Why was I making so much of this? The steps were clear. A-I leave the room, thinking I’ve closed the door but failing to engage the latch. B-Raffles, finding the door ajar, enters. C-An air current closes the door again, and makes a better job of it than I had done. D-I return, find the door closed, which is how I incorrectly believe I’ve left it. E-I enter, close the door, fasten the bolt, and am subsequently bewildered to find myself with a cat on my lap.
I decided it was possible. Not too probable, however. Then I remembered the old dictum about ruling out everything that was strictly impossible. If you did that, whatever possibility remained, however improbable, had to be the truth.
Had I ruled out every other possibility?
A chill came over me, along with an awareness of a possibility I had not ruled out, because I hadn’t thought of it. I took a deep breath and let it out, and I sent my eyes on as much of a tour of the room as they could manage without moving my head. And then I said, in what was supposed to be a forceful but low-pitched voice, “Now would be a good time to come out of the closet.”
There was no response, not even from Raffles.
“I mean it,” I said, wondering if I did. “You can come out of the closet now.”
“No I can’t,” came the reply, in a small high-pitched voice. “I’m under the bed.”
And then she giggled, the imp. I stood up. Raffles sprang forward involuntarily when my lap disappeared, landing predictably enough on all four feet and giving me a look. And, even as I had done a while earlier, out from under the bed crawled the improbable person of Millicent Savage.
CHAPTER Twenty-four
“You’re not a ghost,” she said. “At least I don’t think you are. Are you?”
I considered the question. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Would you tell me if you were?”
“That’s hard to say,” I admitted. “Who knows what a ghost would do?”
“Not me,” she said. “I don’t even know if I believe in them. And when I saw you in the hallway I didn’t think you were a ghost.”
“How come?”
“I didn’t think you were dead. In fact I thought you were right here, in Young George’s Room. You know what my father calls it? ‘Boy George’s Room.’”
“He’s probably not the only one. How come you didn’t think I was dead?”
“Because I saw you under the bed.”
“You did?”
She nodded. “When Mr. Littlefield wanted to open the closet door, and Carolyn didn’t want him to. At least I thought I saw you under the bed. I saw something under the bed, but I couldn’t be sure what it was unless I got down on all fours and checked, and I couldn’t do that because my father was holding my hand.”
“Good for him,” I said.
“Then Mr. Littlefield opened the door,” she went on, “and there was nobody there. And I almost said something.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“‘Look under the bed,’ I almost said. But I didn’t want to help Mr. Littlefield. I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I.”
“And besides,” she said, “how could I be sure it was you?”
“It could have been anybody.”
“I wasn’t even sure it was a person.”
“That’s a point. It could have been a monster.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, maybe a troll,” I said.
“They live under bridges,” she said. “Not under beds.”
“I stand corrected.”
“When there was an extra body on one of the chairs behind the house,” she said, “I thought it was you, and I was positive I made a mistake thinking I saw you under the bed. But then it wasn’t you, it was someone you killed, and…”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Because everybody thinks…”
“I know what everybody thinks. I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Not ever? Not in your whole life?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m still young.”
She giggled. “I believe you,” she said, “because you say funny things. I don’t think a murderer would say funny things, do you?”
“No,” I said, “and neither would a ghost.”
She thought that over, shrugged. “Anyway,” she said, “it turned out you were dead after all. Somebody stabbed you and threw your body off the cliff. I wasn’t supposed to look, but I did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Well? Did it look convincing?”
“I didn’t get a very good look,” she said. “I guess it looked like a body, and somebody recognized the clothes. But you know what I kept thinking about?”
“What?”
“The crease.”
“The crease? Oh-” I drew a wavy line in the air. “The kris.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I know. What about it?”
“If I stabbed somebody,” she said, “I don’t think I would drag him all the way to the edge of the cliff and push him over. And if he was already standing at the edge I wouldn’t stab him first, I’d just push him in. And if I did stab him for some reason, and then I wanted to throw him in to make it look like he fell, I’d remove the kris and hang it up on the wall again.”
“I guess the kris was overkill.”
“I just kept thinking about it,” Millicent said, “and I started thinking maybe that was you under the bed after all. And then I thought maybe it was a ghost under the bed. Do you ever have times when the more you think about something, the more confusing it gets?”
“Boy, do I ever.”
“After everybody came back to the house, I waited until nobody was paying attention. And I came upstairs and I put my ear to the door of this room and listened real hard.”
“What did you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh.”
“I was too scared to open the door. So I went down the hall to my room and sat in the doorway and watched. I can be very patient.”
“An uncommon trait in one so young.”
“Well, I can. And I was watching when you stuck your head out, and I quick drew back so you wouldn’t see me. But I saw you hurry down the hall to the bathroom.”
“And not a moment too soon,” I recalled.
“I was pretty sure it was you and not a ghost. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Ghosts don’t have to go to the bathroom.”
“Sure they do.”
“They do not.”
“They most certainly do. Haven’t you ever gotten a package in the mail? And when you opened it up, did it have some packing material to keep it from getting broken?”
“So?”
“Little white stuff the size of your thumb,” I said. “You probably were told it was Styrofoam.”
“It is Styrofoam.”
“Nope.”
“Then what is it?”
“Ghost turds.”
I thought that would get a laugh, but all she did was roll her eyes. “Anyway,” she said heavily, “Raffles came along while you were in the bathroom, and I figured he would know.”
“If I was a ghost or not.”
“Right. So I grabbed him and brought him with me and came in here. At first we were both under the bed, but when you opened the door he trotted out to see what was going on. Can I ask a question?”
“I don’t see how I could stop you.”
“Why are you pretending to be dead?”
“Because I’m going to trap the killer.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Tell me!”
I shook my head. “Not now,” I said. “But there’s something you’ve got to tell me.”
“What? I don’t know anything.”
“You know who the latest victim is.”
“It’s you,” she said, “or at least it’s supposed to be. Down at the bottom of the gully.”
“That’s just smoke and mirrors,” I said.
“Smoke and mirrors?”
“Well, clothes and pillows. It wasn’t really me down there, Millicent, and it wasn’t anybody else, either.”
“I know.”