“Want to stay here and investigate?” Sara asked.
“No!” Kate and Jack said in unison.
“Still planning to go to Scotland?”
“Yes,” Kate said.
“With all my heart and soul, I want to leave here,” Jack said. “And I swear that if we see a dead body, I’ll grab Kate and run away.”
“Good idea,” Sara said. “I’ll ask the inspector when you can leave.”
That had been days ago. They’d had to stay there while the police called each person in to give a statement about that night. Thanks to Sara and Byon’s play, they had all remembered things that they hadn’t thought were important.
Diana’s testimony was invaluable. After she talked to the police, the others gathered. Diana cried when she told them that she didn’t know Sean had been shot. “I wouldn’t have left him if I’d known.” After she rode away, she’d done as Sean had said—she’d gone to her girlfriend, who’d taken her in. As they’d planned, the next night, she took Sean’s suitcase when she went to meet him at the pub. “But he didn’t show up,” Diana told them. “I knew something was wrong. I felt it. I should have gone back to Oxley but...” She looked at Kate.
“You couldn’t bear to see your rapist,” Kate said.
“I thought Nicky was my friend. I was going to marry him. How could I go to the police about him? Or even confront him in front of our friends?” She looked at her hands. “I took the coward’s way out.”
Sara spoke up. “If you’d gone back, I think one of them would have killed you too.”
Jack and Kate nodded in agreement.
Chris took his mother’s hand. “I’m glad you didn’t return. Glad you left the country and had me.”
She smiled at him. “I did—” She took a breath. “But... I did something unforgivable.”
Sara leaned forward. “Does it have to do with Sean’s suitcase?”
“Yes. It was full of money.”
“I thought so,” Sara said. “He’d been saving it for his life with Nadine.”
“I knew what he’d been doing with the horses,” Diana said. “It was through that that Helen and I met, so I couldn’t be too angry at him.”
“She supplied the horses and their...?” Kate asked.
“Most of them. I thought that if I took no money, I wasn’t guilty. Besides, Sean seemed desperate for money. I thought maybe he was a gambling addict or something. I never thought it was all about love.” She glanced at Nadine.
“When did you leave for Australia?” Sara asked.
“The next day. We’d booked a ship for a month later, for after I’d worked up the courage to tell Nicky I couldn’t marry him. But after what happened that night, I wanted to leave immediately. I couldn’t bear to wait.”
“Did you see a newspaper during this time?” Jack asked.
“I did,” Diana answered. “And there wasn’t a word in it about Oxley Manor.”
“Two lovers running away together wasn’t newsworthy,” Sara said.
“Especially since an earl was involved,” Nadine said. “We keep our dirt quiet.”
“And you had the suitcase full of cash,” Byon said in awe.
“Yes, but I didn’t know that for a couple of years. It was Sean’s so I didn’t open it. Besides, I just thought it held his clothes. Helen and I were busy trying to find jobs. It wasn’t easy.”
“And you had me to look after,” Chris said.
Diana smiled. “We did.” She looked at Sara. “A goat ate the corner of the old suitcase. It was in the loft of a barn and he gnawed a bit of it. When I realized what it contained, I again tried to contact Sean.”