Chapter Seven

The rest of the evening was tense. Everyone ate the dessert when it came at last, remaining cautious for any further attempts to poison Radley or any of the rest of them. But all was well and they finally were able to relax more.

The servants were rounded up and asked about both the dyne and the poisoning attempt. All were concerned, but insisted they'd had nothing to do with any of the nasty things that had been happening to everyone, including the arrival of the wine.

Mrs. Keith finally drew Marty aside, her eyes flickering in concern. He stumbled, staring at her. "What is it, Aunt Martha?"

"I don't think you're going to learn anything valuable from the servants, Marty," she told him.

He frowned. "Not that I'm not starting to think the same thing, but why?"

She furtively looked around and leaned in closer. "I don't like to say this, Dear, but quite frankly, the one most likely to have tried to hurt your friend is . . . any of your other friends," she whispered. "They're the only ones who knew about his allergies before tonight."

Marty stiffened. Out of everything she could have said, this was what he expected least and was horrified by the most. "No!" he insisted. "None of them would ever lift a finger to hurt him!"

She didn't look convinced. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Marty wavered. Billy, Virgil, and Clint had all hurt Radley by abandoning him in the mines. But all of them had always insisted they didn't know his life was actually in danger. They had not wanted to believe it. And Billy especially had struggled for over a year with anguish and self-hatred because of what he had done.

"You know it's true, don't you?" Mrs. Keith said. "I'm so sorry, but . . ."

"No!" Marty interrupted. "They would never deliberately lift a finger to hurt him!" He paused. "Where was Uncle Jonathan? He was supposed to be with us, but he disappeared after a while. Was he trying to hack into Radley's medical records?!"

"Of course not!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed. "Do you honestly think your uncle would be capable of that?!"

"No, not really," Marty said. "But I was wondering where he went."

"Ask him and he'll tell you," Mrs. Keith said.

"What's all the commotion?" Mr. Keith asked as he came over.

Marty heaved a sigh. "Uncle, where were you when you disappeared like you did from the crypt? You were supposed to stay there."

Mr. Keith shrugged. "I thought we were all going up, so I just decided to get a headstart. Some of your friends came too—Clint and Virgil and Jimmy."

Marty leaned back. With them, he had figured they were just trying to get a headstart, or that maybe they were trying to keep track of his uncle. He caught Clint's eye and Clint nodded in agreement. All of what was being said was true.

"Okay, I'm sorry," he said. "Honestly, it's been years since we've seen each other and all the servants here have been badmouthing you guys. I haven't known what to expect."

Mrs. Keith scowled. "Of course we couldn't understand why we weren't first in line for the castle," she said. "We're the ones who were with my husband's father until the end. Instead, he gave everything to you and the servants think we killed him!"

Marty's eyes widened. "They didn't say anything like that! I was thinking, though, that I'd like to have an autopsy done to try to make sure it wasn't murder."

"By all means, do it!" Mr. Keith exclaimed. "We're sick of being under suspicion!"

Mrs. Keith nodded. "We wanted an autopsy done to begin with, but no one would listen to us!"

Marty felt overwhelmed. Here was something else that was the complete opposite of what the servants had said would be the case. Was everything a colossal misunderstanding, or was each group trying to make Marty think they were the good guys and the other were the bad guys?

"I'll put in the order for it tomorrow," he said at last.

"Good!" Mr. Keith said.

Nothing else strange happened and Mr. and Mrs. Keith soon departed for their home. Sighing to himself, Marty retreated to his room to resume reading the diary.

He stood in shock when he pushed open the door. Everything was everywhere. Drawers were flung open, as was the closet door. His suitcase was open and clothes were strung all around the room. He slumped against the doorframe, running a hand into his spiked red-violet hair.

After a moment Billy came up beside him. "What the . . ." He walked into the room and reached up, pulling a pair of boxer shorts off the ceiling fan. He turned to look at Marty in disbelief.

Marty shook his head. "Someone was either looking for something or they just felt like acting like a five-year-old," he said in disgust. "Maybe they wanted the diary. I still don't know where the other ones are. Jarvis hasn't felt well enough to get them."

Billy dropped the shorts back on the bed. "What does the diary say so far?"

Marty finally came in and started gathering up the clothes from around the room, depositing them back on the bed too. "Not a lot. Uncle John keeps talking about how 'they're' out to get him and he knows it, but he never says who 'they' are. And I've got both the servants and my aunt and uncle each insisting they're the good guys and the others are bad. I don't know who to believe. But my aunt and uncle want the autopsy even after the servants said they wouldn't, so I'd rather believe my family."

"Unless maybe they want the autopsy because they know whatever they used isn't traceable, so they'll be off the hook?" Billy suggested. He helped Marty round up his belongings.

Marty closed his eyes in frustration. "That had better not be the case," he said. "I really want them to be innocent. And maybe Uncle John really wasn't murdered. Maybe he was even just paranoid. Or even if 'they' were after him, maybe they didn't kill him."

"Yeah." Billy sighed. "Right now there's so many ways things could go. But . . . someone really is after Radley. There's no way it was a coincidence about the wine."

"I don't think so either," Marty said. "And Kalin's going into his protective mode. Whoever did that had better watch out. They're going to regret provoking him."

Billy sank down on the bed. "If the creep comes out. Maybe we won't be able to catch them. And I still can't think of any reason to target Radley!"

". . . Unless it's to get at me," Marty realized in horror. "They might target Radley because they know it would crush me if anything happened to him!"

Billy cringed. ". . . Yeah, that's possible," he admitted.

Marty started to pace. "Radley's always kept his medical records tightly locked up. Not just anyone could get at them! It should take Seto Kaiba-level hacking skills to get at them! Unless . . ." He trailed off. The memory of what his aunt had suggested to him made him feel physically ill.

"What is it?" Billy frowned.

Marty hesitated. "Aunt Martha. . . . She suggested that . . ." He turned away. "No, it's too horrible to say it. . . ."

". . . She said it was one of us, right?" Billy got up. "I saw how ticked off you were when she said it. Not much else would've set you off like that."

"Yeah, that was what she said," Marty sighed.

Billy came closer to him. "You know it's not true, right?"

"Of course I know!" Marty retorted. "All of us love Radley. We'd never do anything to hurt him! Especially not after what you and Clint and Virgil did!" But he trailed off as soon as the words were out of his mouth. How had he blurted that?

Billy just looked away with a sigh. "Yeah. . . ." He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets.

". . . I'm sorry," Marty said.

Billy took his hands back out. One held a small bottle, while the other was holding a white cloth. "I'm sorry too." He started pouring the substance onto the cloth.

Marty stared at him. "Billy, what . . ."

Billy shoved the cloth in Marty's face, tackling him to the bed at the same moment. Marty grabbed for his friend's arms, but he was already growing woozy. When he fell limp, Billy shoved the objects back in his pocket and reached for the diary in Marty's jacket. He sneered as he straightened. "Now I finally have this back."

As he turned to go, he nearly walked into himself in the doorway. The second Billy gawked. "What the . . . ?!"

The first Billy scowled and snarled. "I should have chloroformed you too," he snapped, and pushed past the second with a vicious shove.

The second Billy might have given chase, had he not seen Marty sprawled lifeless on the bed. He ran in, horrified, and immediately reached to check for a pulse. "Help!" he yelled. "Marty's hurt!"

Radley and Kalin both tore into the room, followed closely by Scotch and Biff. "What happened?!" Radley gasped.

Billy shook his head. "I just ran into me in the doorway!" he cried.

". . . Uh . . . and people think what I say is weird," Scotch said, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm serious!" Billy retorted. "He looked just like me! He must have come in and caught Marty off-guard and chloroformed him! He said he should have done that to me too and ran off!"

"Why?!" Scotch gasped. "Why would he hurt Marty like this?!"

"For the diary, probably," Radley said. He was examining Marty and had immediately noticed the diary was not in his jacket.

". . . Yeah, I think I did see him carrying a book!" Billy remembered. "But then I saw Marty and nothing else mattered."

Virgil had arrived in the doorway now with Clint and Jimmy. "What's going on?"

"Someone impersonated Billy to get the diary from Marty," Radley said. "He's been chloroformed. We need the doctor now!"

"I'll get him," Clint gasped.

Virgil's eyes darkened. "And I'll go after the other guy." He cracked his knuckles and ran off down the hall with Jimmy in tow.

Kalin gathered Marty's clothes back into his open suitcase and set it on a chair while Radley and Billy carefully repositioned Marty to be laying normally on the bed.

Billy's hands shook. "He'll be okay, won't he?"

Radley looked at him and smiled kindly. "Of course he will. He'll probably have a pretty bad headache, though."

Billy froze as something else occurred to him. ". . . And he'll think I did this," he realized.

"What?!" Scotch scoffed. "No way! He'll know something wasn't kosher about that other you!"

"Why would he?!" Billy shot back. "He knows what I did before. He'll probably think greed got to me this time!"

"Hey . . ." Scotch suddenly paled. "It wasn't really you I was talking to about Radley's allergies before dessert, was it?"

Billy frowned. "I sure wasn't having a conversation like that with you or anyone."

"Well, I thought it was you at the time," Scotch said. "You were talking about that creep pulling out Radley's auto-injector and I said 'Yeah, that'd be awful if he lost that and ran into grapes somewhere around here!' Then you agreed and went off ahead." He fell back, looking sick. "He could've died because of me. . . ."

"Scotch . . ." Biff gripped his friend's shoulder. "You couldn't have known. How the heck would any of us know it was a fake Billy? That was the whole point!"

"Yeah, exactly," Radley soothed. "It's okay, Scotch. This was just a really sick plan meant to manipulate all of us."

"And we'll have to be extra careful," Kalin said. "If this person has the skills to impersonate Billy, he might try to be any of us."

"Oh gosh. . . ." Horror filled Scotch's eyes. "We won't know who anyone is!"

"Well, we know all of us are the real ones right now," Radley said. "The fake Billy is running off with the diary."

Clint returned with the doctor. "Here's the doc!" he announced, panting from the long run.

The doctor came in, frowning, and gently examined Marty. "Well, whoever it was, was in a hurry," he said. "He didn't give much of a dose at all. He should be comin' around soon. He'll need to rest, but he should be fine."

Radley smiled in relief. "Thank you."

The physician straightened. "No one here seems to be safe!" he grumped. "You'd all best lock your doors tonight." He headed out into the hall.

"That won't help if there's secret passages in our rooms," Scotch whimpered.

Biff couldn't deny that. "We'd better share a room," he said.

"Radley and I will share too," Kalin said.

Billy looked away. "Clint, maybe you should stay with Marty," he said quietly. "He won't want me here."

"We don't know that," Radley said. "Look, we'll all stay with Marty until he wakes up. Then we'll figure out where to go from there. Maybe Virgil will catch the fake Billy."

"Or maybe Virgil or Jimmy will get overpowered and replaced," Kalin grunted. "The fake might be the one who'll come back, this time posing as one of them."

Radley ran a hand into his hair. Kalin was right. "We should have all come up with a code we could use to identify each other before we separated," he ruefully said. "We should still do that now, but then we'll have to figure out how to make sure Virgil and Jimmy are genuine before we share it with them."

"And we should write the code instead of speaking it, just in case anyone's listening in," Kalin said.

"Okay." Scotch leaned forward. "What kind of code?" Ordinarily he would be more enthused about anything resembling spy activities, but he was still shaken from realizing he had told the fake Billy what Radley was allergic to. Biff squeezed his shoulder.

Radley sat down on the edge of the bed as he pondered. "It should be something meaningful to all of us, so it would be easy to remember, but not something that could be easily guessed by an outside party." He wrote down several possibilities and showed them to the others.

Marty stirred, groaning, and all thoughts of a code were momentarily forgotten. Radley looked over at him. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked in concern.

Marty grunted. "No." He opened his eyes. When he saw Billy looking at him in concern, his expression darkened. "What's he doing here?"

Billy flinched. "Marty, I . . . it wasn't me who hurt you," he said sadly. "It was someone pretending to be me. He took the diary . . ."

Marty looked away, staring off at the wall. His head was throbbing and he really wanted to just go back to sleep. He also wanted to believe Billy. But he was hurting too much right now to know what to actually do.

"I've spent this whole day having people lie to my face," he said. "I still don't know who's telling the truth."

Radley frowned in concern. "I know, Marty, but hey, this is Billy we're talking about, not strangers you just met or relatives you haven't seen in years."

"Yeah. Billy. Who left you to die and tried to sell me out to the mines." Marty gripped a handful of comforter. "You don't know how much it hurt tonight, Radley, seeing him suddenly come at me with that cloth and press me into the bed until I passed out. I . . ." He shut his eyes tightly. "I can't do this right now. I can't. . . ."

Billy turned away. "I'll go," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Marty. I'm sorry. . . ."

Radley looked over at him in concern as he ran for the door. "Billy, wait!"

But Billy shook his head. "I need to go. I never should have come! This is wrong. It's all wrong!"

He ran out into the hall, banging the door behind him, and tore over to his room across the corridor. He shut that door as well, bolting it with shaking hands before sinking down to the floor and pulling his knees up to his chest.

Only then did he finally break down sobbing. Marty had forgiven him before, when Billy had felt his actions were unforgivable. But now, when he actually was innocent, he wasn't sure Marty would forgive him this time.