House of Shadows

by Iris Gower

  ‘Why on earth would I? If you have such evidence to back up such suspicions about me you’d better tell it to the police, or else stop being so nosy!’ I felt like telling her she was reading too many of the books on the shelves of the library and allowing her imagination to run away with her.

  ‘Did the police suspect you, Miss Evans?’

  It was a good question. ‘I don’t think so. I didn’t have a motive, you see. Rosie was my helper. I needed her to work for me.’ I spoke wearily now. Miss Grist had the hide of an elephant and wasn’t going to give in.

  ‘But she accused the man you loved of being the father of her child. If that wasn’t a motive, I don’t know what was.’

  I put down my cup with a bang against the saucer, and Miss Grist drew back, realizing she’d gone too far. ‘Isn’t anything private any more? I’ll leave you, Miss Grist, and I’ll thank you to keep out of my business. I thought it was just idle curiosity on your part, but if even you think I’m capable of abducting a mother and baby, what chance have I with everyone else?’

  ‘I do apologize.’ Miss Grist looked distressed. ‘I don’t believe any of that myself. It’s just what people will think and what they will say.’

  ‘Precisely.’ I left the library, my cheeks flaming as I walked down the steps and into the chill of the day. It was getting dark already, and there was a hint of snow in the air. I wanted to be home in my house with my dear Tom beside me, Rosie and Mrs Ward working in the kitchen, and guests about to arrive. I wanted everything to be as it was before Rosie had been silly enough to fall for a baby and ruin everything.

  I suddenly realized Miss Grist was right. I did have a motive, and one of the strongest types: the vitriol of a woman scorned. How foolish though! Tom wasn’t the father. He had always denied it, and I believed him. It was Tom who’d said the baby might not be Carl’s son; why would he have pointed that out if he’d had something to hide? All the same, Miss Grist had raised the spectre of jealousy and mistrust in me once again.

  I hurried towards the train station at the top of High Street. A drunken man staggered noisily in the echoing porcelain of the gentleman’s toilet, rolling down the steps to disappear beneath road level. The train for Aberglasney was just steaming into the station, and I thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to wait on the bleak cold platform. I sunk into a seat in an empty carriage and thought of the things Miss Grist had said. Was I a suspect? Was I being watched? And what on earth had happened to Tom?

  That night I left the light on in my room and took a hot toddy to bed with me. Tonight Aberglasney was quiet: no creaking floorboards, no groaning trees pressing like skeletal fingers against the old windows. And yet I was disturbed and afraid; for the first time I was uneasy in my own house.

  The next day I went to the police station again, determined to talk to someone in authority about Tom’s disappearance. I sat waiting in the hallway for what seemed hours, but I had decided that I was not going to go away, however long I had to sit there.

  At last, a bored detective called me into his room. He switched on a tape recorder, and as I watched the wheels go round I was aware of a policeman standing behind me, guarding the door.

  ‘I’m Inspector Morris. What can we do for you, Miss Evans?’

  ‘I want to report a missing person. Again,’ I said, and waited.

  The inspector wrote something down, ignoring me completely.

  ‘Do you want any details, or are you going to use mind-reading?’

  My sarcasm was lost on him. ‘Carry on,’ he said.

  ‘Tom Maybury, an American officer, was taken away by men dressed as policemen a few days ago, and there’s been no sign of him since.’

  There was silence. Morris rifled through some papers. ‘There’s no record of any such event,’ he said.

  ‘So I was told yesterday.’ My voice was strong and Morris looked at me sharply.

  ‘I’ll write the details down, miss, but this American is nothing to do with us. Perhaps he’s gone back to his own country.’ His tone indicated that ‘his own country’ was the best place for him.

  I forced a calmness into my voice I didn’t feel and wondered how I could get through to this man. ‘What if the Americans send someone over here and demand to know what the British police have done to find the officer? They will think we British are very unprofessional.’

  The inspector looked a little uneasy. Finally, he wrote something on paper and then looked up at me. ‘We’ll investigate, of course, but I don’t hold out much hope of finding the officer. Our resources here are very limited, you understand.’

  ‘I understand, and thank you so much for your help. I will be sure to tell the American authorities about your understanding and command of the situation.’

  This time the sarcasm hit home, and Inspector Morris grew red with embarrassment. ‘We’ve done all we can to help these foreigners,’ he snapped, ‘and they’ve repaid us by drinking copious amounts of liquor, being free and easy with our women, and making trouble everywhere they go.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I walked to the door and then looked back. ‘I think you might have to cut off that piece of tape, don’t you?’

  Inspector Morris stood up. ‘See the lady out, Atkins,’ he said abruptly, but he was already fiddling with the tape machine.

  I stood outside the tiny police station and breathed in the cold, thin air. It cut like a knife, and I shivered involuntarily. I hurried into the tiny coffee shop and sat down, wrapping my scarf more tightly around my neck.

  ‘Excuse me, may I sit with you? I think I’ve an apology to make.’

  I looked up in surprise. ‘Miss Grist! What are you doing down here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work today?’

  ‘I realize I spoke out of turn yesterday, and when I saw you at the police station I thought the worst. I thought you were being arrested!’

  ‘Still the soul of tact then?’ I said shortly, and Miss Grist pursed her thin lips.

  ‘I’m trying to apologize,’ she said. She looked pale and cold, and her eyes were an icy grey as they narrowed against the white of the falling snow. She had made an effort to see me, however, and so I relented.

  ‘Let me buy us a hot pot of coffee,’ I suggested.

  She smiled at once, and it seemed we were on amicable terms again. I thought it would be helpful if I explained the situation. ‘I went to the police to report a missing person,’ I said. ‘I won’t go into it all, but let me assure you I’m not being accused of anything – certainly not Rosie’s disappearance or the abduction of her child. She had a key to the house, naturally. I thought it remiss of the police not to ask me that right away.’

  ‘So she might have left of her own accord. Again, I can only apologize.’ Miss Grist was frosty again.

  ‘My next ghost weekend will be just before Christmas. Perhaps you’d like to come, Miss Grist? As my guest, of course, though I wonder if you would be kind enough to help me serve the meals. I can’t get any village girls up to the house – not since the awful night Rosie disappeared.’

  ‘A superstitious lot, the villagers, and of course I would be delighted to help,’ Miss Grist surprised me by saying. She appeared genuinely pleased. She took out a diary and meticulously penned in the date I gave her. ‘If there’s any secretarial work for me, I’m very good at typing. I could contact your list of guests.’ She sounded eager.

  ‘That would be a great help.’ And it would; I hated handwriting all the letters and addressing all the envelopes to my growing list of guests.

  ‘What about the cooking?’ she asked. ‘That’s not one of my great skills, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Mrs Ward does that. Rosie’s mother.’

  ‘Oh, is that what Gladys Williams is calling herself now?’ There was a spiteful edge to Miss Grist’s words. ‘No better than she should be, is Gladys. Had an unseemly affair with a foreign gentleman, and poor little Rosie was the result.’

  ‘You know Mrs Ward then, do you?’ My tone was severe. I liked Mrs Ward, in spi
te of her spiky ways, and she was invaluable to me.

  ‘Just gossip, you know,’ Miss Grist said. ‘Just gossip, that’s all. I never met the woman, of course. She and I didn’t move in the same circles, you know.’

  I realized I didn’t like Miss Grist very much. Why on earth had I invited her to my home? I quickly drank the hot, sweet, warming coffee and then picked up my bag and gloves and twisted my scarf around my neck. ‘I’d better be getting back.’ I tried to smile as Miss Grist rose too.

  ‘I’ll come back with you, if I may,’ Miss Grist said. ‘You can show me around the house, give me your list of guests, and I can get the letters done when I get back to Swansea.’

  It made sense, and so Miss Grist walked beside me through the snowy streets and caught the train to Aberglasney. When my house came into view, my heart warmed with pleasure. As we passed the place where the barracks had been, I bit my lip in anxiety; would the police do anything at all to find Tom?

  I suspected Inspector Morris would have to go through the motions after what I’d said about the Americans sending someone over to investigate, and I could only hope that Morris would at least do his best to track the men who had taken Tom.

  I hesitated among the rubbish left when the workmen removed the huts. Those fake policemen had something to do with Tom’s disappearance; who were they, and who had sent them?

  A scrap of paper among the rubble caught my eye, and I picked it up. I realized Miss Grist was trying to look over my shoulder at it, and I pushed it quickly into my pocket, not really knowing why I wanted to hide it. All I knew was that I felt lost and empty without Tom and this might be a piece of him.

  It was quiet in the house. I hadn’t seen any sign of Beatrice for some time. I thought she’d gone away, having taken exception to my guests peering at her, poking into her privacy, but I wished – not for the first time – that she would let me know when she was going away and for how long.

  ‘My, this house is so quiet,’ Miss Grist said as she followed me into the hall. I realized we’d been walking through the garden in so great a silence that I’d almost forgotten she was there.

  Mrs Ward took one look at Miss Grist and disappeared out of the back door without a word.

  ‘It may be silent now, but it will be full of laughter and noise when my guests come again,’ I said, realizing I would be glad when the ghost-haunting weekends began again and filled the house with chatter and warmth and curiosity and all the paraphernalia that went with hunting ghosts.

  ‘I’ve heard the ghosts are sighted along the upstairs corridor,’ Miss Grist said. ‘Flickering lights, and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve seen sometimes.’ I sighed. ‘I think the moon makes weird shapes through the trees and that’s what causes the flickering lights.’

  ‘Don’t you believe in ghosts then, Miss Evans?’

  I watched as Miss Grist took off her coat and hung it on the stand in the hall. My heart sank; she obviously intended her stay to be a long one.

  She seemed to know the house well – something I hadn’t expected – and she made her way to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. She gave a deprecating smile. ‘I might as well get familiar with things while I’m here.’ She almost hugged herself. ‘I can hardly wait for the ghost weekend; heaven knows who I’ll meet.’

  ‘Mostly elderly colonels and sweet old ladies,’ I said dryly. ‘They are all intelligent people, mind you, and we do have one young man who might be good company for you.’

  Miss Grist brightened up immediately. ‘Really? What’s his name?’

  ‘I think his name is Colin. And then there’s young William, of course. He always comes along to the weekends. He’s quite the keen ghost hunter; even keener than the colonel, I sometimes think. Anyway, I’ll fetch the list for you.’

  She followed me into the study and looked around, as though appraising the house and its contents. I brought the guest list out from its drawer and gave it to her.

  Miss Grist put it carefully away in her handbag, and after a moment she spoke again. ‘I don’t think I’ll wait for that cup of tea,’ she said. ‘I’d better get back to the station, otherwise I’ll miss my train.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly opened the door for her, in case she changed her mind.

  ‘See you soon then.’ She gave a cheery wave, hurried off along the drive and disappeared through the archway leading to the side gate. She seemed to know her way around my house already. When had she been here, and why pretend she had never visited before? Eventually, I shrugged my questions away. So what if she had been to Aberglasney before? It was my house, and all she would be was an occasional guest.

  The kettle had boiled so I made some tea and stoked up the fire so I could make some toast. I had some good Welsh salt butter, and my mouth watered at the thought of eating the hot toast with the butter almost liquidizing into it. But then I thought of Tom, and abruptly my appetite faded. Where could he be, and what had happened to him? I almost wished it was the real police who had taken him. At least then I would know he was safe.

  I remembered the scrap piece of paper I had picked up from the site of the barracks and took it out of my pocket and tried to read it. The writing was in pencil, the spelling all awry, with letters turned back to front as though written by someone illiterate or foreign.

  I took my cup of tea and the note and sat near the fire, but it might as well have been written in Chinese for all the sense I could make of it. I needed a pen and ink and a fresh piece of paper – and perhaps a magnifying glass would help.

  At last, seated with all my bits and pieces, I pored over the scrap of paper, slowly writing down what I thought each letter represented. The words made little sense, and at last I realized the note wasn’t written in English at all.

  I sat up straight as I heard the rattle of the front-door lock, and my heart leaped with a mingling of fear and excitement. Was it Tom returned to me, intruders bent on robbery . . . or worse?

  It was Beatrice who stood in the doorway, her white hair covered in misty rain and her funny little bag, wrought with flowers, clutched in her hand. For a moment she did look like the ghost my guests believed she was, and then she spoke. ‘Carry my bag to my room for me, dear.’ Her voice sounded weak, as if she was very tired.

  ‘Where on earth have you been this time?’ I asked irritably. ‘Why do you keep coming and going like some sort of ethereal spirit?’

  ‘Just help me to my room, dear, I’ve only been visiting relatives. Do I have to report to you every time I wish to come and go, then?’

  I remembered our bargain, when I’d assured Beatrice she could stay at Aberglasney any time she liked. I decided I was being unfair. ‘No, of course not, Beatrice, I’m sorry. I’m a bit touchy today. Such a lot has been happening here. You get changed and rested, and I’ll come up with a cup of tea and we’ll talk. How’s that?’

  ‘Very good, dear. I’m very tired so I might just get into bed, if you don’t mind, but we can still talk, if you like.’

  ‘No, the morning will do, Beatrice. I’m being thoughtless.’

  I helped her upstairs, and she disappeared into her room, shutting the door pointedly in my face. I shrugged. She was old, and she was entitled to be a bit eccentric.

  It was the next day that I saw the advertisement in the Daily Messenger. ‘Hunt the Ghost,’ it read, ‘in the beautiful surroundings of Oystermouth Castle in Swansea.’ I gasped in disbelief. Someone else was doing a ghost weekend! The headline was followed by a mouth-watering description of the ruined castle near the sea, where the ghost of a minor royal was meant to haunt.

  I sighed. I supposed I had to expect competition. My idea had been a good one, but I couldn’t keep it to myself for ever. In any case, I had my guest base, my regulars. I would be all right. Still, I hurried to Beatrice’s room to show her the newspaper, and she sat up in bed against her pillows, pale and ethereal in her little lace bed cap, and her hand shook as she read the piece.
/>
  She threw down the paper at last and shook her head. A stray grey curl drooped over her forehead. I suddenly realized how fond I was of the old lady. ‘Makes no difference,’ she said. ‘Our ghosts are real. Your friends will soon realize and come back to us.’

  ‘But I never expected to lose them in the first place, Beatrice,’ I said. ‘Do you think they’ll desert us then?’

  ‘Something new, my dear, is always an attraction at first, but they’ll come back, you’ll see.’ She stared at me shrewdly. ‘Now, what else is there?’

  I told her about Rosie, about the terrible night she vanished. ‘The police don’t seem to be doing very much about it,’ I said. ‘Nor about the baby. The poor girl and her child seem to have vanished into thin air.’

  ‘I expect the police will carry on the same way they did when Eddie died: show little concern and hope the matter is quickly forgotten.’

  There was silence for a moment, and then I dipped into my pocket and brought out the transcription of the note I’d found in the rubble of the barracks. ‘Tom’s disappeared,’ I said. ‘I found a note but I can’t make sense of it.’

  ‘No wonder you can’t read it,’ she said. ‘It’s in very fine, very old Welsh. It’s the name of a place in Carmarthen. “Cwm Elwyn.” It’s an old farmhouse under the mountains, near a winding stream. Of course, you’ll go and look there for your Tom.’

  ‘What area, Beatrice? There are many mountains here in Wales and lots of streams too.’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Beatrice sounded exasperated. ‘I’ll translate the address for you into English, and then it’s up to you.’

  ‘But you think Tom might have been taken there?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘It’s a possibility, and only a possibility. This could be the address of someone’s mother or grandmother, but I have a feeling Tom is there – somewhere under the shadow of the mountain.’

  I was heartened by Beatrice’s words. They gave me a sense of hope that I might see Tom again.

  ‘Bring a pen,’ Beatrice said, ‘and I’ll do my best to help.’