The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (15 page)

I always felt inheriting that old place out of the blue affected you. Extraordinary how a thing like that can change a chap, although it's a change I wouldn't mind having in my life, not that it's very likely, because nobody in my family has a brass farthing, and I'd hate to see the guv'nor hand in his dinner pail anyway.

It's nothing to do with me, but I don't think it's good for you to be forever worrying about the house and whether it's secure after dark, or frowsting over that stuff you're writing. I do understand you want to find out the truth about Stephen, well, I dare say a good many of us would like to know the truth about Stephen, but all work and no play, old man … Poor old Stephen is certainly dead, in fact he's officially dead – I remember you coming up to Town for some Court thingummy that pronounced him dead. Seven years without anyone hearing from him or something, wasn't it? I recall I thought the length of time sounded frightfully Biblical – all those plagues and famines and whatnot. But I do know that the wigged gentlemen in Lincolns Inn pronounced Stephen dead and handed you the ownership of Fosse House.

Next time you come up to Town I'll introduce you to one or two corking girls – it'd do you a power of good to paint the town red, or at least give it a few pink splodges.

Michael laid down the letter thoughtfully. It sounded as if it was the unknown ‘Boots' who had been writing the history of the Palestrina Choir. He examined this deduction from several aspects and thought it stood up to scrutiny.

Stephen Gilmore had been pronounced as dead by the courts. Assuming the courts had dated his disappearance from the end of the Great War, that seemed to place Boots's inheritance of Fosse House as 1925 at the absolute earliest.

The clock, which had been ticking quietly away to itself, suddenly chimed the half hour, making Michael jump. Six thirty. Assuming dinner would again be at seven, he had just time to see if there was any more information to be gleaned about Boots and his quest.

He had not really expected to find anything, particularly since he had no idea of Boots's real name, but near the bottom of the box was a brittle, faded newspaper cutting with a smudgy photograph of a wedding group. There was no date but Michael thought the clothes looked right for around 1930.

The cutting seemed to be from a local paper, and it informed its readers of a wedding that had been celebrated in the Church of St Augustine.

The groom was Mr Booth Gilmore, and readers will remember that Mr Gilmore inherited Fosse House some five years ago after a presumption of death was declared on his second cousin, Mr Stephen Gilmore. Mr Booth Gilmore has since lived quietly at the house, pursuing various academic interests.

The bride was Miss Margaret Chiffley, the cousin of an old school-friend of Mr Gilmore – see
here
for full details of Miss Chiffley's gown and the gowns of the bridesmaids. A wedding breakfast was held after the ceremony at Fosse House.

This newspaper offers its congratulations to Mr Gilmore and his new wife.

So, thought Michael, ‘Boots' was Booth Gilmore, and Chuffy finally succeeded in dragging his old school-friend from his ivory tower for long enough to meet and marry a suitable lady – whom Chuffy, obliging as ever, had even provided, from his own family. Chuffy was the sobriquet for Chiffley, of course. He smiled because it was a typical fashioning of a schoolboy nickname for that era. It was an unusual surname as well; it might even be possible to trace Chuffy or his descendants.

It was a shame that the faces in the newspaper photograph were too blurred to make out any details, and even more of a shame that the paper had not listed the names of everyone. He would have liked to identify Chuffy in particular. But everyone seemed to be smiling, and Michael found himself hoping Booth and his lady had been happy.

It seemed that on one level, at least, they had. Just beneath the wedding notice was a smaller clipping that announced the birth of a daughter in 1936: ‘To Booth and Margaret Gilmore (née Chiffley), a daughter, Luisa Margaret. Thanks to all concerned.'

Michael was not really surprised. The dates had already been looking about right for Booth to be Luisa's father.

Luisa had referred to her parents being away, saying she had been on her own a good deal. Presumably Booth – perhaps with his wife – had travelled outside England in his search for the truth about his mysterious cousin, Stephen, leaving his small daughter in the care of a nursemaid or nanny. He certainly seemed to have visited Liège. Did that mean he had found a link between Stephen and the Palestrina Choir, or had it simply been Leonora who had interested him because of the family connection?

Michael was just deciding he would have to postpone further searches until after dinner, when he heard Luisa tapping her way across the hall, and then the sound of a door being unlocked. Did that mean she was going down to the underground room? To pray? To write in the leather-bound book again? But again the question formed as to why she should go down there to do either of those things. Because she's mad, said his mind in instant response. She might only be mad nor' nor' west, like Hamlet, but if the compass has swung round to the nor'nor' west point tonight …

He was just managing to convince himself that he could ignore the sounds and that Luisa would emerge in time for dinner, perfectly normal and lucid, when there was a muffled cry and a series of slithering bumps. She's fallen, thought Michael, horrified – she's tripped on those wretched stone steps and fallen down them.

He ran out to the hall and across to the door set in the panelling. It was closed, but of course Luisa would have closed it after her. For a moment Michael thought she had locked it as well, and that he would have to break it down, but when he tried the small catch, the door swung smoothly inwards. He took a deep breath and stepped through.

T
he curve of the steps hid the underground room from view, and a faint, flickering light came from below, as if the oil lamp or the candles had been lit. From the top of the steps Michael could not see Luisa, and he hesitated, still concerned, but not wanting to intrude. He had better make sure she was all right, though.

Had it only been twenty-four hours since he had stolen down these steps? In the flickering light his shadow fell blackly and eerily on the stone walls, and Michael glanced at it uneasily. Were there two shapes on the wall, as if two separate people were tiptoeing stealthily down the steps, the second one just behind him …? He whipped round and for a fleeting moment had the impression of someone pressing back in the dark corners.

‘Stephen?' said Michael, very softly, and it seemed as if the darkness picked up the word and spun it into soft echoes.

Stephen, Stephen, STEPHEN… .

Then, incredibly, like dead breath struggling to form sounds, a faint response seemed to form within the echoes.

‘Here I am … You let me in, remember …? I can never get in by myself – I can never open a door or a window … But I was the shadow you saw inside the rain, and I was the one who printed the footmarks on the floor …'

Michael pushed the whispers away and went down the remaining steps. There was the altar-like table he remembered and the candles. They were unlit, but the oil lamp was glowing in its corner. There was the small desk with the book and pen. Then he saw that the chair by the desk had overturned, and that Luisa was lying near it in an untidy huddle on the ground. Michael went over to kneel by her. She was not moving and her eyes were closed. Was she dead? In films and books people always seemed to know straightaway if a person was dead, even without medical knowledge. But then he saw with relief that Luisa was breathing, although she was certainly unconscious. There was a bluish tinge to her lips – did that mean heart? Michael was not very used to dealing with illness, but there were certain basic things you did when someone collapsed. The first was to summon help, the second was to keep the person warm. He sped back up to the stairs, snatched up the phone in the hall, which was quicker than rummaging for his mobile, and dialled 999. It was a massive relief to hear a calm, clearly knowledgeable voice taking the details, and saying paramedics would be there as quickly as possible, and please to wait with the patient.

‘There's a tree down in the road,' said Michael. ‘Will the ambulance be able to get round it?'

The reassuring voice said he need not worry; the paramedics would come on motorbikes, and if hospitalization was needed, there were various services that could be called on. ‘We're used to remote houses in this part of the world,' she said, and Michael thanked her, explained that the lady who had collapsed was in an underground room, and that he would remain down there with her until help arrived.

‘Don't move her. Put a blanket over her, and see if you can call her out of unconsciousness. Try to get her to stay awake.'

‘I'll try.'

‘And don't leave her on her own.'

‘No, of course not. Tell the medics I'll unbolt the front door so they can get in. They'll get to the underground room from the hall. There's a door in the panelling – I'll prop it open.'

‘They'll call out anyway, and they'll go over the house if you don't hear them,' she said. ‘Shall I stay on the line with you until they come?'

‘I'm not on a cordless phone,' said Michael, who was conscious of inadequacy and would have been grateful for the friendly efficiency.

‘Well, ring us back if you need to.'

‘Thank you very much,' he said, and this time ran upstairs to get blankets from the nearest bed, which happened to be his own.

He had been willing Luisa to have regained consciousness when he got back; to be sitting up, the terrifying bluish tinge gone, saying she had stumbled and fallen, briefly knocking herself out. But she was lying exactly as Michael had found her. He spread the blankets over her and sat down on the floor, reaching for her hand.

Call her out of unconsciousness, the emergency service had said, and the inevitable comparison rose up – that of the cataleptic Madeline Usher, about to be entombed alive, but her mind awake and silently pleading for someone to call her out of her dreadful paralysis.

To dispel this grisly image, Michael said, ‘Miss Gilmore? Luisa? Can you hear me? Try to stay awake – you've fallen, but you're all right, and the ambulance is on the way.'

Did a faint flicker of awareness cross her face? Michael could not be sure, but he thought there was a belief that hearing could remain when other senses were dormant, so he said, ‘I'll stay with you, but if you can open your eyes—' Still nothing. ‘Or if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.' Was there the faintest tremor of movement from the thin fingers?

He leaned back slightly, looking around the room. The stone floor and walls gave it the feel of a dungeon, but the presence of the prie-dieu and the altar-table with the crucifix, together with the desk, made it more the retreat of some religious scholar. He was just wondering if he could reach one of the candles and manage to light it, when he felt Luisa's fingers curl round his. He looked back at her at once. Her eyes were open and she was looking at him.

‘You're quite all right,' said Michael very clearly. ‘But I've phoned for an ambulance, and it's on the way. Are you in any pain anywhere?'

Her free hand came up to tap the left side of her chest significantly.

‘Heart?' said Michael. ‘Angina?' There was a faint nod, and remembering that one or two of the older dons at Oriel had angina, he said, ‘Do you have a spray? Tell me where it is and I'll get it.'

‘No use.' The words came on a ragged breath of sound.

‘But—'

Her hand clutched his, and Michael took it in both of his hands, trying to infuse it with warmth.

Luisa said, ‘Stephen—' Her eyes looked beyond Michael to the corners of the room and distended with fear. Involuntarily, Michael looked over his shoulder, but nothing stirred.

‘There's no one here,' he said. ‘Stephen isn't here. You're quite safe.' Her eyelids fluttered, and Michael said urgently, ‘Luisa, stay awake. You must stay awake. The ambulance won't be long.' Oh God, let that be true, he thought, and as if on cue, he heard sounds above – a door being opened, loud footsteps, and a man's voice calling that he was the paramedic and asking where they were.

‘Down here,' called Michael, releasing Luisa's hand and going halfway up the stairs.

‘Good God, what on earth is this place?' said the paramedic, coming down the stairs, his green emergency bag banging against the wall. But he was already kneeling down, his hands moving with professional assurance over Luisa, then opening the bag to take out stethoscope and pieces of equipment that Michael thought were heart monitors.

‘Miss Gilmore – can you hear me? Are you in any pain?'

‘She indicated her heart,' said Michael. ‘When I said was it angina, she said yes.'

‘Does she have a spray?'

‘I asked her that, but she said it was no use and I couldn't get her to say where it was. I don't even know where her bedroom is and I didn't want to leave her to search for it— And you were on the way—' Damn, he thought, I'm sounding indecisive and altogether useless.

But the paramedic merely said, ‘You made the right decision. Miss Gilmore, I'm going to make a few quick checks.' There was a brief interval of beeping machines and some sort of computer result. ‘Ah,' he said. ‘It looks like an MI, I'm afraid. Myocardial infarct – heart attack in plain terms. Impossible to know if she had the attack then fell, or if the fall brought it on. But we'll worry about any other injuries when we get her into hospital.' He produced a syringe and rolled back Luisa's sleeve. ‘This is what they call a clot-buster,' he said. ‘We have to be careful about giving this to anyone who's had one previously, but I think it's all right – I'd remember if we'd been called out to her in the last year, and I'm fairly sure we haven't.'