Chapter 7 - The Cleansing of the Hall
By two o'clock in the morning, the mansion had been purged of outsiders.
The guests had been dismissed under armed escort, sworn to absolute secrecy on pain of death. Julian Ravenswick had been dragged down to the soundproofed sub-basement in chains, where Donovan and Marcus prepared him for a one-way trip to an abandoned limestone quarry sixty miles west.
In the great banquet hall, the Austrian chandeliers still burned with harsh, unforgiving brilliance.
Hector stood alone in the cavernous room. The overturned linen stand remained on the floor; the white napkins still lay scattered across the crimson carpet like discarded bandages. Near Maiselle’s chair, the greasy stain of gravy clung to the floorboards.
Hector removed his overcoat, folded it over the back of a chair, and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt.
He did not call the maids. He did not order the servers to clean the mess.
Taking a silver bucket of hot soapy water and a stiff bristle brush from the pantry, Hector knelt down on both knees upon the parquet floor.
Methodically, ruthlessly, he began scrubbing the grease from the wood.
The sound of his heavy brush scraping the timber echoed in the vast room. Every stroke was a penance, an exorcism of the weakness that had allowed a serpent into his home, into his bed, and into his daughter’s life.
Footsteps echoed softly from the archway.
Dr. Vance walked in, carrying a manila folder under his arm. He paused, watching the most feared man on the Eastern Seaboard scrubbing his own floors like an indentured laborer.
"Hector," Vance said quietly.
Hector did not stop brushing. "What did you find in Odette’s quarters?"
Vance adjusted his spectacles, his expression troubled. "More than we anticipated. We searched her safe behind the dressing room mirror. We found the rest of the aconitine vial. But that wasn't all."
Hector stopped. He rinsed the brush in the gray water, stood up, and wiped his hands on a clean cloth. "Speak, Arthur."
Vance opened the folder and pulled out a yellowed laboratory report dated two years prior.
"Do you remember the night Eleanor died?" Vance asked cautiously, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.
Hector’s body locked. Eleanor. Maiselle’s mother. The only woman he had ever truly loved, who had supposedly passed away from sudden postpartum heart failure two weeks after giving birth to their daughter.
"What about Eleanor?" Hector demanded, his voice dropping into a guttural growl.
"The toxicology report from the private clinic in Boston," Vance said, his hand trembling slightly as he handed over the document. "At the time, the attending physician ruled it idiopathic cardiac arrhythmia. But the chemical markers listed here... Hector, they are identical to the synthetic aconitine blend found in your scotch tonight."
Hector stared at the document. The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
"Eleanor didn't have heart disease," Vance whispered, the horror evident in his eyes. "Someone dosed her while she was recovering in the convalescent wing. And Odette was Eleanor’s personal secretary at that clinic."
Hector’s slate eyes turned bloodshot, a vein bulging fiercely against his scarred temple.
The conspiracy was not months old. It had begun three years ago. Odette had cleared the path to Hector’s side by murdering the mother, then spent thirty-six months positioning herself to eliminate the father and discard the child.
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A roar of primal, unadulterated fury tore from Hector’s chest. He seized the heavy walnut chair at the head of the table and hurled it with monstrous strength across the hall.
The massive chair crashed into the marble fireplace, shattering into splinters with the force of an artillery shell.
