The skull had mentioned something no one else knew, you see. Bickerstaff hiding papers under the floorboards of his study. Secret papers.
Papers that might hold the key to the riddle of the bone glass.
Papers that might, conceivably, still be lying there, in the deserted house on the edge of Hampstead Heath.
Now that was interesting.
As Lockwood said, the ghost was almost certainly fibbing. The chances of it truly having a close connection to Bickerstaff and the bone glass were not high. Even if it was telling the truth, those secret papers might well have disintegrated or even been eaten (how we laughed at this) by rats. But there was a chance. They might be there. He wondered if it was worth checking. George felt it was, and I was too tired to disagree. Before we went to bed (it was already dawn), we had our plans in place. The following day, assuming there were no other developments, we would mount an expedition.
The birds were singing outside the windows when I finally left the kitchen; it was going to be another lovely morning.
As I closed the door, I glanced back into the room. The ghost-jar still sat where we’d left it on the table – quiet and peaceful, the plasm almost translucent . . .
The skull was grinning at me, as skulls do.
17
When visiting a property with such a chequered history as the Bickerstaff ruin, you might think it was safest to stick to daylight hours. This (the sensible option) was sadly impractical for us, for a number of reasons. The first was that, after a night like we’d just had, we didn’t get out of bed till noon, and it took much of the afternoon to prepare our supplies and ring the appropriate authorities to get access to the deserted house. The second was George’s insistence on nipping down to the Chertsey Records Office in search of ‘The Confessions of Mary Dulac’, that old document by one of Bickerstaff’s associates. George wanted to do this as soon as possible; he hoped it might give us some insight into the horror that had taken place at Bickerstaff’s place all those years ago. Also, he figured it was only a matter of time before Bobby Vernon read the same old newspapers he’d found, and made precisely the same connections.
The final (and most important) reason why we didn’t get there until after sundown was me – or rather the question of my peculiar Talents. After our chat with the skull, Lockwood’s faith in these was now sky-high. He told me as much as we worked in the office together, collecting equipment for the operation.
‘There’s no question about it, Luce,’ he said, setting out a neat row of salt bombs along the floor. ‘Your Sensitivity is phenomenal, and we’ve got to give you every chance to use it. Who knows what you might pick up in the Bickerstaff house after dark? And I don’t just mean by Listening – you could use your sense of Touch as well.’
‘Yeah,’ I said heavily. ‘Maybe.’ You might detect that I didn’t speak with wild enthusiasm. It’s true that I can sometimes pick up impressions of the past by touching objects that possess a psychic residue, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a pleasant thing to do. It was pretty clear that the Bickerstaff residence was unlikely to provide me with many jolly experiences, no matter how chirpy Lockwood might be right now.
I couldn’t share much of his good humour that afternoon, anyway. Once again the daylight had had the effect of lessening the thrill of the whispering skull’s words, and I found myself increasingly uncomfortable that we were following a trail it had set for us. The first things I did when I came downstairs were to close the valve in the bung, and cover the jar with a cloth. I didn’t want the ghost to hear or see us unless we willed it. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling that the damage had already been done.
I finished emptying our work-belts onto my desk, and began sorting through the thermometers and torches, the candles and matchboxes, the vials of lavender water and all the rest, making sure everything was in working order. Lockwood was humming peaceably to himself as he set about restocking our supplies of iron. That was the other thing about the skulclass="underline" almost in the same breath as mentioning Bickerstaff’s secret papers, it had made new insinuations about Lockwood’s room upstairs.
I turned to look out of the office window into the basement yard. Iron bands across the inside of the door? There was only one reason anyone might do that . . . No, clearly the claim was ridiculous. Yet how could I take one of the ghost’s comments on trust and disbelieve the other?
‘Lucy,’ Lockwood said – it was almost as if he’d been reading my thoughts – ‘I’ve been thinking about our friend the skull. You’re the one who talks to it. You’ve got a sense of its personality. Why do you think it’s suddenly started speaking?’
I paused a moment before answering. ‘I really don’t know. To be honest, I don’t trust anything it says, but I do think there must be something about the Bickerstaff case that attracts it. You remember when it spoke, the first night – after we’d got back from the cemetery? I think we’d been talking about Bickerstaff, just as we were last night. It’s overheard us talk about dozens of other cases these last few months, and it’s never got involved before. Now it has twice in three days. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’
Lockwood was filling up a canister of iron filings. He nodded slowly. ‘You’re right. We’ve got to tread carefully until we understand what it wants. And there was one other thing it said. It claimed that Bickerstaff’s mirror – this bone glass – gives you knowledge and enlightenment. What do you think that means?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘It’s just that George has looked in the glass. Only briefly, of course, but still . . .’ He glanced up at me. ‘How does he seem to you, Lucy? Do you think he’s OK?’
‘He seems a little distracted sometimes, but that’s hardly new.’
‘Well, we’ll keep an eye on him.’ He grinned; it was that warm smile that made everything seem simpler, ready to click perfectly into place. ‘With luck, he’ll bring us back some info on Bickerstaff today. Hopefully we’ll hear from Flo soon as well. If we can get word of Winkman’s auction too, that’ll really put the wind in our sails.’
But Lockwood’s optimism was misplaced. Flo Bones did not appear that day, and we had to wait till almost five o’clock before George returned, very weary and out of sorts.
‘There’s strange things going on in Chertsey,’ he said as he collapsed into a chair. ‘I went to the Records Office, and they confirmed that “The Confessions of Mary Dulac” was a real document from their archives. But when they went to get it – guess what? It was gone. Stolen. They can’t say when, or how long ago. And there’s no telling whether other copies even exist. Ah! It’s so frustrating!’
‘Was it little Bobby Vernon?’ I asked. ‘Maybe he’s ahead of you.’
George scowled. ‘Wrong. I’m ahead of him – he’s made an appointment in Chertsey for tomorrow. No, someone else thought it was worth stealing . . . Well, we’ll see. I rang Albert Joplin on the way home, asked him if he had any ideas about where another copy might be. He’s an excellent researcher. Might be able to help us here.’
Lockwood frowned. ‘Joplin? You shouldn’t let anyone know what we’re up to. What if he tells Kipps?’