“How are you proceeding?” Lady Sara asked.
“We are following our usual routine,” the Chief Inspector said stiffly.
“What about the occupant of the house next door?”
“We have already interviewed him. His bedroom is at the far side of his house, and he heard nothing until we rang his bell. He couldn’t tell us anything, and when we took him to see the dead man, he couldn’t identify him.”
Lady Sara turned her attention to Vincent Uppington. “Have you had any problems with your neighbour and landlord?”
“None,” Uppington said. “Actually, we have had very few contacts. He seems to be something of a recluse. I wouldn’t call him friendly, but he is always courteous.”
“Has he ever complained about these large parties of yours?”
“Certainly not. I asked him several times whether they bothered him, and he pointed out each time that his bedroom is on the far side of his house and no amount of riot in our salon would be likely to disturb him.”
“Had you been bothered by ghosts before this materialization last night?”
“Not at all,” Uppington said. He hesitated for a moment and then continued. “When we signed the lease, the estate agent told us the house was haunted, and there had been complaints from earlier tenants. He thought it odd because the house is relatively new. It is usually a venerable building or one that was the site of some deep tragedy that attracts ghosts. He didn’t seem to take the subject seriously, so we certainly didn’t — until last night.”
“In case you have any misgivings about continuing to reside there, I have good news for you. I feel confident that this particular ghost won’t be seen again.”
“How can you know that?” the Chief Inspector demanded.
Lady Sara smiled. “As you surely are aware, detectives, like magicians, are reluctant to reveal the tricks of their trade. I want to assure Mr. Uppington that there will be no uninvited guests at his next party — at least, none of the spirit variety. There may be a few crashers who are hoping for a repetition of last night’s excitement, and he would be well advised to plan for them. The dead man poses an entirely different set of problems: Who is he, how did he get there, why did he arrive at that particular moment, and who wanted him dead?”
The Chief Inspector nodded. “All of that. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Not at the moment. There are one or two aspects of the case that I’ll have to look into first. If you succeed in identifying him, please let me know at once.”
“I know you will want to inspect the premises. I have already informed Mrs. Uppington that you or one of your assistants will be calling.”
“Perhaps later,” Lady Sara said. “The first thing I must attend to is the rumour about the house being haunted.”
After the Chief Inspector and Mr. Uppington left, Lady Sara turned to me and asked, “What do you think?”
“I’m with the Chief Inspector,” I said. “I don’t believe the man was a ghost.”
“Neither do I. On the other hand, his conduct was rather more appropriate for a ghost than for a murderer. What manner of murderer is it who will attract attention to himself in the most dramatic way possible and then, when the eyes of everyone in the room are fixed on him, produce a cloud of smoke and use it as a screen to commit murder?”
“I would consider it unlikely behaviour even for a ghost.”
She shook her head. “There is no mystery at all about the ghost. The real mystery is how the murder victim got into the room since he wasn’t there when the ghost was first noticed. I’m considering the timing of the thing. The ‘ghost’ struck his pose in front of the fireplace; then when he had everyone’s attention, smoke began to envelop him. At that point, did the ghost dash out to get the body from somewhere, bring it back into the room, arrange it on the carpet, and then make his own escape?”
“It is more likely that the victim joined the ghost voluntarily as soon as the smoke was thick enough to conceal him.”
“Meaning that the victim obligingly made himself available to the murderer at the precise moment the murderer was ready for him? Perhaps,” she mused. “Perhaps. It is also possible that a third party was involved. I’ll remind you that none of this takes into consideration the Chief Inspector’s certainty that there are no secret panels in that room. The mechanism of the crime — how it was done — seems baffling, but it is all we have to contemplate until the victim is identified. Why it was done, and why the murderer chose that particular time and place, must wait.”
“So what do we do first?” I asked.
“The only logical place to begin is by interviewing the ghost,” she said.
Maxton Place was a pleasantly wooded area populated with homes that would have looked palatial anywhere else. Here the emphasis was on the comfort of the residents rather than on vulgar portentousness, and the dwellings were fitted discreetly into the wooded landscape. Numbers 12 and 14 were, as Lady Sara had said, large even for this neighbourhood. Number 12 already had several callers, perhaps friends come to console Mrs. Uppington on the catastrophe that disrupted her party and, incidentally, hear the details firsthand. Their carriages and coachmen were waiting. We drove past number 12, turned in at number 14 — the gate stood open — and followed a circular drive to the entrance.
The house itself — vast, solidly conservative — was evidence enough that the occupant possessed considerable wealth.
“It is an unlikely address for a ghost,” I observed.
“It is also an unlikely address for a murder,” Lady Sara said. “One would almost expect a clause in Mr. Uppington’s lease prohibiting either.”
Lady Sara rarely used her carriage, but on this day she had, with Old John Quick, her coachman and my foster father, driving. Like the excellent detective she was, she always managed to fit unobtrusively into whatever setting her work took her to, and a mere four-wheeler or trap would have looked ridiculously out of place at that address.
The footman was young, in his mid twenties, and he answered the bell with an energetic promptness. Lady Sara presented her card and informed him that she and her secretary were calling on Mr. Cecil Radcliffe. The footman bowed and led us up a long stairway to a first floor drawing room. There he invited us to make ourselves comfortable; Mr. Radcliffe would join us shortly.
The room — indeed, the whole house — had a dusty, disused air. I asked Lady Sara, “Does someone actually live here?”
“Mr. Radcliffe is a bachelor,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for at least fifteen years. He was something of a recluse even then. Unlike Mr. Uppington, he probably does no entertaining at all.”
Glancing about the room, my gaze settled on something startling: a large, painted portrait showing an elderly man with a long, white beard and suspiciously black hair. He was standing in a striking pose, hand raised, one finger elevated.