She glanced at me. Her face flushed slightly. It could have been anger, it could have been embarrassment. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“You told him, in fact, that you’d dreamed the ghost, did you not?”
“Yes.”
Marsh raised his eyebrows. “Could you explain to me, then, exactly why you said that?”
“I was confused. I hadn’t slept. I knew that I’d caused a disturbance, and I felt that the best thing I could do was ignore it and move forward.”
“Deny that it had ever happened, in fact. Claim that your ghost had been a dream.”
“Yes.”
“And yet now you claim that he was not.”
“No. No more a dream than the false beard and the wig.”
“Excuse me,” I said.
Marsh turned to me. “Yes?”
“Could I ask a couple of questions?”
“But my dear chap, of course. We’re confreres, are we not? Lead on.”
“Miss Turner, did you know any of these people before you came here? Any of the guests?”
“No.”
“The Earl? Lady Purleigh? Lord Purleigh? Anyone except Mrs. Allardyce?”
“No. None of them.”
“Did you ever hear anything about this ghost? Before you came here?”
“No.”
“Then you really don’t have any reason to make all this up, do you? No reason to bring along a phony beard and a wig from London, and then plant them in the Earl’s room?”
“No,” she said to me. For the first time this morning, something like a smile moved quickly across her lips. It disappeared in an instant. “No reason at all,” she said to Marsh.
Marsh was smiling at me, and his smile was more permanent. “Thank you, Beaumont, for eliciting that valuable piece of information. And I thank you, Miss Turner. I do very much appreciate your candor. You’ve been both forthright and most lucid.” He stood up.
Miss Turner glanced at me and then stood. And then it was my turn to stand.
Miss Turner said to Marsh. “Did you wish to speak with any of the others?”
“Not as yet, thank you. Please inform all of them that I look forward to meeting with them shortly.”
She nodded to him, nodded to me, and then turned and walked away. When she left the room, Marsh said, “Time to take a peek at the Earl’s room, I think.”
I led the way, through the halls and up the stairways. Marsh walked along beside me. His hands behind his back, he held his head upright and he peered curiously, left and right, at the furniture and the bric-a-brac as we passed. Sergeant Meadows followed behind, his notebook and pen at the ready.
Marsh didn’t say anything until he started climbing the last set of stairs. Then he turned to me and he said, “You’re fond of the girl. Miss Turner.”
“I think she’s telling the truth,” I said.
“Obviously you do.” He smiled. “But which is cause and which is effect? Are you fond of her because she tells the truth, or do you believe she’s telling the truth because you’re fond of her?”
“I think she’s telling the truth,” I said.
“Ah,” he said. “Well, she’ll make a lovely witness, to be sure. Although I must confess to the tiniest sliver of unease concerning her reason for going to the Earl’s room last night.”
“She explained that.”
“She excused it,” he said. “I’m not altogether convinced that she explained it.”
“She’s read about mediums. She knows they pick up information, and she knows that sometimes they pick it up from servants.
“Assume she’s right,” said Marsh, and that it was the Earl prancing through her room last night. We haven't established, as yet, that the servants knew of this.”
“But Briggs knew about Darleen’s visits to the Earl’s room. The kitchen maid. Maybe he told Madame Sosostris. And maybe that was what she was talking about at the seance. Maybe Miss Turner came to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.”
We were in the final corridor now. The Earl’s rooms were up ahead. “Thicker and thicker,” said Marsh. “Peas and parsnips, a sprig of parsley, a dash of sage.”
“This is Carson’s room,” I told him, and I nodded toward the closed door.
“The valet. Yes.”
“And this is the Earl’s suite.”
I turned the knob and pushed open the door, then I stood back to let Marsh go in first.
He looked around the sitting room, at the bare stone walls and the heavy oak furniture and the Oriental carpet.
“Somewhat spartan,” he said. “But, good Lord, that is a magnificent rug.” He glanced at me. “Kurdish. A Senneh.” He admired the rug some more. “And seventeenth century, unless I miss my guess. Priceless. Sheer blasphemy to leave it lying about like that.”
He stepped delicately around the thing and walked along the wooden floor. I followed him and Sergeant Meadows followed me. Marsh took a last glance at the carpet and then opened the door to the Earl’s room.
He stood in the doorway, closely peering at the wooden jamb. He reached out and ran his fingers along the wood.
“According to Houdini,” I said, “no one gimmicked the door.”
“Hmmm,” he said, without looking at me. “So you said.” He stepped into the room and examined the broken support for the door’s bar. He took a careful look at the edge of the door itself, running his slender fingers along that. He nodded to himself and then he stepped into the room. Sergeant Meadows and I followed.
The fire in the fireplace had gone out and the air in the room was cooler. I could still smell gunsmoke but it was very faint now, wavering weakly behind the smells of dust and age.
“Where was the pistol?” Marsh asked me.
I showed him. “About there. And you can still see the ash. Along the floor.”
Sergeant Meadows had gone to the window and he stood there craning his neck to look down at the ground beneath.
“Hmmm,” said Marsh. “Yes.” He bent at the waist and studied the floor. “Footprints. A herd of wildebeest were apparently frolicking in here.”
“We were all here. Doyle, Lord Purleigh, Houdini. And then Superintendent Honniwell and his men.”
Marsh was still bent at the waist. “Did you examine the ash when you first arrived?”
“Yeah. No prints. There wouldn’t have been. The ash flew out when we broke open the door.”
“Hmmm.” Bent forward, shuffling his feet, Marsh inched along the floor, toward the far wall. “This is rather intriguing,” he said.
“What?”
“Here’s a set of footprints that proceed directly to the wall. And then muddle about for a bit.” He stood up, looked at me. But don’t return.”
At that moment, the stone wall silently swung open, a doorshaped section of it, and the Great Man stepped out of the darkness beyond. He held a glowing railroad lantern in his hand and he was smiling that wide charming smile of his. “The footprints, he announced, “are mine, naturally.”
Chapter Thirty-three
The Great Man knew how to make an entrance.
Inspector Marsh knew how to stand there and smile delicately. “Mr. Houdini,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
The Great Man ignored him and he aimed his grin at me. “You see, Phil? Already I have discovered something absolutely crucial.”
“I see that, Harry. Where does it go?”
“There is a stairway here.” He held the lamp up to the opening in the wall. Inside, a narrow stone stairway led down into the blackness. He turned back to me. “It goes down to a kind of tunnel which seems to encircle all of Maplewhite. From this tunnel, additional stairways lead upward to various rooms of the house.”
“How’d you find it?” I asked him.
“Simple logic,” he said. He turned to Marsh. “May I explain?”
“But of course,” said Marsh. “I swoon to hear it.” He turned, dusted off the bedspread with a delicate hand, and sat down on the bed as if it were a theater seat. He put his hands on his lap and looked up at the Great Man with his eyebrows raised in attention, or maybe an impersonation of it. Sergeant Meadows was still looming with his notebook over by the window. He crossed his arms over his thick chest and leaned back against the sill.