The next day, I woke before even opening my eyes. My mind was clear enough to notice the weight of the bed, the cool touch of the sheets against my skin, the air in the room but I had no strength to move my body; it was still paying the price of the previous night.
I could hear a woman sobbing. The kind that was uneven, suppressed, with breath knotting in the throat. Margaret didn't cry like that; her tears always came with anger. And Elora… Elora didn't cry, she only went silent.
So who was this?
I heard the door open. The moment it was ajar, the sobbing stopped; the woman pulled herself together at once, trying to erase her presence. In that silence, footsteps echoed as someone entered the room steps with weight to them, heavy enough to feel with each contact against the floor. He was a man; that much was clear even before he spoke.
"Get up, Florence. Let Mr. Adrian rest."
I flinched. I almost gave away that I was awake.
The crying woman… was it Miss Jane? My palms grew damp; I had wanted her pale, crying face in my hands.
A faint rustle of fabric signaled someone shifting position. Then Miss Jane spoke in a cold tone:
"Did you interrogate Miss Wood?"
"I handed her over to the police. I questioned her too, but she didn't talk." There was a brief pause. "Did you know they were together?"
"I did."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why take the easy way out when you could find out yourself?"
"You're right. Let's go."
The footsteps turned back. At that moment, my body moved against my will. Instinctively, I caught the warmth beside me; my fingers wrapped around Jane's wrist. As pain rose from my chest and abdomen, I clenched my teeth and pushed myself into a half-sitting position.
Jane's breath caught for a moment. There was a piece of fabric closing around her throat as part of her clothing. Her black hair was tied up in a bun, the skin beneath her eyes red, how long does someone have to cry to look like that? Why did you cry, Jane? And more importantly, why are you in my manor? Do you want me to kill you that badly?
"You see? You woke him," Godfrey said unhappily.
"How could you expect me not to wake up when you're talking right next to my head?"
I still hadn't let go of Jane's wrist; I was furious. I had told her last time not to be here, and now she was right beside me as if she'd never heard a word I said.
"Sit."
A thin hint of mockery appeared on Godfrey's lips as he tilted his head slightly to the side. He scanned the room as if measuring the distance between us.
"Well, well. Are you close enough to give her orders now, Mr. Adrian?"
I turned my head slightly toward him. My gaze hadn't lost any of its sharpness. As I straightened up in the bed, I clenched my jaw to suppress the pain and kept my voice deliberately calm.
"I give orders only to those who work under me. My familiarity with Miss MacLeod is equivalent to you calling me Adrian."
Godfrey's eyebrows lifted faintly; after a brief silence, his voice came out more formal, colder.
"May I question you, Mr. Ravencroft?"
"Of course. I'd be delighted to assist you."
Godfrey took a few steps closer. He had long since abandoned any sense of formality; his jacket was loose, his movements relaxed. He sat down on the edge of the bed in a rather careless manner, turned toward me with his legs slightly apart.
"What is the nature of your relationship with Miss Margaret Wood?"
"I'm not entirely sure myself. It depends on her, whether it's love or obsession, I can't say."
"Did your relationship continue before her husband died?"
"Yes. Her husband constantly cheated on her. I suppose she wanted to do the same with me."
Godfrey nodded, as if the answer were exactly what he had expected. As his fingers traced over his knee, he asked the next question.
"And does this 'excessive' benevolence of yours truly come with no personal gain?"
"If I said sexuality, I have a feeling you wouldn't believe me."
Godfrey let out a short breath; he almost chuckled, but held himself back.
"I wouldn't. You're not that kind of man. What I'm asking is why you still haven't gotten rid of her, even though she stabbed you."
My expression hardened.
"Gotten rid of her? You treat human life far too lightly, Mr. Godfrey."
Godfrey shrugged loosely, let his gaze wander around the room, then returned it to me. He was indifferent.
"Of course I do. Look at them, lives that fade so quickly. Even the rich can easily die at the hands of a serial killer."
"You're speaking very suspiciously. Perhaps you're the killer."
As I said this, I narrowed my eyes slightly and studied Godfrey. I was calm; there was a subtle challenge simmering inside me, and I took particular pleasure in voicing that possibility.
"I might be. I might have been. However, I don't enjoy making puzzles... enjoy solving them. Are you in love with Miss Jane, Mr. Adrian?"
"And what led you to that conclusion?"
"You're still holding her wrist."
Godfrey gestured lightly with his head.
I was aware of it. I released Jane's wrist. Her skin was deep red, nearly bruised. The imprint of my fingers was clearly visible, and the silence in the room grew heavier with the sight of it.
"I don't think someone who loves another would hurt the one they love. That's what my father taught me."
"Your father died after losing your mother during childbirth, didn't he? A death for the sake of love?"
He was deliberately reopening the wound, watching closely for even the slightest change in my expression. What he didn't know was that my family's deaths meant nothing to me.
When he failed to get the reaction he wanted, Godfrey continued,
"Were you saddened when Mr. Wood died? I doubt it you were quite interested in his wife, after all."
He was openly insulting me, pushing far beyond propriety for the sake of the interrogation. I noticed Jane's breathing quicken; Godfrey's jaw had tightened as well. I couldn't understand their reactions, but for some reason it felt as though the two of them could drown each other in a spoonful of water. What was the reason for such hatred between them?
"I have never been with Miss Wood. I didn't violate her. I am not that kind of man. In fact, to be honest with you; women exist to bear children. Infertile women are souls cursed by God."
Godfrey had understood my honesty from the very first minute, and with that realization, he began to smile.
"If I were to be with Miss Wood, I would want there to be a result. However, having an illegitimate child born outside of marriage doesn't suit a baron's reputation."
"You want a child from a married woman you don't love, yet you say it can't happen without marriage. What a coincidence that Mr. Wood dies who does this benefit the most?"
Godfrey leaned forward slightly. His voice had lowered, but the pressure had intensified; he already knew the answer. He was deliberately pressing me.
"Are you accusing me of being a murderer?"
I pressed my lips into a thin line; a brief glint flashed in my eyes. I was about to give him the answer he wanted, as though I had fallen straight into his trap.
"If I were a serial killer, I would prefer to kill people at random rather than based on personal gain."
After my words, a heavy silence settled over the room; it was an open war between two minds.
"Jane, step outside."
Godfrey stood up abruptly, the sharpness in his voice unexpected. He grabbed Jane by the arm and pulled her to her feet; the movement was rushed.
"Jane, walk. Get out."
As he said this, he never once took his eyes off me. His lips curled upward, his smile far too wide; his cheeks were flushed, his gaze glowing with a strange excitement.
As Jane left the room, Godfrey couldn't keep still. The moment the door closed, he sat down in the spot Jane had just vacated, his limbs moving restlessly. The motion was excessive; as soon as he sat, he leaned toward me, deliberately closing the distance between us.
"What else? What would you do if you were another kind of killer, Mr. Adrian? How would you kill them? Where would you kill them?"
The questions came one after another; they carried not curiosity, but appetite. Godfrey's eyes roamed over my face as if he were about to devour me, trying to extract meaning from the slightest twitch.
"I don't think it's normal for a detective to interrogate someone like this."
I had given him what he wanted, but if I continued, I would be satisfying him. I wanted to unsettle him by cutting his pleasure short.
"You're not just anyone you're a dear friend of mine. We're merely chatting about trivial things right now."
"Is it normal, then, to exhaust a friend like this when he's just been stabbed?"
"I'm sorry, talking to you made me…"
Godfrey hesitated for a moment, moistening his lips. He even tried to cover the flush in his cheeks with his hands.
"…it gave me so much pleasure, aroused me so much, that I couldn't control myself."
The smile on Godfrey's face began to take on a disturbing quality. A sick man just as Jane had said he took pleasure in his work. Wounded, merely sitting up in bed and answering his questions, I was on the verge of bringing a man to release, and the discomfort it filled me with was indescribable. Every hair on my body bristled in revulsion.
"I don't understand. What did you say?"
"You should rest a little. I'll come back later."
Godfrey stood up quickly, as though he didn't want to stand behind what he'd just said. Even as he headed for the door, that strange satisfaction never left his face; when he exited, he left behind a silence thick with unanswered questions.
"By the way, Mr. Godfrey," I said, stopping him. "May I ask you for something?"
"Anything you want." He looked remarkably eager like a trained dog wagging its tail.
"Could you summon Mr. Sebastian Thornwick for me? Or is that asking too much?"
At the sound of my request, disappointment fell across his face. "Hah… of course I'll call him." And he left through the door.
A few minutes later, the door creaked open quietly. Butler Thornwick stepped inside, his face bearing its usual measured seriousness.
"You sent for me, sir."
With difficulty, I straightened up. Holding onto the edge of the bed, I let my feet dangle back down; I raised my hand and moved only my index finger.
"Come closer." There was a restrained anger simmering inside me.
Thornwick took a few steps forward. His eyes involuntarily flicked to the bandages on my abdomen, but he quickly recovered his composure.
"Your siblings were very worried about you, so I sent them into the city to buy you gifts. I thought it might distract them."
"Thornwick, bend down."
The moment he leaned forward slightly, I gathered all the strength left in my arm. The slap I delivered to his face echoed sharply through the room.
Thornwick staggered but didn't fall. The expression on his face wasn't so much shock as a resigned pain.
"At Hogmanay, all the servants were working under you. You are not a man who makes mistakes; and if I strike a man older than myself, there must be serious reasons."
My voice grew increasingly hard.
"I didn't take issue when Miss MacLeod mixed drugs into the meals, because no member of the Ravencrofts was harmed. But in the days that followed, I was stabbed, I was harmed. Are you certain you can pay the consequences? How will you make amends for this deliberate mistake?"
"With information, sir."
"Speak."
"I was the one who let Miss MacLeod in. I told her she could stay as long as she did no harm to the Ravencrofts. She agreed to this. Miss Wood, on the other hand, entered as Mr. Godfrey's companion. One doesn't expect danger when someone arrives with a detective, please accept my apology for that."
Thornwick didn't avert his gaze as he spoke. His words sounded less like a defense and more like an overdue report. With every sentence, the room grew colder.
So she had arrived together with Margaret Godfrey had they planned it? A pairing I would never have anticipated. Then did Godfrey already know about the matter between Miss Wood and me? The drugs, and everything else? There were too many possibilities, and I was too wounded to pursue them.
"Then why did you let Miss MacLeod in in the first place?"
My reactions had quieted; this was my anger deepening.
"Miss Jane Florence, she is the daughter of Antonio Boggia Thornwick. That makes her my niece as well."
Antonia Boggia; Italy's first serial killer, a man who had escaped prison multiple times. There was the faintest shift on my face; it was an unexpected piece falling into place. I had believed Jane's father to be Martin MacLeod.
"Then why is Miss Jane a MacLeod?"
"The late Mrs. MacLeod was meant to be my brother's next victim, but after my brother abused her, she fled to Scotland and hastily married Mr. Martin MacLeod."
The words were heavy, ugly and irreversible. The air in the room grew even denser.
"Wonderful. Jane is the daughter of a serial killer. Does your brother know about this?"
"No, sir. But I do."
"So you're confessing that you mixed family matters with your duties."
"My priority is still the Ravencroft family, sir."
"And how long have you been in contact with Miss Jane?"
"Before her death, her mother told her who her real father was. After that, she came to me."
"When did this happen?" I tilted my head slightly, hoping to catch a detail in the answer.
"About two years ago."
"Is it possible she saw me that day? At the manor? Did you give her any information about me?" The questions spilled out one after another.
"She had seen you. She asked who you were, and I told her you were the baron."
"I understand. You may leave."
I leaned my head back against the pillow; for now, the conversation was over for me.
"Will you dismiss me, sir?"
For the first time, Thornwick hesitated as he asked.
"You know I can't dismiss you. Isn't that why you made the mistake in the first place? Wait until I recover then we'll consider what comes next."