The Monster at the Window

by Evelyn James

  “So, he has your loyalty?” Clara smiled. “I wonder how far you would go for him, Mr Crawley? How far you would go for any member of this family?”

  Mr Crawley was silent, he had no response fitting to such a question. Clara had learned enough. His reluctance to speak along with the little information he had given her, explained how the trick had been performed. All it took was three men loyal to Harvey and the rest could be manipulated to suit his needs. Mr Crawley was the key man; with him in charge of the arrangements he could ensure that the doctor did not examine the body and that only he was present when Harvey was placed in his coffin. Whether he then helped him out before the mausoleum was fully sealed up, or made some sort of switch earlier on remained unanswered, and the butler was not likely to reveal his trickery. But Clara could see how it could all be done now. It was risky, but Harvey would have played on the fact that, other than his brother and mother, none of the family would be interested in viewing his body. His family’s very disinterest in him would have played to his advantage.

  “You clearly have a lot of shirts to iron,” Clara smiled, moving back from the pantry doorway. “I shall leave you alone.”

  Clara left the butler to his work. She had clearly upset him. Throwing out the comment that she thought Harvey was alive was a tactical ploy – she wanted to draw Harvey out. She had no way of knowing if Mr Crawley was in contact with Harvey, but she guessed he was as someone was passing him news from the household. He knew about Oliver’s cameras after all. Now she hoped Crawley would reveal this new information to Harvey and he, in turn, would feel the need to push his plan forward. With any luck, this would give her the opportunity to intercept Harvey. Chasing him when he appeared at the drawing room window was clearly not working. She had considered hiding in the bushes and ambushing him, but she could not be sure someone would not warn him.

  No, best to play things his way and to use the fact he had a contact inside the house against him. Sooner or later Harvey was going to make a mistake and she would snare him. Then they would find out just what he was playing at.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They gathered in the drawing room again that evening. Betty was absent. She had departed earlier in the afternoon with her luggage, to head to the inn Clara had mentioned. The family seemed relieved she was gone, there was a distinct leavening of tension in the air. Clara felt sad that Betty’s presence had been so despised. She didn’t think she deserved such hatred, especially from Angelica who should surely understand the situation the girl was in? It seemed they all, (perhaps except for Lord Howton) thought her a fortune hunter who had latched on to the wrong brother.

  Richard was sitting in his usual place working through a heavy volume on Medieval architecture. He didn’t seem to be getting very far. He put down the book, his thumb serving as a book mark to keep his place, and glanced towards the windows. The night outside was dark and blustery. Clara could hear the trees rustling and occasionally a sharp gust would rattle the door leading onto the terrace.

  “The hour cometh,” Richard remarked in sepulchre tones.

  “Don’t!” Diana begged. She was sitting near the fire trying to read a woman’s magazine that featured knitting patterns. Knitting was Diana’s passion, but tonight she could not focus on her needles. They remained silent in her work bag. “I hate thinking about it. Why must we all sit here and wait?”

  “My thoughts exactly!” Genevieve interjected. “All we need do is place someone outside to grab the fellow when he appears!”

  “We ought to respect the dead,” Lord Howton said solemnly. “I have grown convinced these last few days that Harvey is trying to impart a message to us.”

  “He could try harder!” Genevieve snapped. “A letter or a telegram would suffice!”

  “I think what father is saying is that Harvey’s spirit is burdened, and he is using what little spectral energy he has to try and communicate with us,” Richard talked down to his sister, as if what he said was obvious. Clara found it amusing. “He clearly has little strength and is unable to deliver his message as he would like.”

  “Do you actually listen to yourself when you say such things?” Genevieve spluttered. “Someone is trying to frighten the family. Stand someone outside and nab him.”

  “I don’t think we should dismiss the supernatural so simply,” Lord Howton rebuked his daughter gently. “None of us knows what awaits us on the other side. I would hate to do something rash that could condemn Harvey’s soul to torment.”

  “What is this?” Genevieve demanded. “Before you wanted rid of him, you were talking about exorcisms and such nonsense, now you are fretting about Harvey’s soul?”

  “It was the footprints,” Angelica interrupted. The fact she had spoken up at all before the family was enough to silence Genevieve. “Harvey came into the house. He was trying to reach me. He is a lost soul. I think his brother has come to understand that now.”

  Clara, listening to this conversation at a distance, studied Lord Howton’s face during this speech and realised it was true. He had first thought that a demon was tormenting the family, now he was coming to see the man at the window as a messenger. Clara thought this new idea as incredulous as Genevieve did, but it was plain his lordship would not be swayed. He was a very spiritual man and he had convinced himself that Harvey’s spirit was walking and wanted to tell them something.

  “I can’t believe what I am hearing!” Genevieve laughed hollowly, “You are all quite mad!”

  She was stopped by the clock in the room chiming. Everyone paused. As Richard had stated so grimly, the hour had come.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Clara had asked Lord Howton if she might hide herself outside the drawing room in the bushes and observe the man from there. She was hopeful that, if she was discreet, she might be able to track him back to his hideout and reveal him for what he was. Lord Howton had denied the request for the same reasons he had just given Genevieve. Clara thought it nonsense, but then she recalled that this was a family who believed themselves cursed. It was hardly far-fetched, when you believed in witchcraft, to start believing in the dead returned.

  Clara had to abide by his instructions, even if she did think they were foolish.

  Oliver was stood near the sideboard watching the windows with his hands in his pockets. He had not set up his cameras again. They had served their purpose already. Clara had examined the pictures he had taken of the mysterious footprints, though it still eluded her what substance had been used to make them. It was certainly not mud, she had wondered about ink as they were so black, but she thought there must be some further component to the mixture. The maids had been hard at work all day removing them. It had been a test of wills between their elbow grease and whatever substance had been used to make the prints. So far, the prints were winning, though they did appear paler than before. Clara moved beside Oliver.

  “When I agreed to photograph dead people for the police, this was not what I had in mind,” Oliver said to her, his voice hushed. “I’ve seen my fair share of grisly crime scenes. In none of them did the corpse get up and start wandering around.”

  “Corpses don’t,” Clara assured him

  “You won’t be swayed, will you?” Oliver grinned at her. “I mean, even if you can find a rational explanation for this, can you really say there is no such thing as the supernatural?”

  “I am quietly confident,” Clara replied.

  “Well, I’m not. I like to think there is more to this life than we know,” that was Oliver’s final word on the subject.

  Everyone’s attention was now on the terrace. While not all the family were exactly looking at the windows, everyone was waiting, listening in anticipation. Diana was pulling a face rather like one you might wear when about to have a tooth extracted. Angelica was stiff as a rod and had her eyes shut. Lord Howton smoked his pipe in hasty puffs. Only Lady Howton, Genevieve and Richard had their eyes trained on the terrace. Clara turned her attention from the family and to the windows. Oliv
er had moved to lean against the wall, staring at the carpet rather than look outside. Clara had made the mistake of looking away just before Harvey had appeared last night. Tonight, she would not break her gaze.

  She waited. The minutes ticked by.

  The wind howled violently, like a banshee in the trees. The world outside seemed in torment. It was the sort of night to draw the curtains and sit close to the fire. The sort of night when all manner of horrible, unnatural things could be imagined to lurk in the dark.

  Richard started to tap his fingers on the hard cloth cover of his book. Genevieve folded her arms across her chest. The clock chimed the quarter hour.

  “He appears to be late,” Clara remarked to no one in particular. “Possibly the weather has delayed him.”

  No one responded, not even to tell her that it was a crass thing to say. The silence was becoming oppressive. Diana had dropped her head into her hands, trying to pretend none of it was happening.

  Clara tapped the toe of her shoe on the carpet. She was impatient at the best of times, but especially when waiting for a prankster pretending to be a dead man. When she did catch hold of Harvey Howton, she was going to give him some stern words.

  Another fifteen minutes crept away and still there was no sign of the man. Lord Howton relaxed his shoulders and began to tap out the bowl of his pipe. The tension was easing; it seemed Harvey was not going to come.

  Angelica sharply rose from the sofa and walked to the windows. She put her hands either side of her head and pressed her face to the glass to see out better.

  “Where is he?” she asked pitifully.

  “I don’t think he is coming tonight,” Lord Howton said gently.

  Angelica took a step back from the glass.

  “Why not? He has never missed a night before?” she looked around her, trying to discern an answer from the faces in the room. “Is this it?”

  “It’s over,” Diana gave a low moan, akin to a sigh. “He isn’t coming. He has gone.”

  “Gone?” Angelica’s voice had narrowed to a squeak as her throat contracted in distress. “Gone where?”

  “Perhaps to heaven, my dear,” Lady Howton said softly.

  “No, no, no!” Angelica turned back to the windows and glowered out into the night. “He mustn’t! He has not told me what he wants yet!”

  “Maybe I was wrong,” Lord Howton said swiftly, trying to placate his stepmother. “Perhaps he wanted nothing. I do recall that in the past the deceased would appear on successive nights to their relatives to let them know they had passed into the next life. I read it somewhere.”

  “No!” Angelica burst out, her voice shrill before it descended into a sob. “It’s my fault! I locked my room last night! I never lock my room door!”

  Angelica cupped her hands over her mouth, her distress volatile.

  “I was scared in case he came into the house. I was scared of my own son,” she cried. “So, I locked my door and look what happened! He came to my room and stood outside, unable to enter. I turned him away, his own mother! I let my fear govern me!”

  “I think, my dear, you are being irrational,” Lady Howton said, though her words were cold rather than comforting.

  “Don’t you see? Last night was it, his final attempt! He came to me, to my room, to tell me what it was he wanted and he could not enter! And that was it, the last time!” Angelica was hysterical. “He won’t come again. He won’t! I missed my last chance!”

  Clara stepped forward to the woman, as no one else seemed inclined to help her. She put her arm around her shoulders and tried to comfort her.

  “Think of things this way, you are in no worse a position than before. Whatever he intended, it was probably just a message of love, to let you know he was alright,” Clara wittered on, wondering where she had conjured such nonsense from. The man at the window had never been dead, any message he wanted to tell them he could do so at any time, and without this play-acting. Harvey ought not to torment his mother like this.

  “I suggest we forget things for tonight,” Lord Howton interceded. “We are not qualified to understand the ways of the supernatural. Possibly there is another reason Harvey has not appeared tonight. Let us go to bed and sleep on things.”

  Angelica seemed unconvinced, but Clara also thought sleep would do her good.

  “Perhaps he got wind that I was going to shoot him with my shotgun,” Genevieve said with more than a hint of pride. “I do hope so. Clearly scared the life out of the fellow.”

  “Darling, try to be more tactful,” Lady Howton reminded her daughter, though not with much force. She seemed to have drifted away from the idea Harvey was a spectre too.

  “We shall all retire,” Lord Howton insisted. “Tomorrow we can look at this problem afresh.”

  Angelica did not move, she seemed frozen to the spot. When Clara tried to gently ease her from the window she threw off her arm.

  “You changed the lock on the terrace door!” she suddenly declared, pointing a finger at a shiny new lock and handle on the old wood. “We agreed this morning you would not!”

  “I did not give instructions to change the lock,” Lord Howton said quickly, looking as surprised as Angelica.

  “I gave the instruction,” Lady Howton said, rising from the sofa where she sat. “I do not want a strange man, dead or alive, wandering my home at night.”

  “But, Harvey has to be able to get in!” Angelica demanded. “Where is the key? I must unlock this at once.”

  “You shall do no such thing. I cannot abide the thought of a corpse creeping into the hall while I sleep,” Lady Howton was firm.

  “My dear,” Lord Howton turned to her, “we did agree…”

  “You agreed,” Lady Howton shot back at him. “No one cared for my thoughts. No, I shall stand firm on this. Look at Diana. The distress this is causing her is dreadful. I shall not have her left in terror to go to sleep because this man in the dark might enter the hall. You are not thinking of the living people in this house, who are far more important than the dead.”

  “Far more important!” Angelica almost exploded. “My Harvey was the most precious thing in my life! You have your children alive and well! I do not have my child!”

  Angelica burst into painful sobs.

  “He was the only thing that made this life bearable,” she slumped to her knees. “Please! Where is the key for the door?”

  Lady Howton looked at her coldly, unmoved by her tears. She did not say a word as she marched to the door of the drawing room and left.

  Angelica howled, a terrible, grief-stricken howl.

  “Come on, we have to get her to her room. She will make herself ill like this,” Genevieve commanded, thumping her brother on the arm to get him to move.

  Together they pulled Angelica to her feet. She was unresisting. A broken woman who had been cut into pieces by her suffering. They led her from the drawing room and upstairs.

  “I think we must all retire,” Lord Howton said in a small voice to those who remained.

  Diana jumped up at once and headed for the door. Clara and Oliver were not far behind. Lord Howton lingered a moment to put out the fire and the lights, then he joined them in the dark grand hall.

  “I hardly know what to say to the woman,” he said, glancing at Clara. “She is so deeply distressed. Her loss is so painful.”

  “There is nothing you can say,” Clara told him. “But we must put this mystery to bed. I do not think Harvey Howton is dead.”

  Lord Howton, rather than being amazed, laughed at her.

  “My dear, you really cannot accept that there is more to this world than logic and reason dictate.”

  He walked up the stairs still chuckling to himself. Clara decided not to let it offend her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Clara fell asleep rapidly enough, unafraid that spectres were roaming the halls of the house. She was tired and the questions that would usually plague her mind and keep her awake were thankfully absent. Her mind was exhausted and
could not be bothered to conjure up endless possibilities and problems concerning her case. She rested her head on her pillow and slipped safely into the void of dreamless slumber.

  She was rudely awakened sometime in the early hours of the morning. The light in the room was just going from the pitch black of full night, to the hazy grey of pre-dawn. Clara jerked awake and, for a moment, failed to understand what had roused her. Then the scream that had woken her came again.

  Clara sat up and glanced over at a small clock that stood on the mantel of the fireplace. She shook her head; too dark to read the time. She dragged her feet from beneath the warm blankets and nestled them in her cold slippers, hauled on her heavy dressing gown and headed for the door. There had been no further screams and, as she stood in the corridor outside her room, she found herself uncertain of which way to head. Perhaps, after all, it had been a dream?

  The house seemed cloaked in silence, no one else appeared to be stirring. Clara rubbed at her eyes. It might have been an owl, some species could make the oddest of noises and, in the moment of waking, might seem to be a person crying out. She started to go back into her room when she heard the thumping of feet somewhere deeper in the house, and the exclamation of a man;

  “Good lord!”

  Clara headed in the same direction, fumbling her way down unlit corridors, her memory poorly raking up a floorplan of the house, so she lost her way before finding where she wanted to be. She was attracted by the light of a torch shining at the end of a hallway. The corridors of the hall were not fitted with artificial lighting, only the main rooms downstairs had that luxury. To navigate at night the family either used candles or torches, or walked blind.

  The torchlight was moving, as if someone was examining the floor. Whispering voices were speaking together. Clara hurried to the end of the corridor she was in and turned left to find herself confronted with a wholly unexpected scene. Lord Howton was shining the torch over a person lying on the floor. To his left was Diana, white as a sheet and clutching a hand to her mouth. Next to her, an arm awkwardly placed about her shoulders, was her brother Richard.