“Then Lady Hedley came to my room. She told me about the syphilis. I commiserated with her on her terminal illness, thinking it had turned her brain, but she laughed and said that she was fit and healthy and that her husband should really stop sleeping with virgins because he thought it would cure his illness. I hated him then. I wanted him dead.
“I told her I would expose him, but she laughed. Laughed! She said all I would do would be to broadcast that I was no longer a virgin and that my parents would get to hear of it.”
“What did Dr. Perriman say?” asked Rose.
“He said that I showed no sign of the infection. He would not discuss Lord Hedley, but he said that people at the latent stage of the disease were not infectious. They were only infectious in the first and second stages. So I assume I have no fear of the disease developing in me.”
“Thank goodness for that. But maybe Mary Gore-Desmond was determined that he should honour his promises. Maybe that’s why she had to die.”
“But Colette!”
“Perhaps Colette found out somehow and was blackmailing him. You should tell Kerridge.”
“No, and if you do, I will deny the whole thing. Lady Hedley puts it about that you are a liar and make things up.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” said Rose slowly.
♦
Harry burst into the study after luncheon and said to Kerridge, “What fools we’ve been!”
“Enlighten me.”
“Dr. Jenner was in correspondence with a certain Dr. Pal-verston in London over using arsenic as a treatment. If you confront Dr. Perriman with the fact that we know about the syphilis and the arsenic, he will assume that Dr. Palverston said something. Accuse him of having valuable evidence and threaten to throw the book at him.”
“I’ll go over to his surgery now,” said Kerridge.
Harry went back to his room and rang for Becket. When the manservant appeared, he said, “I want you to keep close to Lady Rose. I do not want anything to happen to her before we get out of here. I think Hedley could be dangerous and I think his illness is beginning to affect his brain.”
Becket went up and knocked at Daisy’s door. When she answered it, he said, “The captain says I’m to keep an eye on Lady Rose. Where is she?”
“She said she was going to see Lady Hedley. She’s just left.”
“Orders are orders. I’d better get down there and wait outside Lady Hedley’s sitting-room door.”
“We’ll both go,” said Daisy.
♦
Lady Hedley looked up as Rose entered her sitting-room. “You are supposed to knock,” she said crossly. She was still working on the piece of tapestry. “Sit down.”
Rose sat down on the other side of the fireplace. Lady Hedley stitched steadily, the needle flashing in and out.
“I came to ask you something,” said Rose nervously.
“What?”
Rose was beginning to wish she had not come. The marchioness looked so small and frail.
“I believe your husband takes arsenic for an…er…illness.”
Silence. The needle continued to flash.
“I believe,” said Rose, steeling herself, “that he slept with Mary Gore-Desmond sometime at the end of the season because he believed that sleeping with a virgin would cure his illness. I also think Colette knew this and tried to blackmail him. I believe it was he who threw me off the castle roof.”
“You are a dangerous and vicious liar,” said Lady Hedley. “I love my husband and no one is going to take him from me. You silly young things. What do you know of love?”
Rose stared at her, her mind racing. One of Lady Medley’s lace sleeves fell back as she continued the ply her needle, revealing a surprisingly strong-looking arm.
“I had the money, you see,” said the marchioness suddenly. “A chain of grocery shops. Ifou’ve heard of Crumleys?”
“Yes,” said Rose. “I believe the shops are all over the country.”
“My father. He rivalled Lipton. But it was trade. I was classed as the daughter of a shopkeeper, no matter how many millions we had. My first season was a nightmare. I was snubbed and patronized all round. It was then that my father, God rest his soul, who was a very shrewd business man, decided to get me a title. His spies told him that Hedley was in debt. Hedley agreed to the marriage, and a good few of those dreadful women who had snubbed me had to watch me take precedence. I did not enjoy the intimate side of marriage and told him to take his pleasures elsewhere, provided he was discreet.
“I believe he went to brothels. But when he contracted syphilis, he began to become foolish. Someone has to look after him,” she ended with a sigh. She picked up her needle again.
Rose stared at her. Could it be possible? she wondered. Could the inoffensive-looking Lady Hedley be the strong one in the marriage? If that was the case, then…
She took a chance. “It was you,” Rose said. “It was you who murdered Mary Gore-Desmond and killed Colette and tried to kill me.”
“But you see, you have no proof and no one will believe you.” Lady Hedley continued to stitch at the tapestry just as if Rose had been talking about the weather.
“I will find proof,” said Rose.
“But you are leaving tomorrow morning.”
“How did you manage to come and go without anyone seeing you?” demanded Rose. “How did you manage to put a drug in the constable’s drink? The voice John heard came from below him. So how could you pass him to get at the tea?”
“Simple. The back stairs for the servants are narrow and steep. One of our servants fell down and broke his neck and so after that they were instructed to use the main staircase except when carrying down the slops. I called John, ran up the back stairs and out where he had left the tray. Matter of minutes. I am very resourceful, you know.
“Colette was the worst. Silly woman. She tried to blackmail me. She had seen me on the back stairs the night Mary was poisoned. I told her I would pay her in diamonds but she was to pack her suitcase and meet me outside. I told her I would meet her at the back of the castle because I did not want anyone to see the transaction and the silly fool believed me. So we were standing by the moat and I simply pushed her in. Fortunately she could not swim, although I was fearful the splashing and noise she was making before she drowned would wake someone. The supposed box of diamonds was simply a box with two bricks in it. I put the bricks in her suitcase and threw it in the moat.
“Hedley knew nothing about it. He’s a child. He’d ordered so much arsenic from some quack in London, he didn’t even know some was missing.”
Rose got to her feet. “You are a monster,” she said. “I am going straight to Kerridge.”
The marchioness ferreted in her work-basket and produced a revolver which she pointed at Rose.
“Sit down,” she said. “You are not going anywhere until I decide what to do with you.”
Rose stayed standing. The light from the fire shone red on the barrel of the wicked-looking revolver.
Her knees were shaking, but she said, “I am going to walk out of here and you are not going to stop me. You cannot shoot me.”
The marchioness rose as well and walked around the tapestry stand to face Rose. “I can shoot you and put the gun in your hand and say you committed suicide. Everyone will believe me because you are regarded as odd.”
The door swung open and Daisy darted into the room and flung herself in front of Rose just as Lady Hedley fired.
The bullet hit Daisy in the side. But Daisy had inherited Rose’s steel-boned corsets and the bullet ricocheted off one of the steels, pinged off a bronze bust of Lord Hedley, and planted itself in the marchioness’s forehead.
Becket was shouting, “Police!” at the top of his voice.
Footmen and police came bounding up the stairs. The marchioness was lying on the rug by the fire, a hole in her forehead and her brains spilling out the back of her head over the rug.