The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

After a brief exchange, one of them leads me through a communicating door into the study where I met Daniel and Michael this morning. There’s a library beyond it, which we cross briskly, exiting the room into a dim connecting passage. Darkness stirs to greet us, a black cat drifting out from beneath a small telephone table, its tail dusting the wooden floor. On silent feet, it pads up the corridor, slipping through a door left slightly ajar at the far end. A warm orange light is seeping through the gap, voices and music on the other side.

‘Miss Evelyn’s in there, sir,’ says the maid.

Her tone succinctly describes both the room and Evelyn Hardcastle, neither of which she seems to hold in particularly high regard.

Brushing off her scorn, I open the door, the heat of the room hitting me full in the face. The air is heavy, sweet with perfume, stirred only by a scratchy music that soars and glides and stuns itself against the walls. Large leaded windows look out over the garden at the rear of the house, grey clouds piling up beyond a cupola. Chairs and chaise longues have been gathered around the fire, young women draped over them like wilted orchids, smoking cigarettes and clinging to their drinks. The mood in the room is one of restless agitation rather than celebration. About the only sign of life comes from an oil painting on the far wall, where an old woman with coals for eyes sits in judgement of the room, her expression rather eloquently conveying her distaste for this gathering.

‘My grandmother, Heather Hardcastle,’ says a woman from behind me. ‘It’s not a flattering picture, but then she wasn’t a flattering woman by all accounts.’

I turn to meet the voice, reddening as a dozen faces swim up through their boredom to inspect me. My name runs laps of the room, a sudden excited buzz chasing it like a swarm of bees.

Sitting either side of a chess table are a woman I must assume to be Evelyn Hardcastle and an elderly, extremely fat man wearing a suit that’s a size too small for him. They’re an odd couple. Evelyn’s in her late twenties, and rather resembles a shard of glass with her thin, angular body and high cheekbones, her blonde hair tied up away from her face. She’s wearing a green dress, fashionably tailored and belted at the waist, its sharp lines mirroring the severe expression on her face.

As for the fat man, he can’t be less than sixty-five, and I can only imagine what contortions must have been necessary to persuade his enormous bulk behind the table. His chair’s too small for him, too stiff. He’s a martyr to it. Sweat is gleaming on his forehead, the soaking wet handkerchief clutched in his hand testifying to the duration of his suffering. He’s looking at me queerly, an expression somewhere between curiosity and gratitude.

‘My apologies,’ I say. ‘I was—’

Evelyn slides a pawn forward without looking up from the board. The fat man returns his attention to the game, engulfing his knight with a fleshy fingertip.

I surprise myself by groaning at his mistake.

‘You know chess?’ Evelyn asks me, her eyes still fixed on the board.

‘It appears so,’ I say.

‘Then perhaps you would play after Lord Ravencourt?’

Ignorant of my warning, Ravencourt’s knight swaggers into Evelyn’s trap, only to be cut down by a lurking rook. Panic takes hold of his play as Evelyn urges her pieces forward, hurrying him when he should be patient. The game’s over in four moves.

‘Thank you for the diversion, Lord Ravencourt,’ says Evelyn, as he topples his king. ‘Now, I believe you had somewhere else to be.’

It’s a curt dismissal and with an awkward bow, Ravencourt disentangles himself from the table and limps out of the room, offering me the slightest of nods on the way.

Evelyn’s distaste chases him through the door, but it evaporates as she gestures to the seat opposite.

‘Please,’ she says.

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for a maid who brought me a message at the dinner table last night, but I know nothing more of her. I was hoping you could help.’

‘Our butler could,’ she says, restoring the pieces of her bedraggled army to their line. Each is placed precisely at the centre of a square, its face turned towards the enemy. Clearly, there’s no place for cowards on this board.

‘Mr Collins knows every step every servant takes in this house, or so he leads them to believe,’ she says. ‘Unfortunately, he was assaulted this morning. Doctor Dickie had him moved to the gatehouse so he could rest more comfortably. I’ve actually been meaning to look in on him myself, perhaps I could escort you.’

I momentarily hesitate, weighing the danger. One can only assume that if Evelyn Hardcastle intended me harm, she wouldn’t announce our intention to go off together in front of an entire room of witnesses.

‘That would be very kind,’ I respond, earning a flicker of a smile.