The Only One Left
by Riley Sager
Contents
Chapter Thirty-One
Overview
Mrs. Baker abruptly silences Lenora by destroying the typewriter and burning every page of her confession, showing Kit how easily Lenora’s version of the past can be erased. In a tense confrontation, Mrs. Baker reveals that Lenora promised her Hope’s End in exchange for preserving the estate, giving Kit a powerful new motive to connect Mrs. Baker to Mary’s death. Lenora’s past account deepens that suspicion by showing that, years earlier, pregnant Lenora forced Miss Baker—already entangled with the Hope family through an affair with Lenora’s father—to help conceal the pregnancy.
Summary
After Lenora is brought back inside from the terrace, Mrs. Baker shocks Kit by taking Lenora’s typewriter and throwing it over the railing. Carter helps carry Lenora upstairs, and Kit assumes she will be fired for breaking the rules. Before that happens, Kit privately tells Carter that Lenora confirmed she gave birth to a boy who was taken from her, which makes Carter think his theory that he is Lenora’s grandson could be true.
Hours pass without anyone dismissing Kit. Kit continues caring for Lenora through dinner, medication, exercises, and a bath, while noticing how empty Lenora’s room now looks without the typewriter. Believing she is about to leave Hope’s End for good, Kit begins packing and opens her lockbox, only to discover that all of the typed pages of Lenora’s story have been removed.
Kit goes downstairs and confronts Mrs. Baker in the dining room. Mrs. Baker calmly reveals that she already burned the pages in the fireplace, insisting that what Lenora typed belonged to Lenora and therefore fell under Mrs. Baker’s authority. Although Kit expects to be fired, Mrs. Baker says Kit is free to leave but is not being forced out, and she questions Kit about whose idea it was to take Lenora outside.
The conversation turns into a deeper argument about Lenora. Mrs. Baker says she keeps Lenora isolated to protect her from public hatred and admits she already knew about Kit’s family scandal because Mr. Gurlain told her. Mrs. Baker also claims Lenora has a long history of manipulating her caregivers and suggests that Mary may have killed herself after realizing she was not as special to Lenora as she believed. When Kit presses Mrs. Baker about why she has stayed at Hope’s End for so long, Mrs. Baker admits that Lenora promised to leave her the house and land if Mrs. Baker kept the estate standing. That confession gives Kit a strong new reason to suspect Mrs. Baker had motive to kill Mary.
Lenora’s typed narrative then returns to 1929. After catching Miss Baker with her father, Lenora confronts her, and Miss Baker bluntly says the relationship is transactional and meant to secure her future. Lenora reveals that she is six months pregnant and asks for secret help getting maternity clothes, extra food, and a discreet doctor while she and Ricky plan an escape. When Miss Baker hesitates, Lenora blackmails her by threatening to expose the affair to the household. Miss Baker agrees, and Lenora briefly believes she has found a path to freedom, though she now recognizes that bargain as a deal with the devil.
Who Appears
- Kit McDeereCaregiver who loses Lenora’s typed testimony, confronts Mrs. Baker, and grows more suspicious of Mary’s killer.
- Mrs. BakerHousekeeper who destroys Lenora’s work, admits she’ll inherit Hope’s End, and secretly helped Lenora while serving her father.
- Lenora HopeMute patient whose confession is interrupted; in the past, pregnant Lenora coerces Miss Baker into aiding her.
- CarterHelps Kit return Lenora upstairs and learns Lenora’s baby was a boy, supporting his kinship theory.
- RickyLenora’s lover and likely child’s father, planning marriage and escape in Lenora’s flashback.
- ArchieButler who brings dinner in the present and quietly helped channel extra food to pregnant Lenora.
- Mr. GurlainAgency head who informed Mrs. Baker about Kit’s past before she arrived.
- Mr. HopeLenora’s father, revealed in flashback as Miss Baker’s transactional lover.