With Sybil and Penny flanking her, Madeline stood on the porch and watched them go. “I just hope they get there in time.”
Sybil patted her arm, then gathered the youngsters and ushered them indoors.
Penny remained beside Madeline, staring at the dwindling figures of their men. “I hope they reach her before him, but from all I’ve heard of this blackguard, we’re going to be disappointed in that, too.”
Madeline glanced at her, met her eyes. After a moment, they turned and went inside.
They covered the distance to Helston Grange at a blistering pace. It was the first time Gervase had ridden with Dalziel; he wasn’t surprised to learn his ex-commander was as bruising a ri
der as the rest of them.
They arrived to discover the majority of residents at the Grange had yet to rise for the day. When summoned to his drawing room, Robert Hardesty came rather diffidently in, puzzled rather than irritated by the intrusion.
“Lord Crowhurst.” He smiled at Gervase and extended his hand. “It’s been rather a long time.”
“Indeed.” Gervase grasped his hand, nodded curtly. “I apologize for the abruptness, Robert—we’ll explain in a moment, but it’s Lady Hardesty we’ve come to see. It’s urgent that we speak with her.”
His grim expression—and those of Charles, Christian and Dalziel ranged at his back—made Robert’s eyes widen. Then Gervase’s request sank in. “Ah…they—my wife and her friends—tend to keep London hours. I doubt my wife would be awake—”
“Lord Hardesty.” Dalziel captured Robert’s gaze. “We wouldn’t be here, making such a request at this hour, were the need not great. If you could send a maid to summon your wife?”
Robert Hardesty blushed. His gaze shifted away. It was apparent he didn’t know if his wife was alone in her bed. But then he swallowed, flicked a glance at Gervase and nodded. “If you insist.”
He rang the bell, gave the order.
Gervase was conscious of the urge to pace, something he rarely did; he could feel the effort Charles and Dalziel were making not to circle the room. Tension rode them all, unnerving Robert Hardesty even more than their expressions.
Then they heard the first scream.
Gervase pushed past Robert and headed straight for the stairs, Dalziel on his heels. He didn’t have to look to know Charles and Christian had gone the other way, out of the front door to circle the house. Just in case.
There was no need to ask for directions; they followed the screams, gaining in intensity, rocketing toward hysteria.
Reaching the room at the end of the wing, they opened the door. A maid was backed against the wall a few feet away, her knuckles pressed to her mouth, her eyes huge, her gaze fixed on the bed.
On the figure sprawled across it.
The bulging eyes, the protruding tongue, the necklace of bruises ringing the long throat, the indescribable horror of what had once been a beautiful face clearly stated that life was long extinct.
Dalziel pushed past and went to the bed.
Gervase grabbed the maid and bundled her out—into the arms of the butler who had come rushing up. “Lady Hardesty’s dead. Sit her”—he nodded at the maid—“downstairs in the kitchen and give her tea. And send for the doctor.”
Although plainly shocked, the butler nodded. “Yes, my lord.” He turned the now-weeping maid away.
Gervase went back into the room.
Dalziel withdrew his fingers from the side of Lady Hardesty’s bruised throat. “Not cold, but cooling. She’s been dead for hours.”
He turned to the long windows giving onto a balcony; one was open. Gervase followed Dalziel out; the balcony looked toward a stretch of woodland bordering the Helford River.
Dalziel pointed to muddy scrapes on the railing. “No mystery how he got in.”
They looked over and down. A gnarled wisteria with a trunk a foot thick wound up one supporting post to weave its tendrils through the ironwork railings. Gervase grimaced. “It couldn’t have been easier.”
Charles came out of the woodland along a path. He halted below; hands on hips, he studied their faces. “Dead?”
Dalziel nodded. “Anything down there?”