"There are 4 kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce

Thanks to all readers, reviewers, followers, and likers, especially: guest and eyeon.

The early morning sun spilled through the dusty window of the small room at the top of the inn at the edge of the town. The watcher stood in a corner, in shadow, but the rays clearly picked out John Bates, who was standing near the door.

"It's done," he said. "The last loose ends are tied up, sir."

"You've done well," said the watcher.

The other man shifted from foot to foot for a moment, looking tense, and then spoke in a rush. "I didn't know. I thought Pamuk was only going to be knocked out, not killed. I had no idea that bottle held aconite. I believed it was laudanum. But I ought to have known better."

"Does it matter now?"

Mr. Bates seemed to consider the question for a moment. "I suppose not," he said. "Not after what he did to Lady Mary. Poison was too good for him. Anyway, it's over now."

The watcher moved back even further into the shadows "But what about that lady's maid, Anna Smith? You can't tell me that she never figured out any part of the truth."

"Miss Smith will say nothing," Bates said firmly. "I've thrown her completely off the scent."

"Hmm." The watcher looked unconvinced.

"She will keep silent for Lady Mary's sake no matter what."

"Ah."

"So now, sir, I want nothing more to do with this," Bates said flatly. "I don't doubt that you'll have more of a part to play in the matter. But I've done my service."

The watcher nodded. "You have. I appreciate all you've done, Bates. And I'll tell you nothing of what I'm going to do next, or to whom I'll speak, or what I will say. I won't burden you with that knowledge. Your part is ended. You won't be asked to do anything more, ever again. That much I can give you."

Bates nodded, but he still hesitated where he stood near the door.

"Will you tell me…" The watcher hesitated too. "Are you… happy at Downton?"

"I am," Bates said simply.

"I'm glad." The watcher's face softened for a moment. "You deserve happiness. I do understand that, Bates, believe me."

Bates sighed. "Thank you for that, sir. And I appreciate all the help your family has ever given to me." He turned away and began to move towards the door.

"Your limp seems much less noticeable," said the watcher. "I can scarcely tell you even have one."

"Yes, it varies. Some days better; some worse," Bates said.

"Ah."

There was nothing more to say. The watcher saw Bates go out and shut the door with a strange sense of loss. He sighed and walked a few steps towards the rickety desk, sitting in the spindly chair, the sun striking him fully now and revealing the face of Evelyn Napier. Set in hard lines, the features were unexpectedly handsome, quite different from the pleasant, nondescript, rather foolish-looking façade he presented to the world. If he'd been able to show his true self to Mary Crawley, if he hadn't been forced to play the part of buffoon, perhaps she would have been attracted to him after all. He would never know, now.

He rubbed his chin, thinking about the man who had just left him. Bates had known that he owed him this one last favor. The debt was now repaid, but it had been a heavy one. Once, years ago, John Bates had gone to prison. Napier was well aware that he had done so in order to cover up for his wife's theft of the regimental silver. What very few people knew, however, was that the theft had been only part of the terrible series of events. A security guard had been assaulted and injured by Vera Bates's partner in crime, a worthless man she had lured into her trap. Bates had been pulled even further into his wife's web of lies, and a clever criminal attorney had convicted him of the assault on the basis of the untruths he had already told to clear Vera of the theft.

The sentence had been severe. Bates never should have got out of prison in only two years, but as soon as Lord Branksome had found out, he had intervened, bringing his considerable influence to bear. Bates was set free, and Napier's father had also expunged the record of the assault so that only the theft remained. As a result, Bates had known that he owed the family a considerable debt. Napier himself knew that many men would not consider it paid through what Bates had done for him in the matter of Mr. Pamuk, and would have continued to hold the threat of revealing the secret over his head.

But he could not bring himself to do it. He remembered the laughing young man Bates had been when he'd worked as a footman in Lord Branksome's house, the piggyback rides and treats and games he'd shared with the lonely child that Evelyn Napier had been. He wanted Bates to have all the happiness he could, and he rather thought that the other man might find it with the charming Anna Smith.

Napier leaned back in his chair and sighed, a tangle of emotions and thoughts and cloudy memories running through his head. I can't afford to get lost in the past, he thought. I really ought to leave for London on the early train.

But he already knew he would not. And he knew where he would go instead of to the train station. Just one last visit, he promised himself. The very last. And I won't even go near the house.

Evelyn Napier strolled by the brook on the far side of the property of Downton Abbey, hearing the twittering birds and the rustling grasses, feeling the breeze across his face and the warm wind touching his hands, and thinking, as much as possible, of nothing. It was safer not to think about anything that had just passed, or anything that was soon to come.

It wasn't wise of him to take one last walk on Downton property, and he knew it, but late morning was the best time of day for such an enterprise. If you were caught, you could always pretend that you didn't have any plans and were going nowhere in particular. It would seem a bit odd that he was hanging about Downton, true, but the truth was that he could not resist this one last opportunity. Surely no-one would be out this time of the morning, he thought, and he could see anyone coming from at least a hundred yards away.

He turned the corner, seeing the shape of the old abandoned cloister looming up in the distance. And then he saw something else.

Mary Crawley was walking along the brook too, coming from the other direction, her dark red walking-dress a beacon.

Evelyn flattened himself against a tree instantly, knowing that she would not be able to see him from the path. He kept watching her walk. She was fair and lovely, her fragile pale skin glowing against her upswept dark hair, reddish highlight gleaming in the May sunshine. He clenched his fists, struggling for control. He could not step out from behind that tree and speak to her. I must resist. I must. He would look like a fool. She didn't want him, couldn't be happy to see him, she'd made that clear enough the last time they had spoken a few days earlier. She had only wanted Pamuk, that worthless son of a bitch. Why couldn't he hate her for rejecting him, or simply pity her for being a fool and Pamuk's victim?

And then he saw the tall young man appear around a bend of the brook, coming towards Mary from the other direction. Matthew Crawley. Her cousin, he knew, the country lawyer who had suddenly been elevated to heir. Any thoughts that Napier might have had about slipping quietly away vanished instantly. He couldn't possibly move now, or the other man would see him.

"Hello, Cousin Mary," called Matthew, smiling as he approached her. She stood still, waiting for him. "I wanted to look at the ruins of the cloister, and I had a spare hour," he went on. "It's a four day weekend."

She smiled faintly. "How Granny would despise that word."

He laughed. "A Thursday to Monday, then."

He had not asked her if she wanted to continue her walk; she had not seized on that idea as an excuse to leave him, and somehow, they ended up standing almost directly in front of Napier where he hid behind the tree. Whatever happened next, he realized, he would be forced to witness it.

"Are you well?" Matthew asked awkwardly.

"Yes, quite well," answered Mary, looking up at him. A few moments passed.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said suddenly. "You know—in the mausoleum."

She shook her head. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"No; there is," he insisted. "I was quite rude to you, Mary."

"Not as rude as I was to you. There's really no excuse, except-" She shook her head. " I wasn't angry with you, Matthew. And I'm not now, don't think I am. I'm angry at my life, I suppose."

"How so?"

She sighed. "It's terribly difficult to define, but I suppose I would say that I want more from my life than what I'm going to get. Perhaps more than I have the right to want."

"What would you like to do? Here—why don't you sit down and tell me?" He helped her to a flat, smooth boulder and sat next to her.

"I don't know what I would do." She tried to laugh. "I don't know if I'm particularly qualified to do anything."

"I hope you won't mind my saying so, but I think you're more than intelligent enough to do anything you choose."

Her smile broadened. "I don't mind it at all, but don't let it get round! Gentlemen don't care for intelligent women, you know."

"No," said Matthew, looking at her steadily. "I don't know any such thing."

She flapped a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Pish posh. It's true, and you know it. A hundred years from now, perhaps, things will have changed for girls like me… I can do some real work, have some real responsibility. But now, I've no choice but to marry. The only question is to whom."

Matthew seemed to think about that for a moment. "And you'd never marry anyone you were told to, would you, Mary?"

"No," she said tightly.

The pair sat in silence, and they did not look at each other. But the air crackled between them.

Watching Matthew and Mary like an unhappy ghost appointed to haunt the spot, Napier remembered a child's party many years ago. He had been nine years old, and Mary was six. He offered her a sweetmeat that he knew she liked. "Thanks, pig-face," she had said, in an abstracted way. Then she ran off to play with her male cousins, the ones who were laughing and careless and self-assured. He had stood stock still. She hadn't been insulting him; he'd known that at once. It might almost have better if she had. She'd simply been repeating an insult she had heard others use about him, and she wasn't interested enough to figure out what it meant. She didn't hate him; she simply didn't care about him. He made no impression on her. It was worse than if she'd spit in his face.

Another memory surfaced from four years earlier, Mary's coming out year. He had seen her at at a ball in London, trying to escape a persistent suitor with clammy hands and a loud voice, the son of some dreary baronet or other. "Evelyn!" she'd exclaimed with false delight on seeing him. "I remember now, I've promised you this dance!" "Er… of course," he'd stammered. "You'll rescue me, won't you?" she'd asked in an undertone, and he could not have refused her anything. So he had whirled round the dance floor with Mary Crawley at eighteen, glowing in peach silk. "Thanks, Evie; you're a pal," she'd said carelessly afterwards, squeezing his hand, her eyes moving to a line of handsome young men across the room.

Matthew Crawley hadn't been there then, of course. He had no part to play in their lives at that time; he was not of their world. He had only been dragged into it because of Patrick Crawley's sudden death. But if he had been, then Mary's first season unmatched might have been her last. He understood that now. The two were right together, thought Evelyn, even though neither of them was about to admit it.

I ought to hate Matthew Crawley for this, I suppose, he thought. But somehow, he did not, could not. Because of this tension and this unacknowledged attraction, Mary Crawley would not grieve and pine over what had happened with Pamuk. Matthew would tether her to life, and perhaps eventually to love. Their road would be rocky, but it might end in happiness.

The wind blew softly through the trees, sending a branch across his shoulder. Napier looked up and saw that Mary and Matthew had left. He sighed and started in the other direction, back towards the village. He had an appointment in London that night which he could not miss, and he just had time to catch the train.

A/N: So this seems like it should be the last chapter, doesn't it? But as you might have guessed from the last line, things aren't all neatly wrapped up yet. We've got one chapter left (and then a bonus chappie, but 24 will be the last in the actual story.) We're going to learn who Evelyn Napier is going to see in London. And whatever the real answers are… we're finally going to get them all. 😉