Captain Tilney eyed his brother and Mr. Darcy with a look of loathing, and then turned to the others. “I want to know where all of you were – someone suggested it.”
“That was fair Miss Morland,” Mr. Tilney said. “And I agree with my brother; surely I cannot have been the only person alone at the time.”
“I was playing cards in my suite of rooms with Rushworth, Bertram, and Willoughby,” Sir Edward volunteered. “Darcy joined us for a while, but he left about a half hour before the shots were fired.”
Elizabeth was standing near enough to Mr. Darcy to look at him with amazement. “You played cards with my uncle?”
“I did not wish to slight him by refusing,” he said softly, before addressing the group. “After I left them, I penned a letter to my cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam; I dispatched it mere minutesbefore I heard the gunshots. Someone in the stables might verify that the messenger left the castle.”
“Well, I have said where I was; my niece and her friends can tell you that they saw me go into the passage out of amusement and curiosity, quite by accident,” Lady Susan said.
“My hair is still damp from the bath,” Sir Walter Elliott said. He turned and examined his reflection in a mirror by the window, making fastidious little adjustments to himself.
“I was with Mr. Parker, discussing some plans for Sanditon,” Miss Denham said.
“Yes, I am sure you were,” the captain spat with an air of implication. “I know all about your schemes and plans in Sanditon.”
Mr. Tilney looked over his shoulder. In the adjoining dining room, Mrs. Clay and Mrs. Younge were clearing away dishes for the dinner that Elizabeth feared would not be happening. “Come in here, ladies, if you would. You were both very distraught a short while ago; I wonder you should resume such menial tasks just presently.”
Mrs. Younge gave Mr. Darcy a wary glance before saying, “I will admit that we were listening. We are both very curious to know what has happened.”
“As if you are so innocent,” Captain Tilney said. “Perhaps we have found our culprits, Henry. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my father’s jilted lovers and former informants, who have all been telling tales on you.”
Emma looked at Mrs. Younge with wide-eyed panic, and her lower lip began to tremble as if she would weep. Lady Susan stepped forward and struck the woman. “Awful witch, do you know how much you have cost me?”
Mrs. Younge glared back at her. “More than what you’d have spent if you paid me the wages owed to me, I daresay.”
Lady Susan rounded on Mr. Tilney. “What can you be thinking, having these horrid women in your home? It is even madder than inviting us here, having them around in our presence!”
“I confess I had meant to keep it a secret,” Mr. Tilney said with a heavy sigh. “Those of you who know Mrs. Clay were welcomed by Mrs. Younge, and vice versa. But whatever they have done in the past, they wish to help.”
“Help your father to a bullet or two, perhaps,” Miss Denham hissed, giving Mrs. Clay a chilling glare.
“I’ll not deny we had reason,” Mrs. Younge said. “We all had reasons. The general made us both promises – the same promises, until we found out about one another. He just used us as spies, and I’m not proud of it. But I cared for George Wickham, and I’d never have hurt him.”
“I’ll not be noble and say I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” Mrs. Clay said in a pose of defiance. “I’ve had a harder life than you lot, and I sold your secrets. But I was all for keeping quiet if it confounded the general’s schemes, and Henry’s a good lad. Whoever says he had something to do with it is dead wrong.”
At the back of the room, Emma gave a little laugh that turned into a cough. She met Elizabeth’s eye and mouthed the wordsdead wrong?
“All of you have servants here, who’d have seen us attending to housekeeping matters for Henry,” Mrs. Younge said.
A peal of thunder rolled overhead, seeming to rattle the very walls of the room. The candles flickered.
“So Darcy and Sir Walter were both alone at the time of the murder,” Mr. Bertram mused. “And both of the Tilney brothers. For what it’s worth, I doubt any of you are the culprits. It would not make sense.”
“It does not make sense for anybody to kill my father,” Mr. Tilney replied.
Elizabeth gave Cathy a gentle nudge. “Say what you told me downstairs.”
Cathy furrowed her brow for a moment, then nodded. She stepped toward Mr. Tilney. “You said this morning that you do not know all of our secrets, but that some amongst us deserve to be given over to the magistrate.”
Lady Susan snorted. “Can he see the future?”
“Of course he did not knowthiswould happen, but it made me realize that some of these secrets I know nothing about must be worse than others.”
“Listen, I think she is quite right,” Mr. Rushworth said. “Whoever has the most damning secret is sure be the culprit.”
“Yes, my dear,” said his wife. “Miss Morland’s notion sounds very clever now that a man has explained it to us.”
