Someone in the House (14 page)

“That can’t be Roger, can it?” I asked. “I got the impression he wasn’t coming till later.”

“He didn’t say.”

Neither of us moved until the buzzer sounded again.

“It must be Roger,” I said. “Anyone else would give the butler time to get to the door.”

It was indeed Roger, looking more rumpled than usual. A smear of blue streaked his cheek, like an unfinished attempt at war paint. He was carrying two enormous suitcases.

“Greetings,” he said loudly. “Can you take pity on a poor homeless stray? I painted my bedroom this afternoon and forgot the fumes always make me—”

“Kevin isn’t here,” I said.

“Oh.” Roger looked blank.

“Just as well,” I went on. “That’s the most unconvincing story I ever heard. And those suitcases—I’ll bet you don’t even own that many clothes.”

“Makes no difference,” Roger said. “Kevin isn’t the inquisitive type. Most men aren’t. They have a trusting faith in—”

“Oh, come on in,” I said. “What the hell have you got in those bags?”

“My equipment.”

“I suppose you haven’t eaten,” Bea said.

“How could I cook in a place permeated with paint fumes? I’m glad Kevin isn’t here; we can talk freely. Where did he go?”

“He’ll probably be late,” I said. “He’s picked up a new lady.”

“Indeed.” Roger looked interested. “Don’t tell me now, wait till I get this stuff out of sight. You did move out of your room, didn’t you, Anne?”

“You aren’t going to sleep there!” Bea exclaimed in alarm.

“I don’t plan to sleep.”

“Roger, you said it was dangerous. Please—”

Roger dropped the suitcases with a crash and put his arm around her. “Honey, it isn’t dangerous if you take precautions. I know what I’m doing.” He turned to me. “What are you staring at, young woman? Don’t you smell the stew burning?”

“We are not having stew. But I can take a hint.”

I went to the kitchen and sat down. Time passed. I got out some cold cuts and cheese and arranged them artistically on a plate. Roger had eaten half a ton of lasagna for lunch, but I assumed he would not be content to dine solely on tossed salad.

More time passed before they came, their differences apparently resolved. In other words, Roger had overruled Bea. He was beaming and rubbing his hands together. A qualm of foreboding passed through me. It was a game to him, an intellectual challenge. I sincerely hoped he would feel the same way twelve hours from now.

He was serious enough when we sat down to our food, which we took out to the courtyard. Bea mentioned the animals, and he nodded gravely.

“That may be significant. Traditionally animals are supposed to be aware of psychic entities. I’m not sure how much meaning can be attached to this, however. We ought to run some tests.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Oh, we could take them into various rooms and watch their behavior. This thing may have a specific focus, some places being more permeated than others.”

“The upstairs hall and Kevin’s room have to be one focus,” I said. “The animals aren’t nervous there. Tabitha slept with me…Wait a minute, that was in my former room.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Bea said. “Cats sleep around.”

Roger was in the act of taking a huge bite of his ham-and-cheese sandwich. He started to laugh. The results were disastrous. The Irish setter leaped to its feet and began licking up scraps.

Catching Bea’s eye, Roger got laughter and sandwich under control. “It’s going to be a long job civilizing me, my dear,” he said. “I spent twenty years being the perfect diplomatic gent. Now I’ve relapsed. Fair warning.”

“If you have finished eating,” Bea said gently, “there is something I want you to see.”

“I’m finished.” Roger tossed the rest of his sandwich to the dog.

Bea led us to the library and indicated the chair by the hearth, where we habitually sat in the evening. “You keep talking about evidence, Roger; I’ve found something that supports my belief.”

“Someone in the house,” Roger said.

“Someone still in the house,” Bea said. I noticed that, like myself, she had glanced involuntarily over her shoulder. “The spirit of someone who once lived here. I’ve been trying to find a record of a past tragedy or violent death.”

The idea had its fascination. If true, it would reduce the apparition to something understandable in human terms, and bind it within the neat artificial construction of a detective story. I had read my share of horror and ghost stories; some are classics of literature. Cathy and her Heathcliffe wandering the foggy moors, Judge Pyncheon, succumbing to the curse of the house of the Seven Gables, Kipling, Stevenson, de la Mare…. Writers had made ghosts almost respectable. I felt I could deal with a disturbed spirit, who only needed a few prayers, or a name cleared, or a buried treasure unearthed, to give up haunting and go where it belonged.

Roger was not immune to the notion either. The gleam in his narrowed eyes betrayed that.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Not yet. But I found something else.” Bea indicated the untidy heap of books on Kevin’s side of the table. “Kevin is working along the same lines.”

“Come on now,” Roger began.

“She’s right!” I exclaimed. “I should have noticed it myself.” I told them what Kevin had said about the Mandevilles, and his odd comment about “going farther back.”

“He has gone farther back,” Bea said, with a certain grimness. “Look at these.”

The books she indicated were a motley lot: some bound in calf, some tattered pamphlets, some only collections of loose papers stuffed into folders and envelopes.

“Wait, let’s not go off half-cocked,” Roger said. “The fact that Kevin appears to be interested in the history of the house doesn’t prove he is looking for a ghost. Hey—this is interesting.”

He had been thumbing through one of the books, a heavy quarto volume. The top was studded with paper clips, which was Kevin’s untidy way of indicating pages on which he had found material he wanted to refer back to. Roger opened the book to one of these and read aloud.

“‘In 1586 came the last and most dangerous of the plots to assassinate the queen and place her imprisoned rival on the throne of England. Anthony Babington, a young Catholic nobleman, had fallen victim to the fatal charm of Mary; he was prepared to risk all to restore her sacred rights. In July he wrote Mary that six noble gentlemen of the court stood ready to kill the queen whenever the chance arose.’”

“Mary Queen of Scots?” I asked.

“Who else? The queen was Elizabeth the First of England. The plot was discovered, of course. It was the last such plot because Elizabeth was finally annoyed enough to sign Mary’s death warrant. She was beheaded. The conspirators died less neatly. One of them was Robert Romer, of Grayhaven Manor.”

I knew what he meant by “less neatly.” Hanged, drawn, and quartered. They took the victims down before they were dead, drew out their bowels, and cut the body in pieces, to be displayed in public as warnings to other enemies. I wondered if Robert Romer had thought the cause worth dying for, in the final moments.

“If he’s the one haunting the house, we’re in trouble,” I said dismally. “We’ll never collect his bones to give them burial in holy ground.”

“Let’s assume it isn’t Robert, then.” Roger seemed to have forgotten that he had vigorously denied the existence of a specific ghost. “He was the last of his line. This second marked passage tells how the property of the traitors was handed over to various cronies of Elizabeth’s. Grayhaven Manor went to someone named Weekes.”

“This must be the same Weekes.” Bea looked up from the pamphlet she had been perusing. “Anthony Weekes, antiquarian and scholar, ‘much in the Queen’s favor for his learning.’ The pamphlet was printed privately by his grandson; it describes Anthony’s restoration of the house and gardens.”

Roger tossed the book onto the table and reached for another. “What a mess. Kevin must be a rotten scholar, he’s made no attempt to sort this material. You know what we’re going to have to do?”

“Make up a chronological list.” I nodded. “A sort of genealogy of the house. Roger, that will take forever, and it may not give us what we want to know. We won’t find many dramatic deaths like Robert Romer’s.”

“We’ve got nothing else to do until Kevin comes home,” Bea said. “This may be our only chance to look through the material without rousing his suspicions.”

Roger nodded abstractedly. I could see his mind was on something else. “I’ve just had a horrible thought,” he said.

“What?” Bea and I spoke simultaneously.

“Not that kind of horrible thought. It’s just struck me that we’re treating Kevin like an enemy. Maybe we’re overlooking the obvious. If I talked to him—”

“No,” I said. Bea shook her head.

“Why the hell not?” Roger demanded. “We’ll feel like damned idiots if it turns out there is a simple explanation for this, and that Kevin knew about it all along.”

He looked at Bea. She didn’t say anything, she just kept on shaking her head. So I said, “You haven’t been living with him, Roger. Oh, hell, I can’t give you reasons; I justknow . It would be fatal to tell Kevin the truth. And if you are wondering whether this could be some kind of elaborate joke on his part, forget it. He’s not faking.”

“Hm. Anyone capable of such a fancy and unpleasant practical joke would be sick in the head anyway,” Roger admitted. “It was an idea, though.”

“We’re wasting time,” Bea said. “I’ll get paper and pencils. Anne, divide this material into three parts.”

There was very little conversation. They were dead serious, and so was I. And it was good to be working again, even on something as crazy as ghost hunting.

It was ten o’clock before Roger closed his book and glanced at his watch.

“Let’s compare notes now. I want to get settled upstairs before Kevin comes home. Tell me when you reach a good stopping place.”

I was ready then. Bea asked for five more minutes while she finished a chapter. I expected Roger to act as coordinator. Instead he handed me the notes he and Bea had taken.

“You’re the trained researcher. See if you can make anything coherent out of this while I rustle up something to drink.”

I was surprised to see how much information we had put together. There was little duplication, since we had used different sources. After a time I glanced up to find Bea and Roger looking at me expectantly, and felt the self-consciousness that always attacks me when I have to give a paper or a lecture.

I cleared my throat. “What we’ve got here is a rough outline of the main events in the history of the house from about 1485 to the present. Architectural additions, remodeling, changes of ownership, plus a few facts about some of the owners, such as Robert Romer, who were involved in well-known historical events. I don’t see any diaries or other family papers here, except for that book on the Mandevilles, which Kevin said was not informative.”

Bea had dealt with this later material. She nodded agreement. “The author was concerned with proving how noble and dedicated his ancestors were. They died quietly in their beds after exemplary lives, or perished gloriously in battle for England and the king. One or two accidents are mentioned, but no details are given. Is the house really that old, Anne? My material only went back to 1700.”

“I divided it chronologically,” I explained. “Roger got the earliest part. His notes start with 1485. Does that date have any significance historically, Roger?”

“What do they teach you kids nowadays? Bosworth Field, Richard III killed in battle, crown in the thornbush, end of the Wars of the Roses, beginning of the Tudor dynasty—”

“Oh, right.”

“The house is older than that,” Roger said. “It was probably a fortified manor, complete with moat and drawbridge. They needed their defenses in those days, there was a dynastic upheaval every few years, with battles and sieges and bloody fighting. People changed their coats so often they wore them out. The family that owned the house at that time was named Lovell; they may have been related to the Lord Lovell who was a supporter of Richard III. Our Lovell, George, fought at Bosworth on Richard’s side. He was killed, ‘fighting with valor worthy of a better cause,’ according to the victors. The manor and lands were given to one John Romer, who happened to be on the winning side.”

“And that’s where the Romers come in,” I said. “They held the manor for less than a hundred years. When Robert lost his life, not to mention his entrails and other vital organs, the Weekeses took over. They lasted till 1708, when the house was bought by the Leventhorpes. Next came the Mandevilles, then Rudolf, then Kevin’s parents. Quite a few changes of possession.”