Chapter 23 #2
“Like someone knocked me upside the head.” He frowned up at Dr. Marsland.
“I was passing your home and met an anxious father with his son, looking for help. I let myself into your surgery to examine him. He feared glandular fever, but it was only the mumps. Sent him home with a hot poultice. But while I was in there, I saw something odd. Yew branches in the rubbish and ground seeds in the mortar.”
Dr. Marsland huffed. “I read an article about natives in America using yew to treat rheumatism and arthritis. Thought I’d see if it would be efficacious for old Toddy Glover.”
“It’s poisonous.”
“Taken orally, yes, in sufficient amount.”
“And how much was sufficient for Mr. Dalby?”
The older man’s jaw clenched.
Dr. Finch added, “I came looking for you to ask you about it and to make sure Miss Loveday was all right. I had just reached the side door when someone struck me from behind. I guess now we know that was you.”
Dr. Marsland’s face darkened, then he exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “Why couldn’t you two leave well enough alone? If you had, I might have let you live, but now, you give me no choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Anne said. “We always have a choice. No one can force you to do wrong. You can choose to do the right thing now and beg forgiveness for the past.”
“Your speech comes a bit late, Miss Loveday, considering my recent actions, but thank you for caring about my eternal soul.”
“I suppose it was you who poisoned Lady Celia?” Dr. Finch said.
“No. Not . . . directly, no.”
“Why are you doing all this?” Anne asked. “Lady Celia, Mr. Dalby, and now us?”
Dr. Marsland paused and looked up as though struck by what she’d said.
“Us,” he repeated. “Such a lovely little word.
Yet there was no us for me. Lady Celia saw to that.
She put an end to our courtship. Forbade her daughter to accept my offer of marriage.
Discouraged her from spending time with me, even as her physician.
And after Finch came, she insisted he alone attend her daughter.
Mr. Dalby persuaded me that if her mother was no longer here to hinder us, we would be together at last.
“The poison was his idea, but he didn’t know how to go about it.
When the soup and digitalis failed, he came to me for something more reliable.
He wanted it to appear natural, to go undetected, not cause overmuch pain, and be fast acting.
He wanted her to die before she revised her will, or at least before she’d signed it.
Either way, the sooner she died, the sooner he would receive whatever inheritance was coming to him, and he needed money desperately.
“At first I refused. Told him I was a physician who healed and not harmed. Took the Oath of Hippocrates, after all. But he wore me down. Knew of my utter, undying devotion to his cousin. The endless torment of being kept from her. So I agreed to help him, but I refused to administer anything poisonous myself. I worried he might turn on me and deny all knowledge of the plot. So I prepared it, and he took it to her room and administered it. In her tea or straight down her gullet, I don’t know.
Opium with poison hemlock—used for centuries to put people quickly and painlessly to death.
And I consoled my conscience with the realization that she was old and ill and would die eventually anyway. ”
Anne threw up her hands. “That’s no excuse. We will all die eventually!”
“Sadly true, and imminent in this case.”
“That explains why Lady Celia died,” Ernest said. “What about Mr. Dalby?”
“That was not part of the original plan.
He brought it on himself. A few nights after Lady Celia died, Katherine asked me to stay for dinner.
You two as well. I happily accepted, foolishly hopeful for our future.
When I left, I forgot my bag, so I returned, letting myself in through the side door, as usual.
I thought I might find Katherine alone, offer a comforting shoulder, assurance of my regard and support in her time of need.
“Instead, I found Dalby wooing my Katherine, trying to convince her to marry him.
She always had a soft spot for him—she and her mother both—and he used that to try to get his hands on her money.
Women find him hard to resist, as your relatives both learned from painful experience.
He had a strange power over females and used people for his own ends.
“And the snake had used me. Took advantage of my desperate, lovelorn state to repair his desperate financial state. I was stunned, betrayed, furious. I had risked my profession, my good name, my very freedom to free her for myself. Certainly not for a rake like him. I left and began making plans to have my revenge.”
“You should have lingered a bit longer,” Anne said. “You would have heard her refuse him in no uncertain terms.”
“Truly? Then perhaps there is hope for us yet.”
With an incredulous puff of laughter, Anne shook her head.
“How did you poison him?” Ernest asked, perhaps trying to keep the man talking and delay whatever end he had planned for them.
Marsland lifted an unconcerned shoulder. “Easy enough to do. Man always had a drink in his hand. I left him a note guaranteed to lure him from the house. The arrow in the neck was an afterthought. To move the focus away from any signs of poisoning.”
So Rosa did not write that note, Anne realized with faint relief, glad now she had taken it.
Dr. Marsland glanced at his young partner, whose eyes now glinted with disgust.
“I was relieved when Ernest began showing a preference for you, Miss Loveday. For he had briefly turned Katherine’s head as well—or at least she enjoyed his attentions.
I hated that she preferred him to call on her instead of me.
Him touching her pale white throat, looking into her deep brown eyes, listening to her heart.
. . . For a time I thought I might have to sever our partnership straightaway. ”
He gazed upon the younger man, his expression regretful. “And now, I suppose, I will have to anyway, in a manner of speaking. It’s a pity. I really did admire your father.”
“Let us go, Marsland,” Dr. Finch said. “We can’t prove anything. It will only be our word against yours.”
“Perhaps, but as there are two of you, I don’t like my chances.”
“Then let Miss Loveday go. She is only involved in this because we asked her to come to Painswick Court.”
Dr. Marsland nodded. “Miss Lotty suggested it to me privately even before you did. I discouraged the idea, but then you mentioned it right in front of her and Miss Lotty both. I was peeved initially, but more recently I realized it was a boon to have someone in the house to take the blame if the coroner suspected Lady Celia’s death was not natural.
Especially someone with a grudge against the old woman. Someone besides me, that is.”
He drew back his shoulders as though donning a mantle and assuming another identity. Anne fleetingly wondered if he had been the person she’d seen disguised as King Charles.
“The constable and coroner will be here soon. So I shall have to leave Miss Stark out of it for now.” He gestured to the cell.
“Let’s see . . . I had caught the culprit for them, but Miss Loveday tried to escape, which left me with no choice.
” He pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at her.
Terror blazed through Anne’s every nerve.
“No!” Ernest shouted, lunging forward to put himself in front of Anne, but the chain jerked him back.
A shadow crossed the older man’s face. “I am sorry for Miss Lotty’s sake, yet it cannot be helped.”
“And Dr. Finch? Let’s see . . .” Again, he tapped his chin with his free hand. “Besotted fool was taken in by her claims of innocence, came rushing to her aid, and fell down the stairs.”
Ernest scoffed. “No one will believe you.”
“Oh, I think they will. I have been a trusted physician in this town for many years. Who would call my word into question?”
“I will,” replied a clear, strong voice.
They all turned. Dr. Marsland slipped the pistol back into his pocket, perhaps expecting the constable.
A figure appeared just inside the old door, bow in arms, cord pulled tight, arrow at the ready.
Shock jolted Anne.
King Charles I. She recognized the long curly hair, pointed beard and mustache, and royal robe. And the face of . . .
Katherine Fitzjohn.
Glowering at Dr. Marsland, she said, “I just saw Jude’s body. Did you use an arrow to implicate Jasper, or me?”
“Not you, my darling. Of course not you. Assuming you agree to marry me, I will make sure not the slightest shadow of suspicion falls on your lily-white self.”
“Don’t call me darling. I am not yours. Never have been.”
“That’s not true. There was a time you liked that endearment very well indeed.”
“That was a long time ago now. I was flattered by your attentions at first. You were older and wiser and well respected. It did not last.”
“Because your mother interfered.”
Katherine nodded, her aim never straying. “She did interfere. Yet I soon came to realize she was right. You and I would not have suited. Not then, and certainly not now.”
He frowned as if just noticing her costume. “Why are you dressed like that? It’s unbecoming for a lady of your station.”
“I have my reasons.”
He gestured toward her weapon. “Put that down, Katherine. Before you hurt someone.”
“Don’t worry. I only hit what I aim for, and I am aiming for your heart.”
His expression darkened. “You already had my heart, and you trampled it beneath your feet.”
He reached into his pocket and again pulled out the pistol.
Thwang. The arrow flew straight into his hand, knocking the gun from his grasp.
“Dash it!” He cradled the injured hand with his good one, and blood seeped between his fingers.
Pulling a second arrow from the quiver hanging at her hip, Katherine said, “That’s for Jude. He may have been a scoundrel, but he was also my cousin.”
Dr. Marsland swore under his breath.
Katherine positioned the arrow, nocking it into place. “And this,” Katherine went on, unperturbed, “is for Mamma.”
Thwang. The arrow flew and hit its mark with a thump. Dr. Marsland grasped his shoulder and fell to the ground.
Coolly, she said, “You’re right, I don’t want your heart. If I had intended to kill you, you’d be dead now. I shan’t sink to your level, but that should incapacitate you until the constable returns.” She walked over and picked up the fallen gun.
Then she lifted the set of ancient keys hanging on the wall and unlocked the cell and Dr. Finch’s manacle. After Ernest had bound the older man’s wounds, the three of them half dragged, half carried Dr. Marsland into the cell and locked him there to await the authorities.
As soon as the man was secured, Dr. Finch took Anne’s hands in his. “Are you all right?”
Still rather dazed, Anne said breathlessly, “I will be.”
“Come on, you two,” Katherine urged. “Let’s go upstairs and leave the criminal where he belongs.”