Page 16 of Deadly Ghost (Angus Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe Murder Mystery #12)

Fifteen

“The piano?” Brodie whispered.

I shook my head. That sound didn’t come from the piano in the front parlor. It came from the solar. It was the gramophone.

Aunt Antonia had acquired it several months earlier. Lily had been quite taken with it. But was why was it playing?

When I started to step out into the main hall, Brodie pulled me back as one of my great aunt’s servants passed by holding a tray with a crystal decanter and glasses.

The maid looked terrified as she continued on down the hall, then entered the solar. Here was a faint response, a brief silence, then the music began once more.

Where was the footman, Cook, the other servants, Mr. Symons? And the two men Mr. Brown had sent?

More important, where were my great aunt and Lily? Where was Munro?

The music ended, then began again, playing over and over. It was a German piece I recognized from an opera Lily had become fascinated with. Her only prior experience with music had been somewhat colorful tunes she had learned in a whorehouse in Edinburgh.

The maid, a young woman by the name of Tilly, suddenly returned. She moved quickly as if trying to escape.

Brodie stepped into her path and grabbed her with one hand clamped over her mouth to prevent her crying out and alarming others. He pulled her back into the shadows along the wall.

Her eyes were saucers, then widened even further when she saw me. Brodie slowly lowered his hand.

“What has happened?”

“A woman and some men came here. They have weapons. There was a skirmish ...”

“Where are Lady Montgomery and Miss Lily?” I whispered.

“Milady is there. They forced her to sit and then bound her.”

“Is she all right?”

She nodded. “As near I can tell. The woman is in there as well, with Mr. Symons and some of the other servants.”

“Where is Lily?”

“I don’t rightly know, Miss Mikaela. When they burst in, she was upstairs in the Sword Room.”

“Is anyone injured?”

One of the men struck Mr. Hastings when he came from the stables to see what was the matter. There was a lot of blood, but I think he’s all right.”

“There were men sent here earlier by Mr. Brown. Where are they now? And where is Munro?”

“I don’t know. It all happened so fast, and the woman ... I don’t know! And that woman is in there. Oh, miss, it’s frightening. I never seen anything like it ...”

“How many men were with the woman?”

“Three, maybe four. It happened so fast. They came in through the main entrance. Mr. Symons tried to stop them. I seen him fall. He’s still out there, poor man.”

“Where were you goin’ just now?” Brodie asked her.

“Back to the kitchen. One of the men is there, says he will kill anyone who attempts to leave. I’ve got to get back before they think I’ve run off.”

One man. And it appeared that Victoria Grantham was in the solar.

“Is there anyone with the woman in the Solar?”

She nodded. “One of the men that came with her. One of the other girls said he must be French by his accent.”

“René?” I whispered.

Brodie nodded. “Most likely.”

“I gotta get back to the kitchen, miss. I don’t want no one hurt on my account.”

I didn’t want her to go back. Trouble was, I didn’t know where she might be safe. The other men who had apparently arrived with Victoria Grantham might be anywhere.

“Don’t tell anyone that you’ve seen us.”

“I won’t, miss. But you got to help her ladyship.” She looked back over her shoulder as she left, very near running toward the kitchens.

I looked at Brodie. Any moment we might be discovered. And neither Brown and his men, nor Mr. Conner had yet arrived.

“What are we to do?”

“Wot are ye about, girl!” Munro snapped as Lily bent over him from where she knelt on the floor of the wine cellar.

“I’m trying to keep you from bleeding to death!” she snapped as she tore another strip of cloth from the skirt of her gown.

Beside her lay the flintlock pistol she’d had in her hand when Munro dragged her from the second-floor sword room.

Munro listened now for any sounds that might tell him what was happening, but the wine cellar filled with casks of both wine and whisky was several feet below the main floor, and each of those feet in the place was made of cut stone.

One of Brown’s men was dead. He saw the body as he went to the second floor by way of the servants’ stairs to find the girl. She had met him at the door with the damn pistol.

He’d grabbed her and dragged her down those stairs, then past the servants’ quarters toward the cellar.

There were screams from the women as everyone ran about in panic, and he’d thought of her ladyship.

Where was she? Had she been abducted?

Brodie had called and warned them. Brown was to send more men, but they hadn’t arrived.

He cursed as the chit tightened the bandage she’d ripped from the skirt of her gown and then wrapped around his leg.

The man had come at them as he pulled her toward the cellar doors. If he’d been alone the outcome might have been different, but he’d protected the girl and paid for it.

The man caught him at the stairs that led down into the cellar. He only had time to push her ahead the rest of the way down, then took the blow across his upper leg.

There wasn’t a second blow from the man, as he felt the blood stream down his leg and nearly fell the rest of the way. And she was there, no bigger than a minute, hitching her shoulder under his arm as if she could take his weight off his leg.

And she had.

She was strong. She’d been up there in that room, swinging those swords about and practicing the moves Miss Mikaela showed her, as if she had something to prove to someone. Or perhaps herself?

She loosened the cloth now around his leg, waited, then slowly tightened it again.

“Wot the devil are ye doin? Leave it be, girl. There’s more important things to do. I need to find her ladyship.”

She sat back on her heels and glared at him in the light from the single lamp on the wall. In that sputtering light, she looked like some fierce creature sprung from shadows—formidable, even if she was a pretty thing. She would bedevil some man one day.

“I’m tempted to leave it as is. But if I do, then you will have to learn to wheel yerself about like Mr. Cavendish at Mr. Brodie’s office, for you will surely bleed to death or lose the leg!

“And if you have a thought of trying to climb those stairs, I’ll knock yer other leg from under you. And I can do it.” She tightened the bandage again.

He glared back at her. “We need to know what has happened. Where everyone is. Who’s injured?”

“Aye,” she replied in a quiet voice. “I’ll go.”

“The devil ye will.”

“The devil I won’t,” she said, then told him, “Loosen it and leave it for a few minutes, then tighten it again.”

And she was gone.

Munro cursed himself, and the wound at his leg. Then cursed her foolishness as he pushed to his feet. He reached the stairs and slowly climbed back to the top.

I looked at Brodie as the music from the gramophone played once more, that same piece over and over.

Neither Mr. Conner nor Mr. Brown and their men had arrived.

“We must do something,” I told Brodie. “The woman is insane. She might kill her.”

There was only one thing I could think of that might stop Victoria Grantham, even if it was for only a few minutes.

“I want to go in there.” I saw the objection in the expression on his face.

“You know it’s the only way, and it will give you time.”

“Mikaela ...” He didn’t say the rest of it.

“It’s the reason we came here. Our family is here. They’re in danger.”

He slowly nodded. “Ye have the revolver?”

I nodded.

“When ye enter the room don’t take the time to look for yer great aunt. Ye must look for those that have her and the others, scan the room, find them. There is no way of knowing what the Grantham woman and her cohorts will do.”

I nodded. He was right. I had said it myself that she was insane.

“Ye’ll not go in there alone. I’ll be there with ye, but dinna look for me. I’ll be going for the man, René. The girl said he was there as well.”

I nodded again. I trusted him. The only other objective, I thought, was not to get ourselves killed.

“Check the revolver.”

I checked it. I expected my hands to be shaking. They weren’t.

He kissed me then. “Go, before that cursed music stops again, and do as I said.”

I stepped out of the shadows along the wall, looked for anyone else about, then quickly made my way to the entrance to the solar. I caught a brief movement and knew Brodie was there, only a few paces behind.

The steel revolver was cool beneath my hand in my pocket as I entered the solar, and stared at the bizarre, grotesque scene as the music played.

Victoria Grantham danced in the middle of the room, her red gown much like the one I had worn, reflected in the glass panes in the walls. Around and around, she whirled to the music, laughing she danced about the room.

Anything I imagined could not have prepared me for the hideous spectacle before me.

It was like watching myself—my face, my hair ... me! Only it wasn’t me, but a pathetic version as she continued to dance and pirouette around the room, her eyes bright with the madness that had brought us all here.

And the man who had attacked me was there, watching her.

He didn’t see me. She didn’t see me as I slipped behind the handful of servants who stood there, forced to watch the madness, and a glimpse of my great aunt, defiant, bound to her chair. Then I stopped the music, stopped the madness.

Victoria Grantham spun around as the music died

She stared at me. “I knew you would accept my invitation. I knew you would come. I’ve watched you all these months, but I waited ... to claim what is mine. What was always mine.

“Do you understand?” she shrieked. “My name, mine! Not a secret kept hidden until I found those letters. And the other papers that prove who I am! Lady Forsythe.

“Look at them.” She made a sweeping gesture about the room. “They know who I am. Look at me! Tell me what you see!” she screamed as she came at me.

“Tell me!”

I saw the knife in her hand as the man who attacked me in Compiegne lunged toward my great aunt. And Brodie was there.

As Victoria Grantham came at me, screaming with rage and whatever demons possessed her, I looked into that face so like mine ... but not mine. Her hair wild about her head and shoulders, so like mine ... but not.

She screamed and came at me. I swept her feet from under her. She pushed to her feet, then came at me once more, her hands like claws.

A single shot cracked sharply. Smoke filled the air.

Lily stood at the entrance to the room, a fierce expression on her face, and a flintlock pistol in her hand.

The nightmare was over.