He smiled. ‘You are the first to enquire, so yes. Young George was terribly spoilt as a child, though he seemed sensible enough when my uncle last saw him. The Lassiters employed a nursemaid called Abigail Falcon and she found the boy difficult to deal with, while the parents, of course, would never believe ill of their precious son. Apparently, one day George threw a tantrum and broke some crockery. The maid, knowing that she would be blamed, claimed that the crockery had broken by falling off a shelf by itself while she was not in the room. Realising that this explanation might not be convincing she was obliged to fabricate a ghost. After that there was a series of incidents and the parents and visitors all saw things occur for which they were certain the maid could not have been responsible. And I rather think she came to enjoy the excitement and attention.’
‘Was Abigail Falcon from Ditching Hollow?’ asked Mina. ‘I visited the church and found no —’ she paused, as she had been about to say parish records, ‘gravestones with that surname.’
‘I believe she came from Burgess Hill,’ said Reverend Ashbrook. ‘At any rate, her deception took in everyone, including, I am sorry to say, my uncle. They asked for his advice and he paid them a visit and saw a great deal of things that convinced him that the house was haunted. He was above seventy by then and his eyesight was failing, so I really don’t think he had anything with which to reproach himself. When she eventually confessed everything to my uncle he was quite astonished at how he had been taken in. I think he destroyed all the copies of the pamphlet — at least I have never seen one.’
‘Do you know what happened to the nursemaid? I have been told she didn’t go away with the Lassiters.’
‘Well, you should ask her daughter, Susan.’ He sipped his tea and made a fresh assault on his toast.
‘Susan?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean Susan Parker, one of the maids here?’
‘Yes. Are you surprised?’
Mina thought about this. ‘Now that you mention it, no. Then Abigail must live in the village.’
‘Yes, I think she went away after the Lassiters left, married and came back a few years later as Abigail Parker. Since she had only ever lived and worked at the house, I doubt anyone in the village realised who she was.’
‘Did Abigail ever reveal to your uncle how she had made people believe the house was haunted?’
‘Yes, it was really rather simple. She used black thread and horsehairs to make things fall from shelves when she was not near them. Sometimes she would simply place things in a precarious position so that the footsteps of someone passing nearby would dislodge them. Once she even made stones fall from the ceiling.’
‘Stones from the ceiling? Dear me, how did she achieve that?’
‘By sprinkling them through a crack in the plaster, apparently. I do hope her daughter has not been up to similar tricks.’
Mina was not sure what to say, but at that moment Mrs Malling arrived. The housekeeper approached the visitor cautiously, smoothing her apron and looking at Mina with some trepidation.
‘Ah, Mrs Malling,’ said the Reverend brightly, ‘I am pleased to say that your son is very well indeed and hopes to pay you a visit soon. He begged me to give you this letter, which he says is highly important. I do so hope it is good news.’
Mrs Malling thanked him in a whisper, took the letter and slipped it into her pocket. ‘May I be excused to read this in private?’ she asked.
‘You may, but I wish to speak to you when you are done,’ said Mina. ‘Both you and Mr Malling, together, in the library. I will send for you when needed.’
‘Yes Miss,’ said the housekeeper and hurried out.
Reverend Ashbrook was about to make a comment but was forestalled by the arrival of Mr Honeyacre and Kitty both looking very much better than they had the evening before. They greeted the clergyman warmly and Mina left them to their conversation. Her discussion with the Mallings would not be as friendly and she realised that, without knowing how they might react, it was better for her not to tackle them alone.
Later that morning, Richard, looking red-eyed and haggard, emerged from his bedroom and wandered into the dining room. After surveying the hot dishes he took only coffee for breakfast.
Mina joined him. ‘I hope you are feeling better after your ordeal,’ she said.
‘Oh, I suppose I shall recover from that eventually and trust I will never dream about it,’ he said unhappily. ‘But there is far worse. Did Nellie tell you what happened with Mr Stevenson in the parlour?’
‘She did.’
‘I didn’t know the horrid sneak was hiding behind the curtain! That wasn’t fair! What sort of gentleman does that?’ He sipped his coffee and pulled a face. ‘Do you think if I told him there was nothing in it he might believe me? It was only one little kiss.’
‘You kissed her?’
‘Well, what is a fellow to do?’
‘You might have been sensible, but that is obviously far too much to expect. Please, Richard, don’t try and speak to Mr Stevenson again. In fact, you should have nothing to do with him at all. You’ll only make things worse.’
‘I don’t suppose all that business with the fright he got might have made him forget it,’ said Richard, hopefully.
Mina was thoughtful. ‘Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I have a task for you. When you have finished your coffee, go and fetch Mr and Mrs Malling and tell them I want to speak to them both in the library. Bring them to me and then stay there to act as a witness, but you must remain silent.’
When Mina faced the Mallings across the library table Mrs Malling was redder in the face than she had been only shortly before. She held the open letter before her and gazed at it as if it had been poisoned.
‘I need the truth, now,’ said Mina. ‘I know what you have been doing and I even know how some of it was done, but what I need you to tell me is why?’
‘You haven’t told Mr Honeyacre about us, have you?’ pleaded Mrs Malling. She glanced at Richard who was sitting in one corner of the library, awake, but too weary to fidget.
‘What I have already told him or choose to tell him in the future is my business,’ said Mina. ‘It will depend entirely on what you tell me today. You must be honest and hide nothing.’
Mrs Malling took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face with it. ‘I hadn’t meant it to end up like it did,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know Lord Hope and his friend would come here, and that spying man, and I still don’t understand about Mrs Honeyacre and that horrid black creature with all its legs a crawling about.’
Mina waited and at length Mrs Malling breathed out with a puff of her cheeks and put the handkerchief away. ‘You might know that our son Albert is a clerk at an estate office in Hurstpierpoint. And he wants to get married, only that’s never easy on a clerk’s wages and he thinks he might have to wait a long time. Well, there is this man, very rich he is, Mr White, he owns a lot of properties and builds houses and other things. He wrote to Mr Honeyacre last year, that’s before master came here to live, saying that he wanted to buy up the estate and make it into a brickworks, but Mr Honeyacre said no. In fact, he was very indignant and said he wouldn’t have the countryside made into a nasty dirty factory.
‘Last month, Mr White paid a call at the office and told Albert that he was still interested in buying the estate if he could get it for a good price. When Albert told Mr White that we worked here he promised him a commission if we could find some way of persuading Mr Honeyacre to sell up. It was a very good commission, too, enough for him to get married on. And Mr White also promised that when he bought up the estate he would live here, in Hollow House, and we would still have our places and a good salary. It wasn’t just promises, he signed a paper and everything.
‘I didn’t see how it could be done, making Mr Honeyacre change his mind, but then I remembered all those ghost books in the library and that was when I thought we might be able to convince him that the house was haunted. An
d I didn’t think that Mrs Honeyacre would want to live in a haunted house, because I know theatrical people are great believers in ghosts, so she would tell her husband that she wanted to leave, and he dotes on her and would do anything for her.’
‘It’s just stories, that’s all,’ said Mr Malling, gruffly. ‘We didn’t think she’d get as upset as she did. We didn’t think any of it would go as far as it did.’
’So you decided to report that things were happening and hoped imagination would do the rest?’ asked Mina.
They nodded.
‘All the time saying that you didn’t believe in hauntings to remove suspicion from yourselves? How did Susan become involved?’
‘I asked her if she knew some ghost stories and suchlike,’ said Mrs Malling, ‘and she told me that her mother knew how to conjure up ghosts. Or at least make it look as if she had.’
Mina had one very important question to ask. ‘Susan told us all a story about Sir Christopher Redwoode’s sons. The Lost Bones, she called it. That was all made up, I am sure. Do you know how she learned the story? I don’t think she made it up herself.’
‘Oh, it was in one of those cheap story books,’ said Mrs Malling. ‘I wouldn’t encourage the maids to read things like that, but one of the shops in Hurstpierpoint was using old copies as wrapping paper.’
Mina bit the inside of her lip and did her best to avoid revealing her emotions.
‘The noises in the corridor, the first night I was here?’
‘That was me,’ said Mr Malling, ‘I walked along pulling a coil of rope. But all what Mrs Honeyacre did, we never put her up to that.’
‘Would you mind telling me how you achieved the things that happened at the séance?’
‘That was all Susan’s idea,’ said Mr Malling. ‘It was done with black sewing thread. Not tied on to things, just passed around them so it could be pulled away afterwards. Quickly done and nothing left to see.’
‘The Chinese vase? That didn’t fall. Was it meant to?’
Unusually, Mr Malling’s expression softened for a moment. ‘That was one of Mr Honeyacre’s favourites. I didn’t want to break it, so I put some clay on the bottom.’
‘And the stones? How was that done?’
‘Susan dropped them through. When I took the maidservants back to the village that night Susan came back with me and hid upstairs. She had a plan and told me what to do. I think her mother had done something very like it before. I had overseen the workmen who fitted the lights in the dining room, so I knew how to loosen the screws so there was a gap to put the stones down. She was able to make the lights move as well. Then after the séance when everyone was still downstairs making things tidy I went up and put things back the way they had been. And Susan went home.’
Mina recalled Miss Pet saying she had heard a noise like a chirping bird before the séance and realised that this must have been the squeaking caused by loosening the metal screws supporting the chandelier. Afterwards, in the commotion following the séance, the noise of tightening the screws had not been noticed.
‘The thing is, it turns out that it’s all been for nothing,’ said Mrs Malling. ‘This letter I just had from my son; he’s learned that Mr White has gone back on his word. He went and bought another estate and doesn’t even want this one now. And he promised that he would employ the servants of the place he has just bought, but then he didn’t, he turned them all out at a moment’s notice. He does that all the time, it seems, makes promises that he doesn’t mean to keep if it doesn’t suit him. And he’s too rich to sue. So Albert wanted to warn us to have nothing to do with him.’
‘Can you explain the skeleton found in the attic?’ The Mallings glanced at each other. ‘I was told you keep the churchyard tidy; that it had been much neglected when you first came here. I hope you didn’t dig something up.’
‘No, we’d never do that! It was an old burial, come up to the surface and the coffin all rotted away,’ said Mr Malling. ‘We took up the bones and we were going to hand them over to Reverend Ashbrook but then we thought —’
‘They were going to buried again proper in any case,’ said Mrs Malling defensively.
‘How did you know that we would find them?’
‘We didn’t know. There are men are coming next week to replace the floorboards so we thought they would find them.’
‘Are you going to tell Mr Honeyacre?’ asked Mr Malling.
‘I have one more question,’ said Mina. ‘After the landslip, was the carriage drive really sunken and under water and impassable as you said? We all took you to be telling the truth, but now I must doubt it.’ There was an embarrassed silence. ‘I see. That was a fine scheme to keep us all trapped here and afraid. I must say I am surprised that you didn’t both run away after our conversation last night.’
‘We’ve nowhere to go,’ said Mrs Malling, miserably. ‘We’re hoping Mr Honeyacre will be merciful. We want to stay here. We’ll pay for all the broken crockery. We’ll work for nothing if he wants.’
‘If you were my employees you would now be packing your boxes and leaving without a character,’ said Mina, severely. ‘But I can’t make that decision. That is for Mr Honeyacre. What I would like you to do now, Mr Malling, is go down to the village — I assume that it can still be reached via the carriage drive — and discover if the roads to Hassocks Gate are passable. If they are, we can start making plans to go home.’ She rose to her feet. ‘By the end of today you will both have made a full confession to your employer. Who knows what he will do? He is a good man.’
Mr and Mrs Honeyacre made a late and leisurely breakfast — Kitty working her way through a plateful of bacon and kidneys — and reported that Reverend Ashbrook had departed after promising to come on Sunday to take service. Kitty, Mina noticed, had a sparkle in her eye and a freshness of colour that had been lacking before and she wondered if the previous pallor was due more to the art of the theatre rather than any fault in health. She was not surprised when Kitty asked to speak to her in the parlour after breakfast.
Mina still felt guilty over her raid on the parish chest. Fortunately, she had learned from the Reverend’s comments that he had never seen the pamphlet and therefore, even if he was to examine the contents of the chest, was unlikely to realise that it had been burgled. It was with a conspiratorial air that she handed the packet of papers to Miss Pet, asking her if, on the following Sunday, she could ask Reverend Ashbrook if she might examine the parish records and in so doing surreptitiously return the documents to their proper place.
In the light of the parlour fire Mina studied her hostess’s glowing complexion and merry eyes. ‘I feel there has been some duplicity here,’ she said, although she spoke lightly and not in an accusing tone. ‘Mrs Jordan did comment that she had never seen you so fearful before and now I feel sure that it was all pretence.’
Kitty gave one of her little careless laughs. ‘Did you not notice that it was all I could do to keep my face still when Mr Hope talked about his precious Odic Force? Of course, I have seen Nellie mesmerised on stage a hundred times when she did the mind-reading trick, so I knew what to do. I am sorry to have deceived my friends, but I know you will forgive me. And all is well, now, since I have had a very comforting conversation with my dear Benjamin and he has agreed to accede to my wishes. You see, I knew when we came here that he loved this house and it was his dream to make it a charming residence. Naturally I wanted him to be happy and would never have insisted he abandon it, although I was sure I could never be content here. When I heard the reports of hauntings — and I swear I had nothing to do with those — I simply made use of the situation. And the fact that a happy family event is probable meant that there were some things that were quite unfeigned.’ She patted her abdomen. ‘I must say Dr Hamid’s recipe for ginger tea has been a boon. But the future is now settled. My dear husband and I have decided to spend a month here and a month in Brighton, turn and turn about. That will satisfy us both.’
‘Your appearance as a mo
nster spider was very impressive,’ said Mina.
‘It is surprising what one can do with only a black silk wrap,’ said Kitty. ‘My main purpose was to force that odious man to reveal his true purpose here, which he did. He will think again before he spies upon poor Nellie.’
Later in the day the Mallings reported that the floods were receding and the way to Hassocks Gate would be clear by next morning assuming, of course, that no further rain was to descend. Zillah was kept busy packing for the guests’ departure. She was a little despondent at leaving her new friend, but Mina reassured her that Miss Pet would be in Brighton for half the year whenever the Honeyacres were in residence and she was cheered by that prospect.
Mina had one more serious conversation planned before she departed. Mr Stevenson had come to himself but was still huddled in his room wrapped in blankets and looking grey and jaded. He was understandably unsure as to how many people had actually witnessed his hysterical collapse and confession. Mina was pleased to advise him that it was everyone who mattered.
‘Poor Mr Stevenson,’ she said. ‘Your terror of spiders must cause you severe difficulty in your profession as spy and detective. How do you manage when lurking on street corners, or hiding in cupboards or under beds? Are there no cobwebs to become entangled in, none of the horrible beasts to crawl inside your collar?’
He shuddered. ‘How cruel you can be! I did not choose this thing. I have been that way from a child.’
‘Do your clients know of it?’
‘I prefer them not to, of course. But you must have guessed that.’
‘I have. The events that have taken place in this house, would, if they became generally known, adversely affect your professional reputation.’
Mr Stevenson nodded, unhappily.
‘However, I have no intention of destroying your business. Many people despise what you do, but some of them might be the very people who will one day be glad of your services. So, I am giving you my solemn promise that I will not broadcast the details of what I have seen and I will also persuade the others to do the same.’
The Ghost of Hollow House (Mina Scarletti Mystery Book 4) Page 26