The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery(74)

‘I think he’d do that anyway.’

‘You don’t believe he got away, do you?’ said Nell.

‘No, I don’t. I think that’s why he’s still there.’ He glanced at her. ‘A violent death being one of the top ten favourite motives for a ghost to haunt.’

He said it with deliberate lightness, but Nell replied, quite seriously, ‘Hugbert thought Stephen was still there. What was it he said?’ She reached for the book. ‘“I think he’s still at Fosse House … And it’s a bad feeling to think of him in that lonely, dark old house.”’

‘Luisa thought Stephen was still around, as well. So did her father, although I suppose some of his evidence can be discounted, poor chap. But I’ll swear I saw Stephen myself, on two occasions at least. Only – it’s all so ethereal. What we’re seeing are little more than shadows. Silhouettes at lighted windows. What was it you said in the garden tonight? That we’re just too late or just too early to see the reality. By the time we get there, only the shadows are left.’ He grinned a bit wryly. ‘I do know how bizarre it all sounds.’

‘You seem to attract the bizarre,’ said Nell. ‘But I’m getting used to it.’

‘Are you?’ said Michael, looking up. ‘Enough to face a future filled with bizarre stuff?’

There was a pause, and he thought: damn, I’ve gone too far. I’m not even sure what I meant. But Nell said slowly, ‘That might be rather a tempting prospect. Hadn’t we better sort out the spooks first, though?’

‘We’ll go hand in hand into the spook-ridden sunset,’ said Michael gravely.

‘You know, I’ve almost sometimes wondered if you and I together are some kind of catalyst for ghosts,’ said Nell. ‘Like two chemical elements. You mix them or blend them and you get – I don’t know – something explosive. Hydrogen or nitroglycerine, or something.’

‘You and I together are an explosive combination anyway, even without the spooks,’ said Michael, putting his hand over hers for a moment.

‘I know. We’re very lucky, aren’t we?’

‘I do think,’ said Michael as Nell withdrew her hand in quest of another sliver of cheese, ‘that Luisa would like me to find out what happened to Stephen. I almost feel as if she was handing me the ghosts, that last night. That sounds really way-out, doesn’t it? Do you think I might have had too much wine tonight?’

‘For you, it isn’t all that way-out. But you have drunk most of the bottle,’ agreed Nell, looking round for the waitress to request black coffee.

‘So I have. I don’t think I’m actually drunk, although I might be slightly light-headed with relief at being away from that house. You may have to carry me up to bed.’

‘How times change. Once it was the other way round,’ she said, deadpan.

‘Have you seen the stairs here?’ demanded Michael. ‘They’re the steepest and the narrowest I’ve ever seen, and the bedrooms are on the second floor.’

‘The sooner we set off, the sooner we’d get there.’

‘That’s true. Let’s not bother with coffee after all.’





Twenty-Three


Thin morning sunlight fell across the old timbers of Fosse House’s hall, but in the corners were thin spiked shadows, like severed spider legs.

Nell stood in the hall, looking about her. ‘I see what you mean about it being eerie,’ she said. ‘Is that the library through there?’

‘Yes. And that’s the main drawing-room where we saw – whatever or whoever we saw last night,’ said Michael.

‘Let’s save that for later. Can I see the Holzminden sketch? I’ve brought my camera,’ said Nell. ‘If the solicitor agrees, I could send one or two photos out for some tentative opinions.’

Michael would not have been very surprised to find the sketch had vanished from the half-landing overnight along with the rest of Fosse House’s chimeras, but it had not, of course.

Nell stood in front of it for a long time. ‘It’s remarkable,’ she said at last. ‘At first you think it’s just a charcoal sketch – quite a good one, I think – but nothing more. Only, the longer you go on looking at it, the more you see in it. I could wish Hugbert’s wife hadn’t destroyed the other one.’

‘I find it unsettling,’ said Michael, studying the sketch. ‘And that’s throwing roses at it.’

‘It’s very unsettling,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’d want to be in a room with it for too long.’ She reached out a tentative hand to trace the outlines of the figure seated on the bed. ‘So that’s Stephen.’

‘Is it how you imagined him?’

‘Not entirely, but almost. He’s younger than I thought. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it? War’s heartbreaking anyway, but that one took—’

‘The flower of England? “They went with songs to the battle, they were young; straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow …” I can’t recall any more of it,’ said Michael.

‘Just as well. If you say anything about remembering them at the going down of the sun I shall dissolve in floods of tears. Is this the photograph from Word War Two?’