The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Aiden wakes up badly beaten in the body of Jonathan Derby. After being attacked in Stanwin’s rooms, he has been dragged to a new location and left alone. Aiden drags himself to Doctor Dickie’s room and uses his medical supplies to clean and bandage himself. Aiden is interrupted there by Doctor Dickie, who laments the times when he has been complicit in covering up Jonathan’s numerous sexual assaults: “Well, I’m done. I can’t stomach it anymore” (192). Doctor Dickie threatens Aiden with a silver pistol—the same gun that Evelyn will later use to shoot herself.

Aiden slips back into Doctor Dickie’s rooms and steals the pistol, hoping that if Evelyn cannot get at the weapon, she will not die. While the guests gather for dinner, Aiden sneaks into Evelyn’s room and looks around in search of clues, but he finds nothing.

Aiden takes up position outside of Evelyn’s bedroom so that he doesn’t miss anything that could help him understand the crime. Cunningham gives Aiden a cryptic message written on a piece of paper: “all of them” (199). Before Aiden can figure out what the note means, he catches sight of Evelyn fleeing into her bedroom in tears. Michael Hardcastle spots Aiden and laments to him that his sister is being forced to marry Ravencourt.

While the two men are speaking, Doctor Dickie comes to tell Aiden that Mrs. Derby has died, apparently due to a heart attack. Aiden is still sitting alone in Mrs. Derby’s room when Evelyn enters. Evelyn reveals that she is aware of both her impending death and Aiden’s goal of solving the crime. Evelyn explains that she received a note that morning ordering her to kill herself or else someone she loves will die instead. Evelyn’s apparent death by suicide is thus actually a crime: “Evelyn isn’t merely being murdered, she’s being embarrassed, dominated” (205). Before she leaves the room, Evelyn takes Doctor Dickie’s pistol; Aiden now understands where she got the weapon.

Just before 11 o’clock, Aiden takes up position near the pool. He can see the Plague Doctor hovering nearby. Aiden is hopeful that some plan has been devised to both save Evelyn and help him and Anna escape from Blackheath.

At precisely 11, Evelyn shoots herself, and at the same moment, someone comes running in the dark and crashes into Aiden. The two fight and are pulled apart. Aiden realizes with shock that the scene of Evelyn’s death is now playing out subtly differently from when he witnessed it before: “When I saw this event through Ravencourt’s eyes, Michael clung to his sister, unable to move her. Now, a tall fellow in a trench coat is pulling her out of the water” (208). As the chaos subsides, Aiden is confronted directly by the Footman, staring at him. Aiden chases the Footman into the woods where the two of them fight, and the Footman slits Aiden’s throat.

Aiden wakes up in the body of a new host, Richard Dance He’s startled by someone banging on the door and calling him by his true name: “You have to wake up, Aiden. Aiden!” (211). Aiden sees Gregory Gold at the door, so terrified as to be incoherent. Gold begs Aiden not to get out of the carriage, and he says something about there being two individuals, even though they look the same. Then, Gold vanishes.

Aiden very briefly comes awake in the body of the butler, catching sight of an unknown man with a shotgun, before waking up again.

Aiden wakes up again in the body of Dance. Dance is a lawyer, who along with his colleagues Sutcliffe and Christopher Pettigrew, work for the firm that represents the Hardcastle family. Aiden learns that Cunningham has been going around asking about Thomas Hardcastle’s murder and claiming that he is asking on behalf of Ravencourt. Aiden is confused as to why Cunningham is asking these questions: “Of all the tasks I set Cunningham when I was Ravencourt, asking questions about Thomas Hardcastle’s murder wasn’t one of them” (219). The three lawyers go to the gatehouse and meet with Lord Peter Hardcastle; they have drawn up the marriage contract between Evelyn and Ravencourt. One of the lawyers scolds Lord Peter for announcing the engagement on the anniversary of his son’s murder, and Lord Peter retorts that none of this was his idea.

Lord Peter also references that Ted Stanwin is blackmailing the whole group and that he has a plan for how to free them. Daniel Coleridge has been helping Lord Peter, and the two of them will confront Stanwin that very evening.

After the two other lawyers leave, Aiden lingers with Lord Peter. Aiden reveals that someone is forcing Evelyn to kill herself by threatening her. Lord Peter doesn’t seem to take this information seriously, and his primary question is about whether the deal with Ravencourt is being threatened. Aiden reveals that he doesn’t know who is trying to kill Evelyn, but he suspects her mother, Lady Helena Hardcastle. Lord Peter is insistent that his wife would not do that, explaining that “She wouldn’t put our future in jeopardy” (229).

Aiden goes on to explain that he believes Evelyn has felt threatened enough to reach out to someone named Felicity Maddox for help. While no one has confirmed it, he also suspects that Felicity is at the house and possibly even being used as leverage to persuade Evelyn to kill herself. Lord Peter has never heard of anyone named Felicity. Aiden asks Lord Peter whether the secret that Lord Peter is Cunningham’s father is the reason that Stanwin is blackmailing him. Lord Peter explains that basically everyone knows about Cunningham’s supposed paternity, so that secret is valueless. The truth is much more sordid: before Thomas’s murder, Lady Helena was having an affair with Charlie Carver, and Cunningham is the son of Helena and Carver. When she got pregnant, Lady Helena devised a plan to disguise the baby’s identity and lead Lord Peter to believe that Cunningham was his own illegitimate son by another woman. Lord Peter fell for the trick, leading to Mrs. Drudge adopting and raising Cunningham. Lady Helena and Lord Peter went on to have their own three children: Evelyn, Thomas, and Michael.

Nineteen years ago, by chance, Lord Peter overheard his wife and Carver talking and realized that Cunningham was actually their illegitimate child, not his. Lord Peter ordered Carver to leave the estate, and in a rage, Carver murdered Thomas later that day. A few months later, Stanwin began blackmailing Lord Peter in exchange for maintaining the secret about Cunningham’s parentage. Lord Peter doesn’t think his children know about their half-brother, and he has never figured out how Stanwin learned the secret: “All I know is that should word get out, I’ll be finished” (235).