"I first began to suspect that the second Will was a forgery when I had time to consider how unlike Gavin it was to forget to leave his brother anything. Gavin had no idea that Richard had been killed when he made this second Will, so why had he not left him any money? That he should have cut Isabella out of his Will was understandable, and it was even understandable that he should have wished to remember his penniless cousins Maud and Agnes in his Will, even though he had not done so before. But to leave everything to Maud, without mentioning Agnes, or Richard, or his faithful servant Benson seemed incredible. Yet the Will undeniably fulfilled all legal criteria; the signatures of the witnesses were apparently those of some of Gavin"s brother officers, as they would be if the Will had been made when he was out at the Cape.
"My attention became focused on the date of the Will. Gavin was wounded at Majuba on January 29th, and has been unable to write with his left hand ever since. His present signature, written with his right hand, is not much like his previous efforts. So how did it come that this second Will was dated in February of this year, and bore Gavin"s usual signature?"
"I feel ill!" moaned Mrs Broome.
"The Will dropped out of the Bible which was on a table at the side of Gavin"s sick-bed. Later on I made an opportunity of inspecting the books which Gavin keeps at his bedside more closely. In each of these Gavin has inscribed his signature - his old signature - and in two of these books I found notes from brother officers ... a scrawled invitation to dine, and a note confirming an appointment. One of Gavin"s old signatures, and both the signatures from fellow officers seemed to me to be indented on the page. I inspected these signatures under a magnifying gla.s.s, and found that they had been gone over with a pointed instrument, but there was no corresponding indentation on the pages underneath. I concluded that someone had traced Gavin"s signature on to another piece of paper, and that this was probably how the second Will had come to bear the appropriate signatures. As soon as Gavin was well enough to see me, I brought up the subject of his second Will, and he categorically denied ever having made it."
Mrs Broome rose from her seat and looked around her as if wondering whether she could leave the room without being prevented from doing so.
"Sit down, Aunt," said his lordship. "Little did you know it at the time, but by taking the desk set from this room into the State Bedroom - you had remembered that Richard had neither pen nor paper in his room, hadn"t you? - you did me a very good turn. You saved my life, in fact. You dropped a stopper from an inkwell, it rolled half under my bed, and Agnes found it - which brought Miss Chard to my room. I dread to think what might have happened to me if Miss Chard had not entered my room that day."
"No ... proof," panted Mrs Broome. "The Will ... destroyed!"
"I"m sure it is. I feel for you, Aunt. You went to all that trouble to ensure your daughter"s future and then Miss Chard nursed me so well that I didn"t die, after all. You knew that the moment I heard about the Will, I would denounce it, so you took the easy way out. Before the Will could be disputed, you removed it from the bureau in which Hugo had improvidently placed it, and destroyed it."
Mrs Broome"s face crumpled. "Oh dear, oh dear! What will become of me?"
"Nothing very bad, Aunt. If n.o.body here has any objection, I propose to allow the matter of the forged Will to rest. There is no proof now that the Will ever existed, and, as Mr Cotton knows, I propose to sign an entirely different Will tomorrow morning. When the Court has a new mistress, I believe my aunt will wish to retire to the Dower House. She is already in receipt of a small pension from the estate, and I will see that it is maintained for life. For her sake - for everyone"s sake - I propose that no word of this goes beyond these four walls. Do you all agree?"
Everyone present agreed, but none of them looked at Mrs Broome as she wept in her chair. "I didn"t mean to harm anyone," she said. "I wouldn"t have done anything actually to harm you, Gavin; believe me."
"Oh, I believe you," he said.
"Then, if it wasn"t Hugo, and it wasn"t Louisa," said Mrs Armstrong, "Who was it who was trying to kill you? Inside the house, I mean. There were the two men outside - Jervis and Lee - but who was it inside?"
"Shall we put it another way?" said his lordship. "Who had access to Dr Kimpton"s bag? Theo, will you explain."
"A powerful emetic, yellow in colour, is missing from my uncle"s bag. It is a preparation of ipecacuanha, chamomile and mustard. My uncle has a set of bottles in his bag of different sizes, and this one is missing. He is not well enough to be with us tonight, but when I asked him about the bottle, he said he believed he missed it after one of his visits to Mrs Broome in her apartments."
"Are you accusing me?" said Isabella, reddening. "It is true that I looked in Dr Kimpton"s bag one day. He"d left it open on the table in Aunt"s sitting-room, and I wondered if he had anything for a wart on my little finger."
"Do you have a guilty conscience, too, Isabella?" said his lordship. "You stood to gain by my death, but I don"t think it was you who masterminded the attacks on my life. You don"t possess the strength to bend men like Jervis and Lee to your will."
"He means me," said Maud. She was smiling, but still pale. "He thinks I was poisoning him for the sake of the money I was going to get under his Will. Of course, he is wrong. The new Will did not turn up until long after his return, and some considerable time after he had started to reject food. I defy him to produce a motive."
"That is easy. You never cared for Richard, and if you grieved at his death it was because you had lost your chance of becoming Lady Broome. My return affected you little one way or the other, but once Hugo had entered the picture you had a very good motive for getting rid of me. Perhaps for the first time in your life you found you could love a man; as a bonus you learned you were to be my heir. You wanted me dead so that Hugo could succeed and marry you. It was you who stole Dr Kimpton"s emetic, first to use on me, then on the agency nurse and lastly on Miss Chard. It was you who stole the money Richard had left in the bureau in the gun-room; you needed money to pay your accomplices. It was you who bribed the nurse and, although it was not you who killed her, it was you who directed that she should be silenced. A drunken woman could not be relied upon to hold her tongue for ever, could she? It was you who stole the housekeeper"s and Richard"s keys to ensure that you could obtain access to my rooms or to the bureau at any time. It was you who wrote the letter denouncing Benson, so as to get him out of the way while the fourth and last attempt was made on my life."
"Are you trying to say that I went around the house in a monk"s gown, frightening the life out of the servants? What nonsense!"
"No, that was Lee. You remember the keys which Lilien was going to hand back to Richard on the day she was drowned? They were not found on her body, and we a.s.sumed they were lost in the river. I think now that Lee s.n.a.t.c.hed them from Lilien when he grappled with her on the river bank. Or maybe she dropped them in the scuffle, and he picked them up later. Lee - or possibly one of his contacts within the Court - found the robe, and saw how useful it could be. He had keys, he had the robe, and he had accomplices within the Court, so he entered my rooms as and when he wished. It was only through the vigilance of Benson and Miss Chard that I was saved from death at his hands."
"You think ... you really think that I would consort with a man who had killed my fiance?"
"I don"t think you knew that he had. I think that it was the realisation that you had allied yourself with Richard"s murderer which caused you to change colour just now, and to feel faint. How Lee must have laughed when you went to him with suggestions as to how he might carry his vendetta against the House of Broome to its conclusion! You played into his hands, didn"t you?"
"What nonsense! I defy you to prove a single word of what you have said."
"I don"t have to. The police will do it for me. They are returning tomorrow to search the Court, and they will bring enough men with them this time to do the job properly. They will take samples of your handwriting ..." Maud started. "... to compare with the note which denounced Benson. I believe that if a search were to be made of your room at the moment, the police would find two bunches of keys, a bottle of emetic, some of the money stolen from the bureau, and perhaps also my aunt"s bracelet."
Mr Manning frowned. "Gavin, I do not wish to teach you your business, but if what you say is true - and unpalatable though it is, I do not deny that your theory seems to explain everything - then surely you are giving Maud an opportunity to get rid of everything which might incriminate her, before the police arrive?"
Maud threw back her head and laughed.
"Very true, Uncle," said Lord Broome. "That is precisely what I am doing. If Maud will admit that the game is up, if she will agree to sign a statement admitting her guilt and give it to Mr Cotton, then I in turn will make her a modest allowance provided that she leaves the Court tomorrow morning and never returns or attempts to communicate with us again. If she will do this, the matter need never be made public. Lee and Jervis will stand trial for their attempts on my life, and the matter of the emetic and of the letter denouncing Benson will remain as unsolved mysteries on the police file. Maud"s intentions were murderous, but she has not in fact succeeded in anything she attempted to do, and it will be punishment enough for her to lose not only Hugo, but her chance of becoming Lady Broome. I have never cared for her, but I have some affection for my aunt, and even more for Agnes. I would not wish either of them to undergo the humiliation of seeing Maud stand trial."
Maud sprang to her feet, her hands clenched. She smiled and smiled, and, cat-like, controlled her movements to lean against the mantelpiece. Her uncle moved away from her, as if unable to bear her proximity. Her smile widened. Incredibly, she yawned.
"My dear Gavin, it is plain that your powers of reasoning have been affected by your illness. I agree that I wished you dead, but then so did most of us, if the truth were only told. I agree that I wrote that note denouncing Benson; the man was obviously guilty, to my mind. If I was mistaken, then I apologise. As for what you call my "alliance" with men such as Jervis and Lee - that is all in your sick mind. You are a very sick man, cousin, are you not? If a drunken woman stole Dr Kimpton"s emetic and dosed your food with it, what is that to me? And if someone killed her afterwards, I daresay they had a good reason for doing so - she must have been easy prey for a casual thief. No, your mind has become so clouded by illness that you have entirely overlooked the one real criminal in our midst. Did she not come here with false references? Did she not have a motive to cause confusion in the house? Did she not procure the dismissal of one - if not both - of the agency nurses provided by the doctors? And insinuate herself into the sick-room? Has she not so worked on you that you are prepared to throw yourself and your money at her feet? Who stands to gain from this but Miss Chard?"
"You lie!" cried Frances, rising to her feet. "My lord - you know my mind in this matter. I have not given you any cause to think that I would marry you. I am leaving as soon as I am permitted to do so. I would have left today but that the police - and then you - required my presence ..."
"You would have left today. Yes. To go to your lover! Oh, didn"t you know, Gavin? I see you turn pale at the very thought that she might have a secret lover." She looked at the clock on the mantel. It was a few minutes past the hour of nine. "Spilkins! I believe you will find that a gentleman has just arrived from the station. You may ask him to join us, if you will."
"What gentleman?" asked the General.
"You have talked a great deal about proof," said Maud to his lordship. "I will give you all the proof you need."
The double doors leading to the dining-room opened, and a man in evening dress sauntered through.
"Walter!" gasped Frances. "What on earth are you doing here?"
Frances" one-time suitor bowed. He was a well set-up young man of the same physical type as Lord Broome, but younger. Frances shuddered. Once she had considered Walter handsome, but now she read viciousness in his features. The months since she had last seen him were marked on his face in dark shadows round his eyes, a nervous twitch of a muscle in his cheek, and extra weight.
"Good evening, all," said Mr Walter Donne, fingering his moustache. "No need to keep up the play-acting, Frances, my dear. We"ve been rumbled. Miss Broome here knows what we"ve been up to. The game is up. U for useless, and P for played out. So get your hat and coat on, and we"ll be making tracks for the great Metropolis, as planned."
"I don"t understand," said Frances. "What game? What plan? I swear to you," and she knelt at Lord Broome"s side and clung to his hand, "that I have not seen this man, or corresponded with him, since he betrayed me. It is true that I am leaving, but that is for your sake, not mine. I could not bear it if you were hurt through me."
"I believe you." Lord Broome was calm, but his voice was a whisper. His skin looked waxen. She pressed her cheek to his maimed hand and then stood, her body shielding him from the rest of the company. "Can you not see what you are doing to him? He is tired. After what he has been through this evening, to attack him through me is cruel. Can you not leave him alone?"
"It is you who are harming him, not us," said Maud. "You have said so yourself. You have admitted that you planned to leave. What you didn"t say was that you didn"t plan to go alone - or without something to recompense you for all your trouble."
"My wages," said Frances. "That is all. Mr Hugo promised me some money once, but that was only if I should agree to kill Lord Broome, and I did not agree. There is nothing you can hold against me."
Walter moved forward and tried to take Frances" hand. She struck it away, but he did not falter. "Come, my dear - what"s the use? I"ve already admitted to Miss Broome that I got the fifteen guineas you sent me a week ago, and very useful it was; although, of course, nothing like the sum we expected to get for the bracelet."
"The bracelet?" Mrs Broome struggled up from her chair. "Do you mean that it was you who stole my bracelet, you wicked girl?"
"I have not set eyes on your bracelet from the moment you lost it," said Frances scornfully. And as for the money missing from the gun-room, I deny that I even knew there was any there until the news of its loss was all over the Court. Search my room. Search my baggage. You will find nothing, except three gold sovereigns in a stocking in the bottom left-hand corner of my work-basket. Those are my savings."
"Then you must have the bracelet on you," said Maud. "I suggest that we go upstairs now, you and I, and prove the matter one way or the other."
"Agreed!" cried Frances, and was half-way to the door with Maud at her heels before his lordship could haul himself to his feet. Theo leaped to his patient"s side to catch the words Lord Broome was trying to say, but by the time he had lifted his head, Frances and Maud had disappeared.
"Stop them," Lord Broome was saying. "Frances ... danger ... don"t trust Maud!"
But by the time Theo had burst through two sets of doors into the Gallery, both women had disappeared.
Frances was too angry to be cautious. The Gallery was dark; the lamp which stood on the centre chest had blown out. She thought nothing of it. A gale was lashing at the windows.
As she stooped to pick up her train prior to mounting the stairs, a cloak descended over her head and shoulders and strong arms lifted her from her feet. She was thrown to the ground with such force that all the breath was knocked out of her. Her hands and feet were tied. She was hoisted over a broad pair of shoulders and jounced down, instead of up, the stairs. Through the cloister they went, and into one of the ground-floor store-rooms. There were several of these on the ground floor of the Court, all giving on to the cloisters. When the m.u.f.fling cloak was taken from round Frances" head and she was able to breathe freely, the first thing she saw was the wide streak of light which poured from the uncurtained oriel window of the music-room across the gra.s.s of the courtyard. She could see this through the open door of the store-room, which she was facing, held in the bear-like hug of a giant of a man.
"Open your mouth, Miss Chard," said Maud. Frances opened it to scream. A solid ball of what felt and tasted like wood was thrust far back in her mouth, and her jaws forced further and further apart as Maud twisted a screw at the front of the infernal contraption. Frances" tongue was forced down, and her cry strangled.
"Reproduced by one of the workmen for my grandfather"s museum of antiquities," said Maud. "It is supposed to be a copy of the type of gag used by the Spanish Inquisition, and I"m happy to see that it works. You never know when these old things will come in useful."
Meakins, the ladies" maid, entered, carrying a bundle of outer clothing which Frances recognised as her own. The door to the courtyard was shut, and a lamp lit and placed on a rough table.
"You understand what is going to happen?" Maud asked Frances. "You are going to disappear from our lives - or, rather, Meakins is going to stage your disappearance, wearing your clothes - by running off with that delightfully sharp young man Walter Donne. Strip her, Meakins; help her, Lee."
Meakins was already busy with the fastenings of Frances" bodice. The burly man, now identified as Lee, held Frances" wrists away from her body. She tried to wriggle away from him, but he was too strong for her. She hardly heard what Maud was saying as her black silk dress, petticoat, corsets, shoes and stockings were stripped off her, to leave her standing barefoot in her shift and drawers, with her hair round her shoulders, trembling with fear and cold.
"In a moment or two, when Meakins is ready, I shall return to the music-room with my mother"s bracelet in my hand, and announce that I discovered it hidden in a pocket of your petticoat. Actually, that young toad Agnes had stolen it to play with, and was too frightened to confess that she"d got it when its loss was discovered. I found it in her toy-box, but she"ll have sense enough to say she discovered it in one of your drawers, by the time I"ve finished with her.
"I got in touch with Walter as soon as I heard about the incident at Mrs Palfrey"s, realising how I could turn your past history to good use. Walter has his instructions and twenty-five guineas; he is to make his excuses to the company while we are gone, and be ready to meet you - or, rather, your subst.i.tute - in the cloisters in a few minutes" time. When I return with my mother"s bracelet, I shall say that since no actual offence has been committed, I have decided to take a leaf out of Gavin"s book and allow you to leave. I shall invite everyone to the oriel window overlooking the cloisters, and ask them to watch you depart. You will run across the lawn into your lover"s arms and everyone will see you embrace him, for I have told Walter to be sure to stand in the light from the window.
"At this very moment one of the footmen is bringing down your trunk and bag, and putting them in the trap which Walter hired at the station. You will be driven off beside Walter, with your baggage, and that will be the end of you. Walter will help Meakins tip your luggage into the river by the Long Pool. She will also weight your clothes - the ones she will be wearing in her impersonation of you, I mean - and drop those into the water, too. She has a change of clothing in the trap for herself, and after she has seen your baggage safely disposed of, and Walter has departed, she will return here to a.s.sist me in the last and most pleasurable part of the evening"s programme. Ready, Meakins?"
Meakins revolved in the lamplight. She was wearing Frances" evening dress with her black winter coat over it. A thick veil had been wound over the small hat on top of her head, obscuring her features.
"Perfect!" cried Maud. "Wait for me to open the oriel window before you start across the lawn."
She turned down the lamp. Rain spattered the threshold as Maud opened the door, gathered her skirts and sped away. Meakins took up her position inside the door. Across the courtyard Frances could make out the white shirt-front of a man in evening dress, standing under the cloisters. She lunged forward, and Lee laughed. He dragged her to one of the stone pillars which supported the Oak Gallery above them, and secured her to it.
Walter moved out into the rain, pulling on an overcoat. Frances threw her weight against her bonds again and again. With eyesight dimmed by tears, she watched Meakins glide over the gra.s.s into Walter"s arms; she saw Walter embrace the woman, and then escort her out of the courtyard.
She fainted.
Lord Broome lay on his bed, motionless. His eyes were open, but he did not see the anxious faces above him. In his mind"s eye he was still seeing a slender figure in black glide into the arms of another man.
"Drink this," urged Theo, holding a sleeping draught to his friend"s lips. "For Christ"s sake, man; don"t grieve so. She deceived us all. But we all saw her ... I"ve never been so taken in by anyone in my whole life."
Benson was holding a black lace shawl, and tears were running down his cheeks. "It was all I could find," he said.
"She"s taken everything else."
Lord Broome turned away from the proffered sleeping draught, and reached out for the shawl. He put it to his cheek, and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
Frances lay drooping in her bonds against the pillar until long after the light thrown from the music-room had gone out, and noises over her head announced that the company had dispersed to their bedrooms. The stable clock struck eleven, and she came to herself, slowly. The man behind her laughed. He had shut the door on to the lawn and turned up the lamp. He was whittling a walking-stick. She looked at him. He was swarthy, black of hair and moustache. He wore moleskin trousers and a thick flannel shirt. On the floor beside him lay an expensive but vulgar checked overcoat. Frances shuddered, thinking that this man had already committed at least one murder.
The house was quiet above and around them. The stable clock struck eleven. In a gust of wind and rain the store-room door opened and two figures slipped in. Both wore cloaks, and one carried a heavy carpet bag.
"It"s a nasty night out," said Maud, throwing back her cloak. "I don"t envy Walter his drive to the station." She took a bunch of keys from her pocket. Lee - clear away those wood shavings; we mustn"t leave any traces. Everything has gone splendidly so far. Dr Green has given Gavin a sleeping draught and Benson is so much put out by the wicked Miss Chard"s defection that he"s taken a bottle to bed with him. Both of them are snoring their heads off. I"ve just been up to listen outside their doors. They haven"t bothered to set a guard now that Miss Chard has gone. Isn"t that perfect? Poor Miss Chard. I think I am almost sorry for you. Gavin"s end will be quick and merciful; he won"t know a thing about it. But you are going to have plenty of time to repent crossing my path before you die. You know that this used to be an abbey once? Well, if a nun offended in the old days, she was walled up alive and left to die. I have decided that you deserve the same fate."
Meakins took a roll of bandages out of the carpet bag and began to wind them round Frances" head, binding in her hair, and covering her forehead, cheeks, mouth and neck with thick white folds of cloth.
"You want to know how Gavin will die? I am taking no more chances. I shall go with Lee, this time. I have the key to the dressing-room, just as Gavin guessed. When you have been lodged in your cell, I am going to help Gavin commit suicide. Poor cousin Gavin! What a shock it has been for him to discover that you are false. Naturally, he is prostrated with grief. They had to carry him to bed, did you know that? And he would not speak to anyone, or look at them. I wondered if he"d had a stroke, but Theo - dear, fl.u.s.tered Theo - said no, it was just shock. No one will think it strange when Gavin is found dead tomorrow morning, with his razor open beside him, and his throat cut. A splendid plan, is it not? Hugo will inherit and marry me, and I shall become Lady Broome at last. I suppose Gavin"s original Will has to stand, but I am sure I shall be able to make Isabella see the wisdom of sharing some of her money with me."
A coa.r.s.e white gown with a deep hood now came out of the carpet bag, and was dropped over Frances" shoulders. She was grateful for its warmth. Meakins pinned the hood over the bandages around Frances" head, letting it overhang her victim"s eyes.
"What about the noise?" asked Meakins, as she pulled some heavy, rusty-looking chains from her bag.
"No one will hear anything in this storm," said Maud. "But perhaps Lee had better m.u.f.fle the blows with cloth, just in case."
Frances was made to sit on the floor with her legs straight out in front of her while her shoulders remained pinioned to the pillar. Lee fitted her bare ankles into heavy metal cuffs and hammered them shut. A short length of chain, no longer than Frances" forearm, connected the cuff"s and would restrict her steps when she stood up.
"All from my grandfather"s collection," said Maud. "Some of them are genuine antiques and have been used for these purposes before. No one cares about such things nowadays. They will never be missed."
Frances was released from the pillar, but though she tried to fight free, Lee and Meakins were more than strong enough to restrain her. The white gown was pulled down around her, a strong leather belt was set about her waist and buckled at the back; from the front of the belt depended two more short lengths of chain, each of which ended in a metal cuff. It did not take Lee long to hammer these around Frances" wrists. She could not lift her hands, or part them very far.
"I like to think of you suffering as you have made me suffer," said Maud. "There is some prayer in the service for the ordination of nuns and priests for preservation from the vanities of the world. I do hope, Miss Chard, that you appreciate going to your death in sackcloth and chains. I wonder how long it will take you to die? Will you pray for Gavin"s soul as you wait for death? I imagine you might. Every hour will seem a day, and every day a year to you in your tomb. I had considered leaving a c.h.i.n.k in the wall of your cell, so that I could visit you every night to watch your deterioration, but I decided against it. It would not be prudent. Are we ready? Then let us go."
Frances was half carried and half dragged along the cloisters by Lee. Maud led the way, carrying the lamp and her keys. Meakins brought up the rear with the carpet bag and Lee"s things.
Maud stopped by a door set in the tower below Mrs Broome"s apartments and unlocked it with a large key, to reveal a flight of steps descending into the earth. Frances twisted round to look at the rain-sodden cloisters, and feel the clean air on her face, and then she was thrown over Lee"s shoulder and carried down into the cellar.
"They don"t use these particular cellars nowadays," said Maud, as she led the way across a spider-haunted room. "They are part of the original monastery buildings, but they"re not supposed to be safe, and no one comes here any more. My grandfather did consider having some work done down here, but he was advised that it would cost too much." She consulted a map drawn on a piece of paper, and led the way through a maze of smaller rooms, each one more damp than the last, until the lamp began to dim and the smell of rotting vegetation grew strong around them.
"A bit near the river, Miss," muttered Lee, glancing at the fungus which was growing on the ancient brickwork.
Maud turned two more corners and lifted her skirts to enter a narrow, slimy corridor from which the brickwork was beginning to crumble. A little way along she stopped, and held the lamp high. A small room led off the corridor; no more than a cupboard, it was lined with crumbling bricks and decorated with fungi. The roof was low and the floor of beaten earth. A pile of fallen bricks and some large boulders lay beyond, in the corridor, evidence that someone, at some time, had begun to repair the walls and left the job half done.
Frances was thrown into the cell, her feet touching one wall and her shoulders another. From Meakins" bag Lee produced the largest, heaviest and rustiest chain Frances had ever seen. He threaded it through her belt and, driving a large staple between two bricks, tethered her to the wall of the cell.
Frances managed to get her knees beneath her. Involuntarily her hands clasped in prayer. With every movement her chains rattled, dragging at her wrists and ankles. It was piercingly cold. She could not stop shivering.
Maud laughed. She held the lamp high while Meakins and Lee laboured to fill in the narrow entry to the cell. Frances could not reach them. She could not move more than a foot away from the back wall of her cell. She watched helplessly as they piled boulders and bricks together, building a wall knee-high, then waist-high, and finally shoulder-high.
The light in the cell shifted and decreased as the wall grew. It became smaller than the shawl Frances had placed round Lord Broome"s shoulders. Then smaller than his maimed hand.
"G.o.d be with you," said Maud. The light shattered into tiny points as the last bricks were wedged into the wall. Then Frances heard Maud urge the others away, and the light wavered and went out.
The long hours of confinement in the sick-room, her recent ordeal and the cold of the cell undermined Frances" hold on reality. She trembled and her chains shook with her slightest movement. She imagined that she was in bed, awakening from a nightmare, and started up, hitting her head on the roof of her cell. Her chained wrists dragged her down. She prayed disjointedly, while through her overtired mind flickered images of Gavin and Hugo and Theo, and of the red-coated portrait of Richard Broome that hung over the fireplace in the dining-room.
She thought she heard someone crying behind her, and started in fright, her eyes vainly trying to piece the darkness. Rats! she thought, and in another involuntary movement of terror, twisted and backed away from the direction of the imaginary sound. The chains creaked and bruised her wrists. She found she was holding the rusty chain which tethered her to the wall, and dropped it.
"Rusty ... rusty ... rusty ...!" someone said, way back inside her head. "It"s very rusty," someone else said, and she thought it was Benson, sitting beside her, only of course it couldn"t be. Her eyes were not giving her reliable service, for there were luminous patches of fungus on the walls and if she allowed herself to imagine things, she would begin to think that there was a little man in brown sitting beside her. He was wringing his hands, just as she was, and saying that she must hurry because the head of the House of Broome was in danger ... danger ... danger ...