Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(46)

He said that last part too quickly, so fast that the words ran together.

My mouth was hanging open. I closed it. “You saw her. The night before.” I recalled it all too well, how she’d fled the house and run across the street. I’d been terrified that she’d go on a rampage herself, inflicting heaven-knew-what harm on whomever she encountered.

“Yes. I saw her. And whatever had gone . . . wrong . . .” He selected the same word again, and deployed it carefully. “It was not unlike the change that had overtaken Matthew. I did not know how to treat Abigail, and I did not know how to treat that young man, either.” He held up his hands and looked at them, and looked at me again with that awful uncertainty radiating from his face. “I do not know what I am up against, and I do not think that it is natural. I do not think that it will stop with the Hamiltons.”

A shiver ran up and down my spine, and I did my best to keep from breaking out into a wide, ridiculous smile. It was awful news! A terrifying prospect! An outrageous proposition, suggesting that the whole town was in danger of falling prey to this unnatural malaise!

A smile would’ve been grossly inappropriate, so I swallowed it down, and instead I reached for his hands. He didn’t know what to do with them. They were flapping about, and I caught them in my own. In other circumstances, it would’ve been a forward gesture of something unseemly, but this was a unique case. I needed his attention, and we needed to trust one another—or at least believe one another.

His hands were large and dry, and they shook very slightly.

I met his eyes, and with all the calm I could muster, I asked, “Tell me, Doctor . . . did you speak with Ebenezer Hamilton, before they took him to Boston?”

He nodded. “I did.”

“And did he tell you something impossible? Something that can’t be remotely true?”

He nodded again. “Yet the corpses suggest that his explanation must be true. Or true enough, if you wish to believe that the trauma has unhinged his mind, and what he shared was only some distorted fraction of what really happened.”

I took a long, slow breath through my nose, and sat back against the divan. I rubbed at my eyes, and again I tried to shake off the feeling of euphoria. This was nothing to be euphoric about, but my sensibilities betrayed me. I’d carried the knowledge around too long, and carried it all but alone. To clarify matters, I said, “You believe his impossible story, but in believing him, you risk your own sanity. Is this more or less the situation?”

Miserably, he bobbed his head. “I saw the shop, and the scene of the crime. I can’t imagine an alternate theory with regard to what occurred, but the story is so outlandish that I don’t dare admit that I’ve given it any credence at all.”

“Did Matthew kill his godmother?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“And Ebenezer killed Matthew, in an attempt to save his wife?”

“That is also correct. But I’m afraid they’ll either commit him or hang him, depending on what he tells the authorities. I want to speak up for him. I want to defend him—”

“As you defended me?” I interjected. I didn’t mean to.

He was silent, and then he said, “As I defended you.”

I gathered my wits and my strength, and with all the courage I could muster I said bluntly, “You knew I was not innocent.”

Just as bluntly in return, he replied, “I feared that you weren’t, and I feared that no one would believe a plea of self-defense. But I saw her . . . ,” he said, and his eyes went far away. “I saw what she’d become, or what she was becoming. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Some kind of . . . change. No one would’ve believed you.”

My voice caught in my throat. I said, “Oh God . . . Doctor. All this time, and you . . . ?”

The heavy tread of Nance’s feet on the stairs stopped me cold. I finished up by saying only, “Nance doesn’t know. We mustn’t speak of it in front of her. Not yet. Not now.”

“But we will, won’t we?”

“Later,” I promised. I swore it again. “Later. Tomorrow afternoon? I’ll find some errand for Nance and chase her out of the house.”

I rose, and smiled primly, politely. He rose, too, and gathered his bags.

When Nance appeared in the parlor, the doctor was on his way out the door with a nod in her direction, and some murmured pleasantry about meeting her. She responded in kind, halfheartedly and without any real interest in the matter. She didn’t care to pretend. She was interested in our conversation, and what it had entailed.

As soon as the door was shut behind him, the pantomime was over.

She demanded to know. “What the hell is going on, Lizbeth?”

“Nothing serious. Just a small question for the doctor. A private one, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re lying. Not about the private bit, but you’re keeping something from me—and I doubt it’s a medical issue.”

“I’m keeping a number of things from you,” I said with attempted gaiety. It almost rang true, for I was still so charmed at the prospect of a helpful friend to share the burden of my research. I felt light-headed and all but delirious, stunned and yet energized.

From a practical standpoint, it was almost too much to hope for. Emma was helpful in her way, of course, but her condition prevented her from any firsthand investigation by my side; and her relation to me kept her from participating in the community, where the very best information was likely to be gleaned. Doctor Seabury, on the other hand, had no such difficulties—and he was an educated, informed, respected man whose profession gained him access to even the most closely guarded secrets.