Lethal Legend (29 page)

Diana knew he was toying with her, but she couldn’t think of any way to force him to give her the one answer she really wanted. For the moment, she played along. “Whose idea was it for Winthrop to get Mrs. Monroe to intercept letters?”

“Mine. I wanted the island cut off. Somener thwarted my first plan by sailing to Belfast and sending a telegram to Dr. Northcote. We’d have recovered on our own. I didn’t use that much morphine.”

“Was it in the Moxie?”

“Why, yes, the last and largest dose. How clever of you to figure that out.”

“But I’m not the first to come to that conclusion, am I? Ennis must have guessed. That’s why he had to die.”

“My, you
are
putting the pieces together.” Carstairs grinned at her with what looked like approval. She found his attitude odious. He was basking in a sense of his own cleverness, the villain! “Frank was suspicious. I couldn’t risk having him interfere with my plans, so I got rid of him. Pity. I liked Frank.”

“What plans?” More than stopping the excavation, and nothing, she’d warrant, to do with Min Somener and some imagined treasure. “Why poison yourself and the others? You could all have died.”

“Exactly. And for that reason I would not be suspected when someone
did
die later.” Carstairs glanced at the clock again and Diana felt a pulse of fear. He was stalling for a reason. That couldn’t be good. She had the uneasy feeling Carstairs hadn’t been talking about Frank Ennis when he spoke of someone dying “later.”

“Where’s Serena?”

“Safe. For the moment.”

“What do you want?”

“Untie me and I’ll tell you.”

“Not a chance.”

“Time’s running out for Serena.”

“What do you have against her?”

“Not a thing. Graham Somener is the one I want to see suffer. The loss of his beloved new bride is a very just punishment for what he took from me.”

Diana stared at him. Finally, her sluggish brain produced the tidbit of information she needed to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. “You had a twin sister who died,” she said slowly. “Her name was Edith Carstairs Alleyn. She was in the building when it collapsed. The building constructed by the firm of Somener and Law. And since she was a married woman, your name wouldn’t have been listed as next of kin.”

She could tell by the expression on Carstairs’s face that she’d got it right.

“There’s more. You were at Casa Grande early this year. That’s in Arizona, I believe. Did you go there to excavate, or to kill Vernon Law?”

“If my hands were free I would applaud you, Mrs. Spaulding. I did kill Vernon Law, and soon, very soon, my revenge will be complete.”

She followed his gaze to the clock.

“How can you justify hurting Serena? She has been your friend for years.” Just like Frank Ennis.

A sly expression came over Carstairs’s face. “I’ll strike a bargain with you, Mrs. Spaulding. If you untie me, I’ll tell you where Serena is. You might still be able to reach her in time. If you hurry.”

It was just past two o’clock in the morning. What—?

And then she had it. High tide that afternoon had occurred shortly after two. It would be coming in again now, covering the entrance to Ben’s “pirate cave,” drowning anyone who might be inside.

Diana felt her face blanch. The cave had been searched early in the hunt for Winthrop and Carstairs, but Carstairs knew this island well. He’d have been able to dispose of Winthrop, then creep into the house to steal away with Serena when she went upstairs to rest, all without being seen. He’d taken her to the cave after the searchers went elsewhere. He’d probably just left her there and been heading back to the sailboat when Ben had caught him.

“You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Carstairs’s voice was low and taunting. Evil. “It won’t do you any good. You can’t possibly fetch the men back from the wharf in time to rescue her.”

“Then I guess it is up to me.”

“You’ll never succeed on your own. Untie me and I’ll help you.” He glanced at the clock again. “High water is at 2:43 A.M.”

If she released him, he’d be more likely to knock her on the head and take off than he would be to help her rescue Serena. Diana left him without a backward glance, stopping only long enough to warn Amity to keep an eye on the prisoner and to collect a lantern from the kitchen. With its light and that of the full moon to guide her, she raced through the gardens and across the meadow to the promontory.

Descending the narrow trail, she was in an agony of suspense, convinced that at any moment she would lose her footing and fall to her death. It was no solace being unable to see the jagged rocks below. Her imagination conjured them up as great stone spikes waiting to impale her.

Every turn in the twisting path was a new challenge and it did not help that Diana was perspiring heavily in the damp night air. Her bare hands—she’d been in too great a hurry to remember to don gloves—kept slipping off what few handholds she found.

Eons later, she arrived safely at the bottom.

She tried to run across the rock and pebble strewn beach, but the way was too treacherous. Stumbling and sliding, praying all the while that she could locate that other path, the one leading to the cave, she lurched onward until she reached the place where she thought the trail began.

At first she feared she would not be able to find her way without Ben’s help. Crashing waves drowned out her little sounds of distress as she flashed the lantern this way and that, seeking any sign of route to the cave. The spot had been shielded by a boulder. She remembered that much. But there were so many rocks, and all of them seemed huge.

And then she saw it—a faint ribbon picked out by moonlight. Unable to guess how much time she had left, Diana flung herself onto the narrow path.

Only a few yards along, she splashed through a pool of salt water. The puddle was deep enough to soak through her boots and dampen the hem of her skirt. She stepped into another and another as she raced along, for although the path wound upward, it also extended farther out towards the bay. The higher she went, the more shallow the encroaching water became, but that would not be the case for long. The tide was rising. She would not be able to retreat in this direction. She’d have to continue upward towards the ridgeline above.

Diana was panting by the time she reached the entrance to the cave. Water lapped at the face of the cliff only a few inches below her feet. Diana almost dropped the lantern in her rush to get inside. She was trembling uncontrollably. How fast did the tide come in? How long would it take to flood the interior of the cave?

“Serena?” Her voice came out as a hoarse croak. She called again more loudly.

No one answered. Had she been wrong? Straightening, since the interior of the sea cave was both higher and wider than its mouth, Diana held her lantern aloft. The fissure extended deep into the cliff, disappearing around a curve.

Moving as rapidly as she could, Diana followed one bend, then another, grateful there were no side passages to confuse matters. And then she saw it—the faint glow of lamplight.

The illumination silhouetted a fall of rock, revealing a narrow secondary passage beyond. Diana wondered if that section of the cave had been accessible when Ben was a boy. She suspected it had not. Even to her inexperienced eyes, there seemed to be signs of recent excavation.

Certain that this was where she would find Serena, Diana hurried towards the opening. She had to turn sideways to slip through and was glad she was wearing a divided shirt
sans
bustle. It was still a tight squeeze. She stumbled as she popped out on the other side, almost knocking over the lantern that had been left burning on the cave floor.

A series of muffled grunts greeted her arrival. Diana’s eyes widened in astonishment. The interior of the cavern had widened out again and extended upward to nearly double her height. At the far end a huge net had been attached to the rock formation that jutted out from the roof of the cave. Inside this suspended prison, bound and gagged but very obviously alive, lay Serena Dunbar.

With a cry of mingled relief and distress, Diana put her lantern down next to the one Carstairs must have left behind and pulled the penknife from her pocket. So this was what he had purchased from Pyram Hatch, netmaker! She thanked God when she saw that it was made of fine silk rather than heavy rope. Her knife, small as it was, was sharp enough to slice through it.

Once she’d sufficiently enlarged an opening, Diana reached inside and cut the bonds that bound Serena’s wrists. Carstairs had left her ankles free.

“We must hurry,” she said as Serena pulled the gag from her mouth. “The tide is coming in.”

To add to the urgency, one of the lanterns began to flicker, a sure indication that it was about to run out of fuel. But Serena, regaining her feet, did not follow Diana.

“There’s something here.” Seizing the lantern that still shone steady and bright, she crossed the cavern with long, determined strides.

To Diana’s horror, she was moving away from the entrance, stopping only when she reached a narrow ledge at shoulder level.

“Serena, there is no time for this!”

`”Only a moment. I must get a closer look.” Placing the lantern on the ledge, she began to dig with her bare hands at the section of the cave wall just above it. It was an awkward position from which to work. She had to reach above her head to get at the spot. “There’s been an earthquake, I think. It opened up passages that had been sealed off for decades, perhaps even centuries. Something manmade is here. An inscription, I think. I can’t quite—”

“We haven’t time for this, Serena!”

“I’ve almost uncovered it.” Serena’s excitement made her voice shrill and she was bouncing as much as balancing on her toes. “It’s a figure of some sort. My God, Diana! It may have been left by my settlers!”

“If it has been here that long, it can wait another day. We can’t. Come on!”

Diana seized Serena’s arm, hauling her bodily away from the ledge. She didn’t bother collecting Serena’s lantern. She had the other in her free hand. Her sense of imminent danger, and the prospect of certain death if they didn’t get a move on, gave her the strength to drag the other woman towards the mouth of the cave.

“Carstairs said high tide is at 2:43 AM. It’s almost that now.”

Finally perceiving the danger, Serena stopped struggling and began to cooperate.

They turned the last corner and the mouth of the cave came in sight.

Diana stared at it in horror. It was lower than the point where they stood. The slope was so gradual that she hadn’t realized on the way in that she’d been moving steadily upward.

“Oh, my God,” Serena whispered.

Water filled the entrance halfway to the top. A veritable lake separated the high ground on which they stood from the only exit. There was no way to escape, even if they reached the mouth of the cave. On the other side of that opening, the path no longer existed.

“We’re completely cut off,” Diana whispered.

Serena’s voice was equally hushed and fearful. “If we try to get out that way, we’ll end up in Penobscot Bay.”

“Can you swim?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I could. Even an expert swimmer wouldn’t survive. Anyone foolish enough to enter the water from here would be dashed against the cliffs by incoming waves.”

“I have no desire to be battered to death,” Diana said, “but neither do I relish the thought of drowning.”

Serena looked back the way they’d come, her expression thoughtful. “The cavern I was imprisoned in is higher ground.”

“You don’t think it will flood?” Diana scarcely dared hope that they still had a chance of survival.

“I think Carstairs believed it would.” Serena’s smile was sour. “What I believe is that we will probably be quite cold and possibly very wet before the night is over. But I do not think we will drown.”

With the ominous sound of crashing waves at their backs and the incoming tide lapping at their heels, they retreated. As they moved ever upward, Diana strove for optimism. She was not going to die in this cave. She had too much to live for.

“See there?” Serena pointed to the faint marks that indicated the water line.

Diana’s stomach lurched when she saw how high they were.

“I’d have drowned in that net,” Serena said, “but now we have a good chance of surviving. If we can climb up onto that little ledge, we will be above the level of the tide.”

Diana eyed the perch. The lantern Serena had left there revealed a narrow strip barely wide enough for them to stand side by side, assuming they could hoist themselves up there in the first place. The ledge was even with Serena’s shoulders and at eye level for Diana.

“We’ll manage,” Serena said cheerfully. “I’ll boost you up, then cut off a section of the netting and hand it to you. See there, where that rock sticks out? Anchor the silk around that and toss the end down to me. I can use it to climb up beside you.”

Grimly determined to live, Diana followed orders. It was a scramble. She acquired numerous scrapes, bruises, broken fingernails, and tears in her clothing but in the end they were both safely ensconced on the ledge before the incoming tide had climbed even halfway up the wall below. The net gave Diana something to hang onto, for which she was profoundly grateful. Her knees were so wobbly that she worried they might not be able to keep her upright.

“Excellent!” Serena, exhilarated by the success of her plan, grinned happily.

Diana couldn’t help but smile in return. They
were
going to survive. In just a few hours, the water would recede. They’d be cold and wet, but still alive.

A wave lapped at the wall inches below her toes and she shuddered. It was too close for comfort. “How long before the tide ebbs?”

“Long enough,” Serena informed her in a cheerful voice, “to finish uncovering what is on this wall.” 

* * * *

The Hammond Street Congregational Church was a red brick edifice with a single square tower that contained both a clock and a bell. Its steeple was painted white, its spire light gray. On Saturday, June 30, 1888, with family and friends filling the two straight blocks of pews cushioned with crimson plush, Diana Torrence Spaulding married Benjamin Northcote.