“She hadn’t meant to kill him, but she did. So she had Mr. McEwan and Mr. Peters come up to the wall and they were just discussing what they ought to do when a grappling hook, of all things, came plonking down.”
Charlotte briefly explained the story behind the grappling hook, that it had been launched by a friend who was investigating various properties around Britain that had been worked on by De Lacey Industries’ preferred main contractor.
“So there was a connection. I was both rattled and perplexed—it didn’t seem like my father’s modus operandi yet I also couldn’t believe it to be a random happenstance.” Miss Baxter held out her hot water bottle to her lover with an inquiring glance; he declined it with a small shake of his head. She returned her attention to Charlotte. “Mr. Kaplan, our friend who died of pneumonia, enjoyed exploring caves. There is a cave a mile or so from here that he learned about from the locals. But inside he found a passage that even the locals didn’t know about and the passage led directly underneath the Garden.”
“Oh? Mrs. Watson and Lord Ingram saw some cave openings on the promontory. Do they belong to the same system?”
“No, none of the other nearby caves are connected—or at least, none of them are of any use to human-sized creatures. Even the passage Mr. Kaplan found was deep enough underground that at first we had no way of accessing it. Mrs. Crosby came up with the idea of building cisterns, which would give us a legitimate excuse to dig on the grounds of the Garden. Some of our people were working for the main contractor then, and we made sure they were the ones who dug through to the underground passage.
“Three cisterns were dug. That particular one, once we’d pumped out the water inside, the pump ‘broke’. Since the two others provided enough water, Miss Fairchild did not ‘bother’ to repair the pump. We shut off the inflow pipes years ago, so the cistern should be relatively dry inside and usable right away as an entrance to the cave.”
“There is a secret way into the Garden and you never allowed me to visit?” grumbled Mr. Finch. He sounded grievously hurt.
Charlotte didn’t so much see Miss Baxter glare at him as heard it. “It is impossible to walk in this passage. You have to crawl. It takes two hours to cover half a mile. And you need Mr. Peters for a guide because otherwise you’d get lost in there.”
Silence.
She sighed and caressed his hair. “Are we going to do what my father couldn’t and tear ourselves apart?”
There was fear in her voice, deep, stark fear.
Mr. Finch sighed, too, and rested his head on her shoulder. “No, we won’t.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was expecting again,” murmured Miss Baxter.
Mr. Finch’s voice seemed to thicken. “Apology accepted. And I’m sorry I was angry at you when in your shoes I’d have done the same thing.”
Charlotte took out the coconut biscuit she’d taken from Miss Baxter’s place earlier. It went well with a scene of dimly lit reconciliation.
She was just about finished with the biscuit when Miss Baxter said, “So you will dig up Mr. Craddock’s body on the headlands, Miss Holmes. And since my father is convinced I killed Craddock, I will, of course, need to appear on scene to prevent you from finding out the truth.”
Charlotte nodded. “We can get into another quarrel, and you can shoot me. That seems reasonable enough. But how do we account for the absence of my body? ”
“We’ve been uneasy for a while about Craddock’s body—interred, but still in the vicinity,” answered Miss Baxter. “Mr. McEwan was trained as a chemist and he suggested perchloric acid, which we’ve been accumulating in small amounts. We have just about enough to dissolve one person’s remains. Shall we dissolve Craddock’s and claim that they are yours?”
Ah, but it was a pleasure to scheme with this woman.
“And of course in the meanwhile I would have left via the cistern, with Mr. Peters’ guidance. De Lacey and his men would only know that my body had been transported back into the Garden and then was never seen again.” Charlotte traced her fingers around the slightly raised stamp on her envelope-patterned hot water bottle cozy. “That works for me. But what about you?”
“It will be more complicated for me. I must orchestrate my death in a way that doesn’t embroil the other members of the Garden, especially not Miss Fairchild, who has been a stalwart friend all these years.” Miss Baxter rubbed one knuckle across her lips. “It’s possible I will need to face my father at some point.”
Charlotte’s innards tightened. “I had a difficult time with him, when he called on me.”
“It’s never easy,” said Miss Baxter quietly. “I do not have his near hypnotic prowess, but I have learned that for him to be effective, he needs a single-minded focus. And I can disrupt that by upsetting or outright angering him.”
A veteran of many battles, this woman. “I’ll leave the handling of your father to you. But what about your remains? We can’t both disappear without bodies.”
“I can have Dr. Robinson locate one for me. He has the contacts for cadavers.”
“I suppose since you trusted him enough to deliver your baby, we can trust him on this also.”
“His credentials go much further than that. He was the one who found a body for Mrs. Marbleton all those years ago, when she needed to leave my father.”
This made Charlotte’s eyes widen. Such profound knowledge of Mrs. Marbleton’s past . . .
Miss Baxter chortled at Charlotte’s reaction. “Yes, she was the one who ‘kidnapped’ me when I was a child, shortly after my grandmother passed away. Here at the Garden we trust only those she has personally vouched for.”
She caressed Mr. Finch’s hair again. “But even to her I dared not breathe a word about Myron.”
Mr. Finch rubbed his head against her palm.
The impossible task those two faced, in trying to reunite their family . . .
Charlotte took out a jam tart that Lord Ingram had given her earlier. “You will have your son back. I will help you.”
Think before you speak, Miss Holmes.
I always do.
Perhaps here was another exception. Or perhaps she had been thinking about this very future since the moment she realized her brother’s role in Miss Baxter’s life—and vice versa.
Her simple statement made Miss Baxter and Mr. Finch come to their feet. They understood the commitment she had made.
Slowly Miss Baxter sat down again. She offered her hand to Charlotte.
Charlotte shook it. “You are welcome, Miss Moriarty.”
Briefly, Marguerite Moriarty covered her mouth with her hand, as if still unable to believe that Charlotte had pledged herself to their cause. And then she smiled. “Perhaps my father will have the last laugh—but I don’t believe so. We will overthrow him someday. And he will regret that he has underestimated us all along.”
Epilogue
“A marriage is an agreement between two people—and two families—to form an alliance, you see. It’s a solemn pact and usually lasts until one of the people is no more. But sometimes those who enter into that agreement realize that they have made a mistake. That the marriage itself is the mistake. And instead of living forever in a mistake, they choose to end the marriage.