“Seeing things? Seeing you, you mean, seeing you creep around,” Theodore said.
“She wasn’t right for the castle.”
“Don’t speak of her in the past tense.”
“She isn’t dead?”
Theodore wanted to strike the cad. “By Heavens, no! She is recovering.”
Brodie’s expression now was of pure hatred. Theodore stopped asking him about his feelings towards Felicia. They were written on his face, and such strong emotion could have no rational explanation. It consumed Brodie and would have become an evil thing over the months and years. Any explanation he gave now, in hindsight, would be a poor attempt to justify the unjustifiable. There was nothing to be gained from letting him speak further on the matter. But one thing was puzzling him. He said, “You wrote to Percy before the first murder, didn’t you?”
Oscar shook his head.
“You did. I have seen the letter; he showed it to me on his return. It was in a dark-coloured envelope, the same as you used after the murder. You wrote anonymously to warn him of Felicia’s illness, didn’t you?”
Oscar sighed. But Theodore knew he was correct, and decided to drop the matter.
Rhodes jumped into the silence that Theodore left. “So why did you kill Buckshaw’s valet, what?”
Brodie stopped swaying and hung his head. He did not reply.
“He is ashamed of it,” Doctor Netherfield said, still making notes. “He had no hesitation in speaking of what he did to Knight nor confessing, in his own way, to the poisoning of Lady Buckshaw. But this must have been an accident. You did not mean to kill the valet, did you? As we thought all along – the main target was indeed Lord Buckshaw himself.”
“But why?” Theodore said.
“He’s mad, that’s why,” Rhodes announced.
“It is a little more complex in nature,” Netherfield said. “But essentially that’s it.”
“No,” muttered Brodie. “He betrayed me and I ... don’t know anymore.”
That was all they could get out of him for the remainder of the short journey.
THE ENTOURAGE OF POLICE coaches and carriages went straight to the main police station house in Plymouth where Brodie was dragged out, still half-strapped to the stretcher. Doctor Netherfield accompanied him, and Inspector Wilbred left too. Theodore continued on with his friend Rhodes and they were driven back to Rhodes’s own house.
Felicia was sitting at the window in the upstairs room, playing a round of cards with the matron assigned to her care. She jumped to her feet when she saw Theodore.
“Papa!” She started towards him then stopped, unsure of what was happening. Her nervous glance darted between Theodore and Rhodes.
“Don’t be daft,” Rhodes said brusquely. “You’re free, so get yourself gone. Let me have my house to myself again, what!”
“Free?”
Theodore held out his hands. “Come home, my dear girl. Come home.”
THEODORE’S HEART WAS bursting with joy and relief. They engaged a cab to drive them back to Tavy Castle immediately. Rhodes had offered Theodore all manner of refreshments but Theodore could not wait and Felicia was keen to get back to her home. Clearly she was feeling better, as he had half-expected her to revert to her previous hysteria and loathing for the castle. They bundled back into a carriage and as they rumbled back on the well-worn road, Theodore told her everything.
At first he tried to keep things light and spare his daughter the worst details. What would it profit her, he asked himself, to know that someone hated her so much that they tried to kill her – and not outright, but by slow and steady degrees, causing as much pain and distress as possible? It made Theodore sick to even think of it.
But as he spoke, his bright-eyed daughter asked him probing questions. Her sense had returned to her. She admitted she still felt weak, and her limbs tingled at the extremities, and her throat was sore, but in spite of all that, her mind was clearing. “It is like the sun coming out at the end of a dismal grey day,” she told him. “And I thank the Lord that this all had an outside cause. I truly feared I was losing my mind. And my soul.”
So Theodore revealed everything that he knew and she nodded along. “I cannot remember much of the past few months,” she said. “Even the year has blurry patches. I tried to befriend Oscar in the early days, you know. He resisted my attentions. Still, I persisted, for Percy’s sake.” She shook her head sadly. “I can see now that every overture of friendship that I made towards him would have made him feel even more antipathy for me.”
“What about Lady Katharine?” Theodore asked. “I am now rather worried about her. Do you believe that she had absolutely no idea about her son’s true nature?”
Felicia’s eyes widened as she considered the question. “Goodness, papa, that is a difficult thing to answer. Perhaps you know better than I do. Can a parent truly see their own child as a stranger does? Does not paternal or maternal love cloud one’s judgment?”
Theodore found himself shifting uncomfortably on the seat and it wasn’t due to the potholes in the road. He had believed his own daughter to be mad at one point, and though he liked to think he had never really considered that she could have been a murderess – yet he had, hadn’t he? He’d not blamed her, not at all ... but he had started to accept she might have done it in her insanity.
He had not seen her truly.
“Love and one’s own nature clouds many issues,” he admitted at last. “Lady Katharine has suffered many problems in her life and that seems to have affected how she has been able to live her life. Doctor Netherfield will have more ideas on this topic, I am sure.”
“But is she blameless?” Felicia asked.
“I think so. I hope so. Certainly she was
