The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

I try to barge past him, but it’s a foolish notion. He’s three times my weight and half again my height. More to the point, he knows how to use his strength. Planting a flat hand on my stomach, he shoves me backwards, barely a flicker of emotion on his face.

‘Don’t bother,’ he says. ‘I’m paid to stand here and make sure nice gentlemen like you don’t do themselves a misfortune by wandering places they ain’t supposed to go.’

They’re just words, coals in the furnace. My blood’s boiling. I try to dart around him and like a fool I think I’ve succeeded until I’m hoisted backwards, and tossed bodily back down the corridor.

I scramble to my feet, snarling.

He hasn’t moved. He isn’t out of breath. He doesn’t care.

‘Your parents gave you everything but sense, didn’t they?’ he says, the blandness of the sentiment hitting me like a bucketful of cold water. ‘Mr Stanwin’s not hurting her if that’s your concern. Wait a few minutes and you can ask her all about it when she comes out.’

We eye each other for a moment, before I retreat along the corridor into the nursery. He’s right, I’m not getting by him, but I can’t wait for Evelyn to come out. She won’t tell Jonathan Derby anything after this morning, and whatever is happening behind that door could be the reason she takes her life tonight.

Hurrying over to the wall, I press my ear to the boards. If I haven’t missed my mark, Evelyn’s talking to Stanwin in the room next door, only a few pieces of rotten wood between us. I soon catch the hum of their voices, much too faint to make anything out. Using my pocket knife, I tear the wallpaper from the wall, digging the blade between the loose wooden slats to pry them free. They’re so damp they come away without objection, the wood disintegrating in my hands.

‘... tell her she best not play any games with me, or it’ll be the end of both of you,’ says Stanwin, his voice poking through the insulating wall.

‘Tell her yourself, I’m not your errand girl,’ says Evelyn coldly.

‘You’ll be anything I damn well please, so long as I’m footing the bill.’

‘I don’t like your tone, Mr Stanwin,’ says Evelyn.

‘And I don’t like being made a fool of, Miss Hardcastle,’ he says, practically spitting her name. ‘You forget I worked here for nearly fifteen years. I know every corner of this place, and everybody in it. Don’t mistake me for one of these blinkered bastards you’ve surrounded yourself with.’

His hatred is viscous, it has texture. I could wring it out of the air and bottle it.

‘What about the letter?’ says Evelyn quietly, her outrage overwhelmed.

‘I’ll keep hold of that, so you understand our arrangement.’

‘You’re a vile creature, are you aware of that?’

Stanwin swats the insult from the air with a belly laugh.

‘At least I’m an honest one,’ he says. ‘How many other people in this house can claim the same thing? You can go now. Don’t forget to pass along my message.’

I hear the door to Stanwin’s room open, Evelyn storming past the nursery a few moments later. I’m tempted to follow her, but there’d be little value in another confrontation. Besides, Evelyn mentioned something about a letter that’s now in Stanwin’s possession. She seemed keen to retrieve it, which means I need to see it. Who knows, perhaps Stanwin and Derby are friends.

‘Jonathan Derby’s waiting for you in the nursery,’ I hear the burly fellow tell Stanwin.

‘Good,’ says Stanwin, drawers scraping open. ‘Let me get changed for this hunt and we’ll go and have a word with the greasy little bugger.’

Or perhaps not.

26

I sit with my feet on the table, the chessboard beside them. Cupping my chin in my hand, I stare at the game trying to decipher some strategy from the arrangement of the pieces. It’s proving an impossible task. Derby’s too flighty for study. His attention is forever straying towards the window, towards the dust in the air and the noises in the corridor. He’s never at peace.

Daniel warned me that each of our hosts thinks differently, but only now do I comprehend the full extent of his meaning. Bell was a coward and Ravencourt ruthless, but both possessed focused minds. That’s not the case with Derby. Thoughts come buzzing through his head like bluebottles, lingering long enough to be distracting but never settling.

A sound draws my attention to the door, Ted Stanwin shaking out a match as he surveys me from above his pipe. He’s larger than I recall, a slab of a man spreading sideways like a wedge of melting butter.

‘Never took you for a chess man, Jonathan,’ he says, pushing the old rocking horse back and forth so that it thumps on the floor.

‘I’m teaching myself,’ I say.

‘Good for you, men should seek to better themselves.’

His eyes linger on me before being tugged to the windows. Though Stanwin hasn’t done or said anything threatening, Derby’s afraid of him. My pulse is tapping that out in Morse code.

I glance at the door, ready to bolt, but the burly fellow is leaning against the wall in the corridor with his arms crossed. He offers me a little nod, friendly as two men in a cell.