Page 23 of It Happened in the Highlands
Cuffe’s chin sank to his chest, but he faced up to his responsibility and stepped out of his room.
“Go find your father and tell him what he needs to know.”
As Jo stepped back to allow him by, she glanced down the hallway to see Wynne standing at the top of the stairs.
* * *
He’d barely reached the ground floor when he heard the loud knocking and Jo’s sharp commands to open the door. Retracing his steps, he stood at the top of the stairwell, watching her talking to Cuffe.
And Wynne heard every word that passed between them.
Cuffe’s face was the very picture of misery as he came down the hallway to him.
“What is his name?” he asked brusquely. “The man who put you up to this?”
“Abram.”
“Abram from the kitchens?”
Cuffe nodded.
“Wait in my office,” he ordered. “I’ll deal with you when I return.”
Head down and feet dragging, his son went directly to Wynne’s office. Down the corridor, Jo turned and disappeared into her own chambers.
The man had taken advantage of a naive lad to commit what was a deliberate attempt to injure or even kill Barton. As Wynne hurried down the steps, he seethed with anger.
He knew this Abram. An older man from the Inverness. They’d hired him fairly recently to work in the kitchens, deliver food trays, and help the attendants with whatever needed to be done. Because of his work, Abram was perfectly familiar with the peculiarities of the patients in the ward.
When Wynne reached the door to the ward and put the question about the man’s whereabouts to the attendants, the last anyone had seen of him was when he took a dinner tray up to Cuffe.
Dermot came out as Wynne was sending two of the men to go and fetch Abram from the staff’s quarters on the uppermost floor. Quickly, he explained to his friend what he knew, including what Cuffe had done.
“I hope you didn’t punish the lad too harshly. He was manipulated.”
“You don’t need to make excuses for him,” Wynne told him. “I’ve done nothing to him yet. He’s awaiting his punishment in my office right now.”
He started for the kitchen in spite of his doubts that Abram would still be there. Dermot fell in beside him.
“Having Cuffe free Stevenson and at the same time direct the attack at Barton was clearly a deliberate move,” the doctor said. “Difficult to imagine why he’d do such a thing.”
Wynne’s thoughts immediately turned to the Bartons. “And how curious that all of this should happen today.”
“You don’t seriously think his own family would try to harm him.”
“We both saw Graham and Mrs. Barton’s reaction,” Wynne retorted. “But we need to talk to Abram. He told Cuffe it was all a ‘lark’, but that’s rubbish. Perhaps he harbors a grudge and saw this as an opportunity to get his revenge.”
“Hewashired at around the same time that Barton arrived,” Dermot said thoughtfully.
“We’ll know when we get our hands on the rogue.”
Wynne could not get the Bartons’ reaction to Jo out of his head, however. What exactlywasher connection to the family? He worried if she could be at risk too.
“Don’t forget, we know nothing of Charles Barton’s years as a shipowner,” Dermot reminded him. “We don’t even know what caused the explosion that eventually brought him here.”
Wynne knew very well the hard world of the sea, and the dark side of some who made their living on it. Smugglers who would cut a man’s throat for an extra share. Slavers who vilely continued to transport human cargo in spite of the laws banning it. He’d fought against them and hunted them down from the Mediterranean to the coast of Africa to the West Indies. For shipowners, a line existed. On one side, honest living. On the other, violence, double-dealing, and the chance for greater riches. If Barton chose to do his business among the latter, his enemies would hardly be above seeing him battered to death in an asylum ward.
When they reached the kitchens, they found only two young men washing up. The rest of the staff had retired for the night.
