“I’ll pour,” Estelle offered.
Once tea was handed out, she poured Eva a cup and carried it across the room. She smiled as she slid the saucer onto the small table at Eva’s side, and was about to turn away when something on the rug captured her attention. She frowned and looked closer. She began to shake when she looked around some more. Carefully schooling her face into an impassive mask of politeness, she ignored her thundering heart and went to sit beside Myles, as calmly and quietly as possible.
She then contemplated what she had just seen.
Could she be right in thinking-? Was it possible? Was it even credible?
She had no idea but she knew, deep down inside, that it was not only credible but probable. That nothing seemingly impossible was improbable until the facts proved otherwise. Nobody was innocent until the guilty party was found. Myles always said so.
Estelle looked at her tea cup but suspected that her hand would shake too much and betray her. She couldn’t risk alerting everyone to her suspicions, not when she suspected they had a predator in their midst.
When the maids had departed in search of supplies to tend to Isaac’s head, Isaac told them all what had happened to him. In spite of warning herself not to, Estelle found her gaze drawn to Eva. She studied the older woman carefully from across the room. Eva continued to sew. In spite of her allegedly poor eyesight and infirmity her hands were quick and steady as the needle wove in and out of the fabric. It was clear that Eva had no difficult seeing the tiny stitches.
Why have I not noticed that before? She mused.
Something deep inside her knew instantly that her suspicions were accurate.
“What is it?” Myles whispered while Barnabas was questioning Isaac. He had felt her tense beside him. The small hairs on the back of his neck rose when he saw how scared she was, and how valiantly she was trying to hide it.
Estelle jerked and looked at him. When her gaze slid back to Eva’s, their gazes met. Rather than the kindly face she had spoken with before, Eva’s eyes were cold and hard.
“Myles,” her murmured, her tone dark and full of warning.
Myles frowned at the warning in Estelle’s voice. He knew immediately that something was wrong but had no idea what objection she could have to Eva, whom she was now staring back at quite avidly.
“It’s her,” Estelle whispered. “It’s Eva. It’s her.”
“Her, what?” Myles’ gaze flew to his aged relation. Suddenly, Eva looked at him. He immediately saw her to be the cold-hearted killer she was. He stood up.
“Is it?” he asked quietly.
Eva continued to sew for a few moments.
Myles wondered if she was going to pretend to be deaf as always.
“What are you going on about boy?” Barnabas demanded. “What’s Eva?”
“Eva is the killer,” Estelle told him, her voice now full of conviction. “She has difficulty walking, doesn’t she?”
“Of course she does,” Barnabas replied. He moved around the desk and stared at his relation.
“Look at her dress. The weather is hardly fit for taking a stroll in, yet her dress has leaves stuck to the back of it. Not only that, but her boots have mud on the heels – look.”
Everyone turned to look at Eva’s dress. Shockingly, Eva suddenly launched out of her chair without the hesitant motions of the infirm. Instead, she was swift and sure, and left nobody in any doubt of her duplicity.
“Eva?” Barnabas gasped in shock. “Please don’t tell me you can hear us?”
“Of course I can hear you, Barnabas,” Eva replied bluntly. “God, you are a fool.”
“You lied to us,” Barnabas murmured, unable to take on the import of what was unravelling before him. “You are not deaf after all. Do you mean to tell me that you are not infirm either?”
“Of course I am not bloody infirm, you buffoon,” she snapped. “Nor am I deaf. It has been so easy to fool you all, and take what is rightly mine.”
The cold fury in her voice, when accompanied by the ruthless defiance she levelled on them all, assured them all of her guilt.
“It was you who sent the letters demanding everyone return to the house, wasn’t it?” Myles demanded, unsurprised when Eva merely glared at him.
“Of course, you have sat there listening in on our private conversations, remembering all relevant facts so you could use them against us at will. How convenient,” he snapped.