My D.M.W.
Your D.S.C.L.
And the last one:
D.M.W.,
Have been frantically waiting to hear. What went wrong? Your mixture was not strong enough. Of course I know you had to avoid suspicion. Near to death ... that's not good enough, is it? And S.C. quitting this life in that melodramatic way. A pity we had to use him. Still, you're right. We must not attempt it again for a long time. Yes, I agree ... a year say. Then he can develop the same illness. That sounds very plausible. Who would have thought S.C. would have been such a fool? Let's hope he hasn't talked. That sort do sometimes. They make confessions. I wish we could have got the stuff without him. Too awkward though ... buying it ... or getting it through another source. We had covered our tracks well and then that fool calls attention to himself by that!
Now take heed, D.M.W. I like your plan. You're going away somewhere. You're going to look for your father, having discovered his whereabouts. That's fine. You shouldn't be there when it happens again. Fair enough. But I can't lose you all that time. I'll come out with you and then back ... and in a year's time we'll have the whole thing settled. We have to be patient. We have to think of what the reward will be ... you and I where we belong together.
It's really foolish to set all this down on paper, but I am foolish where you're concerned ... as you are with me. We've fooled them all with our battles. We'll go on fooling them. You'll hear when it's done and then you'll come home and you and I will find that our antipathy was a mistake. We loved each other all the time. Wedding bells and the castle ours. Mateland forever.
Burn this as you have the rest. Do you realize that this letter could condemn us? But so do I trust you. In any case we are in this together.
I'll be at the castle very soon now and you will be making your plans to leave. Be very loving to Esmond. But get away. The Cs may be awkward.
With you soon,
Your D.S.C.L.
I was shattered. Those letters betrayed so much. Esmond had been murdered. He was the victim of Susannah and her lover.
Susannah had attempted to kill him and her lover had succeeded in doing so, thus making Susannah mistress of the castle. Susannah had seduced Saul Cringle and he had provided her with the poison from which Esmond had died—presumably arsenic since there had been mention of a cosmetic. And she had been careless enough to leave these letters—incriminating as they were—in the secret drawer in her bureau, in spite of her lover's urgent injunction to destroy them. So I had found them. How careless she had been. But perhaps she had had some ulterior motive in preserving the letters.
I was trying to hold off the overwhelming fact that had come out of all this. I did not want to examine it. I dared not.
I thought of being shut in the barn and seeing that horrible thing dangling from the rafters. One thing was obvious. The Cringles knew that Susannah had been involved with Saul and, believing me to be Susannah, had confronted me with that horror.
It was an explosive situation.
But staring me in the face was the fear which I could no longer evade. One sentence kept dancing before my eyes. "Remember I'm of the same blood... ."
There was only one person who could have written that. Malcolm!
So he must know that I was an impostor. He must, for his letters revealed how close he had been to Susannah. He could not have mistaken me for her. Besides, considering their relationship, it was quite clear that he knew I was masquerading as her. Then why did he not expose me? If he did, the castle would be his. Why did he let me go on with the pretense? What did it mean? What had I walked into? I was a cheat, I knew. I was posing as another woman. But Malcolm, the man with whom I had fallen in love, was a murderer.
I could see no other possibility.
Malcolm was Susannah's devoted slave and constant lover. He was playing some game. What?
I felt sick with fear.
He must know that Susannah was dead, and he was a murderer. He was a clever actor. He must be to be able to delude me as he did. He cared for the castle. Of course it was for the castle he had done what he had.
And yet why did he not claim it now?
With Susannah dead, he could inherit. Why had he not exposed me?
Thoughts chased themselves round and round in my head. I did not sleep at all that night. I just lay there tossing and turning, waiting for the dawn.
I was filled with fear. I knew that some terrible climax was about to break.
I saw no one at breakfast. I went out to the woods. I could not face Malcolm. It seemed to me that he, no less than I, had been wearing a mask. When that strong and pleasant face was removed, what was beneath it? Something cold and cunning, shrewd, cruel, sensual and murderous.
I could not bear it. I had been so utterly deceived. I wanted to stop thinking of him, and yet I could not. I had already allowed my feelings to become too much involved. Moreover, I was not merely a girl who had put her trust in a man—a cynical man, capable of the vilest deeds—I was one who was herself tainted by dishonesty.
What a fool I had been! What a tangled web I had woven, and I was at the center of this mystery, intrigue and murder.
I must make things appear normal.
I returned to the castle for luncheon. Malcolm, I was thankful to see, was not there. He had left word to say that he was lunching with Jeff Carleton.
Emerald and I lunched alone.
I listened to an account of her sleepless night and her inability to rest her back. Then I heard her saying: "I've written to Garth to tell him you're here. It's such a long time since he's been. He probably feels disinclined to come here now that his mother has gone."
After luncheon I went out again. I went into the woods and lay there, looking at the castle and thinking again of that magic day of my childhood. I suppose that was when it all started.
But how different I was now from that young and innocent child!
When I went back to the house Janet was in my room putting some things she had washed away in a drawer.
"My goodness," she said. "You look as if you've lost a sovereign and found a penny piece."
"I'm all right," I replied. "I'm a bit tired. I didn't sleep well last night."
She studied me in that way which I deeply resented.
"I'd say you didn't! Anything wrong, Miss Susannah?"
"No," I said blithely. "Nothing at all."
She nodded and went on putting the things away.
I heard the arrival of a rider in the distance. I went to my window and saw Malcolm. He pulled up his horse and paused for a moment looking at the castle. I could imagine the satisfaction on his face. He loved the castle as Susannah had, and as I was beginning to. It was haunted, this castle, haunted by the people who had lived in it—mainly the family of Mateland to which Malcolm, Susannah and I all belonged.
We loved the castle for a hundred reasons, not only because it had been the family home for generations but because of the spell it cast on us so that we would lie and cheat for possession of it—and some of us would do murder.
I did not go down to dinner. I pleaded a headache. I could not face Malcolm ... yet.
Janet brought up my supper on a tray.
"I don't want anything," I told her.
"Come on," she retorted as though I were two years old. "Whatever the trouble, it's best not to face it on an empty stomach."
She was watching me anxiously. Sometimes I thought Janet really cared about me.
The night brought me no comfort.
When finally I reached what should have been blessed oblivion I was haunted by dreams of terror in which Esmond, Malcolm, Susannah and myself were involved.
In the morning I got up early and went down and tried to eat a little breakfast. While I toyed with the food, Chaston came in to tell me that Jack Chivers had come to see me. He was waiting outside and seemed very upset.