The Ghost of Hollow House (Mina Scarletti Mystery Book 4)
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Mr Stevenson, who had been prepared for something a lot less friendly and amenable, looked firstly surprised, then relieved, then grateful.
‘Miss Scarletti, I — I hardly know what to say; that is most kind and generous of you. I am in your debt.’
‘Indeed, you are. In fact, my observation is that it would be all to the good if everything that took place here since your arrival was quietly forgotten. Don’t you agree?’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Stevenson. ‘Yes. I understand you.’
‘But before you do so,’ said Mina, taking out her little notebook, ‘I would like you to tell me everything that happened to you last night.’
‘That was a narrow escape,’ said Mina to Richard later.
‘But I can’t believe how underhand the fellow was,’ Richard protested. ‘He pretended to be my friend, he shared his whisky flask with me and now I see it was all a plan to win me over and make me say something I ought not to.’
‘No one could have predicted that,’ said Mina, comfortingly. ‘Even from someone you knew was a private detective hired by a jealous husband to spy on you.’
‘Exactly! And now I think that I might not be a detective after all if that is what it means. Not to mention all that standing about in the cold and wet. But it was rather fun the other day when I went up in the pulpit. Imagine standing there and saying things to people and they all have to listen to you. It can’t be that hard. You could write my sermons for me. And I’d only have to do it once a week.’
With only a few hours remaining to explore Mr Honeyacre’s library Mina was making the most of her time when her host came to see her. He had a solemn look that told her at once that he had spoken to the Mallings. She put her books aside.
‘Miss Scarletti,’ he said with a deep sigh, ‘I have had a conversation with Mr and Mr Malling of a most painful nature. They tell me that you know everything and urged them to come to me and confess all. You did the right thing and I am most grateful. Unpleasant as it is, I should not be left in the dark as to the behaviour of my servants. Susan has been dismissed, of course, since her motives were pure mischief. I am sure that Mary Ann had nothing to do with the circumstances, being highly impressionable. As to the Mallings, I have yet to make a decision. They have served me diligently for several years, they are exemplary servants, but they have done things I can scarcely forgive. If Kitty had been harmed I would not now even be hesitating.’
‘Perhaps you should seek Mrs Honeyacre’s opinion,’ Mina suggested.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I think I will. Thank you, Miss Scarletti. Once again, you have my eternal gratitude.’ He rose to depart and Mina returned to her reading. She did not, therefore, notice that as Mr Honeyacre left, another person had entered the room.
There was a gentle cough and she looked up to see Mr Beckler standing just inside the door.
‘I — um,’ he began.
‘Please go,’ she said.
‘I have something to say to you.’
‘I don’t wish to hear it.’
‘It’s an apology.’
She made no reply and he advanced into the room. ‘Will you allow me to speak?’
‘I can’t very well stop you speaking, but I can choose not to listen.’ She closed her book and stood up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if my behaviour has upset you.’
‘You have done more than just upset me,’ she said, harshly. ‘To begin with I imagined that you were flattering me as a potential customer for your business. That was merely annoying. And then my eyes were opened and I understood your real motive. You are Mr Hope’s creature and the instrument, as he intended, of my destruction. Admit it.’
He cringed at her words. ‘Yes, I am. I was. But no more, I promise.’
‘You revolt me,’ said Mina. ‘Never address me or even come near me again.’ She left the room and closed the door.
The next morning, Mr Hope’s servant arrived from the newly reopened Clayton Road in the repaired carriage with rested horses. Mr Beckler had hoped to take photographs in Hollow House but found that there had been some damage to the camera in the accident and the plan had to be abandoned. Mr Hope and Mr Beckler departed for Middlesex. No one was sorry to see them go.
Mina, Nellie and Dr Hamid, their boxes packed, prepared to leave Hollow House. Mr Honeyacre had allowed the Mallings to remain a month longer while he decided their fate and it was Mr Malling who was to drive them to Hassocks Gate to take the Brighton train. Richard begged to accompany them so he could return to London, as he did not wish to spend any more time in the company of Mr Stevenson, who, it was agreed, would be conveyed to the station later.
Before she stepped into the carriage Mina looked up at the window of the storeroom. Now that she was not seeing it through a curtain of misty rain it was quite clear that she was only seeing a mirror draped in a white sheet. She pointed it out to Mr Honeyacre and told him how she had been deceived on the day of her arrival by the falling dustsheet.
‘I still think there may be the ghost of a white lady here,’ he mused. ‘I wonder if I will ever see her?’
‘You may do,’ said Mina, ‘but only when the sky is very clear and the full moon shines through the east window.’
Chapter Fifteen
The next two weeks were a storm of activity as the whole of fashionable Brighton was busy with preparations for the Fancy Dress Ball to be held at the Pavilion on the evening of the seventh of February. Artists in hair were devising elaborate new styles that defied both nature and architecture. Milliners, dressmakers and costumiers were in deadly rivalry, jealously guarding their new designs and small wars were being fought over fabric. Mr Jordan’s new venture, informed by Nellie’s sense of costume and glamour, was thriving. Mina was pleased to note that there had been no painful rift in Nellie’s marriage, which suggested that her carefully chosen words to Mr Stevenson had had their effect.
Nellie, true to her promise, had arranged a ticket for Mina and had her measured for a costume as a Spanish lady so she could protect herself from bad vapours with a fan and a cunningly concealed sachet of herbs. Mina could therefore devote her time to her most important task, committing her new story to paper. It was obvious that if she was to write the events of that remarkable night as a piece of fiction — or at least a piece of fiction that would satisfy the tastes of her readers — she would have to introduce dramatic scenes of mystery, magic, violence and horrible death that had not in fact occurred, or were at the very least somewhat exaggerated. Nevertheless, when she reflected on what had actually happened there were genuine circumstances enough, the memory of which she would savour forever.
She thought at first that the task would take weeks, even months, but when she sat at her desk and made a start her pen began to fly over the paper as if possessed. In a matter of days — days during which Rose had had to remind her to eat and rest — she had material enough to send to Scarletti Publishing.
Before long, Mina received a small package from the publishing house in response to the first three parts she had written and opened it eagerly.
Dear Miss Scarletti
I enclose for your attention the proof copies of the first three parts of A Night in a Haunted House, which we propose to publish monthly starting on 1 March under the nom de plume Robert Neil. I look forward very much to receiving the final part in due course.
Might I add that it is an extraordinary work of the imagination, possibly one of your finest, and once again you leave me wondering where in the world you get your ideas from!
With very best wishes
D Greville
Fiction editor, Scarletti Publishing
Smiling, Mina took out the proofs and began reading them before starting work on the fourth and final part of the story.
A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED HOUSE
BY
ROBERT NEIL
(Author of The Haunted Nun and Bessie the Pirate Queen, available in bound volumes price 1s, from all good booksellers)
PART THE FIRST
It was with some trepidation, but also a feeling of excited anticipation that diminutive Miss Claretti agreed to spend the night at the manor house of her good friend, the venerable Mr Sweetacre and his charming young wife, Kate. Their home was situated on the edge of Ditterling Hollow, Southshire, a gloomy little village, whose inhabitants eked out a miserable living by tilling the thin soil that barely allowed the growth of a few bitter-tasting vegetables. The dreary streets were dominated by a grim hillside atop which there stood the largest and blackest windmill in the county. The windmill, so Miss Claretti had been told, had not been used for the grinding of corn for over a hundred years. The hill had a dreadful reputation as it had once been used to bury the ashes of witches who had been burned at the stake and few dared to venture there. The windmill was now occupied by a hideous-looking wise woman, who spent her time collecting such fragments of charred bone as she could discover and using them to cast spells. She had one familiar, a large dog that roamed the fields at night and was reputed to glow in the dark.
There had been a small church in the village, but following a collapse of the roof, which had crushed the incumbent minister to death, it lay derelict, leaving the villagers comfortless in times of distress.
Miss Claretti had received a letter from Mrs Sweetacre begging her to come and stay at Ditterling Manor, as she and her whole household were in a constant state of terror over the appearance of a number of ghosts, which prowled the corridors at night, making a great din, moaning and rattling chains, as if overcome with a terrible and inexpressible grief. A room which had once been a nursery was haunted by the ghost of a child in a red velvet coat who rode the rocking horse at night uttering piercing shrieks of evil laughter. Now, my readers might feel that unlike the heroine of my story, they would not have set foot in such a house, or even approached it, but little Miss Claretti was stronger than she looked, and quite unafraid of ghosts, and she agreed to spend the night there.
She did not travel alone, but was accompanied by her good friend, Mrs Eleanor Johnson, once a renowned actress who had given up the stage to make a dazzling society marriage, and Mrs Johnson’s pretty and accomplished maid, Zena. Also of the party was wise and kindly Dr Haroon, since it was considered that in a household where many of the occupants were afflicted by hysteria, the skills of a medical man might well be required.
The journey to Ditterling Hollow was fraught with the most dreadful dangers due to the state of the roads that resembled rivers of dark mud more than they did passable thoroughfares. Several times their coach was almost upset and it seemed that the travellers would either drown in evil-smelling mire or be thrown bodily from the fallen vehicle. It was with some relief that they finally reached their destination without accident.
Ditterling Manor had once been a large handsome house, but in recent years it had been neglected and looked ready to crumble into a ruin. Its stones were as black as thunderclouds and heavy draperies were required within to prevent cold draughts from sweeping through every room. The floorboards were half rotten and creaked horribly underfoot, grotesque faces stared from ancient oil paintings and burrowing beetles tapped and clicked from its wooden rafters.
Mr and Mrs Sweetacre were, however, most welcoming and Zena at once became good friends with Mrs Sweetacre’s maid Petronella. The visitors were afforded every comfort available. The cook, Mrs Bunn, was highly skilled. Mr Gillery, the master’s manservant was a model of good deportment. The housekeeper, Mrs Miller, and her husband who looked after the property for Mr Sweetacre were industrious people who seemed unafraid of the hauntings; indeed, they often declared that they did not believe in ghosts at all. Nevertheless, Mrs Miller liked to tell strange tales from which Miss Claretti gathered that no less than three young women had gone missing from the house and were reputed to be either murdered or suicides. A young boy had once occupied the nursery where he used to spend many hours riding a rocking horse. The ignorant villagers had believed the child to be a changeling and everyone who encountered him was afraid, since he had a look of great malevolence and it was thought that anyone who crossed his will would suffer a terrible fate. The boy’s nursemaid was said to have sacrificed herself by jumping into the nearby brook holding the struggling child, thus putting an end to the evil. Neither body had been found but their ghosts were rumoured to appear in the house very frequently. One curious aspect of the house was that all the mirrors were covered during the hours of darkness, since it was said that anyone who looked in them at that time would be sure to see a spectre standing at his or her shoulder. It was also believed that somewhere in the house the corpse of a murdered wife would be found walled up, but so far no one had been able to locate it.
An elderly villager called Noddy Cooper had claimed that the witches who had been burned on the hilltop had placed the whole village under a terrible curse and no one who lived in Ditterling Manor would ever know contentment. Most frightened of all were the two maidservants, who refused to stay in the house after dark. Maria was old Cooper’s granddaughter and a fervent believer in the legends of the village and Sally was a nervous girl who said that she had fainted clean away when she had first seen the ghost of the child. Both had seen the spectre of a white lady that was able to walk through walls.
Mr Sweetacre, determined to protect the health of his young bride, informed Miss Claretti that he had decided to patrol the house that night with a dark lantern and accost any ghost he might see. Mrs Sweetacre was told to stay in her room, comforted by her puppy dog, Spot, to lock her door and only open it to admit her husband who would knock in a secret way.
While these plans were being laid, Miss Claretti received the most terrible shock. Who should unexpectedly arrive at the house but the notorious Viscount Hogg, an adventurer and an incorrigible roué who liked to investigate hauntings. Hogg thought so well of himself that he was convinced that all ladies could not help but fall in love with him. He at once began to make great eyes at Miss Claretti’s friend Mrs Johnson in the most revolting manner and she naturally regarded his attentions with disgust. Mr Hogg was accompanied by a Mr Bickley, a man of repellent aspect, as thin as a skeleton with a pale cadaverous face. He purported to be a master of the art of photography although he had brought no camera with him to support his claim. Mr Bickley attempted to use his supposed profession to worm his way into the good graces of everyone present by the most obsequious and nauseating flattery. Mr Bickley, it transpired, was cut from the same cloth as his master, since he addressed Miss Claretti in a thoroughly indecent manner. Mrs Johnson and Miss Claretti decided to preserve their safety and protect each other by sharing a bedroom.
There were two more unexpected arrivals at the house, both of whom Viscount Hogg had taken it upon himself to invite without troubling to consult his host. One was Miss Claretti’s brother Rickard, a handsome good-natured youth, but unencumbered either by fortune or intellect and inclined to the most dreadful recklessness. The other was a recent visitor to the village, a man calling himself Smith, although no one believed that that was his real name and he was largely suspected of being a spy for an unscrupulous property dealer called Mr Blank, who was hoping to acquire the estate at a low price. Mr Smith, who resembled a rat and wore coarse ugly boots, liked to prowl about the house poking his long nose into everyone’s business.
After dinner, Viscount Hogg had the audacity to convey a note to Mrs Johnson inviting her to a secret rendezvous with him in the drawing room at midnight. This information she at once revealed to Miss Claretti, Rickard and Dr Haroon who were shocked at the insulting implications of this despicable communication.
‘The man is worse than I thought!’ exclaimed Dr Haroon. ‘He is sure to come to grief one day, shot dead by an outraged husband.’
‘If had a gun I would shoot him at once,’ said Rickard, boldly.
‘Then it is as well that you do not have one,’ said his sensible sister.
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‘Pray do not attempt violence on Viscount Hogg,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘He is a vile creature but in any such encounter his lofty rank in society ensures that he is bound to be believed the innocent party. I wish neither of you to suffer in my defence.’
‘But we cannot allow him to continue his dreadful behaviour,’ said Rickard.
‘I suggest,’ said Miss Claretti, ‘that tonight, you and Dr Haroon wait for Viscount Hogg in the drawing room and, should he appear, make it very plain to him that you have learned of his loathsome plans and he ought to desist at once. You know enough of his dubious past to prove that you understand his nature. If he professes to be a gentleman he ought to behave as one.’
With this scheme in place, Miss Claretti and Mrs Johnson retired to their room and secured the door. All at once they heard a foul wind spring up, so fierce that it made their window panes vibrate with a sound like drumming. Miss Claretti peered out and saw that snow had begun to fall, cascading in large whirling flakes like leaves of paper, turning the sky a blinding white and carpeting the ground thickly. ‘I hope we are not obliged to remain here any longer than we had planned,’ said Miss Claretti, as the snow cover seemed to deepen with every passing moment.
Mrs Johnson shivered and it was not only from the chill in the air. ‘Let us sleep turn and turn about and remain in our day clothes,’ she said. ‘Then if there is any danger one of us will always be on the alert and we can protect each other.’
Miss Claretti agreed. Little could either know what horrors the night would bring.
It wanted but fifteen minutes to midnight when, in the servants’ quarters, a door opened and the two ladies’ maids, Zena and Petronella, peered out of the room they shared. Both were clad in dark gowns and carried lanterns draped in black cloth. They waited awhile to enable their eyes to become accustomed to the gloom before they moved off.