“I expect it’s the engineer in you.”
She did not sound put off by that fact, he concluded. She merely accepted it as a part of who he was.
She followed him down the steps and around the side of the big house. A high wall enclosed the gardens at the rear, but the gate was unlocked. Inside the walls they found another mostly barren stretch of ground.
Benedict rapped sharply on the kitchen door. This time when he got no response he tried the knob. It was unlocked. A chill of knowing went through him.
“Just like this morning,” he said, more to himself than to Amity.
She gave him a quick, searching glance. “You mean when you found Dr. Norcott’s body?”
“Yes.” Benedict took the pistol out of his pocket.
Amity breathed out slowly, as if fortifying herself. Then she reached beneath her cloak and unhooked the tessen from the chatelaine. She held the fan-shaped blade in the closed position in her gloved hand.
Benedict considered ordering her to remain outside, but then concluded that she was no safer there than she was with him. Together they could protect each other if it transpired that Warwick was waiting for them inside the house.
He used the toe of his boot to prod the door open. A dimly lit hallway loomed in front of them. When no madman with a scalpel leaped out of the shadows, he moved into the gloom. Amity followed.
The house reverberated with emptiness. A single ray of lamplight slanted out of a room halfway along the hall.
“Watch the rooms on the left side of the hall,” he said. “I will keep an eye on the right.”
“Yes,” she said.
They made their way toward the wedge of light, passing the kitchen, a morning room, a pantry and a closet. All the doors were open except the one on the closet. Benedict tried the knob. It turned easily enough. The shelves inside were stacked with linens and cleaning supplies.
They continued down the long hall. The unmistakable smell of death drifted out of the lamp-lit room.
“Dear heaven,” Amity whispered.
Benedict stopped in the doorway and swept the space with a single glance. The body of a middle-aged woman dressed in a dark gown lay on the floor near a desk. As was the case with Warwick, there was a great deal of blood. Most of it had soaked into the carpet and appeared to be dry.
“So much for Charlotte Warwick’s assumption that her son did not know about Mrs. Dunning,” Benedict said. “The bastard does like the scalpel. He cut her throat.”
“He killed her the same way he murdered his other victims.”
“Stay here. I want to make sure there are no surprises in the front hall.”
He checked the last room on the floor, a sparsely furnished library. The few leather-bound volumes on the shelves were covered in dust. He went quickly back to where Amity waited, her fan at the ready.
“What is going on?” she asked. “Why is Warwick murdering these people?”
“It’s probably unwise to speculate on the motives of a madman, but I have a feeling that he is killing those who know his secret.”
“But why now? And why these two? Dr. Norcott very likely saved Warwick’s life the day that I cut him with the tessen. And evidently Mrs. Dunning was the one who got him out of Cresswell Manor.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t think he needs them anymore,” Benedict said. “He believes they had become liabilities because they knew the truth about him.”
Comprehension widened Amity’s eyes. “And because he knows we are hunting him. He realized that sooner or later we would likely track down both Norcott and Dunning.”
“We must return to London immediately and inform Inspector Logan of what we discovered.”
“What about the body? We cannot simply leave it here.”
“Yes,” Benedict said. “We can and we will.”
Amity reattached her tessen to the chain at her waist and studied the desk with a speculative expression.
