“How horrible. I shall be furious if he’s done that. She’s a simple girl, Darcy. She’ll be scared out of her wits.”

Darcy’s arm tightened around my waist. “Don’t worry, I’m back now. We’ll sort everything out tomorrow.”

I nestled my head back against his chest and closed my eyes. “I hope so,” I said. “I just wish someone would find the murderer and make everything right again.”

“So you’re no nearer to finding out the truth?” Darcy asked.

“If the poison was intended for Nicholas, then I suppose it’s possible that we’re dealing with a trained assassin, or even an anarchist who climbed in, using that rope you found, planted the poison and climbed down again. The only thing against that theory is that there don’t appear to be any tracks leading away from the castle.”

“You’re overlooking something else,” Darcy said. “Someone in the castle must have let down the rope for him. That means that he had inside help. More than one person is involved.”

“We know that only Dragomir and the servants were anywhere near the table,” I said, “but there is a mysterious Mr. X we have to factor in. Remember I told you a strange man came into my room and bent over my bed, and I thought he was a vampire?”

Darcy nodded. “And I told you it was a case of the wrong room.”

“Well, I’ve looked all over the castle and I haven’t seen him anywhere again. Except that his portrait, or the portrait of someone very like him, was hanging on the wall when I first arrived and then someone changed it for the one you see now. Why would anyone do that?”

Darcy shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“If he wasn’t a vampire, if he was a real person, then it is someone who knows the castle well. Perhaps the portrait was of one of his ancestors and he realized that it resembled him closely so he sneaked in and removed it.” I sat up, suddenly realizing something. “Dragomir,” I said. “He told me his family used to own this castle, and there is a portrait downstairs that looks just like him. What if this is another family member? Apparently they were driven from their castle by the Turks after a failed uprising. They expected their neighbors to help them, but nobody did. So what if this is a revenge killing?”