Lost Among the Living(94)

“So you found George Sanders,” I said.

“No. He found me. He wrote Martin first, begging for money. When Martin said no, he wrote to me. A private letter. He was desperate, he said. So I drove to Torbram.” Robert smiled, his teeth glowing white in the dim light of the corridor. “I went at night—Dottie and the servants are used to my being out all night, and they never asked questions. I drove to Torbram, I found George Sanders, and I told him that if he was looking for money from the Forsyth family, I knew just how he could get it.”

“You had to kill her?” I shouted at him. “You couldn’t quiet her some other way, send her away?”

“We’d sent her away already, and she came back,” Robert said. “Her mother would never agree to send her anywhere again. As for silencing her some other way, no one would ever believe the ramblings of a mad girl like Frances. No one except someone who knew her well and was willing to listen to her ravings. Like Alex.”

“How could you possibly know he was coming because of the sketches?” I said.

“I tell you, I didn’t. I merely ascertained George Sanders’s interest and told him that if I needed him to act, I would telephone him. I told him to be ready in case I needed him, and he agreed.”

My mind was racing. There was no one within screaming distance to hear me. If I could get my hands on a weapon, I could disable him and get to the telephone—get to Alex. Dottie had a pair of scissors, but they were too small to do any damage, and they were back in the library. I pushed my way down the corridor toward the staircase that led to the kitchen. If I could make it to the kitchen, I could possibly arm myself with a knife before he caught me.

“Alex asked questions,” Robert said, following me. “I threatened Frances, told her to stay in her room and plead a stomachache. She complied, but she was always difficult to control. I knew she wouldn’t stay afraid of me for very long, and when she talked to her beloved cousin Alex, she’d tell him. Still, it bought me some time. Then I overheard Alex asking a servant about the sketchbook, and I knew he’d been sent here to ferret me out. I also knew my sketches had been intercepted and I’d never get my money for them. I was out of time, and the punishment for treason is execution. So I made the telephone call.”

I could see the door to the stairwell now. I’d have to get my feet under me quickly and make a dash for it, shut the door behind me. “Your own daughter,” I said to him. “She loved you. Worshipped you.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” Robert said. “It’s easy to sit in judgment when you’re not her father. You don’t know what it was like, to raise a child like Frances. To listen to her screaming, to hear her delusions. To lie awake at night wondering. To know that she was never going to be well, would never marry, would be a burden for the rest of my life. I don’t think you understand.” He was breathing heavily now. “I couldn’t do it myself. George was a stranger; he had no connection to the house or the woods. He was to do it quickly, without causing her pain, and then disappear again. No one would ever know. It would be assumed she was killed by a vagrant, perhaps, or had an accident. She’d be at rest and my secret would be safe.”

I had the doorway in my sights, but I turned and looked up at him. “And what happened?”

Robert blinked, remembering, and for a moment his focus was so distracted that I thought I might be able to make a grab for the pistol. I kept very still.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I made sure to be out of the house, visiting friends, so no suspicion could fall on me. I walked—I used to walk then, but I hate the woods now, and I never do anymore. I approached the house from the back, expecting to see that the place was in turmoil. Instead, Frances came around the house from the front, running toward me. She was crying. She flung herself into my arms and told me that a man had attacked her in the woods, but Princer had saved her, had killed the man. It was awful, and she’d run and run, and she didn’t know what to do.”

“Oh, my God,” I said softly.

“Can you imagine it?” Robert gave a small smile. “She flung herself at me and called me Papa. She was so shaken—she wanted me to save her, to fix things, as if she were a little girl. I held her tight and said everything would be all right, and she should come into the house with me.”

I could feel tears on my face now, though my cheeks were numb with fear. “She trusted you,” I said, my voice a croak.

“Of course she did. I was her father. I took her up to the roof and asked her to point out the direction in the woods where she’d encountered the strange man. I told her I wanted to see where it was without her having to lead me there. She stood on the edge and pointed, and I pushed her. Then I crept back down the stairs and out the doors of the morning room, and pretended I had just walked home through the trees.”

“You’re vile,” I said. Then I kicked his knee as hard as I could, turned, got my feet under me, and made a dash down the corridor toward the staircase to the kitchen.

Robert shouted behind me. My knee was a knot of pain, and it barely held me, but I pushed it, expecting the pistol to go off, expecting to feel the bullet hit between my shoulder blades. Instead, he launched at me and landed on my back and I fell to the floor again.

I screamed, trying to pull myself from under him, but he held me fast in his grip, his thick, sweaty body on top of mine. Then I felt his focus shift, his weight move off me, and he scrambled for the pistol.