Maud slammed her open hand down on the desk top. The sound was startlingly loud, echoing away to the corners of the murky room. “Shut up, Eric! Try to understand what I’m telling you. The child has changed before our eyes. She’s strong, so strong I’m afraid to touch her. She must know everything! She told me she isn’t frightened about what will happen to her tonight. She insists she has no reason to be. For God’s sake, don’t you understand what that means?”
“I’ll tell you what it means. It means she’s a fool and you’re a bigger fool.”
Eric signed his name to the bottom of the letter Maud had written to Jessica. Folding it into a neat square, he printed Jessica’s name on it in block capitals. Tucking it into his shirt pocket, he unlocked the gun cabinet with a key he had commandeered from old Flynn, and chose a small calibre Belgian handgun with silver filigree and inlaid ivory handgrips. Opening a drawer inside the cabinet, he selected a clip of appropriate ammunition and inserted it into the butt of the gun.
“Eric, please. Let’s clear out now...”
“You’re more than a fool, Maud. You’re gutless.”
“We still have time—”
Eric closed the door of the gun cabinet and locked it. When he turned the automatic in his hand, he swung it around to point it at a spot just above the third button of her light gray jacket. She looked uneasily at the gun barrel and then put a hand to her throat.
“Eric, please...” Her voice was almost lost in a sudden break of thunder. “Just listen to me.”
“No, goddamn it, you listen to me, Maud! This is my chance, the only one I’ve ever had and nothing’s going to stop me now. With you or without you, I’m going for it. You’ve let that little bitch upstairs talk you into a galloping case of nerves. She’s in her bedroom, trussed up like the Christmas goose, can’t move hand or foot. Our job now is to jam her into boots and riding clothes, lead her and her horse up the hills to the cliff.”
Eric turned the gun away from Maud, glanced at the play of candlelight along the barrel. “Imagine how Windkin will take off when I fire a few rounds from this beauty around its hooves.”
They stared at one another through the flaring candlelight and then Eric said matter-of-factly, “Well, luv. What’s it going to be? In or out? Play the cards I’ve dealt and we’ll be home free in a suite in London tomorrow morning, on the phone to room service for a hot breakfast and then off to see a Harley Street specialist.”
Maud nodded slowly. In a weary voice she said, “I’ll help you, Eric, but for God’s sake, let’s get it over with.”
She turned quickly then, holding the candlestick and glowing taper above her head. Eric followed her from the study into the library which was full of erratic shadows, some sent leaping by draft-stirred candles, others from the lightning that flashed through the heavy trees.
Eric pressed the sides of Jessica’s note, crimping them so that the letter would stand upright like a small tent. When they went through the arches of the library into the great hall, Eric strode to the table beside the main entrance, placing the letter prominently on the silver tray set out for calling cards.
Standing in the gloom beyond the circle of Maud’s candle, Eric wondered who would be the first to see the letter — the Constable perhaps, or the Bostwick woman, or Mr. Ryan; and who would put through the distressful telephone call to the child’s uncle and aunt at the Cumberland Hotel...
The house was fittingly silent at the moment, Eric thought, the stillness marred only by the sounds of the storm and the tapping of Maud’s high heels across the parquet floor.
As Eric turned, his mood poignant and reflective, Maud began screaming, the sounds beating like frantic flails against the carved walls and ceilings.
Eric wheeled around and saw Jessica Mallory standing motionless on the top landing of the great stairs, her face pale above her twill jacket, her dark hair brushed back, and the silken tips falling to her shoulders. There was a calm but almost hypnotic expression on her face. Her eyes were luminous and foreboding. The spectral concentration in her manner, a blend of energy and resignation to her visions, caused Eric’s breath to become suddenly ragged.
He braced himself but took an involuntary step backwards as Jessica started down the long stairs, placing each foot down neatly and precisely, as formally as a young lady descending to join her partner at a hunt ball.
With an effort, he cried out, “Talk now, Maud, and talk plain and fast. What are you and this little bitch up to?”
“God, don’t blame me, Eric. I didn’t free her!”
“Stop lying to me! Or you’ll take the same goddamn ride she’s heading for!”
Jessica continued down the stairs, stopping on the last step of the staircase, her eyes almost level with theirs.
“No, I’m not going riding tonight, Uncle Eric. I’m leaving you now. They’re waiting for me,” she said.
Eric smiled at her but there was no humor in his eyes or on his lips. His expression was ugly and bitter, the menace emphasized by the false smile. “Do you honestly think, Miss Crystal, that I’m going to step aside and let you walk out of here?”
“I’m not concerned or worried about anything you can say or do, Uncle Eric.”
“I told you! I told you, Eric!”
“Damn it, Maud, shut up now.” Eric said. With the unpleasant smile flaring like a rictus on his face, he took the small automatic from his pocket and said to Jessica, “Just focus your attention on this gun then.”
To his dismay, Eric heard a new and tentative tone in his voice, the gun gave him no sense of assurance, no familiar swell of authority or power. It would be different, he knew, if there was fear in those eyes, if she were begging and pleading with him to spare her life — but no, she had stepped down to the parquet floor and was walking without haste to the double doors as if she were not even aware of the steel threat in his hands, the muzzle pointed squarely at her slim spine.
“Stop, Jessica.”
She turned her back on them and pulled open the double doors that opened on the terraces and park of the estate. A gusting wind blew her hair out behind her and caused Maud’s candle to gutter and smoke, creating grotesque shadows on the walls and ceilings and up the empty, shining staircase.
“But I can damned well stop you!” Eric said, and trained the gun squarely and inexorably on her slender figure.
“No, Eric! Don’t!” Maud’s voice was a hoarse cry and the light from her candle glinted on the desperate tension in her eyes. With her free hand, she pointed insistently through the huge open doors.
Flashes of light streaked the darkness, yellow lances boring into the curtaining rain. “It’s too late, Eric!” she cried as the first cars of a small convoy turned off the Ballytone road into the driveway of Easter Hill.
Jessica started down the broad steps to the lower terraces, and Eric, features working emotionally, steadied his hands, slowly increasing the pressure on the trigger.
Maud shouted at him again, a wordless cry of anger, and threw the heavy candlestick and flaming taper into his face.
The brass base struck his shoulder and jarred him off balance, and his two shots, shatteringly loud in the confines of the hall, went through the open doors and spent themselves harmlessly in the crowns of distant trees.
The burning candle had struck Eric’s cheek. Arms flailing, he fell sprawling to the floor, the gun clattering from his hands. Scrambling to his feet, he reached for the automatic, his thoughts chaotic with panic and rage, unable to absorb the shocking fact that he’d lost, that he would never stand with cheering crowds and watch his horses charging on to victory. No winners’ circle, no smiling bank tellers, no silver trophies for Eric Boniface Mallory — not now or ever...