“I’m going to marry someone called Harry,” said Deborah.
“That’s either Harry Cathcart or Harry Trenton,” said Freddy.
“Or a Harry I haven’t yet met,” said Deborah.
Freddy addressed Rose, his eyes bright with malice, because he obscurely blamed her for having caused his recent disgrace. “In touch with the spirits, are you, Lady Rose?”
“It’s not good to talk about it,” said Rose repressively.
Harry Cathcart led her aside. “What have you been playing at?”
“I’m just trying to stir things up. Mary Gore-Desmond told the American sisters that she was spoken for.”
“I wonder who she was referring to.”
“Anyway, they are going to help; the Petersons, I mean.”
“If Hedley knows what you’re about, you’ll be sent home.”
“I don’t think they’ll tell anyone. What did you find out?”
“That Quinn was less than honest with us. She confided to Miss Maisie Chatteron’s lady’s maid that she was thinking of applying for a new position. When asked, she said that a mistress’s behaviour reflected on the lady’s maid and she had no intention of having her career damaged.”
“So she knew Mary Gore-Desmond was having an affair,” exclaimed Rose. “You must motor over to Derbyshire tomorrow and ask her for the identity of the lover.”
“I already planned to do that.”
“I shall come with you.”
“I would prefer to go alone.”
“Nonsense. You would be better to have me along with you to provide an air of respectability.”
“You are not regarded as the epitome of respectability – or had you forgotten?”
“You cannot leave me out.”
“Oh, very well. We’ll set off at seven in the morning before the others are awake to ask questions. Becket has found out the Gore-Desmonds’ address.”
♦
Daisy sat in a shadowy corner of the hall. Freddy Pomfret and Tristram Baker-Willis came out of the drawing-room and moved over to the fireplace to light cigarettes.
“So our Lady Rose is psychic,” sneered Freddy. “Never heard such a load of rubbish.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to haunt her,” said Tristram.
“I say. Sheets and clanking chains and wailing?”
“No, you don’t want to rouse the others. Just white face, white-powdered hair and point accusingly. No, think again. I’ve got it. Our bed sheets with holes cut in them for eyes.”
“She’ll scream and everyone will come running.”
“Tell you what, old boy, I’ll do the ghost bit, glare accusingly, and then we flee down the backstairs and hide until the fuss is over.”
“What larks! When’ll we do it?”
“About one o’clock.”
Rose, on entering her room that evening, found her maid in a high state of excitement. “Mr. Pomfret and Mr. Baker-Willis are coming to haunt you!”
She told Rose what she had overheard.
“Thank goodness you found out what they were planning to do,” said Rose. “I’ll lock my door and they can haunt all they like out in the corridor.”
“It would be great to give them a fright,” said Daisy. “I could haunt them.”
“No,” said Rose slowly. “I could do it. I wish there was some way of making me up to look like Mary Gore-Desmond.”
“There’s a big hamper of theatrical stuff downstairs that they use for charades. But all you really need is a sort of sandy wig. They’ve got a box of grease-paint as well. I could make up your face. I was in the theatre, remember. Here’s what we’ll do…”
♦
Freddy and Tristram, staggering a little with all they had drunk, emerged from their rooms. Each was wearing a sheet over his head with eyeholes cuts in it.
They started to mount the steps to the tower where Rose’s room was located.
They had nearly reached the first landing when a figure, lit dramatically by a shaft of moonlight shining through an arrow slit, confronted them.
They stopped and clutched each other. All they could see was sandy hair over a thin chalk-white face contorted into an awful sneer. Then one white hand materialized and pointed at them.
“Murderers,” wailed an unearthly voice. “You murdered me.”
And then it disappeared.
It did not dawn on the frightened pair that the unearthly apparition had simply stepped back into the unlit blackness of the landing.
“Help!” called Freddy, his voice weak and thin as in a nightmare. “Help!” shouted Tristram, finding his voice.
Their terror had made them forget that they were still draped in sheets. Frederica Sutherland, the first to come running, saw the sheeted figures and fell down in a faint.
Others came crowding the bottom of the staircase. “Take off those sheets,” roared Lord Hedley. “Blithering idiots.”
They pulled off the sheets. “It was just a joke,” said Freddy. “But we saw this ghost of Mary Gore-Desmond.”
“She called us murderers,” said Tristram.
“Someone’s playing a joke on you. You are both drunk.”
“But we saw her,” wailed Tristram. He suddenly vomited all over the stairs.
“Get to bed, all of you,” ordered the marquess. “I’ll deal with you two in the morning.”
♦
Rose rolled around her bed with a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth to muffle her laughter. “Oh, Daisy,” she finally gasped. “How wonderful it was. And when the fuss has died down, they may start to wonder whether there really might be a ghost after all.”
Daisy laughed as well. She was relieved the haunting had gone well, and also relieved that her mistress was behaving more like a young girl and less like some sort of chilly mannequin with a head stuffed with facts.
Rose fell happily asleep that night, looking forward to telling Harry about the success of their exploit.
♦
He was furious. “Don’t you know what danger you have put yourself in?” he shouted as he drove away from the castle. Rose clutched her hat and demanded, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that they will get it out of Freddy and Tristram that they planned to haunt you. Who else would decide to give them a scare but you? And why are you screeching murder? If it was murder, then someone may want to silence you.”
“Piffle,” said Rose. “You are only angry because you did not think of it yourself.”
It took them three hours to reach the Gore-Desmonds’ country mansion. None of them had breakfasted, and all were feeling cold and angry.
“I am famished,” complained Rose as the car moved up the drive.
“Then you should have said so and we could have stopped somewhere,” snapped Harry. “Let’s get this over with.”
The house was still and quiet, with all the blinds drawn down and the curtains closed.
“How are we going to get a chance to talk to Quinn?” hissed Rose.
“I’ll think of something,” said Harry.
A butler opened the door before he had a chance to ring the bell. Harry handed him his card and asked if Mr. and Mrs. Gore-Desmond could spare them a little time.
“I am afraid the master and mistress have gone into town to supervise the last of the funeral arrangements.”
“And when will they be back?”
“I do not know, sir. Perhaps later today.”
“We have come quite a distance. Perhaps we might have a word with Quinn? – unless she has accompanied her mistress?”
The butler turned away and they followed him into one of those side rooms in country houses which are used for receiving farm tenants and the other hoi polloi.
Daisy and Becket found their way to the servants’ quarters in the hope of food.
The room was lit by a single oil lamp. It was full of overstuffed furniture, a large battered oak desk, and paraphernalia of fishing tackle, game bags, walking-sticks and rubber boots.