Lost Among the Living(93)

Please don’t follow us. I am in the very best hands. I know we’ve cheated you of a grand wedding, but I think when your temper cools and your unassailable logic returns, you’ll see this is for the best. Cora is my wife, her children will be your grandchildren, and if God and the doctors of London will it, I will be your son for a while longer.

This is all your doing, Mother. Thank you.

Martin

Alex gave a low whistle as he stood next to me, reading over my shoulder. “That’s a shock,” he said. “Aunt Dottie must be livid.”

She would be, I knew. She would also be hurt, though it would come out as her usual brisk anger. “She followed him,” I said. “That’s why the house is so quiet, and that’s why the motorcar is gone. She followed him to London.”

“The house is too quiet,” Alex said. “Where are the servants?”

“I dismissed them.”

We turned. Robert Forsyth stood at the entrance to the library, watching us. He was dressed in an expensive suit of thick wool, as cleanly put together as ever, his hair combed back, a smirk on his face. He walked toward us, his hands in his pockets.

“Why?” Alex asked him.

“Because I don’t want them here,” Robert said. “Because I don’t want anyone here. Once Martin left and my wife took off after him like a bloodhound, I saw my chance. I was always good at that.”

Alex turned to him. My hands went cold. “Your chance at what, Uncle?” Alex asked.

Robert gave him a curious look. “My chance to get rid of both of you,” he said, and pulled his hand from his pocket. I had time to see that he held a pistol before he pulled the trigger and shot Alex once in the chest, the sound deafening in the still air of the library, except for the echoing sounds of my screams as my husband fell.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE



A hand gripped the hair at the back of my head, knocking my hat off, jerking me backward so I almost overbalanced. “Shut up and stop screaming,” Robert said in my ear.

I stared at the ceiling as he bent my head back, the sound choking in my throat. From the floor at my feet came a sound, a hideous liquid gurgle.

“Do you hear that?” Robert said to me. “No, don’t look. That’s the sound of the life bleeding out of my dear nephew, your husband. The fine fellow who has tried twice now to ruin everything I’ve done.” His grip in my hair squeezed. “And you know all about it, don’t you? What a sight he is now, my dear. We’ll have to move before the blood soaking into the carpet gets on our shoes.”

“Please,” I begged.

“Please,” he mimicked. “I can’t look at him anymore, but I’m not quite done with you yet. Come with me.”

“A doctor,” I begged him as he dragged me from the room, his hand still gripping my hair, his other holding the gun with his arm around my waist. “Just call a doctor—please—I won’t tell—” There was a gasping sound from behind us as we left the library, softer now, and I felt the scream in my throat. “Alex!”

Robert threw me forcefully to the ground. I hit the floor of the corridor, my knee cracking, and screamed again. He swung one leather-clad foot and kicked me hard in the ribs, then stood over me, the pistol dangling at his side. His face was mottled red, his slicked-back hair mussed, his gaze angry as he stared down at me.

“You have no idea,” he said, “what I’ve had to suffer.”

Pain throbbed in my knee, but I pushed myself along the polished wood of the corridor, away from him. I had to think of something—had to do something. The telephone was in the library, where Alex was, but Robert would never let me use it. “Why?” I asked him, my voice raw, buying time. “Why did you take the sketches?”

“Why do you think?” Robert said. He took a casual step forward, following me as I tried to move away from him. “Money. You of all people should understand that. I am so very tired of living off my termagant wife. Of letting her control me.” He took another step, and the pistol swung by his side. Behind him, I heard no more sound from the library, and I choked back a sob. “Franny, my sweet girl, liked to sketch. I found her book one day with the drawings of the military base. The navy was using it during the war. The drawings were very detailed, and it was all perfectly innocent. She was oblivious. I had some connections through friends of mine, and I made inquiries. It seemed my daughter’s pictures might be worth an excellent sum. So I arranged to send them.” He shook his head. “You see? It was so simple. I’d make my money, and no one would get hurt.”

“You aided the enemy,” I said.

He swung his foot and kicked me again, painfully, on the sternum. “There is no enemy except poverty,” he growled. “No enemy but disappointment and lack of pride. Hasn’t my wife taught you the value of money during all those months you spent as her lapdog?”

I tried to get up, gasping in pain, but he put his beefy hands on my shoulders and shoved me down. “I like you better down there,” he said. “Listen to me. I’m not going to save your husband. He’s a liar. He didn’t spend the last three years in any prison camp. He didn’t come back here in 1917 for a visit to his dear old aunt and uncle. I’m not stupid. He came here looking for me.” I tried to move again, but he only stood more closely over me, aiming the gun down. “I sent off the sketches, and what happened? I heard that Alex was suddenly coming for a visit. I had my suspicions, but I couldn’t be sure. There was no way he’d learn anything from me, of course, and Dottie knew nothing. The only one who could innocently let on to dear Alex that her daddy took her drawings was Franny.”