Chapter Eleven #2
Harriet demurred, choosing to go with Cathy instead.
The rest of their party broke into smaller groups to search the castle, and Elizabeth accepted Mr. Darcy’s arm as he led her into the corridor.
They began to meander in the direction they were meant to be searching, with Mr. Willoughby and Emma following close behind.
When they were beyond the others, Elizabeth stopped and addressed her companions.
“I suppose we ought to go to our parlor, before we actually look for the key. I believe you wish to tell me something, and you may certainly say it in the presence of Emma and Mr. Darcy. I would repeat your words to them, in any case.”
“Yes, I hear your little set having been playing detective together,” Mr. Willoughby said jauntily, and shrugged his shoulders. “I overheard Mrs. Rushworth and Mr. Crawford talking about it. I believe I can help.”
As they moved through the castle, they passed the rooms they had searched the day before, and Mrs. Clay came out of the servants’ passage. She cast a wary glance at them before looking at Emma. “The answer was no,” she said enigmatically, before retreating back into the passage.
Emma went pale, and glanced nervously at Mr. Willoughby, who only gave her a charming smile in return. They continued their walk in silence until they reached the shared parlor of their new quarters, and Mr. Darcy went to stoke the fire that blazed there.
Elizabeth gestured for Emma and Mr. Willoughby to sit with her, and a moment later Mr. Darcy took the seat at Elizabeth’s side. Mr. Willoughby cleared his throat. “Surely you must have your suspicions.”
Beside her, Elizabeth felt Mr. Darcy shift on the sofa; he reached into his coat pocket, his eyes fixed on Mr. Willoughby, who reflexively held his hands up. “I mean you no harm!”
Mr. Darcy relaxed somewhat, and Elizabeth realized that he had been reaching for a weapon. She had never suspected Mr. Willoughby, though clearly he knew something. She retrieved the vinaigrette de toilette from her pocket and placed it on the table between them.
“It belongs to my uncle.”
Elizabeth scoffed with disbelief. “Sir Walter?”
Emma wore the same expression that she had after seeing Mrs. Younge, her eyes wide and haunted. “Mrs. Clay spoke to his valet. Sir Walter was not bathing at the time of the general’s murder, though he said that he was.”
“His hair was wet,” Elizabeth said. “But I suppose he may have dumped water over himself and washed the gunpowder from his hands. Emma, what made you think to ask about his alleged bath?”
“It was when I saw Mrs. Younge. She was very… tidy. She had been hit over the head with a candlestick, and her body ought to have been sprawled across the floor, just as the candlestick was tossed aside, but her dress was smoothed out, as if somebody fussed with her as fastidiously as they fuss with themselves. And then Mr. Tilney said something about the key his brother hid, and I remembered that after they searched the captain’s person to see if he had the key, Sir Walter fussed and tidied him up. ”
“I noticed something, too,” Mr. Darcy said. “He is always peering at his reflection, and one night at dinner I saw him adjusting a crooked mirror in the dining room. There was also a large mirror in the cellar, and a bloodied fingerprint on the gilt frame.”
“Sir Walter adjusted the mirror,” Elizabeth murmured.
Mr. Willoughby slumped in a posture of sad acceptance. Wondering what other signs they had missed, Elizabeth picked up the summary page of what they knew of Sir Walter, which lay atop his dossier. The ink was smeared in the middle, and she squinted to make out the blurred words.
“Something about the window,” Mr. Darcy said as he leaned toward her and looked at the paper in her hands, running his fingers over the smudge. His hand was nearly in her lap, and Elizabeth shuddered.
“We were standing near the windows when they blew open, extinguishing the candles in the parlor, just before the captain was killed,” Mr. Willoughby said. “It troubled me, for though it was pitch black, I am sure I sensed some movement near me. I had not wanted to think the worst of him.”
Mr. Darcy gazed coolly at him. “What made you change your mind?”
“The little trinket Miss Bennet found. She mentioned something about a secret passageway, somebody eavesdropping on her and Mrs. Rushworth. Was that where you found it?”
“Yes!” Elizabeth shot up out of her seat and retrieved the scrap of handkerchief from their disorganized heap of evidence. “It is not WF for Crawford, nor VE for Vernon! It is WE, Walter Elliot. Of course!” She showed the charred fragment to Mr. Willoughby.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mr. Darcy found it in the fireplace, in the dining room last night. We believe that the murderer used a handkerchief to apply poison to Mr. Rushworth’s plate or cup, just as Lady Susan suggested.
Sir Walter must have done just that, and discarded his handkerchief in the fire afterward.
Was he with you continuously before dinner? ”
“No,” Mr. Willoughby said, shaking his head and laughing bitterly. “I even made a jape that he would be twice as long in dressing for dinner as me; our rooms adjoin.”
Emma furrowed her brow. “You have not been sharing?”
“We have kept the door open, except when we were dressing. I was a fool to trust him simply because he is kin.” Mr. Willoughby gave a heavy sigh before picking up the dossier with Sir Walter’s name on it. “May I?”
“Of course,” Emma said, holding the pages between them as they examined everything they had on his uncle. Mr. Willoughby drew nearer to Emma, eyeing her with interest.
Elizabeth resumed her seat beside Mr. Darcy, who moved a little closer and leaned in to whisper to her. “We have done it, Miss Bennet. Can you believe it?”
She was shaking rather giddily, suddenly feeling very light. “My goodness, we have! We have solved it!” In her excitement, her hand came to rest atop his, and she quickly withdrew. He smiled at her, his eyes shining with joy.
Mr. Willoughby gave a sudden exclamation as he picked up one of the documents about Sir Walter. “This is written in my uncle’s own hand!”
Mr. Darcy looked away, which was something of a relief for Elizabeth, who had stared into his eyes far longer than was sensible. “What?”
“This is his handwriting, I am certain of it. I borrowed a book of his on the day the general arrived, and I noticed how he wrote his name in the fly leaf. I thought his script incredibly feminine, and this is just the same, the curling at the ends of the E and the W, the flourished crossing of the letter t.”
“I had presumed it to be Mrs. Clay’s writing,” Emma mused, examining it. “But why would he write such an incriminating document?”
“It is not incriminating, so much as embarrassing,” Elizabeth suggested. “There is much worse in some of the other dossiers. Oh! Was Sir Walter not the first to suggest that Mr. Tilney search his father’s things?”
Mr. Darcy’s eyes shone with comprehension, and he extended a hand toward her as the ideas burst out of him.
“Yes, yes! He wanted us to find this false account of him. He had time to plant fake evidence in the general’s things, after killing him and Wickham, for we must have been a quarter hour at least in making our way down there, and he turned up after us, wet-haired and feigning confusion. ”
“So he is likely concealing far worse,” Mr. Willoughby said with a sigh.
Emma continued to sort through the documents in Sir Walter’s dossier and examined a clipping Elizabeth had taken from one of the old newspapers they found. “Lizzy, what is the meaning of this, do you think?”
“It is a mention of John Elliot visiting Clwyd Castle just after the late Lord Cameron took possession of the place; there was a ball and a rather scandalous house party, but I wondered if perhaps Sir Walter was also present. If he was, he may have become acquainted with some of the secret passageways.”
Mr. Willoughby took the clipping and read over it. “This is from 1782, the year before my uncle John died. I was named for him. He was Sir Walter’s brother, his twin brother.”
Elizabeth grinned, a wicked notion occurring to her. “His identical twin brother?”
“I believe so, yes.”
Emma glanced at Elizabeth, and the two shared a look of wild speculation. “How did he die?”
“He and Sir Walter were riding their horses together at Northanger Abbey, just after the death of their father. My uncle John fell and broke his neck.”
An eerie silence fell over them. Finally, Mr. Darcy coughed. “Are we all seriously considering that Sir Walter may have wished us to find this information, in lieu of something far more damning? Can it be possible that he….”
“That he killed his brother to usurp the title?” Willoughby set down the papers in his hands and let out a deep breath as is overwhelmed by the notion. “He is hiding something, to tamper with the dossier, which he certainly did.”
Emma gave him one of the haughty looks that made her like so much like her aunt, Lady Susan.
“It is interesting that whatever secret he wishes to hide, naming his own daughters as illegitimate would be a better alternative. The story he has chosen to construct paints them in a negative light, and his poor late wife, and he merely looks like the victim of her failure.”
“He cares for nobody but himself,” Mr. Willoughby said. “Even so, killing his twin is an awful conjecture; forgive me if I wish to adhere to the facts, which are sordid enough.”
Elizabeth felt a pang of sympathy for the man, just as she had pitied Emma while suspecting Lady Susan to be the culprit.
“The facts are quite enough. We have nullified his alibi for the first two killings, and he must have done the third; he is physically capable of it, and he could easily have opened the window to extinguish the light. You assumed he was dressing, but he could have gotten away to work his poison. He heard Mrs. Rushworth speaking to me while he was in the passage, and saw his chance to cast blame on her. That only leaves Mrs. Younge. Why her?”
Emma had the answer. “Mrs. Clay said that she feared she was the target. Sir Walter has a history with her; he did not need the keys, if he believed she would open the door for him. Mrs. Younge knew of their connection, so she might have opened the door to tell him that Mrs. Clay was not there.”
“And he could not have her telling Mrs. Clay he had been there,” Mr. Willoughby said.
“But if you kept the door between your rooms open….” Mr. Darcy looked at Mr. Willoughby, the question written on his face.
“He and I had a great deal to drink together last night after dinner,” Mr. Willoughby said, as if just realizing what this meant.
“I fell asleep very suddenly, and very heavily. Perhaps he even slipped me some sleeping draught. He could have left his room at any time in the night, and I would never have known it.”
Elizabeth felt a wave of panic. “Do you think Mrs. Clay is still in any danger?”
“I suppose we ought to warn her,” Emma said.
“We also ought to make a show of searching the castle as we are meant to be doing. I prefer my uncle not know that I have spoken with you. If he suspects that I know he is the killer, I daresay I would be in considerable danger. I believe I will have to find some reason to move rooms this evening.”
Mr. Willoughby stood, looking terribly pensive and downcast. “I suppose we ought to set about searching for the key.”
“Oh! Cathy has the keys to lock this room. It was careless of her to leave it unlocked at all, but I suppose we expected to come straight back.” Elizabeth frowned down at all their evidence. “Mr. Willoughby, does your uncle know that we have changed suites?”
“I was not aware of it. I cannot say what he knows. But to be safe, we ought to hide all this.”
Elizabeth nodded. Mr. Darcy had laid his trap with the ashes, and they knew someone had been in her old suite. If Sir Walter searched this room, they would all be in grave danger.
Mr. Darcy tucked the most damning papers about Sir Walter into his coat pocket, along with the scrap of handkerchief, and Elizabeth slipped the vinaigrette de toilette into her pocket.
She carried everything else to her bedchamber and heaped her and Cathy’s nightgowns and other discarded garments on top of the pile, grateful they had warned their servants to keep out of their new suite.
She laid one of her most intimate garments on the top of this mess, hoping it would be a mortifying deterrent.
They were meant to be searching a set of rooms they had passed as they left the parlor, and they set about it directly.
When they reached that part of the castle, Mr. Willoughby said, “I would like to speak privately to Miss Woodhouse while we search this room; perhaps, Mr. Darcy, you and Miss Bennet can go search the next room?”
Emma looked alarmed, but Elizabeth recalled how well Mr. Willoughby had charmed Emma at dinner the night before, and thought it very likely her new friend would soon be regaling the ladies with the tale of another refused proposal. She grinned as she agreed to the scheme.
She and Mr. Darcy began searching the billiard room, and they were quite intent upon their activity when the door suddenly slammed shut. Startled, Elizabeth jumped. Mr. Darcy went to the door, twisted the knob, and… nothing. It did not open. “It is locked,” he said.