Chapter Twenty-Six
The chapel was so quiet, Selena felt as though time were standing still. She stared at Mrs. Hillman, who sat on the pew beside her.
“But I thought you adored Mr. Clarke. You said you had a little romance with him. He was going to ask you to marry him! I thought you worshipped the ground he walked on.”
“He was a fascinating man, but I wouldn’t go that far.
” Mrs. Hillman narrowed her eyes. “I think I always knew what he really was, from the moment we first met. We were strolling along the boardwalk in front of the Worthing Seaside Hotel, and he bragged about a hospital he had helped to build in Liverpool for wounded soldiers. The details were so vague, the whole thing seemed unlikely to me. But he was ever-so-charming. So, I let him charm me. He described himself as a successful businessman. I didn’t think he was really harming anyone.
I got the impression that the investments he took were from wealthy people he believed wouldn’t miss the money, people who were grateful to him for giving them a sense of purpose. ”
As Selena processed that, a pressure rose in her chest. “Are you saying that Mr. Clarke was a fraud?”
Mrs. Hillman sighed. “I suppose he was. But I wanted to believe the best of him, and I looked the other way.”
Selena swallowed hard. It sounded as if Dr. Dalton’s description of Mr. Clarke’s financial proclivities might have been true, after all. “Didn’t you invest two hundred pounds in a project of Mr. Clarke’s, a school, I think it was?”
“I did.” Mrs. Hillman shrugged. “I never expected to see a penny of that money again. I hoped he would prove me wrong, even though I knew, deep down, that I was lying to myself.”
“And yet he did pay you back,” Selena pointed out, struggling to find some worthy action on that man’s part. “Which means he must have thought very highly of you.”
“I doubt it.” Mrs. Hillman lowered her gaze. “The night he handed me that envelope … he mentioned another project he was developing. In Brazil. Which would require even more money.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hillman.” Sadness welled up behind Selena’s eyes.
Mrs. Hillman turned to her with a frown.
“I made no promises. Not that it would have mattered, anyway. And don’t judge me or feel sorry for me, Selena.
In spite of everything, I found Mr. Clarke amusing.
He made me feel special and adored, which isn’t something that often happens to a woman of my age. ”
Selena’s stomach twisted. “Dr. Dalton claimed that Mr. Clarke’s letter to The Times was a complete lie—an attempt to frame him for murder and theft so Mr. Clarke could steal that money for himself and vanish. Do you think that’s true?”
“I do. And now that I think about it, I would bet my life that the two hundred pounds Mr. Clarke repaid me came straight from the hospital fund.”
“Oh, no.” As Selena thought of all the accusations she had just hurled at the doctor, she sank back in her seat, a hollow ache invading her chest.
“I have liked Dr. Sco—Dr. Dalton from the first moment I met him, when he came to my aid after Mr. Clarke passed away. Consider how much he had on his mind that morning and yet he treated me with such empathy. Dr. Dalton has all the qualities I adored in my own dear Roger—he’s smart, thoughtful, and kind.
And he listens. From what I see, the only thing Dr. Dalton is guilty of is giving us a false name and pretending that he hadn’t met Jack Clarke. ”
Selena realized now that Mrs. Hillman was right. Dr. Dalton was all of those things. It was why she had fallen in love with him.
And still was in love with him.
Yes, he had lied to her about his name and connection to Mr. Clarke, but perhaps everything else that had transpired between them—including the sharing of his personal history, and his professed affection for her—had been true.
Their entire murder investigation, especially their hunt for the Webster siblings, had only been tangential at best to his desire to find the hidden money, and yet Dr. Dalton had been there at her side, every step of the way.
Mr. Clarke, in contrast, had perpetrated a truly egregious fraud—one that he had apparently pulled off many times before.
He had sent that letter to The Times, incriminating Dr. Dalton, before any crime had even been committed.
He’d written that he’d been afraid to leave his house—but when Selena had met Mr. Clarke, he hadn’t behaved like a man in terror of losing his life.
On the contrary, he had been jovial and charming.
Charming. There was that word again. Both the doctor and Mrs. Hillman had called Mr. Clarke charming. The descriptor that Selena had learned to equate with a trickster or charlatan. It seemed she had been wrong about Mr. Clarke all along.
A wave of remorse rushed through Selena like a tide. “If only Dr. Dalton had told us the truth about himself and his situation from the outset.”
“But he could have had no idea how you—or I—would have reacted,” Mrs. Hillman insisted.
“For all he knew, I might have kept him under lock and key until the parish constable returned—and I would have been within my rights to do so. And he needed to remain free to find the hidden money, to prove his innocence—to avoid debtor’s prison. I understand his reticence.”
Selena heaved a sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Just look at the way you reacted today when you read that article.”
Selena grimaced. “I should have given him the benefit of the doubt, instead of jumping to the conclusion that he was guilty.”
Mrs. Hillman cast Selena a glance. “Why, I wonder, were you so quick to believe the worst of the doctor, rather than of Mr. Clarke?”
“Because you’ve known Mr. Clarke for years, whereas we have only known Dr. Dalton for a matter of days. And you had insisted over and over that Mr. Clarke was such a good man.”
“Perhaps I should have been more transparent about my thinking where Mr. Clarke was concerned,” Mrs. Hillman admitted sheepishly.
“But I couldn’t bring myself to admit the truth before the entire company after he had died.
I didn’t want to disrespect his memory. I was a bit embarrassed that I’d given him so much money.
And although I had doubts that he had ‘rescued’ any money from a hospital fund, there was no way to prove him guilty of wrongdoing—or that he had taken any more than the two hundred pounds he had repaid me.
I told myself the whole story had just been puffed-up bravado. ”
Selena bit her lip. “And yet Mr. Clarke had actually stolen all that money.”
“Dr. Dalton, on the other hand, is a man of sense and good character. I saw how tenderly he took care of you, Selena, after you burned your arm, and after what happened in the catacombs.” Mrs. Hillman paused.
“You know, I accept everything you’ve told me about Mr. Clarke and the hidden money.
But it still seems fantastic to think that anyone’s been murdered at Darkmoor Park, or that someone tried to kill you. ”
“They did. I’m certain of it. And Dr. Dalton brought me to safety.” Gutted by remorse, Selena covered her face with her hands. “I feel so bad that I didn’t believe his explanations for everything that happened.”
“I think,” Mrs. Hillman asserted, “you were so hurt that Dr. Scott—Dr. Dalton—had lied to us—and to you—that you let it cloud your judgement. You forgot what he has shown us on a daily basis about his basic nature, that he’s a decent man whom I would doubt would ever hurt anyone.
Can you really imagine him planning to steal from a hospital fund? ”
“No,” Selena admitted, wondering now how she could have ever imagined him capable of such a thing. Tears pricked her eyes. “I’ve been so foolish. If you only knew what I just said to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I accused him of being the worst sort of villain and thief. I told him I was going to report him to the parish constable.”
“Oh. That explains the look on his face just now. And it’s a shame. I’ve been observing the two of you together.” Her gaze wandered into the distance. “You and Dr. Dalton remind me of me and my Roger when we first met. I think you’ve fallen in love with him.”
Selena felt her face grow hot. “I don’t know about that,” she lied.
Mrs. Hillman cast Selena a sidelong glance. “And what’s more, I think he’s in love with you.”
The moisture in Selena’s eyes spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “If he did have any feelings for me, they’re surely gone now. He thinks I’m going to turn him in. He must hate me. Oh! What do I do now, Mrs. Hillman?”
The older woman turned to her with a kindly smile. “I suppose you go to him. And you tell him how you really feel.”
*
Selena hurried from the chapel to find Dr. Dalton.
When she’d read that letter in The Times, she had felt like an idiot for trusting him and for falling for his charms. Now, she felt equally idiotic for having believed the allegations in the newspaper, instead of opening her mind to the truth that he’d tried so hard to share.
She understood now why he’d kept his secrets.
As he had tried so desperately to tell her, he’d been facing debtors’ prison, a fate so appalling that he might not have survived.
His freedom, and possibly his very life, had been at stake.
She needed to find him and tell him she’d had a change of heart. Jack Clarke had been the rascal. She would never report Dr. Dalton to the constable. Moreover, she wanted to reprise their mission and help him find that money.
As she passed the morning room, Selena heard the murmur of conversation and the tinkle of cutlery from the guests who must have been dining within. Sam exited with a tray. Sam. Who might be Joe Webster. Selena had no time to think about that, however.