Fallen out of the robe when she hit the floor? I glanced around the carpet, didn’t see it.
There had been no more screams. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one.
I said the impolite word again.
I snatched the handcuffs up into my left hand and stuck both of them, hand and cuffs, into the pocket of my dressing gown. I took a last look at Cecily. She was on her hands and knees now atop the bed, slapping at the bedspread, her short hair flapping frantically as she looked back and forth. I ran to the door and yanked it open and I rushed out into the hall.
Chapter Six
The illumination in the corridor came from dim electric lights set in brass sconces along the stone walls. Sir David Merridale stood in front of the next doorway to my left-the door to the suite occupied by Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner. Just as I saw him, Sir David opened the door and plunged into the room. I sprinted toward the door-with one hand jammed in my pocket, it was an awkward sprint.
I went inside. I stuck my other hand, my right, into the right pocket of the robe. With both hands in my pockets, I might be able to pass for a normal person. Out for a casual stroll.
By the dim light of the electric lamp on the nightstand I could see three figures in the far corner of the room. Two of the figures had their backs to me. One was Sir David. The other had to be Mrs. Allardyce. Unless there were two or three people under that bulky robe, traveling as one.
The third figure stood with her back against the stone wall. She was tall. She wore a long pink flannel nightgown and her head was lowered and her hands were covering her face. Her long brown hair was loose and it spilled down over her shoulders. Miss Turner.
The door to the next chamber was open. A light was on in there.
“She’s had a nightmare,” said Mrs. Allardyce to Sir David.
Miss Turner’s head jerked up. “It was no nightmare!” she said. “I saw him.”
“Saw whom?” said Sir David. He was patting Miss Turner on the shoulder. Paternally. He was also admiring her body, I noticed. I didn’t blame him. The thin pink material clung to the curves and it draped nicely over the hollows. All the curves and all the hollows seemed to be in exactly the right places. Miss Turner, at nighttime, was a surprise.
“The ghost,” she said. “Lord Reginald.” She looked from Sir David to Mrs. Allardyce to me. “I know it sounds absurd, but he was in there!” she said, and pointed to the open door of her room.
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Allardyce. Her make-up was gone and I could understand now why she wore so much of it. She had no eyebrows and no lips. “You’ve had a long day. All this talk of ghosts has overstimulated you.”
“I saw him!” With her glasses gone, her thick toffee-brown hair streaming free, she looked five years younger.
“Now Jane, for goodness’ sake,” said Mrs. Allardyce. She spoke with that elaborate patience that always conveys its opposite, and always intends to. “Do stop making a nuisance of yourself. It’s time we all went back to bed.”
Sir David curled his paternal arm around Miss Turner’s shoulder. “I suspect that the young lady could do with a stiff tot of brandy. I happen to-”
Miss Turner turned and pushed his arm away with her forearm. She backed up. “Please don’t patronize me,” she said stiffly. “I’m telling you, I saw him.”
Sir David smiled his bland smile. “I’m sure you saw something,” he said. “Something that appeared to you to be-”
“I saw a bloody ghost, you fool!”
“Jane!” said Mrs. Allardyce. “You forget yourself!”
Miss Turner turned to her. Her hands were down at her sides, balled into fists. “He was there!” she said.
“Even if he had been,” said Mrs. Allardyce deliberately, “which I do not for one moment believe, there would certainly be no need to use such language.”
For a moment Miss Turner’s blue eyes flashed and her wide lips parted. It seemed to me that Mrs. Allardyce was about to learn something interesting about language. Maybe I could have picked up a thing or two myself. But then Miss Turner shut her mouth and bit her lip and looked away.
I said, “What did he look like?”
She turned to me and frowned and she narrowed those dazzling eyes as though trying to figure out what I was up to. Finally, hesitantly, she spoke. “He was an old man,” she said. She turned to
Mrs. Allardyce. “Just as you said.” She turned back to me and took a deep breath. I don’t think she really cared whom she talked to, so long as it was someone who listened. “He was very old. Ancient. And thin. Skeletal. His beard was white, white and yellowish and long, like his hair.”
“You had the light on when you saw him?”
“Yes. I switched it on as soon as I heard a noise. I wasn’t sleeping.”
“What noise?”
She frowned, remembering, trying to get it right. “A sort of clicking sound,” she said. “Like claws on stone.” She put her hands to her shoulders, holding herself, and she closed her eyes.
“What was he wearing?”
The blue eyes opened. She took another breath. “A long white gown. A sort of nightgown.”
“He was tall? Short?”
“Tall,” she said. “Not so tall as you, but tall. And his head was bent over to the side. Tilted. Twisted.” She shivered again. “It was horrid. It made him seem demonic.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He said-” She caught herself. She shook her head. “No. He said nothing.”
For the first time I got the feeling she was lying. She had imagined the ghost, maybe. But if she had, she had also imagined him saying something. “Did he do anything?” I asked her.
Once again she shook her head. Once again I thought she was lying. “No,” she said. “But he was there!”
“Gentlemen,” said a female voice. I turned. It was Mrs. Corneille in a belted red silk robe. Her heavy black hair was still sleek, still perfectly groomed.
“I suggest,” said Mrs. Corneille in that dark furry voice, “that you all return to bed and permit me to care for Miss Turner.”
“For some reason, Vanessa,” said Sir David, “I have a difficult time imagining you as Florence Nightingale.” I thought I could hear irritation in his voice, running through it like a tight thin wire.
“For some reason, David,” she said, “I have a difficult time imagining you as Dr. Livingstone. Miss Turner? Would you like to come with me? I should imagine that you’d rather not attempt to sleep just yet. And, if you feel you need it, I’ve some brandy, as well.” She smiled sweetly at Sir David. He smiled blandly back. To Miss Turner she said, “And there’s another room in my suite. You’re quite welcome to it.”
Miss Turner glanced toward the open door of her room, looked around at the rest of us, finally turned back to Mrs. Corneille. She raised her head. “Thank you. Yes. It’s very kind of you. I would like a brandy. But I must fetch my robe.”
Mrs. Corneille said, “I’ll be happy to fetch it for-”
“No, no,” said Miss Turner. “Thank you.” She dropped her arms to her sides, turned, and walked into the door that led to her room. She kept her head held high, as proud as an Egyptian queen. And Egyptian queens almost never wore pink flannel nightgowns.
Mrs. Allardyce said in a stage whisper, “You really shouldn’t encourage her.”
Mrs. Corneille smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure you’re right, of course. But what harm can it do if she gets away for a bit? No doubt she could do with a few moments to pull herself together. She seems basically a sound young woman.”
Mrs. Allardyce frowned. She was dubious but she would go along. Maybe because Mrs. Corneille was being sensible, but more likely because Mrs. Corneille somehow outranked her. “Very well,” she said. “But I’m not entirely sure that I approve of brandy at this hour.”
Mrs. Corneille smiled again. She was better at that than I would have been, if I’d been the one smiling at Mrs. Allardyce. “You needn’t worry,” she said. “Only a thimbleful.”
Sir David started to say something to Mrs. Corneille but just then Miss Turner returned to the room. She was wearing her glasses now and she was buttoning up the front of a shapeless gray bathrobe. None of Miss Turner’s clothes lived up to her blue eyes. Not many clothes could.