Symptoms of Death (Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Book 1) (22 page)

“Yes, of course. I thought it best to make certain the crime scene was not corrupted,” Nicholas answered.

“As one would expect of a barrister,” the judge said.

Prosecutor Crudgington nodded slightly, and then, with his back to Nicholas said, “You may step down.”

Nicholas made no move to leave the witness box. Instead, he spoke to Crudgington
’s back. “Excuse me, sir, but I believe it may be of some interest to you to know that George Stirling is not dead.”

Crudgington turned around as quickly as a man of his girth could turn. “It is for me to decide what is of interest to me. You may step down, Mr. Forsythe.”

“George Stirling?” The judge wore a puzzled frown.

“The person the defendant referred to as Georgie,
my lord,” Nicholas said. “And I believe Elsie knew he was alive by the time Earl Dunsford was killed, so she had no motive to kill him.”

Crudgington
’s face turned red with rage. “Mr. Forsythe, you should know that kind of ridiculous speculation is of no value to—”

The judge interrupted, while at the same time holding up his hand up to silence Crudgington. “Why, Mr. Forsythe
, do you believe this man George Stirling to be alive?”

“Because
my lord, I have spoken with him myself.”

“Mr. Forsythe,” Crudgington said, all but shouting, “whether or not you imagine yourself to have spoken with this person has no bearing on this case.”

The judge turned a gaze, hot with anger, on the prosecutor. “Mr. Crudgington, sit down. And you will refrain from interrupting me.” While Crudgington moved away, the judge turned back to Nicholas. “I assume your conversation with this George Stirling does have some bearing on the case. Otherwise, you would not have mentioned it. Now, pray tell, what did he say that you think is of importance.”

“He said, first of all,
my lord, that he was severely strangled and then left for dead by the same person who killed Lord Dunsford.”

There was an excited murmur in the courtroom, and the judge pounded his gavel for silence. “Go on, Mr. Forsythe. Did Mr. Stirling know this person?”

“He did, indeed, sir.”

“And he revealed his name to you?”

“I’m afraid not, but—”

Crudgington threw up his hands. “Of course not
. You are wasting my time and the court’s time, Mr. Forsythe, now if you will kindly step—”

“But he led me to believe the killer was at Montmarsh,” Nicholas said. “And I believe he plans to kill him for putting the blame on Elsie.”

An even louder excited murmur issued from the crowd and brought the judge’s gavel down several times. When the room was finally quiet, the judge spoke again. “Mr. Forsythe, you say he led you to believe. You, of all people, should know that kind of speculation is not admissible. Did he or did he not say the killer is at Montmarsh?”

Nicholas wore a troubled look. “My Lord, I am only trying to point out that there is reason to doubt the guilt of—”

“Mr. Forsythe,” the judge interrupted again, “unless you can produce this George Stirling, it will be very difficult for me to give much consideration to what you allege he has told you. Can you find him and bring him here to testify?”

“I
’m afraid not.” Nicholas appeared quite nervous now, a fact which seemed to cheer Mr. Crudgington.

“And why not?” The judge sounded unquestionably annoyed.

“He has disappeared,” Nicholas answered. “And all my attempts to find him have been in vain.”

The judge was silent for a moment, apparently contemplating all that Nicholas had said. Finally he spoke. “Constable Snow, you will make every attempt to locate one George Stirling. Mr. Forsythe, you will cooperate with the constable and tell him everything you know about where and when you last saw Mr. Stirling.” He turned then to the prosecutor. “Mr. Crudgington, who is your next witness?”

“Dr. Alexandra Gladstone, sir.”

The judge hit the desk with his gavel again. “There will be a brief recess before Dr. Gladstone is called.”

The murmur of voices resumed after the judge left the courtroom, and Nancy turned to Alexandra to speak to her. “You must be careful, Miss. Don’t say anything to get that poor girl hanged.”

Alexandra hardly heard her. She was still reliving the scene of Lord Dunsford dead on his bed. She was only vaguely aware of Nicholas at the front of the courtroom, surrounded by people, and of his glances at her as if he wished to speak to her.

Nancy touched her arm. “Miss Alex, are you all right?”

Alexandra stood up suddenly. “I must leave,
Nancy.” She tried to push her way through the crowd, but Nancy caught her hand.

“But, Miss. You have to testify in five minutes. You must wait.”

“No!” Alexandra pulled her hand away from Nancy’s. “I know who the murderer is, and I’m afraid George is about to be the next victim.”

Chapter
Eighteen

Alexandra found it difficult to get through the crowd. Her role as next witness made her something of a celebrity. Everyone wanted to talk to her.

“That dirty little scullery maid killed the earl, didn’t she?”

“What can you say to prove
’er innocent?”

“Is that Forsythe dandy lying, Miss, or is
’e crazy?”

“Who killed the poor bloke? Was it
Stirling?”

“I
’m sorry,” Alexandra said, pushing her way through. “I’ve been admonished not to talk about the case. Please excuse me. I must get through.” As she tried to make her way past the crowd, she looked for the person she knew to be the murderer, but to no avail. She knew the killer must be looking for George now that Nicholas had testified he’d seen him at Montmarsh. She knew she had to find George first if she was to save his life.

By the time she finally reached the door, the five minute recess had ended, and she heard the bailiff asking for quiet. Everyone turned away from her, leaving her in the hallway as they returned to their seats.

The court would be called to order soon, and she would be called to testify, but she could not stop. As soon as she was on the street she saw that it was empty of both pedestrians and carriages. She hoped that meant she had gotten out ahead of the killer and could get to George first.

She reasoned that because of Nicholas
’s testimony, the killer would go to Montmarsh to look for George, and, in spite of the fact that her repeated searches for him had yielded nothing, she still thought George was most likely there. He had said he thought that would be the safest place for him once the killer was out of the way. He was not right, of course, but George’s intelligence was lacking. Also he was obviously afraid of trying it on his own in some unknown place.

She found Lucy where she had left her outside the tavern and rode as fast as she dared
, without tiring her too much, all the way to Montmarsh.

When she arrived, she saw a carriage waiting in front without a driver. That must mean the killer had left the tavern ahead of her. She rode to the back of the house and slid off of Lucy and left her to graze untied and unfettered. She hurried to the back door, hoping it was still open. She hoped, too, that the patch of wild grass just outside of Montmarsh
’s manicured lawns would keep Lucy from straying too far.

Her heart was pounding and her breathing still coming in gasps as she reached the door. It was, indeed, still open, and she took a cautious step inside and then another and another, trying not to make a sound, not knowing whether to call out to George or to call out the murderer
’s name as a way to alert George that he was in danger.

She stopped suddenly and caught in her breath as someone moved out of the shadows and stood in front of her.

“Dr. Gladstone?” Isabel laughed. “I never expected it to be you.”

“Shhh!” Alexandra placed a finger to her lips. “What are you doing here?” She spoke in an urgent whisper.

“I followed Jerry.” Isabel spoke none too quietly. “I’ve long suspected he had a mistress. But you of all people? I knew if I followed him and caught the two of you, he could no longer threaten to divorce me for my own little indiscretions, and—”

She was interrupted by a scream, throbbing with terror. It seemed to be coming from beneath them. From the cellar
. It was followed by the sound of a struggle and the muffled sound of groaning. Alexandra turned away from Isabel, ran out the door and toward the cellar. She had just reached the bottom step when she saw Jeremy Atewater emerge from the shadows, his left arm covered with blood and blood oozing from between the fingers of his right hand where he held his wounded arm. He stopped when he saw her.

“So it
’s you,” he said, echoing his wife’s words.

“Where
’s George?” She knew the answer almost as soon as she’d said the words. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she saw him sprawled, lifeless, in a pool of blood on the cellar floor. His own knife was clutched in his hand with the blade lying across his sliced and bleeding neck.

“You knew, didn
’t you?” Atewater continued to move toward her as he spoke, and she instinctively backed up the stairs, then turned and ran. She saw Isabel standing at the top of the cellar stairs, wide-eyed and frightened.

“Jerry! What does this mean
? How could you…?” Isabel never finished her sentence, instead she screamed and tried to run away, but she stumbled on the train of her skirt and fell directly in front of Alexandra. There was no time to avoid her, and Alexandra tripped on Isabel’s prone body, falling to the ground.

Alexandra scrambled to stand, but she felt Atewater
’s blood-dampened hand grab her arm and pull her to her feet. In the same instant she glanced down and saw that Isabel was unconscious. She’d hit her head on the short stone wall that lined the path to the stables.

Atewater twisted her arm behind her, forcing her back against him. She could feel the blood from his wounded left arm soaking into her dress. “I should have killed you myself when that idiot I hired bungled the job that night at your stables.” He tightened his grip. “But I found that I
’d rather come to like you, and I kept hoping that maybe you didn’t know the truth after all.” He placed his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “Ah what fools you ladies turn us into, just with your winning ways. Now I shall have to do what I should have done long ago.”

“If you
’ve severed an artery in your arm, you’ll die first,” Alexandra said.

Atewater laughed. “It will do you no good to try to frighten me,
Doctor. The wound is superficial. George is no better with a knife than the idiot from the waterfront I hired to kill you.”

In the next second he had something around her throat, pulling it tight, sending daggers of pain to her head and shoulders as it pressed into the wound she
’d sustained a few days before. He let go of the arm he had twisted behind her back and used both hands to tighten the cord.

Instinctively, she grasped at the
cord, trying to loosen it, realizing as it pulled even tighter, that she should attack him in some way to get him to drop the cord. His eyes, or his injured arm. But she could not think how to do it as the world around her grew darker and darker and her breath, trapped in her throat, could not get to her lungs. Her lungs were on fire, and the old wound at her throat sent a roaring tide of pain throughout her body. When her eyes started to ache, she knew they were beginning to bulge, just as Lord Dunsford’s had.

A
ghastly choking sound. Coming from her own throat.

Suddenly there was another sound, deep, loud, closer, filling her first with terror and then with relief just as some enormous form sent her and Atewater staggering backward, crashing to the ground.

“After him, Zack. Don’t let him go.” It was Nancy’s voice calling to the dog. Atewater, in the meantime, was screaming in terror as Zack clamped his enormous jaws onto his wounded arm.

Alexandra, still dazed, called out to Zack to stop just as two more forms moved past her and, when Zack backed away, pulled Atewater to his feet. It took a moment for her to realize that it was Nicholas and Constable Snow.

Much later, when she was propped up in her bed with half a dozen pillows and Zack curled into an enormous ball on the floor beside her, she saw Nicholas again. He, along with Lord Winningham, Isabel Atewater, and Constable Snow, w
ere standing at the foot of her bed. Nancy was hovering over her with a steaming cup of tea. She realized she must have blacked out, just as George had when he had been left for dead.

Remembering George, she sat up suddenly. “Someone has to see to George I think he may be—” Her voice was hoarse.

“Now, now, Miss, you mustn’t fret. Here, drink this.” Nancy thrust the tea cup toward her.

“But—”

“It’s been taken care of, Dr. Gladstone,” Constable Snow said.

Alexandra was still agitated. “It was Atewater. He killed Lord Dunsford, but I don
’t know why he—”

“Please don
’t trouble yourself.” Snow’s voice was low, almost soothing. “We got a full confession from Mr. Atewater.”

“But how did you all get here…” Alexandra felt disoriented and had to fight a feeling of anxiety.

“You can thank Nancy for that,” Nicholas said. “When you failed to appear as a witness, it was she who told us where she thought you’d gone and why. We all got to Montmarsh as quickly as we could. Nancy insisted on stopping here first to pick up Zack. Rather fortunate that she did, I should say.”

“And George, you must tell me whether he—”

“George is dead.” Nicholas’s voice was quiet. She had suspected it all along, of course, but she needed confirmation, and she was grateful that Nicholas knew how wrong it would be to keep it from her. “Atewater didn’t fail the second time,” he said. “But young George put up a good fight. He wounded Atewater.”

“Atewater was the one who was using those boys. Getting them to steal for him.” Alexandra looked at Nicholas again for confirmation to what she had just said, but it was Isabel who responded.

“The bastard. He never told me how desperate he was. He had to turn to stealing because the bank was failing. Now we’re both disgraced.”

Lord Winningham patted her arm and murmured, “Now, now.”

“And George was a part of his ring of thieves,” Alexandra said.

Nicholas shook his head. “Not exactly. George had taken part in some of the petty thievery with Quince and the boys, but he was never in on the big heists. Atewater didn
’t think he was smart enough.”

“But why would Atewater kill Lord Dunsford and George? Was
the earl involved somehow with the robberies?”

“No, Eddie wasn
’t a part of that nasty business,” Nicholas said. “You could say it was Eddie’s nasty personality and George’s ego that got them killed, each in his turn. You see, when George got left out of the big jobs, he thought he could get even with Atewater by telling Lord Dunsford what was going on. He thought the earl would go to the police. But Eddie, true to form, didn’t bother with the police. Instead he set out to blackmail Atewater.”

“Oh, and of course Jeremy wouldn
’t stand for that,” Isabel said.

“You
’re quite right,” Nicholas said. “He went after George first out of revenge and thought he had killed him. Eddie thought so as well, and it frightened him. You may have noticed how nervous he was at his dinner party when he’d only just heard of George’s supposed death. He knew Atewater would be after him, as well.”

“Then why was he so foolish as to leave his door unlocked to allow Atewater to get into his room that night?” Alexandra asked.

There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Nicholas cleared his throat. “Eddie did lock his room, of course.” Another awkward silence.

“Oh for heaven
’s sake,” Isabel said. “You may as well know the truth. Everyone else does. Jeremy used my key to get into Eddie’s room. Yes, I had a key.”

“I say, quite enough of this,” Lord Winningham said, patting Isabel
’s arm.

“Did Atewater tell you all of this?” Alexandra asked.

“He did,” Constable Snow said. “I find it interesting how men will confess everything when they’re in a tight spot. Survival instinct, I suppose.” He studied Alexandra’s face for a moment, a finger placed to his pursed lips. “I suspect you had already figured out much of this. But I can’t quite see why you put yourself in contempt of court by fleeing to Montmarsh to confront Mr. Atewater when you were supposed to be in the witness box.”

“I
’m afraid I shall disappoint you, Constable, when I confess that I didn’t know all of the details. I only knew that Jeremy Atewater was the killer, and that I wanted to keep him from harming George.”

“I
’m not at all disappointed, Dr. Gladstone. Merely curious as to how you knew about Mr. Atewater.”

“We all are,” Isabel said. “Even I didn
’t know it was Jeremy. How did you possibly know?”

Alexandra put her teacup aside. “It was Lord Dunsford
’s red silk nightshirt.”

“What?” Isabel said, as everyone else murmured their surprise.

“It was while I was listening to Nicholas describe the murder scene to the prosecutor that I began to visualize the scene and the earl in his red silk nightshirt. Then I remembered that Atewater had mentioned the nightshirt once, commenting on how foolish the earl was to wear it. But no one had been in that room to see what he was wearing except Nicholas and me and the constable. Even when the earl’s body was removed from the house, he was covered with a sheet.”

Alexandra glanced at Isabel. “I think you may have seen
the earl in his nightshirt, Mrs. Atewater, because I know you were lurking outside his room, but I suspect it was only out of curiosity. And, in spite of the fact that you are a relatively strong, athletic woman, I did finally come to believe that you were not, in fact, strong enough to overcome a man the size of Lord Dunsford.”