Chapter 23
Anne awoke, eyes still closed, feeling groggy, cold, and wretched, her bed awfully hard. It had never been the most comfortable couch, but this? She felt the surface beneath her with chilled fingers. No bedclothes. Only damp wood. What in the world? Where was she? What had happened?
Slowly, slivers of memory began to return. The churchyard. Mr. Dalby . . . dead. The note. Someone grabbing her, the sponge pressed to her face. Then . . . nothing.
Until now.
Anne tentatively opened her eyes. The world remained black. Had she been blinded? Panic rose. At least she was still alive.
As she lay there in a stupor, she slowly realized she was neither blind nor in utter darkness. A faint light seeped in from somewhere above her and dimly illuminated the space.
Anne looked around and, with mounting dread, realized where she was. In a cell in the Painswick Court cellars. Alone.
God in heaven, help me.
She’d been rendered unconscious and carried there. Now she lay—half seated, half sprawled—on the rotting wood-slat bed against the wall. High on the vaulted ceiling, a grated vent let in light and air from somewhere above. The scullery or kitchen, perhaps?
She raised her face toward the grate and called, “Is anyone there? Halloo! Can you hear me? I’m trapped down here. Please help me!”
No response.
How long had she been insensible? The faint light probably meant it was no longer nighttime—unless a lamp or fire was lit in the room overhead. Maybe very early morning? She would listen for sounds from above and when she heard them, call out again.
Who had done this to her, and why?
She lifted herself into a fully seated position.
Her leg had been bent at an awkward angle and felt numb.
She gingerly shifted, stretching her foot to the end of the sagging bed and then downward, preparing to rise.
Her shoe came into contact with something.
Something solid but malleable. Flesh? A body on the floor?
Anne recoiled. She was not alone. Who was in there with her? And were they dead or alive?
Over a lump in her throat, she asked, “Wh-who is it? Who’s there?” No response. She tentatively stretched out her leg again and nudged the body with her foot.
Again no response. She supposed she should not be surprised.
If her shouting toward the grate had not roused the person, what would?
A chill crept over her. Had her attacker dragged Jude Dalby’s body down here with her?
No. Don’t think the worst, she told herself.
Perhaps the person was only insensible, as she had been. God, have mercy on us both.
Anne sat listening for any sound from above and trying to think what to do. As her eyes adjusted further, the shapes around her came into better focus. The iron bars. The man at her feet.
Ernest Finch.
Her heart plummeted. Please, no. Don’t let him be dead.
He sat, slumped on the floor, one hand chained to the wall in a locked manacle, legs sprawled before him, head lolling back. Something dark trailed down his temple and stained his cravat.
She tentatively stretched out her hand and touched his shoulder. Gently shook him. “Dr. Finch? Can you hear me?”
No response. She raised her hand higher and reached for the exposed skin of his upper neck.
The blood on his jaw was still warm, but his skin was cold.
Too cold. She felt for a pulse on the side of his neck.
Pressed harder. Yes! Blood yet pulsed in his veins.
She hoped he had not lost a great deal of it.
“Dr. Finch? Ernest, it’s me, Anne. I need you to wake up.”
Admonishing herself to remain calm and think, Anne reached over with both hands, unknotted his simply tied cravat, and began unwinding it from his neck.
One area was stiff with blood, but she found a clean section and laid that against the wound, looping the rest of the length around his head and tying it in place.
He uttered a low groan but otherwise remained insensible.
Anne rose on unsteady legs and tried the iron door. She pulled and pushed until her arm ached. To no avail.
Did the killer intend to leave them there indefinitely? Or did he plan to return and kill them?
Anne heard something in the distance. The sound of the old iron-strapped door creaking open, followed by a heavy tread descending stone stairs. Her heart began to beat hard in time with the footsteps.
Light entered with the newcomer. Anne held her breath, fearing who it would be—killer or rescuer?
The figure holding a lantern strode slowly toward the cell, the bright light momentarily blinding Anne. She winced, trying to make out the person haloed in light.
Richard Marsland. Anne exhaled in relief.
“Dr. Marsland!” she exclaimed. “Hurry and unlock the door—the keys are on the hook there. I think Dr. Finch has been concussed.”
Instead of looking surprised or rushing to their aid, the older physician asked, “I suppose you knew?”
“Knew what?”
He opened his thin lips and shut them again, perhaps thinking the better of whatever he’d been about to say. “Why, that Jude Dalby is dead.”
“Yes. I saw him outside. The colonel has gone for the constable.”
“The constable has been and gone. Gone to summon the coroner again.”
“Already? What time is it?”
He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “I suppose you also knew that Rosa Stark is Finch’s niece, and Mr. Dalby seduced her before she came here.”
“I . . . did learn of it, yes. How did you . . . ?”
“He recently boasted of his conquest. And considering the child in Finch’s care, and rumors of a young blond woman visiting often, it didn’t take a genius to deduce the rest. Here I thought you had the strongest motive for killing him and perhaps Lady Celia too, with what you told us about your sister.
Now I may have to revise my opinion. Perhaps she and Finch both came here with revenge in mind.
Why else would they keep their connection a secret?
Unless . . . Were the three of you in on it together? ”
“Of course not.”
“Just the two of them, then?”
“I did not say that. I don’t think either of them would hurt anyone . . . seriously.”
“But you don’t know that, do you? You don’t know who killed Mr. Dalby?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I shall have to keep you both here until the constable returns with the coroner. Don’t want to risk one or both of you running off.”
Anne’s medicated brain struggled to catch up. “Wait. Did . . . did you carry us both down here? Using an opium surgery sponge on me and, what, striking Dr. Finch? And no one saw you?”
“Not that I know of. I used the spiral staircase that leads down here from the old courtroom. We all thought it was blocked over, but no, the door was simply well hidden by the paneling. Katherine discovered it while sitting vigil—felt a draught and walked close to investigate. The black fabric on the walls had snagged on a rough seam. That’s how she found it, and she showed me. ”
Ah . . . Anne thought. The draught she had felt during her own late-night vigil.
That was the room above them. The light through the grate came from the many candles illuminating Lady Celia’s coffin.
So it must have been Katherine she’d heard in there, disappearing down those hidden stairs and later meeting Anne as she came out the other way.
He went on. “The original door into this cellar was concealed behind that tall wine rack, but Katherine and I moved it aside.” He walked over to an ancient wooden door and opened it to demonstrate. Anne had not noticed that door nor that the wine rack she’d seen earlier with Jasper had been moved.
Dr. Marsland returned to the cell and added pensively, “Perhaps I should go to Valley View Lodge and fetch Miss Stark as well.”
“Surely that is not necessary, nor is it your responsibility. That’s for the constable to decide. And you can’t really think any of us did it.” She surreptitiously felt for the folded note in her glove, relieved to find it still there.
He tapped his chin and peered upward in thought. “If not, then who do we know that is quite skilled with a bow and arrow?”
“Why, Colonel Paine and Miss Fitzjohn, of course. Though surely you don’t suggest—”
“I am simply trying to be logical, to decipher the facts.”
“Then what about the fact that Mr. Dalby was poisoned before being struck with an arrow?”
He frowned at her through the bars, black brows thunderously low. “Preposterous. What are you talking about?”
“I had a chance to study the body,” Anne replied, her father’s voice echoing in her mind, as if he were speaking the words she’d heard him use with their own local coroner. “Enlarged pupils, blue lips, signs of vomiting. And very little blood at the site of the entry wound.”
“Why would anyone bother to poison a man if they meant to inflict a mortal wound?”
“To incapacitate him, perhaps. Much easier than hitting a moving target.”
“That is quite specific. As if you know that would work from recent personal experience.”
“No! I don’t even know how to shoot a bow and arrow.”
“Neither do I. Yet you have done so. I heard Miss Fitzjohn mention a lesson?”
“Hardly a lesson. I shot Colonel Paine’s bow once and very ill.”
“That’s more than I’ve done. I’ve never picked up a bow in my life.”
“I don’t think the killer had to. I think he poisoned Mr. Dalby and then shoved the arrow into his neck to make it appear that was what killed him.”
He gaped at her, then scoffed. “Again, a civilized, rational man wonders how a supposedly innocent young lady even conceives of such a diabolical scheme! And I suppose you have a theory about what kind of poison was used too?”
“Well, no. I don’t know that.”
“I . . . do.” Ernest Finch’s voice, though weak.
Anne whirled and knelt beside him. “How are you feeling?”