Stretching it seemed the only hope, so I mustered all my strength and pulled as hard as I could, over and over until I could feel the slightest hint of a gap forming between the straps and my wrists. It wasn’t enough, though. Now, instead of trying to free both hands, I expended my energy all on the right, using the whole of my body to tug against the rails on the side of the bed to which I was attached. The leather was bending to my will, but not quickly enough.

And then I heard it. The wailing. The sad sobs, the small voice. Was Lucy up here with me? I was not going to see her lost to the clutches of a maniac like George Markham. I would find her, I would save her, I would return her to Madame Sapin, the only mother she’d known. I felt as if something primal in me had kicked in, enabling me unlimited strength to defend this child.

Only my strength fell somewhat short of unlimited. Nonetheless, with repeated, brutal tugs, I finally managed to slip my right wrist, bloodied and battered, through the binding strap. With a shaking hand, I unbuckled the cuffs on my other hand, ankles, and forehead. Lucy’s cries were fading again, and I rushed in the direction of them, pausing when I realized that if I did not first stop George, there would be no escape for either of us.

I assessed the space around me. There was little furniture, and no hope I could block him out of the room for long. The door opened inward, so I dragged the bed in front of it, figuring its presence might buy me at least a few extra seconds. Then I turned my attention to George’s strange machine.

I’d heard of the use of electricity in medicine, but never paid much attention to the topic. My mother had once mentioned that a long-ago Duchess of Devonshire had been a proponent of it. That, unfortunately, was my entire knowledge of the subject. The device looked simple enough—turning the crank had to provide the power, so I began working on it at once, figuring I would need as much stored up as possible—and I knew George hadn’t been turning it when he shocked me. I then moved the contraption to the bed. Electricity needed metal, so I wrapped the wire George had used to shock me around the tarnished doorknob.

And then I had to figure out how to turn up the current. I played with the dial on the flat surface of the machine’s base, carefully touching the wire. Nothing happened. Frantic, I studied the object before me again, finally seeing a small switch. I threw it, touched the wire, and recoiled at the shock. I then turned the dial farther to the right and touched the wire again. A harder shock.

I spun the dial as far to the right as it would go, made sure the switch was still on, and was careful to touch neither the wire, nor the doorknob. I stepped away from the bed and steeled myself for George’s return, hoping the shock he got would knock him out, even if only momentarily. He’d said he’d not gone even halfway up with Edith, so surely full strength would have a diabolical effect on him.

The thin wail of Lucy’s cry filled the room again. Startled and on edge, I spun around, taking better stock of my surroundings. Where could she be? There were no windows in the room, so the sound could not have been coming from outside—it wouldn’t have been able to penetrate the thick stone walls—and there was no visible door except the one through which George had exited. There had to be another one—hidden—that I hoped would lead to the child.

A cold chill shot through me. Scared out of my wits, I shuffled back to the door, my legs so feeble I could hardly support myself. I felt a presence—someone had to be here, but it didn’t seem possible. The crying ceased and was replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps just outside.

My heart pounded. I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes, knowing I had only one chance at survival. I could hear him on the other side of the door. He’d stopped walking but hadn’t yet touched the door.

I heard him sigh, fumble with a key. I held my breath waiting for it to slip into the lock, then turn. The instant the lock clicked, I turned on the machine.

And then, a buzz, a hum, and a shriek—a hideous shriek of pain—followed by a thump. More scared than ever, and trembling uncontrollably, I closed the switch on the machine, hesitating to touch the wire even though I knew it should be off. Then, afraid he might return to his senses quickly, I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and reached for the wire.

Nothing happened.

I ripped it from the knob, pushed the bed away from the door, and opened it. George lay before me on the floor, twitching, foam bubbling from between his lips. My stomach turned and I felt sick, but there was no time for contemplation, guilt, or compassion. I raced down the stone spiral stairs to the bottom of the tower, then stopped.

Lucy had to be somewhere near, and I couldn’t leave her here in case George should wake up before I could return with help. I forced myself back up the steps, took the key from the door, and locked myself into the room from which I’d only just escaped. Unable to stop shaking, I made my way around the perimeter, steadying myself against the stone wall, feeling for any imperfection that might unlatch the hidden door I was convinced had to exist. Weren’t castles full of passages through which escape would be possible should the inhabitants have fallen under siege?

The silence around me was oppressive, broken only by the sound of my heart thumping and the blood beating its way through my ears. I circled the room for a fifth time, with each rotation scrutinizing another swathe of the wall. Finally I found a place where the smoothness of the stone gave way to a rough patch, a spot where the mortar had crumbled. I thrust my fingers into it, and felt a cold, hard switch. It took all the strength left in my already injured hands to pull it, and as I did, a rectangular piece of the floor swung down like a trapdoor to reveal a narrow staircase.

I grabbed a lamp from the table on which George had placed his machine. Pausing, I considered checking to make sure he was still unconscious, but it didn’t seem wise to waste any precious time. I placed a foot carefully on the first step and made my way to the bottom, where I found a tight passageway, too short for me to stand up straight. Another switch was here, on the wall, a twin to the one I’d found in the tower. Holding my breath, I flipped it, knowing it would close the way from which I’d come. Another layer of protection should George wake up.

Frightening, though, if it wouldn’t reopen should I need it to. I could not, however, imagine the point in building a secret passage that led to nowhere.

I continued on as quickly as I could, my feet slipping on the mossy pavement, until I heard Lucy’s cries, and the sound of small footsteps. In an instant, the child was in front of me, tears streaming down her pale, dirt-streaked face, a blue satin ribbon crumpled in her little hand. I scooped her into my arms and held her close, then shot the rest of the way down the tunnel to where it hit another set of steps.

At the top of which was a door that led to the dovecote.

Above it, a key hung on a high hook. I jumped up and grabbed it, unlocked the door, burst through it, and didn’t stop running until I’d reached Mrs. Hargreaves’s house.


27 July 1892

At last it’s all over, thank heavens. If I never am subjected to such drama again, it will be too soon. It’s impossible to reconcile the neighbor and friend I’d known for years with the brutal killer for which he’s now been exposed.

Emily’s strength shows through better now than ever before. The servants say she appeared here with the child, breathless and exhausted, surely terrified out of her mind, but she was calm, direct, and put them all at ease as she told them what to do.

The police came in short order and it’s all settled now. No more murderous neighbors to contend with, no more ghost stories or strange cries in the night.

I have, without question, been in the country too long.

Gladstone’s won. It’s time I return to London.

33

“I think perhaps I ought to be slightly affronted you didn’t come rescue us before sending for help,” Cécile said as we all sat at a rough-hewn table under the shade of a magnificent tree in the garden at Mrs. Hargreaves’s house the next afternoon. None of us had touched the spread of cakes on pretty silver platters, but the scalding hot tea proved a panacea for all, and we consumed pot after pot at an alarming rate.

“I was afraid if he woke up he’d catch me again before I could sound an alarm,” I said. In fact, he hadn’t regained consciousness until after Inspector Gaudet and his men arrived, having been summoned by Mrs. Hargreaves’s servants the instant I’d told them what happened. His physical condition was not great—I’d injured him severely—but his mind was intact, and the police physician who examined him predicted what he called a full-enough recovery.

“It’s terrifying to think—” my mother-in-law started, but stopped at a fierce glare from Colin. We all fell into a tense silence. Madeline was still with us, shaken and devastated, incoherent. I wished Dr. Girard could look after her. We’d arranged for his partner to come for both her and her mother, and I had no doubt they’d be well taken care of in the asylum, although seeing them committed felt something like a failure. George, for all his evilness, had started with a noble motive—trying to cure his wife’s illness so that she would never be relegated to hospital. His ill-formed plan had in the end served to do nothing but guarantee she would spend the rest of her life in one. And he would certainly be executed.