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“How vile,” Barnabas interrupted. “Do you mean to tell me that I took you under my roof, fed you, provided you with board and lodgings, gratis, thinking you were old and infirm, when you have been plotting to kill us all along?”
Myles looked at the fury on his father’s face.
“Father.” He didn’t want the situation worsening. Not when they had a killer in their midst.
“What in the Devil did you think you were doing? Doesn’t this family mean anything to you?” Barnabas bellowed anyway.
“No, you do not,” Eva snapped. “You are greedy, and selfish, and don’t deserve to have it all. Why should you get it all? What about my father? He was your relation, yet your father got it all, Barnabas. Rather than share the wealth between his two sons, your father had it all. My father was left with nothing and worked all of his life to make ends meet. When he passed on, there was very little left. I was sick of struggling while you wasted your money on this place, and lorded it over everybody. It’s disgusting.”
“Good God, Eva, that happened years ago,” Barnabas snapped. “Besides, it is the way things are. The estate and title always goes to the first boy in the family, you know that. Besides, my family are a different branch to your family. Our wealth is really none of your business. Your father had his dues, I am sure of it.”
“My father had nothing!” Eva shouted, her face puce with rage. “What pittance he was left could barely keep him alive let alone provide for a family. You refused to help him.”
“He didn’t ask me,” Barnabas protested.
“Yes, he did. On many occasions, he told you he was struggling. Did you help him like you did Gerald, or Beatrice? No. You didn’t. You left him to suffer. So, when he died and I was left the house I decided to take some of that money back.”
“But you led me to believe you were deaf and could barely walk, Eva,” Barnabas retorted. “Surely you didn’t expect to get away with your duplicity forever?”
Eva laughed cynically and threw her sewing onto the floor as she whirled to face him. “But I have gotten away with it, Barnabas. You wouldn’t have found out about it even now if it wasn’t for your son’s doxy. I have fooled you all, with your benevolence and snobbery.” She raked Barnabas with a scornful look. “Well, I have bided my time and waited while I have helped myself to the things that were rightfully mine.”
“You have been helping yourself to the items in storage at the back of the house. As I lay on the floor in the room you locked me into, I can remember thinking that there doesn’t seem to be much dust on some of the boxes. I couldn’t quite work out why,” Isaac whispered. He glared at Eva. “Why did you have to hit me so hard? Why did you not just lock me in a room?”
“You are always after money, aren’t you? It is the only reason you come here, and everyone knows it,” Eva accused.
“That’s why you killed Gerald and Beatrice? It was the consensus of opinion of everyone the other night that Gerald only came to moan at Barnabas about his money problems, and Beatrice came to get her bills paid. After Gerald’s death you realised Isaac was likely to be graced with financial support from Barnabas and decided that he had to go too. What were you going to do, Eva, kill me next?” Myles demanded. He stared at the woman he had once thought of so dearly, and went cold when she narrowed her eyes on him. “Good God, you did, didn’t you?”
A deathly silence fell over the room.
“I told you there was a traitor in the house,” Vernon murmured, his voice calm and matter-of-fact.
“Oh, shut up, Vernon,” Isaac snapped. “She is a killer. Be grateful you weren’t next on her list.”
“But he won’t ever be, will you, Vernon?” Estelle whispered. “He is here gratis as well, aren’t you?”
Everyone turned to look at Vernon who, for once, stared at each person in return.
Myles studied him. It was difficult to be sure while Vernon was sitting down but suddenly, the image of the hooded figure Eva had been talking to in the woods only half an hour ago swam into his mind.
“It was you in the woods,” Myles breathed.
Estelle went cold. She looked at Vernon and shivered at the maliciousness in the man’s cruel smile.
“We want you gone from this house,” Vernon declared coldly.
“Who?” Barnabas snapped.
“All of you. You, the other money hungry wastrels, your doxy, Myles. All of you.”
“You are in our way, you see. The Dark Master wants us to have a better place to worship him. What better place for us to have than here? We just need to get rid of you first.”
“So you two-” Barnabas looked in disbelief at Vernon and then Eva.
Estelle shivered and stepped closer to Myles now that the dangers had doubled. She knew that the chances of this scenario ending without any further deaths were remote, but at least Myles had his gun.
“You haven’t been in the tower room all this time, have you?” Barnabas asked of Vernon.
“Of course I haven’t, you stupid man. What do you take me for? I have been worshiping the Great Master, plotting and planning for this day. You have taken my mutterings as a sign of madness. I have been seeking guidance from the Dark Master.”
