Page 26 of All of Us Murderers

Fifteen

They lay entwined afterwards, Zeb wrapped in the sprawl of Gideon’s long familiar limbs, eyelids heavy, suffused with contentment.

“Hey,” Gideon said. “Don’t go to sleep.”

“Mph. No. I should—”

Go back to my room was what he’d meant to say, and that brought his last sight of his room to mind. He jolted sharply. “I can’t!”

“You’re staying here tonight. Don’t think about leaving. But we have to talk about why.”

“Oh God, can we not?”

“You are in here because you were driven out of your room by frightening malice,” Gideon said. “And we really do need to discuss that, which means we cannot allow ourselves to be sidetracked any longer by how ridiculously lovely you are, or anything of that nature.”

“We can if we want.”

“No,” Gideon said firmly. “Sit up, and wake up. Up, Zeb, this is serious.”

Zeb sat up reluctantly. They both propped themselves against the bedstead.

“Right,” Gideon said. “Let’s start with your room. Who knows you’re afraid of spiders?”

“Bram. But I really cannot imagine him collecting spiders to put in my room; I’m quite sure he’d consider that beneath him. Hawley doesn’t know my feelings on spiders or he’d constantly be mentioning it.”

“Might Bram have told Wynn about your fear?”

“Possibly. But there was that writing on the wall, you said, and Wynn doesn’t know I’m queer, so—”

“Doesn’t he?”

That sounded meaningful. “No? That is—does he?”

Gideon took a deep breath. “You recall what I said about him hiring me. In retrospect, does that sound even remotely plausible? That Wynn went out of his way to find and help a total stranger because I got in trouble alongside a cousin he’d barely met in his life?

That he’d give me access to his affairs without asking about the gross misconduct I was sacked for?

It’s nonsensical. I knew it was nonsensical when he hired me, but I was desperate enough to persuade myself it was charity. ”

“What are you saying?”

Gideon took his hand. “I think he knows I was your lover and we’d parted badly. I think he brought me here because of you.”

Zeb blinked. “You can’t mean to get us back together?”

“Jesus wept, Zeb. No. I think my purpose here was to unsettle you. To provoke you to misbehave.”

“Um.” Zeb gestured at their bare bodies.

“Very much not like that. Look, suppose you were less honest, less generous—in a word, more like your family. Suppose you wanted the incredible fortune on offer as much as the rest of them, but here I was, able to ruin your chances if I opened my mouth. What might you have done—what might Hawley do in your shoes—to silence me?”

Zeb thought about that. “Oh.”

“And equally, I was terrified you might lose me this job. I thought you would try to get rid of me, and I was quite prepared to make this a battle. If you hadn’t made us talk, what might we have done to one another?”

“But why would Wynn want me to fight you? He invited me here.”

“He invited two estranged brothers, one with an illicit ex-lover, one with an adulterous wife, plus her ex-lover, and then threw a tiger among all those pigeons with this legacy business,” Gideon said.

“If he wanted to create the conditions for you all murdering one another, he’s gone the right way about it.

And I will tell you what else: on his account, you knew about the inheritance, you came here for it, and you’ve been actively scheming for it all along.

He’s told me all about his letters and conversations with you, which bear very little resemblance to what you’ve told me.

Come to that, he made everyone think you’d slandered Mrs. Bram.

He’s doing a damn good job of making you look as bad as the rest of them. ”

“Oh God,” Zeb said. “Is this his illness?”

“What illness?”

“He’s sick. Dying. That’s how he made me promise to stay.

He says his doctor told him he had six months; he won’t live till summer.

He begged me for time while he has it.” Wynn had also asked Zeb not to tell, but at this point, he was putting himself and Gideon first. “Maybe what’s wrong with him is affecting his brain? ”

Gideon’s brows had gone up. “Well, possibly, but I’ve been here since September, and in that time he hasn’t gone to see a doctor, or been visited by one, or had any letter that looks remotely medical or official, or had a visit from a solicitor, or spent any time in bed, or had me put his affairs in order.

If he’s dying, he’s doing so in a remarkably self-effacing manner. ”

“He looked pretty bad in the dining room the other evening,” Zeb suggested. “He needed your arm to leave.”

“That was the first time he’s done so. Are you absolutely sure about this? When did he tell you?”

“It was when I said I was going to leave, and…wouldn’t be persuaded to remain by any other argument… Oh, no,” Zeb said hollowly. “Really. He said he was dying. He can’t have been joking about that.”

“None of this is a joke. There was nothing funny about what was done to your room.”

“But that couldn’t have been Wynn. We were talking downstairs, right before I came up—Oh.”

“What?”

Zeb grimaced. “He called me in to play cards when I was going to go up and then said he wanted to talk to me afterwards, but he didn’t have anything to say. He just chattered on about Laura and Jessamine.”

“In order to delay you while someone filled your room with spiders,” Gideon said. “It’s Wynn, Zeb. Whatever is going on, he’s behind it.”

“But why would he set out to make us all miserable? Anyone might dislike Bram or Hawley—it’s hard not to—but why bring me into it? He’d met me twice in my life before this, both times as a child! What did I do to deserve this?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t care. This is escalating towards dangerous cruelty, and I want you well out of it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m quite sure I was brought here to get at you. He’s barely given me a thing to do, and once you leave, he’ll have no further use for me. The important thing is to get you out.”

“Right,” Zeb said. “How?”

Gideon’s lips parted. He was probably thinking about high walls, locked gates, obdurate chauffeurs, and miles of empty, wintry, misty moor. Zeb certainly was.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe the mist will lift tomorrow. We’ll find a way.”

We. Zeb and Gideon were we again. With we in his pocket, Zeb could face down Wynn or anyone else. And Gideon would come back to London soon rather than an indefinite time later, and everything really was going to be all right as soon as they both left this blasted, cursed, haunted house.

Haunted. “What about the ghost business? Do we think he’s behind that too?”

Gideon stretched in that way he had that seemed to elongate his already long body by about eight inches. “Surely. It’s intended to put you all on edge, I suppose.”

“But it’s been going since you got here, well before we arrived.”

“This has obviously been long planned. Where do you think the spiders came from?”

“Hell, like all their kind.”

Gideon gave a pointed sigh. “You can’t just nip outside and collect an entire crateful of spiders in an afternoon. Can one breed spiders? Either way, it must have taken time and work. This is a long-term, elaborate scheme that involves quite a few people.”

“It must, but who? Everyone was downstairs at the point I saw the ghost.”

“No, they weren’t.”

“They were. You were with Dash and Bram and I heard Wynn and the women—”

“There are plenty of other people in the house.”

Zeb had a sudden, terrifying image of Walter’s last wife, now a withered old spectre huddled in an attic, creeping the corridors in silent shadows, picking spiders off the walls. “What do you mean, other people? Where?”

“The staff, Zeb. It’s very clearly the staff.”

It took a second for Zeb to digest that. “Why on earth would Wynn’s servants dress up as ghosts or collect spiders?”

“Because he ordered them to?”

“Come on. Would you do that for an employer?”

Gideon made a face. “It might depend how desperate I was for a wage. And—have you noticed that this house is grossly understaffed? Wynn let go three maids and a footman just before the family arrived, for no offence I could discern. All the staff we have left are notably unfriendly, relatively new to the house, and not very good at their jobs.”

“Especially the cook.”

“Indeed. So I have to wonder what they were hired for. I suspect it’s this.”

“Can you hire people to be awful to your guests?” Zeb asked.

“I expect you can hire people to do anything if you pay enough. Which—I don’t suppose you have a large sum in cash on you, for bribery?”

“Only about three quid. Who do you want to bribe?”

“The chauffeur, to get you out of here. I doubt three pounds will do it, but let me see.”

“Or I could talk to Wynn. Say I know what he’s up to, and demand to leave.”

“You could,” Gideon said slowly. “I’m not sure you ought to, without an exit available. Perhaps I’m being overly cautious.”

“You’re a cautious man.”

Gideon shifted onto his side so they faced each other, eyes locking. “I am, yes. Except when it comes to you, and then I don’t have any self-preservation at all.”

Zeb lunged. Gideon’s mouth met his, and for a blissful moment, he didn’t need to think about his cousin, or his situation, or anything.

***

They were both up in a timely fashion the next morning. Gideon went off to extract Zeb’s remaining belongings and then try to bribe the chauffeur or, failing that, groom. Zeb went downstairs and made an early breakfast in blissful solitude, wondering what might be useful to do.

He ought to warn his family about all this.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t believe any of them would listen.

Bram and Hawley were both convinced that Zeb was manoeuvring against them; Elise had never liked him.

Dash might have listened, but he was ill, which was rotten timing.

A military man of action who didn’t believe in ghosts would be a very useful person to have around: it was a bit of bad luck he was locked away from the rest of them now.