The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery(73)

‘It’s still there,’ said Nell, stopping. ‘That’s the light I saw earlier. I thought it was you – that’s why I was trying to get into the house. But that light – it’s gas light, isn’t it? Or even an oil lamp. Because—’

‘Because the house didn’t have electricity in Stephen’s time,’ said Michael softly.

‘Do you know what that room is?’ Nell’s eyes were still fixed on the glimmering light and the outline behind the curtain.

‘I think it’s the main drawing room. I glanced in there earlier today. It had the air of hardly being used, but I do remember seeing a writing table by the window.’

‘I suppose there’s no possibility of that being a – a real person?’

‘Who, for instance?’

‘The solicitor you spoke to?’

‘He couldn’t have got in without these keys.’

‘Luisa’s cleaner? She might have a key.’

‘Writing at a desk by gaslight?’

‘Well, no. What do we do?’

Michael looked down at Nell. Her eyes were dark smudges in her face, and she looked pale, although whether with fear or tiredness, he could not tell. He said with decision, ‘What we do is to drive away from this place like bats out of hell, and for the next few hours we pretend there’s nothing and no one in there.’

‘We do?’

‘Yes. But,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘we come back here tomorrow morning, to see what daylight shows up.’

After the eerie shadows of Fosse House, it felt vaguely unreal to be seated in the tiny dining-room, eating the Bell’s very substantial chicken pot pie.

Between mouthfuls of chicken, Michael gave Nell the gist of Luisa’s story. Nell listened with the absorbed interest that he always found endearing, then said, ‘Yes, I think I see. How sad. Was she mentally unbalanced, do you think?’


‘I think,’ said Michael, and heard a slightly defensive note in his voice, ‘that she was affected by having spent her whole life in that house. She hardly ever saw anyone or went anywhere. I think most people might become a bit odd in those circumstances. And her father sounds very odd indeed.’

‘I do feel rather sorry for her.’

‘I think there was more in her life than it might sound. She was certainly regarded as something of an expert on the Palestrina Choir, and quite a number of very learned people used to contact her. I think there might have been a fair amount of interest – even purpose – in her life.’ He laid down his knife and fork. ‘Can I see Hugbert’s letters, now? If you’re having pudding, I could skim-read them.’

‘I won’t have pudding, but I’ll share some cheese with you, please. You can skim while I eat.’

Michael read the letters, forgetting about the cheese, but occasionally reaching for his wine glass.

‘Hugbert fills in a lot of the gaps,’ he said eventually.

‘Yes. And it sounds as if Luisa’s journal fills in a lot more. There’s still an awful lot we don’t know, though.’

‘I wonder if we ever will,’ said Michael, closing Hugbert thoughtfully. ‘The largest blank is what happened to Stephen, isn’t it? Booth tried to find that out, but he doesn’t seem to have done so. And his search was much nearer to it than we are now.’

‘But in the end it led him to an asylum,’ said Nell.

‘I’d like to think he didn’t die in there, but I’m afraid he probably did.’

‘I’d like to know about Leonora,’ said Nell. ‘It sounds as if Iskander stowed her away with those people in Holland and collected her when they escaped from Holzminden – did you pick up that bit in Hugbert’s letters?’

‘I did.’

‘Do you think she came back to Fosse House with Stephen?’

‘Yes, I do. I know I’ve given you a potted version of Luisa’s journal,’ said Michael thoughtfully, ‘but I don’t think I’ve really conveyed the strangeness of it. There are passages where she almost sounds as if she thinks she actually is Leonora. Leonora had some kind of disability, according to Iskander – it sounds like club foot or something of that kind. Luisa seems to have developed a similar lameness.’

‘So you’re following all the traditions of classic hauntings which would argue that for Luisa to be – um – shadowed so strongly, Leonora must have lived at Fosse House at some stage?’

‘Don’t mock me, you heartless wench.’

‘I’m not,’ said Nell, smiling. She snapped off a piece of celery, then said, ‘How about Stephen and the Holzminden affair? Do we think he really did shoot Niemeyer’s brother?’

‘You’re remembering the sentence, aren’t you?’ said Michael, seeing her shiver slightly. ‘Bayoneting.’

‘It’s horribly brutal, isn’t it? Did the brother eventually die, I wonder? Hugbert doesn’t say. I suppose it might be possible to find out, although I’m not sure where you’d start.’

‘I can just about believe that someone else fired that shot at the brother,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘But it’s stretching credulity to snapping point.’

‘I could believe it. Those two were greatly disliked, and Karl – the Kommandant – sounds as if he was a vicious brute. Hugbert said the shots from Stephen’s rifle went into the ceiling and the walls of the gatehouse, remember. And Stephen protested his innocence all the way through.’