Chapter Three
Selena rushed down the main staircase in the early morning darkness, shielding her candle with one hand as the wind whistled through the eaves and rattled the shutters.
On the half-landing below, where the steps turned in the opposite direction, Mr. Clarke, dressed in the same suit he’d worn upon arrival, lay face up and unmoving, his legs splayed in an ungainly manner, his feet angled towards the bottom of the stairs.
Pieces of firewood and a wicker basket, which Selena guessed had tumbled from the chambermaid’s hands, were scattered across the dark, floral carpet.
Selena, filled with trepidation, set her candlestick on the floor and knelt at Mr. Clarke’s side. His eyes were closed. Beneath his head, blood had stained the carpet. She gently squeezed his shoulder. “Mr. Clarke? Mr. Clarke?”
He didn’t answer.
Selena’s mind was going a mile a minute. What happened? Was he dead? Had he missed a step in the dark and fallen? Or ….
Her thoughts darted to another time and place, more than three years before, when a man had been pushed to his death at Pendowar Hall—a crime that her sister Diana had solved, at the risk of her own life. Surely, that’s not what happened here. It couldn’t be. This was just an accident. Wasn’t it?
Selena gently jostled his shoulder again. “Mr. Clarke?”
This time, his eyes blinked open. Selena gasped in consternation as Mr. Clarke gripped her arm and with labored but feverish intensity whispered, “I … hid … it!”
Selena was too startled to speak. He continued in the same frenzied, low tone, his eyes wild and staring. She had to lean closer to hear him.
“Under … the … dragon.” Every word seemed to take great effort. “Four rows!” he added insistently. “In the …” He blinked, his eyes glazed over and closed, and his head drooped to one side.
“Sir? What do you mean?” Selena asked, her stomach clenching.
He gave no reply.
“Mr. Clarke!” Selena rubbed his cheek, but he did not stir. What did his strange words mean? Has he just expired? Please, please, don’t let it be so. She lay a hand on his chest and to her relief, she could detect a light rise and fall. Thank goodness. He’s still living.
“What’s going on?” Colonel Blackwood, clad in his nightshirt and dressing gown, his auburn-grey hair in disarray, stared down from the first-floor landing. “Merciful heavens!” he exclaimed.
“Is he dead?” cried Gladys, her eyes wide and staring.
“No, he’s still breathing,” Selena called up to them. “But I fear he is gravely injured. Gladys, did you see him fall?”
“No, miss. I just found him like that.”
Mr. Davis, Miss Goodwin, and Miss Thompson, all dressed in their nightclothes and carrying candles, joined the other two on the landing.
“Did someone scream?” inquired Miss Goodwin.
“Mr. Clarke seems to have fallen down the stairs,” the colonel answered, his features drawn.
Miss Thompson gasped in dismay. “Oh, no!”
“Don’t move him,” Colonel Blackwood warned as he descended the steps to join Selena on the half-landing. “He might have broken his neck or his back.”
Selena nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing.
“Shall I waken Mrs. Hillman?” Gladys was wringing her hands.
“Not yet.” Selena was reluctant to rouse Mrs. Hillman. The woman tended to get agitated in times of trouble and might be overcome by Mr. Clarke’s present state.
“Is there a doctor in the village?” Colonel Blackwood asked.
“No, but we have an apothecary. It’s so early, he won’t be in the shop yet.
” Selena glanced out the half-landing window.
It was snowing hard and must have been for some time, for although the sky was dark, she could perceive that the rear grounds around the abbey ruins and the distant parklands were all blanketed in frosty white.
She hated to send out anyone in such conditions, but there was no alternative.
“Gladys, fetch Billy,” she called up to the maid.
Billy was the hall boy, a lad of thirteen and the son of the cook.
He had lived at Darkmoor Park since he was an infant, slept on a cot in the servants’ corridor, and did many odd jobs.
“Tell him to dress warmly, go to Mr. Quince’s house, and tell him we have an injured man who needs medical attention without delay.
Mr. Quince lives just south of the village in a red brick house. Do you know the place?”
“I do, miss.”
“Good. Tell Billy not to take no for an answer. He must bring the apothecary straight back here at once.”
“Yes, miss. I’ll tell him.” Gladys vanished.
The colonel crouched down beside Mr. Clarke’s prone form. “Clarke!” he cried, fear in his eyes. “Wake up, old man!” But Mr. Clarke remained immobile, and his eyes did not reopen. “What happened?” he asked Selena. “Did you see him fall?”
“No. Gladys found him like this. He must have been going down for his early morning coffee and missed a step.”
“Poor devil. We need to stop the flow of blood from his head.”
Selena called up to the group above. “Will someone please fetch some towels? You’ll find a fresh stack in the first-floor linen closet, just south of the stairwell.”
“I’ll go.” Miss Thompson hurried off.
“What can we do?” Mr. Davis called out.
“Thank you for offering to help, but please return to your rooms, both of you,” Selena advised, “and go back to sleep if you can. I’ll stay with Mr. Clarke until the apothecary arrives.”
Miss Goodwin and Mr. Davis moved off, murmuring.
A tense couple of hours followed. Colonel Blackwood, who had gained some medical experience during his years in the army, carefully laid a folded towel under Mr. Clarke’s head and instructed Selena to press it firmly against the wound.
She knelt in that position for quite some time, all the while keeping her eyes on Mr. Clarke’s chest, grateful to see that he was still breathing.
Please wake up, she chanted in her mind. Please don’t die.
The colonel remained at Mr. Clarke’s side, afraid to leave in case Selena should require assistance, or the wound should start bleeding again.
Half a dozen servants appeared to gawk at the injured man but were shooed away by Wells.
Later, the butler directed Mrs. Whitlock, who had slept through the disturbance, and the other guests to use the servants’ stairwell to descend to the morning room for breakfast, where they were to wait for more information.
By now, the sun was fully up and beyond the half-landing window, Selena observed a full-blown snowstorm in progress.
Speared by worry, she told Colonel Blackwood, “I hope the apothecary will come. And I pray Mrs. Hillman doesn’t awaken until he has made his assessment, and we know Mr. Clarke’s all right. ”
“I hope Clarke is all right,” returned Colonel Blackwood, concern etching his face. “I don’t like that he hasn’t woken yet.”
“His respiration has grown very shallow,” Selena noted with concern.
She was beginning to wonder if he was breathing at all when she heard some bustle downstairs.
Mrs. Middleton appeared, leading a gentleman up the stairs.
Selena stood in anticipation, expecting to greet Mr. Quince.
But the man in the housekeeper’s company was someone she had never seen before.
“Miss Taylor,” said Mrs. Middleton as she and the stranger halted several steps below the half-landing, “it seems Mr. Quince has gone away to spend Christmas with relatives in Scotland. At least that’s what his housekeeper told Billy.
” The housekeeper’s brow creased over a deep frown.
“The boy said he didn’t know what to do, so he went to the vicarage for help, but Mr. Johnson is also gone for the holidays.
Billy has brought this gentleman in his stead.
He says he’s a doctor. He left his overcoat, hat, and luggage in the servants’ hall, but he refused to remove his boots. I hope I did right to let him in.”
“You did very well, Mrs. Middleton,” Selena told her. “Thank you.”
The housekeeper nodded and withdrew. Selena, her pulse racing with anxiety, took in the stranger who stood below.
He was tall and lean, perhaps six-foot-three, and clad in a black woolen suit.
Sporting a head of wavy, light-brown hair, he appeared to be in his early thirties, perhaps a couple of years older than she was.
A jagged scar on his forehead that bisected his right eyebrow only added to his roguish handsomeness and his well-shaped nose and clean-shaven cheeks were red, no doubt from the cold.
His feet, encased in the damp and snow-encrusted boots which had so offended Mrs. Middleton, moved back and forth on the step as if he were struggling to regain the feeling in his toes.
A black, leather medical bag hung from a strap over his shoulder.
All this Selena noticed in a flash. He’s so young, was her next thought, followed by, What a stroke of luck that in the middle of a snowstorm, Billy found a doctor. She would have to thank Billy later.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor,” she said quickly. “I’m Selena Taylor. This is Colonel Blackwood.”
“Dr. Adrian Scott. How do you do.” The doctor bowed. His voice was refined and deep.
“Please hurry,” Selena rushed on. “We’re so worried. My maid found this gentleman shortly after six this morning. We believe he fell down the stairs.” Selena moved aside as the newcomer darted up the last few stairs to the half-landing.
“We haven’t moved him, other than to staunch the bleeding from his head,” Colonel Blackwood added, stepping back. “Please do everything you can.”
When the doctor reached the half-landing and took in the prone figure, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped slightly.
For an instant, he seemed incapable of speech.
Selena had the strangest sense that he recognized the fallen man—but the doctor quickly put that theory to rest when he exclaimed, “What’s the man’s name? ”
“Clarke. Jack Clarke,” Selena told him.