Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

clambered out. She saw us, looked at Mackenzie and stopped dead. Mackenzie frowned and looked away, mumbling something. She suddenly blurted out, “I’m looking fer Bobby Armstrong. I was told he was here! Is he OK?”

I smiled. “Yes, he’s as well as can be expected. It was me who called you. Please, come this way.”

And we all filed into the drawing room again.

Armstrong went pale and half stood as Lizzie came in. “Lizzie! What on Earth…!” Then he saw Mackenzie. Lizzie rushed to Armstrong and flung her arms around his neck, realizing too late that he was bound hand and foot. He fell back and she staggered, then turned to stare at me.

I turned to Harris. “Perhaps, Inspector, you could have one of your men replace those bootlaces with handcuffs. I left mine in New York.”

“It’s a trap!” she hissed. “You let yourself get bloody trapped!”

Mackenzie coughed. “I think, Mr. Stone, that it is probably high time you explained to us exactly what is going on, and why my secretary is here, with Mr. Armstrong, instead of at her desk, where she belongs!”

Harris nodded at one of his constables, who crossed the room and started untying Armstrong’s bonds. While he did it, I said, “I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Mackenzie. It is, as you say, high time. You’d better make yourselves comfortable, this is going to take some explaining.”

The constables were dispatched to help the Medical Examiner in the study, and Mackenzie and Henry took their seats. Dehan sat in a large armchair beside the cold fireplace, and I sat on the arm of her chair. I looked at Henry and smiled.

“Most of this is simple, logical deduction, some of it is surmise, most or all of it I hope you will be able to prove with what little forensic evidence we have been able to secure.

“This all starts about forty years ago, when Old Man Gordon, a wealthy Bostonian who had become obsessed with his Scottish roots and his family history, moved back to the north of Scotland and bought an island, and a castle, which according to his research had belonged to his ancestors. With time, his obsession grew and I guess he came to see himself as an ancient, Celtic Laird ruling over his island kingdom, owning his subjects and striving to keep the bloodlines pure. And that last point is important because, as I found out from the family library, Old Man Gordon’s late wife had not been a Gordon. She was not from any of the great clans. In fact, she was not even Scottish. Her family, to the old man’s enduring horror, was of English descent. Her name was Sarah Culpepper. I can only assume that his obsession with all things Scottish began to grow after he had married and sired his son, the late Charles Gordon Sr.”

Mackenzie shifted in his chair and gave a small cough. “Are we to understand, then, Mr. Stone, that Charles Gordon Sr. was in fact only half Scottish?”

I nodded. “And half English.”

Armstrong curled his lip. “Well, no’ne’s perfect, eh, Ian?”

Dehan raised an eyebrow at him. “Some less than others, pal.”

“The point is,” I went on, “that the old man became increasingly troubled by what he saw as his son’s imperfection. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Meantime, while Charles was at university in Boston, two things happened. The old man, who liked, as it were, to move among his subjects, met a very young and very attractive Pamela May at the local inn. Presumably he had nothing particularly against commoners who did not belong to the great clans. Especially when they looked like Pam. He didn’t mind sleeping with them, he just didn’t want to marry them and breed with them. She was attractive and had an engaging personality, and he had money and power. They both had something the other wanted, and they started an affair.

“The other thing that happened was that he met Mrs. Armstrong and young Bobby, who at that time would have been just a young teenager. It is somewhat ironic that these two encounters, which were life-defining for him, would ultimately lead to his death and the destruction of what he saw as his dynasty.

“Pam saw Old Man Gordon as a potential way out of an island and a way of life that to her was a prison. But Mrs. Armstrong was, to Old Man Gordon, the answer to his prayers. Here was a woman of pure Scottish stock, descended from Gordons and with a son who carried the blood of two of the great clans. Pam didn’t stand a chance, and Charles, away at university in Boston, was on a very slippery slope.

“When he graduated and came home, it was to discover that he had all but been disinherited in favor of young Robert Armstrong. His father planned to marry Mrs. Armstrong, and when he did, he planned to amend his will.” I gestured at Mackenzie. “Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, the old man had decided, through some strange sense of propriety, to go through two stages…”

Mackenzie nodded. “That is correct. He felt that until he was married, his estate should go to his own son, so what he had us do was to draw up a will in which his son was the beneficiary of the estate until he died, and after his death it would pass to Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Gordon would effectively hold the estate on trust for Mr. Armstrong. This was never intended to be a long-term solution. He was merely protecting himself until such time as they were married, when he intended to leave his entire estate to his new wife and her son, bar a small endowment to his son.”

I nodded. “Thank you, that was how I understood it. It must have been quite a shock to Charles