X, Or, The Killer Revealed

Hello, and welcome to my 2025 Blogging From A To Z April Challenge! This year, I’ve written you a complete murder mystery novelette. The setting is rural England, a few years after WWI. The extra challenge that I set myself for this story is that the first murder will not take place until the letter “M”–halfway through! And the second murder will happen at “S.” There may be murders after “S,” of course, but they are less structural or foundational or something.

And now, without further ado…

X, or, The Killer Revealed

It was morning. Crowner and Mug had yet to return from Scotland. At Grimsby Manor, the suspense had long since faded into numbness.

Penny and Lottie had been in Lottie’s sitting room for hours. Neither of them had anything to say. A bluebottle buzzed in a bright windowpane. In a minute, Penny promised herself, she was going to get up and kill it. In a minute.

Gertrude came in. She fussed over Lottie, re-positioning her slightly on her pillow, asking her if she was hungry. Then she turned to Penny, and said, “my dear, let’s go into the next room for a moment—there’s something I ought to tell you, in private.”

“Oh Gertie—don’t!” cried Lottie. But Gertrude only smiled sadly at her sister, and she and Penny left the room together.

“This is my sitting room—do come in, I’ve made us some tea,” said Gertrude.

As Gertrude poured out the tea, Penny looked around her. She’d never been in Gertrude’s sitting room before. There were four lamps, all burning. Penny wondered at this for a moment, but then realized that the room had no windows. The light was always the same in here, day and night. Penny took a sip of tea and winced. It was too hot.

“That needs sugar,” said Gertrude, and dropped two lumps in Penny’s cup with sugar-tongs. “I don’t take it myself—but I used to like it, when I was young. Try it now and tell me if you’d like another.”

Penny sipped at her tea. She wondered if this sugar was from the same lot as the stuff Gertrude had taken when she was young. Did sugar go bad? “No thank you,” she said. “What did you want to say to me?”

 “It’s about your father, my dear. He and I—there was an attachment.”

“But Pa said it was Lottie he cared for,” Penny said, and instantly regretted it.

“No. He loved me,” said Gertrude. “I found that out the night of Lottie’s wedding.”

“The night of Lottie’s wedding? The night before Pa left for America? But…” Penny didn’t fluster easily, but she was flustered now. The room was sickeningly warm, but chills crawled all over her. She wished that she wasn’t having this conversation. “My father told me,” she said, flatly and formally, “that he was so drunk that night that he blacked out.”

Gertrude nodded. “Yes, he tried to tell me that, too. But I know it couldn’t be true. Would I give myself to a drunken man?” She smiled a social smile. “Take another sip of that tea, dear. I expect it has cooled enough now.”

“What?” said Penny.

“I said drink your tea.”

Penny considered explaining that the sugar cubes were so nasty that they made the tea undrinkable, but decided not to bother. Gertrude’s eyes were not on her; they were staring at the scene playing out in her mind. Penny pretended to sip, and spilled some tea on her saucer, so that the level of liquid decreased in the cup.

Gertrude nodded. “That’s good. Tea is so sustaining, is it not? Do you know what I mean when I say that I gave myself to Jack?”

Penny did know. She had several older girl cousins on her mother’s side of the family, and they’d been very educational.

“You modern girls know so much. But all of this happened—was it the 1870s? That’s right. I knew so little. I’d always loved Jack, and I’d always believed that once Lottie was safely married to Frank, Jack would love me back. Then I found that he was planning to leave the country right after the wedding.

“I was restless that night. The revelers had all departed. I couldn’t bear being alone with my thoughts. I wandered these halls, hoping that someone else was still awake. As I passed Jack’s room, I heard him sobbing. Sobbing his heart out. I came in, and we talked. Of course, he thought he was grieving because Lottie was married and he could never have her, but I felt—I was sure—that deep inside of him it was me he loved, and he was really grieving because tomorrow we would be parted forever. And I knew there was one way I could show him the truth of his feelings. I didn’t know the details of the act, but I thought I could leave that part to him, if only he could be made to want me enough. And so I summoned up all of my desire for him, and I poured him out some more whiskey, and I fought hard for our happiness.

“And, that night, near dawn, he did what no gentleman would do with a lady if he didn’t intend to marry her afterwards. Afterwards, exalting, I left him and went back to my own bed, and I slept the first happy sleep I’d had in years. I didn’t want the maid to find us together in the morning.

“That was stupid. I should have stayed and let myself be found. That would have settled the matter. But I thought it was settled already, you see. And then when I woke up, he’d already left for the boat.

 “I thought it was just a mistake, that he’d be back. Frank had apparently had to load him into the family coach, practically carried him out of the house. I thought that he’d wake up on the boat and come back. But we didn’t hear from him for weeks, and when we did, it was just a cold little note saying he’d arrived safely and was settling in.

“And then Lottie and I started to be sick in the mornings. We thought we’d caught the same disease.” Gertrude smiled, but her eyes were curiously blank. “Have some more tea, dear. It will be getting cold on you. Lottie consulted a doctor. She came back, glowing and radiant, and told me she was going to have a baby. And I realized I was, too. We had been having the same symptoms, after all.

“Lottie read my trouble on my face, and we made our plans then and there. She would spend the next few weeks making everyone anxious about her, and I would nurse her, and once everyone was thoroughly alarmed at her condition, we’d propose the Scotland trip.

“Her idea was that I would give my baby up for adoption, and that no-one would ever know I’d even had one. I thought the second part of that idea was acceptable, but as for the first…” something very terrible flickered across Gertrude’s face. She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, her words came slowly. “It was Lottie’s glow, that was what decided me. She was so happy, and everyone loved her so much. She moved through a world that loved her. And Jack had loved her, and she hadn’t wanted him. Do you understand how much I hated her for that? Hell entered my heart. It has been there ever since.

“I knew, you see, that if Lottie’s child were to die, she’d take mine, and pretend it was hers, and then my child could grow up loved. What did that rat Hettie say before she died? ‘Poor Emily, she never had a chance’? I wonder if she ever suspected how true that was.”

Penny was frozen with shock, but she managed somehow to speak. “Did you just confess to a murder? Of an infant?” she said, her voice sounding strangely calm.

Gertrude nodded. “Yes. I thought you should know. And you’ve had enough of that tea now that you’ll never leave this room alive. Don’t drink any more, though. Not just yet. I want you to hear the rest.”

“Why?” Penny’s mind was racing. The sugar cubes—that was why they tasted so bad—they’d been poisoned. Had she had enough to kill her? She didn’t, now she thought about it, feel at all well. Her limbs were heavy; they felt like doll-limbs, incapable of motion. “Why do you want me to know?”

Gertrude looked at Penny, and her blue eyes had no feeling in them. “The same reason I want you to die—because I hate you. My Jack—mine—left me and married your whore of a mother. And you are the product of their disgusting coupling.” She shrugged. “So you should be wiped off the face of the earth. I thought your tumble down the cellar steps would do it, but youth is so resilient, is it not?”

“You killed my father.” Penny’s feelings were oddly muted. Like some part of her was screaming them into a pillow…

Now Gertrude looked upset. “I had to! I didn’t want to kill him. I even thought—foolish jilted old thing that I am—that when he came back, he was coming back for me. After all those years. I would have forgiven him you, forgiven him everything.

“But he wasn’t here for me. He was here to see his family and, I thought, disinherit us in your favor. Disinherit my son Reggie. His son Reggie. In favor of you. I couldn’t let him do that. I went to his sitting room the afternoon of his death. I told him that Reggie was his son, and was thus entitled to all he possessed. And he didn’t believe me. He claimed he’d been too drunk that night to be capable of it. And I looked at his face, and I realized that he really didn’t remember. All of these years, and I’d thought lots of things about Jack’s behavior, but I’d never thought of that.

“I tried to convince him. Painted the scene for him, told him everything about our night together. I told him all that I’d had to endure after he left. Told him about waiting to hear from him, sure he’d come back for me, and the agony of every post that came without word from him. I told him that Lottie and I went up to Scotland to have our babies together. I didn’t tell him Emily’s death was other than accidental, but I told him everything else.

“He was furious. He said I’d lied to Lottie about him being the father to gain her sympathy, that I’d obviously been with someone awful I didn’t want to admit to. And nothing I said made the slightest difference. He was sure.

“Then he said that Frank would have to know. I begged, pleaded. It was no good. Jack’s position was that Reggie couldn’t inherit the family estate because he wasn’t really Frank’s son. He told me he’d give me until the next day to tell Frank—and Reggie, who doesn’t know—but if I hadn’t ‘come clean’ by then, he’d tell them himself.

Gertrude shrugged. “I suppose he didn’t realize he was asking me to murder him. Odd. I think that in his position, I would have known at once. Perhaps after you’ve committed one murder, you are always aware of it as a possibility.

“Not that I wanted to kill him. I loved Jack, I still did, I still do—but he betrayed me, and left me, and I love Reggie so much more. And I’ve always wanted Reggie to have all the fruits of Lottie’s married life bestowed upon him. All the love I was denied, heaped upon his head, as Lottie and Frank’s heir. I couldn’t let anything stand in the way of that. It was what I was owed, the one thing this rotten little world could give me to make up for all I have suffered.

“I stole Lottie’s Veronal and slipped it into Jack’s drink at the party. I hoped it would kill him—Dr. Camphor was always warning us about giving Lottie too much—but I didn’t mean to rely on that. I waited until the house was quiet. Then I slipped on a pair of heavy winter gloves so I would leave no fingerprints, and I went to visit Jack in his room. Just as I’d done forty-five years before, only now it was with death in my heart.

“I knew Stephen would be awake all night—the stupid boy has never realized it, but alcohol taken too soon before bed is what causes his sleepless nights—so I went down the flight of servants’ stairs near my bedroom, made my way through the kitchens, and took the other flight of servants’ stairs up—the ones that put you right outside Jack’s door.

“I crept into his bedroom. It smelled just as it had done all those years ago, smelled like Jack. It was difficult, for a moment. But only for a moment. He was so still that I thought perhaps he was already dead—but when I came closer, I could see the rise and fall of his chest. I put a pillow over his face. He woke up and knocked the pillow out of my hands. We struggled, but there wasn’t much strength in his arms, and he was confused. Still, it could have gone poorly for me. I fumbled about in the darkness—and my fingers brushed the knife he had by the bed. It was very easy, plunging it into his chest. And when he didn’t move anymore, I left the room and went back to bed. I slept, too. Imagine that.

“The one thing that worried me a little was that one of the gold buttons from my glove got lost in the struggle—but the stupid police haven’t found it, or if they have, they’ve made nothing of it.

“And then Constable Briggs arrested Nigel. The perfect choice. I’ve never liked Nigel. I should have rejoiced to see him hanged. What good is he alive?

“I suppose the police may figure out enough in Scotland to arrest me, though I’ve sent a poisoned box of chocolates to the only person up there who really knows anything. So they may come back empty-handed—to find you dead, my dear, and me poisoned but just barely alive—and then, if they revive me in time, I’ll tell them that I found Nigel in my room earlier today, fiddling around with my sugar cubes. And then perhaps they’ll finally take him away and hang him. Or perhaps they’ll take me away and hang me. But you’ll be dead either way. And that’s the main thing.” Gertrude smiled.

Penny’s stomach throbbed with pain. Her body was slowly locking into place, as the poison in the sugar took her closer and closer to death. But she was still curious.

“Hettie,” she gasped out—and the weakness of her voice appalled her. “Why Hettie?”

Gertrude sighed, as if growing bored of confession. “Hettie,” she said, “caught Kate listening to my conversation with Jack. Kate didn’t know what we were talking about, but Hettie understood perfectly. When Jack died, she knew I had a motive. And she’d heard me leaving my room that night. I had no idea she was sleeping in the upper parlor. I thought she’d gone home hours before.”

“But she said… told the police…” Penny gasped.

“Yes. She lied,” said Gertrude. “You weren’t there when Scotland Yard arrived. It was just the older folk in the morning room when they came, just me and Frank and Hettie. Hettie insisted on speaking to them first, said she had vital information to give them. Then she came back, and said that she’d told the police she’d heard nothing that night. All of this was meant to frighten me, to toy with me. To keep me in suspense and then to playfully relieve it. When she left the room to take care of Lottie, I went with her.

“As soon as we were alone, she turned on me. ‘You killed him. Poor Mister Jack. But I won’t have my girl upset by all this nasty business. So I’ll keep my mouth shut so long as you shut it proper, with money.’ And she laughed in my face. I gave her what she asked for. But I knew that she didn’t really want the money. She wanted to punish me, but she didn’t want me hanged. That would have upset Lottie, and that would never do. So Hettie thought she could keep me on a string, and yank it from time to time, and that would be punishment enough for what I’d done. Only I won’t be punished by the likes of Hettie. She got a knife in the chest for her impudence.

“You stumbled into Hettie’s cottage while I was washing up in the kitchen. You kept begging me to go away. I liked hearing you do that. You were being so reasonable, and your logic was so sound, and I liked the fear in your voice. I like the fear in your face, now. The parts of your face that are like Jack’s are a mockery and an insult to me. Ever since I killed Jack, there has been an itch in me to kill you, too. I nearly got you in Hettie’s cottage—and now I have you. Now—”

And then the door burst open and men poured into the room.

“Gertrude Sterling, I arrest you for the murders of Jack Grimsby, Emily Grimsby, and Henrietta Bright,” thundered Crowner. “Anything you say…”