“Come along, then,” said Mrs. Corneille. She took Miss Turner’s left arm and patted it. She turned to the rest of us. “Pleasant dreams.”
Miss Turner glanced at all of us again but she said nothing.
They walked off. They made an interesting pair-Mrs. Corneille sleek and glossy in her red silk, Miss Turner taller and stiffer and almost drab now in her gray wool. You wouldn’t think it was possible for someone to look drab and proud at the same time, but Miss Turner somehow managed to pull it off.
Without looking back, the two of them walked out the door into the hallway.
I said to Mrs. Allardyce, “What was it, exactly, that woke you up?”
She blinked. She was surprised, I think, by my asking. “Why, that awful screaming, of course. The silly girl gave me a horrible start. I thought my poor heart would stop.” She put her hand on her heavy chest. Probably she had a heart and probably it was in there somewhere.
“Miss Turner screamed twice,” I said. “Which scream woke you up?”
“The first one. It would’ve awakened the dead. ”
“When you heard the scream, what did you do?”
“I sat up and I switched on the electric light.” She frowned. “Why on earth do you ask?”
“An excellent question,” said Sir David. “What are you playing at, Beaumont? Amateur sleuth?” He was annoyed at Miss Turner, I think, for calling him a fool. And probably at Mrs. Corneille, for plucking Miss Turner away. He was taking his annoyance out on me, probably because I was a witness, and a male. I could live with that for a while, if I had to.
“Mr. Houdini will want to know,” I said. “This is the kind of thing he came here to investigate.” It sounded reasonable to me, but it seemed to bother Sir David.
I looked at Mrs. Allardyce. “You turned on the light as soon as you heard the scream?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, the-the poor girl screamed again, a dreadful scream, absolutely pitiful. ” She was on her best behavior now. She was assisting the Great Houdini with his research. “I had no idea what to think. But I got out of bed and I put on my robe-I was concerned about Jane, you see, and I thought I should go and have a peek at her. And then she came running through the door. She was completely hysterical.”
“You didn’t see anybody else coming from her room.”
“No, of course not. Only Jane. There was never anybody else in her room. Jane’s a charming person, good-hearted, but clever, of course, and terribly imaginative. It’s all those books she reads. And last night, you see, Lord Purleigh told us all some truly horrifying stories about the ghost who’s supposed to haunt this part of the manor. An ancestor of his, the third Earl, Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam. Far be it from me to criticize, Robert’s a dear sweet man, but really, he ought to have known better-anyone can see that Jane’s an excitable person. What must’ve happened is that after hearing all that, Jane dreamed she saw Lord Reginald, and then, of course, because she was sleeping in a strange bed, she was disorientated. And so she thought the dream was real, you see.”
I nodded. “You heard two screams,” I said.
“Yes, didn’t I just say so?”
“Uh-huh. You mind if I take a look in Miss Turner’s room?”
If she’d had eyebrows, she would’ve raised them. Instead she raised the ridge of her forehead. “Is that absolutely necessary, do you think?”
“Absolutely. I’ve got to make sure everything’s okay. Mr. Houdini will ask about it.”
She frowned. “Well, if you think…”
“Thanks.” I walked through the doorway.
It was the same set-up as the Great Man’s room-first a bathroom and a toilet and then the sleeping area. There was no one in it, anywhere. The bed was a tangled mess and one of the pillows was on the floor, near the door. There was no one under the bed and nothing in the wardrobe except Miss Turner’s clothing and the clean smell of talcum powder. The floor was wooden and the walls were made of stone. The window was too narrow to let anyone in or out.
Sir David had followed me in. Like mine, his hands were in the pockets of his dressing gown. Maybe he was hiding a pair of hand-cuffs of his own. His smile had gone from bland to ironic. He said, “Searching for clues, are we?”
I glanced once more around the room. “Right,” I said.
“Aren’t we going to produce our magnifying lens?”
I looked at him. “You think it was a really small ghost?”
His smile became bland again. “As an American,” he said, “you probably wouldn’t know this. But a gentleman never enters a lady’s room without her permission.”
I nodded. “Then I guess we’d both better leave.” He stood in my way, so I walked around him and back out into Mrs. Allardyce’s room.
“Thanks for your trouble,” I told her.
“Not at all,” she said. She put her hand to her chest again. “Will Mr. Houdini wish to speak with me?”
“Sure he will,” I said. “Count on it. Thanks again. Good night.” I nodded to Sir David. He didn’t return the nod.
But I could feel someone behind me as I walked out into the hall. I took a few steps down the corridor and he called out, “Oh, Beaumont?”
I stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
He approached me. His handsome face was thoughtful. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think I care for your manners.”
“No? You in the market for a new set?”
He nodded as if that was pretty much the answer he had expected. He stroked the left side of his mustache with the tip of his index finger. “Perhaps we’ll have an opportunity to discuss this at some other time.”
“Look forward to it,” I said. “See you later.”
“ORGHH.”
“Harry?”
“Orgh.”
“ Harry?”
“Whumph?” In the light from the open doorway I could see him tug up the silk blindfold and stick it to his forehead. He unscrewed the wax from his ears. “Humph? What?”
“Sorry to wake you up,” I said.
“No no no. I was merely resting my eyes.” Probably the wax had kept him from hearing the snores.
“Okay if I turn on the light?” I asked him.
“Yes, yes, certainly. What is it, Phil? What is wrong?”
I turned on the light and held out my left hand. “I was wondering if you could get these off.”
Cecily must have slipped away from my room while everyone was talking next door. If she had found the key to the handcuffs, she hadn’t left it for me.
The Great Man looked at the handcuffs dangling from my wrist. He raised his eyebrows, surprised. “A Mueller and Kohl spring-loaded. An antique. Where did you find it, Phil?”
“A long story, Harry. Tell you in the morning. Can you get it off?”
He smiled. “Phil, a child could remove those. Here. Observe.” In less than a second, the cuffs were off.
The Morning Post
Maplewhite, Devon
August 18
Dear Evangeline,
You’ll be appalled, I know. You’ll be disgusted with me. I can scarcely blame you: I’m thoroughly disgusted with myself. I’ve been an absolute and utter fool. If the earth suddenly groaned open before me, I would leap immediately into the smoking chasm and I would feel, I promise you, nothing but intense gratitude and relief as I whistled down toward the Abyss.
Oh, Evy, I’ve been such an idiot! If you had seen me standing there, half naked, with all those people gaping at me! If you had heard me babbling like a lunatic about the ghost-
Yes, the ghost. A real ghost, or so he seemed at the time, slathering and foaming and hissing obscenities. Those wild eyes, that leering mouth, and that monstrous thing of his rampant and red!
But now, as the light of dawn begins to sift through the window, pale and cold and relentless, I begin to suspect that I must have suffered some attack of mania.