Quicksilver

EIGHTEEN

The hunter in him sensed that he was closing in on his prey. He ought to be feeling the icy-cold rush of energy that always hit toward the end of the hunt, Owen thought. But for some reason he was consumed with an edgy, restless sensation that told him he had left at least one door unopened.

“Owen?” Virginia said. “Is there something wrong?”

He realized he was hurrying her so swiftly along the stone passage that she was obliged to hold her skirts up almost to her knees and trot briskly to keep up with him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He forced himself to slow to a rapid walk. “I am eager to get you out of here.”

“I appreciate that. I assure you I have no desire to linger. But I have the impression that you are not satisfied with what we learned in that chamber. At least we have some clue to the identity of the man who murdered Mrs. Ratford and Mrs. Hackett. We know that he is a blood relative of Hollister’s.”

“That information is useful,” he agreed. “I will ask my aunt to pursue her genealogical research.”

“You are concerned about the fire that is trapped in the mirrors, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Hollister was an out-and-out killer. He raped his victims, and then he murdered them. That was all he cared about. But there is something different about the second man. He does not assault his victims physically before he kills them.”

“I see what you mean.” Virginia sounded thoughtful.

“It is almost as if he has been conducting experiments.”

“To what purpose?”

“To trap fire in mirrors, or so it appears. There is much more to this affair than meets the eye, Virginia.”

“Lady Hollister might be able to tell us something useful, but she really is quite insane, Owen.”

He turned another corner and saw an ancient wood-and-iron door set into the wall of the tunnel. He stopped abruptly. So did Virginia.

“Lady Hollister,” he said softly.

“Surely you are not going to pursue her? Speaking personally, I am grateful that she murdered her husband.”

“She certainly did the world a favor.” He contemplated the door. “But I am curious about how she came and went from the scene of the murder.”

Virginia looked at the door. “Do you think that leads to the mansion?”

“Yes. The lock on it is new.”

He took the pick out of his pocket and set to work. “The house is empty. We may as well search the premises while we are here.”

“That could take hours, even days. It is a very big house, Owen. What do you hope to find?”

“I don’t know. I never do until I see it.”

When he got the door open they found themselves in an empty basement room. A well-worn trail of footprints cut through the decades of dust and grime that covered the stone floor.

“Someone came this way often over the years,” Virginia said.

He angled the lantern and crouched to view the footprints. “It is impossible to make out individual tracks because there are so many of them, but most appear to have been left by a man.”

“Hollister.”

“No doubt. I see the prints of a woman’s shoes, as well. More than one woman, to be precise. Whoever they were, they came through here recently.”

“Lady Hollister and the servant who helped her carry me down here, perhaps.”

“No doubt.” He straightened and aimed the lantern at the flight of steps at the far end of the room. “Let us see where that leads.”

They climbed the steps. The door at the top opened onto a darkened library. When they emerged into the room Owen saw that the opening they had come through was concealed as a section of bookshelves.

“A house of secrets,” Virginia said. “But obviously Lady Hollister knew at least some of those secrets.”

Owen set the lantern on the desk and began opening and closing drawers. “Others may have known them as well. Lady Hollister’s companion, for example. Or some of the servants.”

“I do not recall seeing any servants other than the housekeeper when I arrived. There must have been a couple of daily maids and a gardener, at the very least. One simply cannot run a household this size without staff. But I can’t believe that they would have remained silent if they had suspected what was going on down in that chamber.”

“By all accounts this was a rather eccentric household.” He closed one drawer and opened another. “If most of the staff came in daily and did not live on the premises, it’s possible that they never knew about their employer’s unpleasant hobby down in the basement.”

Virginia came toward him. Her shoes made no sound on the expensive carpet. “Are you searching for anything in particular?”

“It would be rather useful to find a record of the purchase of one or more of those damned clockwork devices.” He closed the last drawer. “But there is nothing of that sort here. Just some blank paper and a few odds and ends.”

Virginia began plucking books at random off the shelves. After half a dozen volumes, she opened one and paused.

“This is interesting,” she said.

He rounded the desk. “What have you got there?”

“There are a number of photographs concealed in this book. They all appear to be of young women and girls about Becky’s age.” Virginia looked up quickly. “Dear heaven. I fear that this is a record of Hollister’s victims.”

He took the book from her and examined the photographs. Each showed a young woman dressed like a prostitute. Each girl in the pictures was lying on the bed in the mirrored room, clearly dead.

Wearily Owen closed the book. More victims he had failed to save, he thought. More images to haunt his nights. “He indulged his obsession for years, and no one ever knew.”

Virginia touched his hand. The knowing look in her eyes told him that she understood what was going through his mind.

“There is no changing the past,” she said. “There will always be monsters. You cannot hunt them all. You will do what you can, but you must accept that you will not be able to save every victim.”

“Knowing that truth and accepting it are two very different things.”

“One accepts such truths by concentrating on the present and the future, not the past.”

He smiled. “Where did you learn such wisdom?”

“My mother told me that when I was thirteen and just coming into my talent. She said I must never forget that although I would see a great deal of evil in the mirrors, once in a while I would be able to find justice for some of the victims and provide a sense of peace to some of those left behind. She said those rare moments must be enough to sustain me or I would be driven mad by the afterimages I would view in the years ahead.”

“Your mother sounds like a very wise woman.” He tucked the book under one arm. “I will give these pictures to Caleb Jones. He can turn them over to his friend at Scotland Yard. Perhaps the police will be able to notify the families of some of Hollister’s victims and assure them that the killer is dead.”

“That is a good plan,” she said.

He went toward the door that opened onto the hall. “Let’s go upstairs. People are inclined to keep their most closely held secrets in their bedrooms.”

They went down a long hallway and started up the broad stairs to the floor above.

“I remember coming up this staircase,” Virginia said. She looked around uneasily. “The bedroom that Lady Hollister wanted me to examine was on this floor at the end of the hall.”

“That was the room in which you were overcome by the drug?”

“Yes. I remember nothing after that until I woke up in that mirrored chamber.”

The faint creak of a rope twisting on wood brought him to an abrupt halt. He looked up.

“Virginia,” he said quietly.

She froze. “What is it?”

“If I am not mistaken, it is Lady Hollister.”

The flaring light of the lantern revealed the body of a woman hanging from a rope secured to the banister two floors above.

“Dear heaven,” Virginia whispered. “I’m sure that’s her.”

Owen went swiftly up the next flight of stairs. Virginia followed on his heels. They both looked over the banister. The light fell on the face of the dead woman.

“It is, indeed, Lady Hollister,” Virginia whispered. “Was she murdered, too?”

Owen opened his senses and looked at the fluorescing light that clung to the rope and the wooden banister. Madness and despair radiated like a terrible poison.

“No. It is the same psychical energy that I saw downstairs in the tunnels where Hollister was killed. After she avenged her murdered daughter, Lady Hollister went about her wifely duties. She saw to it that her husband’s body was quietly removed. She made up the bed and dismissed the servants. And then she hanged herself.”

“And she managed it all without creating a scandal in the family.”