The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery(82)

I lifted the candle. A stone room – a cellar of some kind – with a few discarded items of household junk, and—

And a massive carved chest crouching in the corner. Carved and domed-lidded, and bound with thick chains and a padlock. In the candlelight it took on a dreadful sinister significance. The oaken chest, half eaten by the worm, where the ill-starred heroine found a grave … The living tomb …

As I stood there, a faint scratching came from within the chest. It was so faint it might have been made by goblin nails against a frost-rimed window-pane. It was so fragile it might be the last fading signal of a dying girl …

I set down the candle and knelt before the chest, dragging uselessly at the chains, cursing in Russian, calling her name, and pleading with any gods that might be listening to help me – I probably called on a few denizens of the darker side of heaven, as well. I did not care. If Leonora was in there, I would trade my immortal soul to rescue her and have her alive and living.

I could see no key to the padlock, and such a tiny key could have been anywhere. It might take hours of fruitless search. I could probably find an axe somewhere, and break open the chest – but to do that might wound or even kill what was inside. If, indeed, it was not already dead.

But I had not effected discreet entry into all those houses without understanding how to open a lock without the key. With the aid of a small thin implement without which I have never travelled, I had the padlock free in five minutes. I dragged the chain away and reached for the lid. Light years sped by, worlds died, universes crumbled to dust in those moments that I struggled with the heavy lid. If Leonora was lost to me, there would be nothing in the world for me anywhere ever again, no hope, no light, no joy …

The lid came up with a wail of old oak and disused hinges. She was there. Her hair was tumbled, and there was a smudge of dirt across one cheekbone. But she was pale and her eyes were closed—

Then she opened her eyes, saw me, and in a hoarse, dry voice, said, ‘I thought you’d never find me—’

‘I’ll always find you,’ I said, and I lifted her out and held her against me. She was crying, and so was I.

She cried again when I told her about Stephen, and it wasn’t until later in the morning that she was able to tell me what had happened, and even then it came out in fragments. My poor Leonora – she blamed herself.

It seems that while I was prowling the lanes, she and Stephen saw Niemeyer’s men skulking in the gardens. Leonora was all for running out of the house – perhaps making for the church and asking for sanctuary. But Stephen would not leave. He insisted that this was the only place where he could be safe. They would barricade themselves in, he said. And to be entirely safe, Leonora must hide.

‘In the oak chest,’ I said.

‘Yes. Alex, I argued against him, but he was adamant. And there wasn’t much time anyway, so I gave in. He said even if the soldiers found the stone room – which was very unlikely – they wouldn’t bother with an ancient chest. He said to make sure, he would lock it.’

I am not sure about the next part, because I think Leonora was frightened and confused, and I don’t think her recollection is entirely to be relied on. Nor, I should say, does she.

But she thinks Stephen came running down to the cellar and called to her that the soldiers had gone, and that they were safe. Then he tried to get her out. It’s somehow typical of Stephen – poor, well-meaning Stephen – that he had not used a key for the padlock, he had simply snapped an open padlock into place around the chain with no thought of unlocking it afterwards. And so he was unable to open it again.

Leonora thinks he shouted to her that he would get her out somehow – she thinks he tore at the chains and the lid, trying to force it open. She could hear his hands beating uselessly at the wood, tearing at the chains for a very long time.

Then, quite suddenly, he stopped. She thinks he said in a low voice that the soldiers were coming back, and he would hide in the grounds. But he would come back for her, he said. She must trust him in that. He would come back. Then she heard, very faintly, his steps going away, and the door in the panelling closing. And then there was nothing, only the silent darkness within the chest.

Michael said, ‘I think we have the explanation. Stephen ran into the gardens to hide, saw a figure and thought it was Leonora and that she had managed to get out by herself. Or perhaps he thought Iskander had come back and got her out.’

He looked down at Nell, who was leaning against his shoulder, her eyes on the pages. She said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not going into high drama all over again. I’ll cope with having been a ghost in a garden.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘That all seems to fit. And it would explain why Stephen was trying to get back into the house, wouldn’t it? He must have realized right at the end that it couldn’t have been Leonora he saw, and—’

‘And he died believing he had to get back into the house to get her out of the oak chest. Everyone who encountered him,’ said Michael thoughtfully, ‘assumed he was running to the house to get away from Hugbert and the others, but he wasn’t.’

‘He was running to get to Leonora.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did we resolve it for him?’ asked Nell. ‘When we opened the chest? Did we – what’s the expression? – send him to rest?’

‘We’ll probably never know for sure. But I’m going to think so.’