The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery(10)
‘Shakespeare probably wrote more than thirty-seven plays—’
‘It’s difficult to separate legend from reality about the Holzminden sketches,’ said Nell, so focused on the subject that she hardly heard Michael’s remark. ‘A great many authorities maintain they never existed. That they’re only a myth. But if you’ve found one— Are you sure it’s a POW camp in the sketch? Not a hospital?’
‘Well, there are bars at the windows and even some German soldiers peering through them at the prisoners. Oh, and there’s an engraving or a painting on one of the walls – a slightly stylized outline of a black eagle, wings spread, claws out.’
‘The German Imperial emblem,’ said Nell eagerly. ‘Michael, if that sketch is real, it would be a tremendous discovery. I’ll see what I can find out about it.’
‘Don’t spend too much time on it. I shouldn’t think it’s the genuine article, and in any case it’s not likely to be for sale.’
‘I’d like to turn up some details, though,’ she said. ‘It’ll be a good project while you’re away, and while Beth’s in Scotland with Brad’s aunts.’
‘Have you heard from her? Is she enjoying herself?’
‘She’s having a whale of a time and the aunts are thoroughly spoiling her. When she phoned this afternoon, she said she was going to buy a kilt for you and a tartan bow for Wilberforce.’
‘God help us all.’ Michael had a sudden irresistible picture of Wilberforce indignantly adorned with a tartan bow. He said, ‘Is everything all right there?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine. Listen, though, I’d better ring off, because I’ve arranged to borrow a couple of books from next door for Owen – Great War stuff that he thinks might be useful for J.B.’s book. He’s calling round shortly to take a look at them. So I’ll see if there’s anything about Holzminden at the same time. Shall I email anything to you?’
‘There’s no Internet connection here and the signal isn’t brilliant on the phone, either. I’ll be back in a couple of days anyway. But if the sketch is genuine, I do wonder how it got here.’
‘Never mind how it got there, if it’s genuine, I wonder if Luisa Gilmore knows what she’s got,’ said Nell.
‘And if she’d let you sell it on her behalf?’
‘Of course.’
Michael replaced the phone and, before he could forget, made some notes for a new Wilberforce chapter, in which Wilberforce found himself in Scotland, becoming entangled with a set of bagpipes, which the ever-inventive mice had booby-trapped. He would email the idea to Beth when he got back to Oxford, and they would have one of the sessions they both enjoyed, working out how it could be written, and what Wilberforce’s eventual fate might be.
Going downstairs he realized he was deliberately ignoring the Holzminden sketch, and he was so annoyed with himself that he deliberately stopped in front of it and inspected it again. But it did not seem to have any further information to give, and when he unhooked it to examine the back, there was only a sheet of brown paper, glued to the edges of the frame. Michael was aware of such a strong compulsion to tear the paper off to see what might lie underneath that it took a considerable effort to replace the sketch.
He collected his coffee from the kitchen and carried it into the library. There was a degree of reassuring familiarity about the room, and it was nicely warm. Once the table lamp and an old-fashioned standard lamp had been plugged in and switched on, pools of soft light lay across the piles of books, picking out gilt lettering here and there on a calf or leather spine. Michael opened the laptop and reached for the Palestrina file. He was finding it difficult not to keep remembering Luisa’s moment of evident fear at supper, or her violent repudiation of the possibility that someone could be walking through the garden.
She did hear it, though, thought Michael. I know she did, because I heard it too. And I heard someone trying the door. No, I didn’t. It was birds in the eaves or water chugging down the guttering, that’s all.
He set Stephen Gilmore’s letter to one side and began to sort through the top layer of the file. There was a remarkable diversity of stuff: letters and notes, concert programmes, a few dog-eared photographs with nothing to show who the people in them were or where the photos had been taken, old receipts and bills that might have nothing to do with the subject in hand, but that were interesting in their own way.
As he made his own notes, there were sounds that the storm was returning. Rain lashed against the windows and the old house seemed to be filling up with rustlings and whispering draughts. Several times the curtains stirred, making Michael jump and look quickly over his shoulder.
It was interesting to speculate how some of the papers he was finding had reached Fosse House. He turned up what appeared to be a letter to one of the nuns at the Liége Sacré-Coeur convent. How had this found its way from Liège to this remote corner of England? It was written in French, of course; Michael was aware that the French spoken in Belgium varied from region to region, but as far as he could make out, this seemed to be the straightforward form of the language – it was ‘French’ French. His knowledge of the language was patchy and also somewhat rusty, but he thought he could get the gist of it.
My dear Sister Clothilde … Permit me to express the appreciation of those of us fortunate enough to attend the beautiful concert by your Choir at Saint Jacques’ Church last month … This was fairly easy to translate, but there followed what Michael thought were technical musical terms, which were beyond his ability. Then the writer went on to say something about how the music would have gladdened – or it might be delighted – Signor Palestrina’s heart. He would have much enjoyed listening to his own Nunc Dimittis and the Kyrie … Also, the Bach Cantata were beautifully sung.