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“Get the hell away from me,” he barked to Charles and Jeffrey. “Florentia and I will be free. We want nothing to do with your idiotic society. We’re a class all our own.”
Charles leapt forward, just as Sampson tried to veer around him. Charles Baxter’s hands gripped Sampson’s upper arms. He pressed him towards the ground, using an amount of brute force Charlotte hadn’t anticipated he’d had. Charles remained stretched out over the top of him as Sampson tugged this way and that like a child amid a seizure.
“Let go of me!” he screamed out into the night. His voice echoed from garden wall to garden wall before escaping out across the moors.
Charlotte shot forth and fell into Jeffrey’s arms, shaking. He gripped her as, together, they watched Charles latch Sampson’s wrists behind his back. He then turned towards Jeffrey and said, “Make sure the mystic doesn’t escape.”
Jeffrey gripped Charlotte’s hand. Driven by a singular mission, they marched back towards the dinner party, which brimmed with many innocent bystanders, all sipping glasses of wine, guffawing at one joke or another. As they walked down the corridor, Charlotte heard the first of the mystic’s words, as she discussed someone’s future.
“What I imagined before for you was eternally correct,” she said, her voice all wispy. “I see it: a husband, many children, a large estate. It’s only that you haven’t been patient enough, dear one. You must be watchful in your waiting. You must …”
At this, Charlotte and Jeffrey appeared in the doorway and peered in to find Florentia seated before Louisa, reading her fate. Louisa spun around, her eyes buggy.
“You can have a turn after me,” she informed them matter-of-factly. “I really must know what happens next.”
“Get away from her, Louisa,” Charlotte shouted.
Louisa’s lips curved into a circle. Florentia leapt from her pillow and stretched her palms upward. Her eyes scanned the window, her only potential escape.
“What?” Louisa demanded. “Please, Florentia. Sit. Clearly, they’re quite drunk, and …”
Jeffrey leapt forth, gripped Florentia’s wrists and drew them around her back. “The investigator will be in shortly to ensure you’re taken away,” he said. “If you control yourself over the next minutes, I imagine that you’ll get off with a lighter sentence. It wasn’t you who killed him. These tiny wrists couldn’t have murdered anyone.”
Florentia’s tone shifted completely. It was clear that she’d been putting on that “mystic-like” voice for the benefit of the business.
“Get off of me,” she cried. “And don’t think for a minute that I didn’t want to kill your brother myself. He was a drunken buffoon.”
Charlotte’s jaw dropped. Louisa raced towards Charlotte and wrapped her arms around her, gaping at the mystic.
“What did she say?” she cried.
“You’re going to pay for what you did to my brother and what you did to Brooks,” Jeffrey grunted. “We can’t speak to the assuredly high number of men you’ve stolen from and murdered across all counties of Europe. We only know that, now that you’re off the road, many men’s lives have been saved.”
“What heroes you are,” Florentia said, her voice simmering with sarcasm. “I don’t know what the country of England would do without you. They’d better give you some sort of ceremony. Some sort of assertion that you’re the best of the best …”
At this, Jeffrey drew her the rest of the way out of the parlour. Charlotte and Louisa remained, holding onto one another in the shadows. Far in the foyer, Jeffrey and Charles Baxter met once more with both of the murderers.
“If you help me put them in the carriage. My assistant is here as well and plans to journey back to town with me,” Charles said.
“Very well,” Jeffrey said. “I’d like to remain here to bring order back to the guests.”
“Tell everyone to calm down,” Charles affirmed. “And tell Charlotte …”
“She knows. And she’s been through enough tonight. I don’t want her to have to speak to the likes of you.”
“Ha. I imagine your opinion of me is rather lacklustre …”
“Stop this meaningless drivel,” Sampson cried.
There was the sound of his thrashing around, something that caused Charles to hurt him in some way. Sampson let out a howl that seemed to shake the foundation of the mansion itself.
“Very well. It’s time to go,” Charles said.
Louisa and Charlotte walked as though through a dream, back towards the rest of the guests. Everyone seemed in various stages of shock, having witnessed Charles and Jeffrey drag both Florentia and Sampson through the corridors. After a long, horrible pause, Peter himself popped up on top of one of the dining room chairs, lifted his hands, and announced, “I believe it’s up to me to explain a bit more of what just occurred.”
“Yes, please!” Margorie cried. Her arms were wrapped tightly around Harry. Her face echoed the emotion of the rest of the party.
“There’s been a great deal at foot this evening. It wasn’t just any old, ordinary dinner party, although I must assure both all of you and my dear wife that every other dinner party moving forward will be similarly banal, boring—rife for whatever sort of conversation you’d like to bring,” he said. “No more arrests, from here on out.”
