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“Someone moved it,” I said, trying to inject a note of reason. “If not the maid, then your guardian, or a mysterious stranger. And if Mr. Randall’s stumble had resulted in a serious injury, even death, that would have been an accident; no one could possibly call it murder, even if someone moved the gargoyle.
“But that stick . . . I really can’t imagine that a stick, in Mr. Adcocks’s possession, could have caused his death without the intervention of another person. If you think your guardian was controlling it, willing it to strike—”
“No! Why would he do that? Even if he had the ability, why would he want to kill my fiancé when he was looking forward to seeing how I would cause his death
?”
She had gone white except for two hectic splashes of red in her cheeks. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course not. Because you don’t understand that I, too, am a deodand. I am the gem of his collection. My early history explains why he took me in. I killed my entire family before I was two years of age.”
I gripped her hands. “Miss Bellamy—”
“I am utterly sane,” she said calmly. “I am not hysterical. These are the facts. Being born, I brought about the death of my mother.”
“That’s hardly—”
“Unique? I know. Listen. Nine months later, my father was taking his motherless children on holiday when we were involved in a railway accident. In the crash, my brother, a child of two, was thrown to the floor, as was I. I landed directly on top of him, a fact which may have saved me from injury, but caused his death. I have never known whether he died of suffocation, or if my weight broke his neck.”
“No one could call that your fault,” I said, trying not to dwell on the image.
“I know that,” she said, pulling her hands away. “Believe me, I am not such a fool as to think it was anything other than extremely bad luck. I have had many years to come to terms with my past. I do not require your pity. I tell you this so you may understand Mr. Harcourt’s interest in me.
“My father was injured in the accident. Some months later he was still in an invalid chair, needing a nurse to help him in and out and wheel him about. We’d gone out for a walk—when I say ‘we’I mean my father in his chair pushed by his nurse, a young man, and I in my pram, pushed by mine, a pretty young woman. We stopped at a local beauty spot to admire the view. My nurse put me down on a blanket on the grass, near to my father, who was dozing in the sun, and then I suppose they must have stopped paying much attention to anything but each other as they fell to flirting. I hadn’t yet learned to walk, but I was getting better at standing up, and as I hauled myself to my feet, using my father’s chair as support, somehow I must have let off the brake—maybe the nurse hadn’t properly set it—and as he rolled away, I just watched him go, picking up speed, until I saw the chair carrying my last living relative go over the edge of the cliff, and carry him to his death on the rocks below.”
I made no more efforts to comfort. “So Mr. Harcourt considers you some sort of loaded weapon in his possession? Ready to go off when you are loved?”
“He has never said as much, but that’s what I’ve understood by a gleam in his eye, and a quickening of interest, once I became of marriageable age. It was he who contrived to introduce me to a number of wealthy young men, until Archibald Adcocks took the bait. And he pressed me to accept, although I was inclined to wait.”
“Regardless of what Mr. Harcourt believes—”
“I know. And you’re right, I don’t believe it of myself. Mr. Harcourt imagines, because he kept himself so coldly distant, repelling my natural affection, and sent me to day school rather than risk my becoming too close to a kind governess, that I never was loved, and never loved anyone, since my father died.
“But there was a girl at school . . . My guardian may have no idea how passionately girls can love each other, but I’m sure you will,” she said, with a look that should have made me blush. Instead, it made me smile.
We looked at each other like conspirators. “I take it your friend remains alive and well?”
“Indeed, and still my dearest friend, although we’re now more temperate in our emotions . . . or, at least, the expression of them. So, you see, I know my affection is not dangerous.”
“And yet you seem to think that by becoming engaged to marry you, Mr. Adcocks signed his own death warrant. And that Mr. Randall is under threat for the same reason.”
“Yes . . .” She looked thoughtful. “But not because of my feelings for him, or his for me. It’s something else. Marriage to anyone would take me away from this house, would remove me from my guardian’s collection. That’s it,” she said, and stood up.
“What is it?”
“He thinks marriage is the only way he might lose me. He’s never imagined I might simply decide to leave.”
I stood up, too, to face her. “I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Harcourt is scarcely sane when it comes to his collection. He cannot bear the thought of losing a single piece of it. He is happiest when gloating over it alone, and whenever he has a chance to add something new. Although he admits potential buyers, he only wants their envy and admiration as they view his objects—he will never agree to sell an item, no matter how much money he is offered.
“And while he has been talking about my marriage since I was sixteen, and began pushing me at eligible bachelors on my eighteenth birthday, driven by thoughts of what he thinks will happen when I am once more part of a family, greedily imagining how his collection will grow after the violent, accidental death of my husband, he knows this will be possible only if he lets me go. In his twisted mind, I am part of his collection, and the thought of losing me, even only temporarily, and in aid of gaining more, is terrible to him.”
“His mind is divided?”
“I am sorry, Miss Lane. You should not have been brought into this. There was no need for William to enlist the aid of a detective. I should have realized that I am the only one who can end this madness.”
She started back to the house and I followed. Although I had no idea what she intended, I felt that we were approaching crisis.
