“Yes,” Lockwood said drily. “Your safety was of course paramount. Go on.”
“After the first night—this is three days ago, Mr. Lockwood—the children reported to me while I took my breakfast. They had waited in the basement, watching the stairs. At some point after midnight, they saw the footprints appear—just as I have described them to you. The prints formed, one after the other, curling up the staircase, as if someone were slowly climbing. As they went, the pace of the prints grew faster. The children followed, but only for a short distance—to my vexation, when they reached the ground floor, they stopped and did not go on. I ask you, what good was that?”
“Did they say why they hung back?” Lockwood asked.
“They said the visitation was moving too fast. Also that they were scared.” The lady glared around at us. “Scared! This was their job!”
“How old were these children, please?” I asked.
Miss Wintergarden’s mouth twisted. “I should think nine or ten. I have no experience with the species. Well, I made no secret of my wishes that they should watch more closely the next night, and to be fair to them, they did. The following morning they came before me, white and trembling, and said that they had climbed halfway between the second and third floors before being unable to continue. A sensation of appalling terror had gripped them, they said, which grew worse the higher they got; they felt as if something were waiting for them around the bend in the staircase. There were three children, don’t forget, and all with those iron sticks they wave about. It seemed a poor excuse to me.
“I requested they watch again the third night. One girl refused point-blank—I paid her off and sent her packing—but the other two thought they might try. You must understand that the footprints had never caused us any actual trouble. I did not for a moment dream that—”
She broke off, reaching toward the table. Her gaunt hand hovered above the carrot cake, then veered away to pick up her cup of tea.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she said.
Lockwood was regarding her closely. “What wasn’t your fault, Miss Wintergarden?”
She closed her eyes. “I sleep in a bedroom on the third floor. Yesterday morning I woke early, before any of my servants were about. I came out of my room and saw a watch-stick lying on the landing. It was wedged right through the balusters, its end hanging out over the stairwell. I called, but heard nothing. So I went over to the banister, and then I saw…” She took a shaky sip of tea. “I saw…”
George spoke feelingly to no one but himself. “I can sense this is going to make me need some cake.”
“I saw one of the night-watch children above me, huddled on the staircase, between the third and attic floors. She had her back to the wall, and her knees drawn up, and she was rocking to and fro. When I spoke to her, she did not answer. I could not see the other—it was a boy, I do not know his name—but I noticed that the girl’s watch-stick was there on the stairs next to her, and that made me suddenly look down.” She took a short, sharp breath, as if reliving the moment of shock. “I have told you about the stairwell—how it stretches from the attic level to the basement. And he was down there, lying in shadow on the basement floor. He had fallen, and he was dead.”
There was a long silence in the room. The veneer of superiority Miss Wintergarden had attempted to maintain throughout the interview hung from her at an angle, skewed, flapping, and distasteful, like a highly wrought gate blown off its hinges in a gale.
Still she clung to it. “It was their job,” she said. “I paid them for the risk.”
Lockwood had gone very still. His eyes glinted. “I hope you paid them well. Was he ghost-touched?”
“No.”
“Why had he fallen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where had he fallen from?”
A bony shrug. “I don’t know that, either.”
“Miss Wintergarden, surely the other child could—”
“She could say nothing, Mr. Lockwood. Nothing at all.”
“And why is that?”
“Because she had lost her mind!” The words came out almost as a shriek; we all jerked back. The woman rocked forward, arms rigid, white hands clasped in her lap. “She has lost her mind. She says nothing. She scarcely sleeps. She goggles at the empty air, as if it would itself attack her. She is at present in a secure unit in a psychiatric hospital in north London, being tended to by DEPRAC doctors. It is a post-traumatic catatonic state, they say. The outlook is not favorable.”
“Miss Wintergarden.” Holly Munro spoke in a brittle voice. “Those children should not have been used. It was very wrong of you. You should have called in an agency.”
There were two red points in the lady’s cheeks. I thought she was going to erupt with fury, but she said only, “I am doing so now.”
“From the outset.”
“Young lady, I do not intend—”
George stood decisively. “I was right, you know. After that story, we all need to revive ourselves. We need energy, we need nourishment. This is definitely a carrot cake moment. No—please, Miss Wintergarden, I insist.” He scooped up the cake and, like a croupier dealing cards, tipped a slice onto her plate. “There. It’ll make us all feel better.” Four others were doled out in the blink of an eye. Lockwood and I took ours. I offered a plate to Holly.
She held up a perfectly manicured hand. “No thanks, Lucy. You tuck in. I’m good.”
Of course she was. I sat back heavily with my plate.
The story of the night-watch kids had cast a pall over us. We ate, each after our own fashion. Our client, pale-faced, nibbled a corner of her slice with the fastidious motions of a field mouse. I gulped mine down like an antisocial seabird. Lockwood sat in silence, frowning into the fire. Accounts of deaths at the hand of ghosts always weighed on him.
George, unusually, had been slow to begin his cake. Something about our visitor had caught his attention. He gazed at a silvery object pinned to her pullover. It was just visible beneath her cardigan.
“That’s a nice brooch you have there, Miss Wintergarden,” he said.
She glanced down. “Thank you.” Her words were scarcely audible.
“It’s a harp symbol, isn’t it?”
“A lyre, an ancient Greek harp, yes.”
“Does it represent something? I’m sure I’ve seen it before.”
“It’s the symbol of the Orpheus Society, a club in London. I do charitable work for them….” She brushed cake crumbs off her fingers. “Now—Mr. Lockwood, how do you wish to proceed?”
“With extreme care.” Lockwood roused himself; his face was serious, unsmiling. “We shall accept the case, of course, Miss Wintergarden—but the stakes are high, and I will not take unnecessary risks. I assume the house will be left empty for us this evening? You and the servants will be elsewhere?”
“Most of them have given notice! Yes, you will have a free hand.”
“Very well. Now, one final question. Earlier on, you mentioned certain ‘accompanying phenomena’ that had been noticed alongside the bloody footprints. What were they?”
Miss Wintergarden frowned; the lines in the center of her brow corrugated. Going into detail was a matter of distaste for her. “I hardly remember. The footprints were the focus of the haunting.”
“It’s not just visual things that count,” I said. “Did the night-watch hear anything? Feel anything odd, perhaps?”