed herself. “It can’t have been Virgil. Don’t you understand? He is currently in a special clinic.”
“He is no longer at Cresswell Manor,” Amity said. “Two days ago he was released into the custody of his mother.”
Charlotte seemed to sink in on herself. She closed her eyes. “Dear heaven.”
“You know what he is,” Benedict said. “That is why you committed him to Cresswell Manor not once, but twice. Why did you take him out of that place this last time?”
A heavy silence descended. Amity wondered if Charlotte would ever respond. But eventually she stirred and looked at them with haunted eyes. A strange grayness enveloped her, as if life was slowly seeping away.
“It was the witch,” she said. “It must have been her. Why she took him away from Cresswell Manor, I cannot say. You must ask her.”
Amity exchanged glances with Benedict.
“Who is the witch?” Amity asked carefully.
For a moment it seemed that Charlotte would disappear into the grayness that surrounded her. But eventually she pulled herself together.
“Shortly after my husband died I discovered that for years he had been paying blackmail to a woman who operated an orphanage for girls,” Charlotte said. “She contacted me and made it clear that if I did not continue to pay she would see to it that certain matters were made public in the press.”
“What orphanage?” Benedict asked.
“Hawthorne Hall,” Charlotte said. “It is located in a village outside of London, about an hour away by train. At least that is the address I was given when I took over the blackmail payments. The Hall no longer serves as an orphanage, but the former director continues to live there.”
“What are the matters that you paid her to keep quiet?” Benedict asked.
“My husband fathered a child by another woman.”
Amity took a few steps closer to the desk. “Forgive me, Mrs. Warwick, but we all know that it is not rare for men of wealth and rank to father children outside marriage. Such situations are understandably embarrassing but hardly shocking. Most women in your position would turn a blind eye to the matter. Why would you pay blackmail to conceal the fact that your husband produced an out-of-wedlock child?”
Charlotte turned her gaze to the view of the garden, but Amity was quite certain she was looking into the past.
“The witch claimed that she had noticed evidence of mental instability in my husband’s daughter. She suggested that perhaps my son was also unhinged.”
“I see,” Amity said. “She threatened to take her theories about Virgil’s mental health to the press.”
“I may be deranged as well,” Charlotte said quietly. “Because I have spent a great deal of time imagining ways of murdering Mrs. Dunning.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “She is the one who is blackmailing me.”
“What stopped you?” Benedict asked.
Charlotte turned back to him. “At the start Dunning made it clear that if anything happened to her, she had made arrangements for letters suggesting insanity in the Warwick bloodline to be sent to the press. But a year ago it got worse. She let me know that those letters would contain evidence that my son had murdered his wife and a young lady, as well. She intended to announce to the world that Virgil was the Bridegroom.”
Benedict looked thoughtful. “Is your son aware that Dunning has been blackmailing you?”
“No, of course not,” Charlotte said. “I never wanted him to know that he has a half sister, you see.”
A stark silence gripped the room. Amity looked at Benedict.
“We must go to Hawthorne Hall,” she said.
“Yes.”
Charlotte stared at them. “My son—”
“If you have any notion of where he may be hiding, you must tell us,” Benedict said.
“I swear to you, I don’t know. I believed him to be at Cresswell Manor.” Charlotte looked genuinely bewildered. “Mrs. Dunning claims to be well aware of my son’s nervous affliction. I was paying the blackmail. Why would she set him free?”
Thirty
Mrs. Warwick asked an excellent question,” Benedict said. He surveyed the high wrought-iron gates of Hawthorne Hall with a sense of grim certainty. There were answers to be found here, he thought. “Why would the director of the orphanage take Warwick out of Cresswell Manor?”
He and Amity had set out for the Hall soon after ending the interview with Charlotte Warwick. He had allowed only a brief stop at Exton Street so that Amity could collect her cloak and a few necessities for the train trip. There had been no time for a visit to Logan. Penny had promised to convey the information they had gained to the inspector as soon as possible.
The village where the Hall was located was, indeed, an hour from London by train, just as Charlotte Warwick had said. The cab trip from the station to the old orphanage, however, took another forty minutes over bad roads.
Hawthorne Hall proved to be an aged mansion that was slowly crumbling into the ground. It loomed, dark and isolated, at the end of a long lane.
Benedict glanced back over his shoulder. He had paid the cab to wait. The horse and driver were only a short distance away, but they were slowly being swallowed up by the fog that had set in with oncoming night.
“We won’t know why Dunning removed Warwick from Cresswell Manor until we ask her,” Amity said.
He contemplated the gates. “You make a very logical point.”
The gates were unlocked—probably because there was little to protect, Benedict concluded. In a few spots the grounds were overgrown with weeds, but for the most part there was nothing left of the gardens except bare earth.
The last of the orphans had been removed years ago, according to the cab driver. He had explained that Mrs. Dunning was the only current occupant of the house. There was no permanent staff. A woman from the village went in twice a week to clean. She had told everyone that Mrs. Dunning lived on the ground floor. The upper floors had all been closed, the furniture draped in dust cloths. Mrs. Dunning went into the village to shop occasionally and sometimes took the train to London, where she stayed for a week at a time. But aside from those meager facts, she was a mystery to the locals.
Benedict pushed open one wing of the iron gates. It moved ponderously and with a great deal of groaning.
He took Amity’s arm. Together they walked toward the front steps of the old hall. The paving stones were cracked and chipped. The windows of the upper floors were dark, but weak lamplight leaked out from around the edges of the curtains on the ground floor.
At the top of the steps Benedict clanged the knocker. The sound echoed inside the house, but there was no immediate response.
“Someone is home,” Amity observed. “The lamps have been turned up.”
Benedict banged the knocker louder than before, but again no one came to the door.
“She is in there and we are not leaving until we have spoken with her,” he said. “Perhaps she cannot hear our knock. Let’s try the back door.”
“What good will that do?” Amity asked. “If she doesn’t want to see us, she won’t answer it, either.”
“You never know,” Benedict said.
He kept his tone deliberately casual but he saw understanding in her eyes. She knew exactly what he intended to do.
“Oh,” she said. She lowered her voice still further. “I see. You do realize that entering a house without permission is quite illegal.”
“That is why we are going around to the rear of the house where the driver of the cab cannot see us.”
Amity smiled. “You always have a plan, don’t you?”
“I try to formulate one whenever I can.”
“I expect it’s the engineer in you.”
She did not sound put off by that fact, he concluded. She merely accepted it as a part of who he was.
She followed him down the steps and around the side of the big house. A high wall enclosed the gardens at the rear, but the gate was unlocked. Inside the walls they found another mostly barren stretch of ground.
Benedict rapped sharply on the kitchen door. This time when he got no response he tried the knob. It was unlocked. A chill of knowing went through him.
“Just like this morning,” he said, more to himself than to Amity.
She gave him a quick, searching glance. “You mean when you found Dr. Norcott’s body?”
“Yes.” Benedict took the pistol out of his pocket.
Amity breathed out slowly, as if fortifying herself. Then she reached beneath her cloak and unhooked the tessen from the chatelaine. She held the fan-shaped blade in the closed position in her gloved hand.
Benedict considered ordering her to remain outside, but then concluded that she was no safer there than she was with him. Together they could protect each other if it transpired that Warwick was waiting for them inside the house.
He used the toe of his boot to prod the door open. A dimly lit hallway loomed in front of them. When no madman with a scalpel leaped out of the shadows, he moved into the gloom. Amity followed.
The house reverberated with emptiness. A single ray of lamplight slanted out of a room halfway along the hall.
“Watch the rooms on the left side of the hall,” he said. “I will keep an eye on the right.”
“Yes,” she said.
They made their way toward the wedge of light, passing the kitchen, a morning room, a pantry and a closet. All the doors were open except the one on the closet. Benedict tried the knob. It turned easily enough. The shelves inside were stacked with linens and cleaning supplies.
They continued down the long hall. The unmistakable smell of death drifted out of the lamp-lit room.
“Dear heaven,” Amity whispered.
Benedict stopped in the doorway and swept the space with a single glance. The body of a middle-aged woman dressed in a dark gown lay on the floor near a desk. As was the case with Warwick, there was a great deal of blood. Most of it had soaked into the carpet and appeared to be dry.
“So much for Charlotte Warwick’s assumption that her son did not know about Mrs. Dunning,” Benedict said. “The bastard does like the scalpel. He cut her throat.”
“He killed her the same way he murdered his other victims.”
“Stay here. I want to make sure there are no surprises in the front hall.”
He checked the last room on the floor, a sparsely furnished library. The few leather-bound volumes on the shelves were covered in dust. He went quickly back to where Amity waited, her fan at the ready.
“It’s probably unwise to speculate on the motives of a madman, but I have a feeling that he is killing those who know his secret.”
“But why now? And why these two? Dr. Norcott very likely saved Warwick’s life the day that I cut him with the tessen. And evidently Mrs. Dunning was the one who got him out of Cresswell Manor.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t think he needs them anymore,” Benedict said. “He believes they had become liabilities because they knew the truth about him.”
Comprehension widened Amity’s eyes. “And because he knows we are hunting him. He realized that sooner or later we would likely track down both Norcott and Dunning.”
“We must return to London immediately and inform Inspector Logan of what we discovered.”
“What about the body? We cannot simply leave it here.”
“Yes,” Benedict said. “We can and we will.”
Amity reattached her tessen to the chain at her waist and studied the desk with a speculative expression.
“Mrs. Dunning is a rather interesting piece of this puzzle,” she said. “It might be useful to take a quick look through the drawers of her desk.”
“Odd you should mention that,” Benedict said. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
He took two steps before he felt the slightly raised object under the carpet. At the same time he heard a faint, muffled click. A small spark flashed underneath the desk.
“Run,” he snapped. “Back door. It’s the closest. Move, woman.”
Amity whirled, grasped handfuls of her skirts and cloak and fled down the hall. He followed.
Amity stumbled, swore, regained her balance and kept going. But she was not moving fast enough. He realized it was the weight of her gown and the cloak that was slowing her down. The heavy folds threatened to trip her. He seized her arm and half dragged, half carried her down the hall and out through the back door.
They burst outside into the dead gardens seconds before the explosion erupted in Dunning’s study.
Within moments the house was consumed in flames. Dark smoke billowed into the air.