Candice looks at me, then looks at Bharathy. We cannot tell if she is confused, heartbroken… or angry. But she certainly isn’t happy by our arrival for she snarled just as the door opened, revealing us.
‘So this is your wit, Ascendant Stapleton? Turning me to an asylum, saying I have lost my mind? What a way to rid your enemies… and indeed, enemies, for I cannot ever forget this day. Indeed…’
‘I suppose you will not be interested in hearing my honey tone say why must you do this to me, and let me tell you this, I am not interested in it either. So tell us what is the truth and we will let you go.’
At this, she laughs, ‘What? You will let me go? You will give me all that I want and depart me with all the respect that I deserve. For it isn’t me who betrayed my allies and turned them to an asylum.’
‘But weren’t you the one who hung the dead body of Bailey on the tree?’ Inquires Bharathy, to which, Candice does not pay heed.
‘If only you weren’t philistine… you would realize I could not. You would realize that indeed, I just could not do it. Even if I tried to, and even if I wanted to. You see, I was asleep when you left when I heard someone. It was a man, a very tall man with determined eyes, a handsome face. He was quite pale when he entered. But then I saw it, the dead body had gone. To wherever I looked, I could see no body, not hither nor thither. Swallowed by air or occupied by the earth, it couldn’t be found. The man offered me help but of course, I did refuse.’
‘And then?’
‘And then you caged me here like a bird.’
‘But how do we trust you?’ Bharathy asks.
‘Well, how could I trust you? How could I believe in you? How can you believe in Ascendant, who so easily could lie, or trust me not to harm you? In this fallen world, you could trust no one. Yet if you do ask, ask the man, for he himself was there, and if I am correct, he won’t have left by now. No one could leave these walls unless he is not a man but a bug.’
‘Who was he?’
‘I do not know. I never asked.’
‘Had you seen him before?’
‘Yes… he was in one of the portraits of the lounge. It was him, yes… someone close to your family. And maybe he held a secret. Or so did the man who came with him say. The man… oh yes, that guard. I remember his name quite well. It is Peter Thomson, recall, the man who shot the priest.’
‘Yes, I do indeed.’
Peter Thomson was a policeman who was confiscated of his position for firing on an unarmed priest. They say he was quite notorious. I remember him, yes, for I read the article about him to Candice from Cooper’s weekly.
I remember it quite well, actually.
To anyone in the town, it might have been a heartache just facing him. Though for me, he appeared like a prize.
And where to find this prize was up to the hands of Bharathy now.
I look at Priscilla, she nods, I reveal one single check which I slid past the wooden table to Candice.
‘This is a sum of 700 Pecunias. You will be released tomorrow. Telephone a man called Sir Auxil Lullaby, the third Earl and tell him that the Stapletons would like to meet him at the Rosewood Estate on the third. Tell him also that you are the agent, for then he will accommodate you.’
‘Why? What for?’
‘Trust me, Candice, you’d know.’
