"Converted?" said Annabelle. "No pun intended, I presume. I read somewhere the castle has the requisite ghost, too."
"The Lady in White. Oh, yes, indeed," said Donna. "Most thrilling. It's a woman killed by a jealous wife while her husband was away. Or was it the wife who was killed? I always get it mixed up. Anyway, this had to have been… oh, I don't know. Sometime during the Crusades or later. She wanders the halls in a white gown-or so they say. I've not seen her. They do say only those who die young become ghosts. I think it must be true-they've left behind so much unfinished business."
This led to a swapping of macabre stories of ghosts and hauntings, on which Joan Elksworthy seemed to be an expert. From there, the conversation criss-crossed Scottish history and then, by some strange byway, arrived at the merits of Meryl Streep. Was she a great actress or merely a talented mimic?
"Oh, please," said Annabelle. She flattened her voice, shrieking a perfect imitation: "The dingo ate my baby!"
Everyone, laughing, took a turn trying out the phrase.
St. Just stole a look at his watch. It was early-just past 9:30. He had sat for the most part in silence, listening, and observing the others-one in particular. A crack of nearby lightning caused him to look over to the window. Kimberlee had slipped out of the room at some point; Jay sat alone, apparently lost in thought, staring into his drink.
St. Just, with a glance at Portia as he stood to leave, sighed. He just missed seeing her fleeting look of disappointment at his departure.
____________________
Portia left the group around a quarter to eleven as the party was winding down. Rachel Twalley and the Scottish dignitaries had departed long before-Donna Doone had left the library briefly to activate the button that would close the drawbridge behind them.
Portia stole a peek into the sitting room where Tom and Edith, Quentin Swope, and B. A. King sat watching the telly. She waved them goodnight as she passed.
Walking upstairs, Portia saw a figure she couldn't make out just ahead of her, at the curve of the staircase. Oh, my, she thought, grinning to herself. The famous shadowy figure of Magretta's novels. Whoever or whatever it was, she saw it pass by an angular form that could only belong to Winston Chatley.
At that moment, the lights went out. Disoriented, Portia stumbled, grabbing at the railing just in time to keep her balance. The darkness seemed to stretch ahead forever as she stood frozen, unable to decide whether to go up or down.
Great, she thought. All that's missing is Bella Lugosi creeping down the hallway.
She heard, faintly, a man's voice saying, "Kimberlee?"
Soon afterwards, the same voice was at her elbow.
"Are you all right?"
The flare of a lighter hissed into life and a ghostly, disembodied face, lit from beneath, appeared-the face of a gargoyle.
"Winston?" she said faintly. "Yes, I'm fine, thanks. Power outage, it looks like."
"Damn!" The lighter went out. "Sorry, the metal gets too hot. I can't keep it lit very long. What do you want to do? Go up or down?"
"Do you think you could bring up some candles from the dining room?"
"Good idea," he said. The lighter shot into flame again as he started down, calling, "Kimberlee, can you hear me?" He turned back to Portia. "That's odd. She was just here. Wait for me."
He returned perhaps ten minutes later, his features again lit eerily from underneath, this time by candlelight. Black shadows played under his dark eyes. Portia had called out Kimberlee's name once or twice in the meantime, but had gotten no response.
Winston handed one candlestick to Portia and they continued up the stairs. They had reached the hallway of the next floor when he asked, "Where has Kimberlee gone?"
"I don't know," said Portia. "I couldn't see or hear anything and she didn't reply when I called to her. I assume she found her way to her room somehow."
Just then a door off the hallway creaked open. St. Just peered out, wearing one of the hotel's white bathrobes over blue-striped pajama bottoms, a book under one arm.
"I've just been trying to read by the fire," he said. "It makes you wonder how our ancestors weren't blind by the age of thirty."
"Most of them were dead of battle, disease, or childbirth well before that became a problem," she said. Seeing the cover of his book, she added, " Baudolino? How are you enjoying that?"
"I've been reading it for two years now," he said. "Every time I get to chapter three I get interrupted by something at work. Then I have to start over."
Just then there was a rumble of thunder followed shortly by a brilliant flash of lightning. The trio having moved into the room to escape the cold of the hallway, Portia crossed over to a window and looked out into the night. She saw Donna Doone far below, moving across an inner courtyard. What on earth could she be thinking, to be out in such a storm? In the light cast by the moon Portia could see she was holding a candle, long extinguished by the wind.
"Do you want to join me for a drink?" Winston asked St. Just. "Maybe just until the power is restored?"
St. Just shook his head, stifling a yawn.
"I'll just finish the chapter and be asleep again in ten minutes. It was only the hubbub that woke me up."
They wished him good night and continued making their slow way down the hallway, the wind outside wailing as it whipped around the turrets.
Suddenly, Portia didn't want to be alone in her room.
"I think I'll go down and find a book to read," she told Winston. "I forgot to bring anything with me and the only reading material I have is the conference program."
"Bound to cause nightmares," he said, nodding somberly. Then he gave her one of his sudden sweet smiles that took the edge off his saturnine looks. She smiled back.
Just then they both noticed a dark apparition hovering at the foot of the main staircase. As they approached, the specter resolved itself into Donna Doone.
"The bartender says we're all trapped inside," she told them. "The drawbridge over the moat is run by electricity, you see."
"Don't the ropes work mechanically?" asked Winston.
Donna shook her head. "That rope-and-pulley thing is there only for show. But they think they'll have the generator working soon. What's odd is the backup system seems to have blown as well. Meanwhile, it's eat, drink, and be merry in the bar, but I've had a sufficient amount. I'll see you all tomorrow."
"A wise choice," said Winston. "I'll say good night to both you ladies. If you'll both be all right?"
In the library, Portia found only semi-darkness, with the fireplace relieving the gloom. The scene had shifted somewhat, which was a problem when she later tried to reconstruct the entire evening in her mind: She was not entirely clear who was where, talking to whom. Ninette sat alone on the sofa where Kimberlee and Jay had reigned earlier. She thought she saw Quentin in a distant corner; Annabelle was talking with Mrs. Elksworthy. The topic was herbal remedies of the American Indian tribes.
"Root cabbage for asthma, of course. Nothing else works as well."
Portia greeted the two women, explaining her mission, and found her way over to the nearest wall of books. B. A. King sidled up as her eyes scanned the available titles. The selection ran heavily to musty histories and memoirs of the more obscure members of the Scots Guards. With a sinking heart she heard B. A. ask her about the Fisher murder case, the investigation of which Portia had been involved in when she first arrived at Cambridge.
"There are those, you know, who feel the butler really did do it," said B. A.
"I know. There are those who feel the earth is flat, but they're wrong. The husband did confess just before he died, were you aware?"
Grabbing a book at random (it later proved to be a battered copy of Ivanhoe) and smiling sweetly, she turned quickly to leave. There was something about B. A.-a whiff of the snake-oil salesman clung to him, not to mention a more noticeable odor of whiskey.
At the entrance to the lobby she waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was no f
ireplace here to light her way, the vast room seemed to swallow up the candlelight, and everywhere the windows were mere arrow slits set high in the stone walls. She began feeling her way toward the main stairs.
The staff had by now set out candles on the table in the corridor, creating a beacon of light surrounded, however, by pitch darkness. It was as Portia stepped into the shadows she saw-or thought she saw-a figure in white walking away from the door of the bottle dungeon. The figure seemed to disappear into the door at the end of the hallway-an impossibility. Portia shook her head, really regretting the after-dinner brandy now. As she stood peering into the darkness, she sensed a movement behind her. Swinging around, she saw Jay. She could hear at a distance the rest of the library party, rowdily bidding the bartender a good night.
It was then a scream cut through the dark silence. Without visual cues, to Portia the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. She saw Jay turn in her direction.
Then Magretta came flying out of the door leading to the bottle dungeon. She screamed again when she saw Portia and kept running, surprisingly light on her feet. Portia called after her.
"What is it, Magretta?"
Magretta's voice carried across the darkness, words tossed over her shoulder as she continued hurtling pell-mell up the main staircase.
"Kimberlee!" she cried. "It's Kimberlee! And she's dead!"
DEATH'S DOOR
There was little doubt it was Kimberlee Kalder, and less doubt she was dead. She lay on her back at the bottom of the bottle dungeon. Even in the flickering and feeble light of the candle, Portia could see the poor girl's head and neck were twisted at an impossible angle. Her right leg seemed to have snapped just before the knee. She was in her stockinged feet, but in the corner of the horrible little cell where she had died was one of her black, pointed shoes, crouched like a rat. She was wearing the white dress she'd had on that evening for the awards dinner.
But something about the scene was wrong-Portia wasn't sure what. Something was missing or something had been added.
"What is it?"
Portia jumped, nearly shouting at the voice behind her. Mrs. Elksworthy was at her shoulder.
"It's Kimberlee. She's dead. Go fetch DCI St. Just, would you? Quickly. Have him call the local police and then get him down here. Top of the stairs, the room two doors down on the right."
Magretta's screams could still be heard, now coming from a floor far above.
"Then for God's sake go and see if you can calm Magretta."
Mrs. Elksworthy seemed frozen to the spot. Portia had seen this kind of reaction before, even in sensible souls, such as Mrs. Elksworthy appeared to be. Especially in sensible souls, to whom the chaos of violent death was an abomination.
"Joan," Portia said sharply. "You have to help me."
Nodding slowly, Mrs. Elksworthy started backing up the stairs, her eyes holding Portia's.
"Hurry!" Portia urged. At that Joan turned and ran as quickly as her short legs and the narrow, worn steps would allow. Anxious not to disturb what was clearly a crime scene-there was no way Kimberlee could have just fallen over the banister; it would have been nearly as high as the bottom of her rib cage-Portia crept back up the spiral stairs to the wooden door at the top. Mrs. Elksworthy and St. Just had just arrived at the foot of the main staircase, both illuminated by candles.
"The local police are on the way," he said. "Are you all right?"
Portia nodded absently. "Think so." Looking up, she could see every guest on that side of the castle had been alerted that something was amiss. They all seemed to be leaning over the landing banister. All except Tom.
"She's been murdered, Arthur," Portia said quietly. Her familiar use of his Christian name struck neither of them as odd. "There's no way she fell."
St. Just, following her gaze to the row of horrified eyes watching them from the landing, turned to Mrs. Elksworthy. "I'll need you to keep everyone out of the way until the police arrive. Will you do that?"
Mrs. Elksworthy, who seemed to have aged a decade in the last few minutes, nodded.
"Nothing to worry about," Portia heard her telling the little assembly a bit later. "Just an accident, I'm sure. The police will have it sorted in a minute."
"It will take a lot longer than a minute," murmured Portia to St. Just, following him back down the bottle dungeon stairs. She watched as he, in his turn, looked over the railing and took in the scene.
"Stand here a bit closer with that candle," he said. "Mind the wax, though." He stooped to examine the railing.
"There are what look like fresh marks here in the wood, possibly scratch marks made as she fought off her attacker, or possibly made as her attacker hefted her over the railing. I'll make sure forensics examine those nails of hers. They would have made good weapons, if she got the chance to use them. What do you think?"
He turned to Portia, who was staring intently at the body, with all the clinical detachment of a SOCO.
"Robbery?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Something was added, or taken away." The words ran like a mantra through her head. Something… missing? Turning, she held her candle aloft to examine the floor around them. In the corner a bit of cellophane glinted, perhaps part of a sweet wrapper-nothing more. "Damned time for us to lose the lights, don't you think?" she asked. "It's dark as pitch down here. And she didn't have a candle, unless it's somehow hidden by her body… Wait. That's what's missing. She could never have found her way down here in the dark without breaking her n-oh, sorry. But you can see what I mean. She didn't fall down the stairs and pop over the railing to end up in the bottle dungeon. Maybe she made it this far on her own steam and then there was a struggle. Or she was pushed down the stairs and someone heaved her body over the rail. She wasn't a large person; it's just possible that's what happened."
"We'll see what forensics has to say," said St. Just. "Oh, for pity's sake."
"What?"
"We're forgetting, there's no way in here with the drawbridge up."
She looked at him.
"Try calling them on your mobile," she said. "They'll have to get across the moat somehow and break in through one of the lower windows." Then, noticing his look, she said, "What?"
"Do you always plan ahead for emergencies like this?"
"It's just that I was photographing the lower windows yesterday. The stonework is fascinating. What we really need is the fire department with a ladder."
"What we really need is a portable generator. And a land line. Mobiles weren't designed for stone walls thick enough to withstand a siege," he said. "One thing's nearly certain: It was an inside job. There's no way anyone could have gotten in from outside, not without getting soaking wet and leaving tracks like a badger, at any rate."
They heard the sound of sirens wailing somewhere off in the distance, growing steadily louder as emergency vehicles peeled up the road. St. Just and Portia again walked up the stone stairs, nearly colliding with Donna Doone at the top. "Is there no way to get that generator going?" he asked her, fruitlessly punching numbers into his mobile.
She shook her head.
"Robbie says the battery's depleted or overheated or it froze at some point or something. He's got a call in for a portable replacement, but if you ask me, it's Robbie should be replaced."
"It can't be lowered manually, the bridge?"
She sighed in frustration. "Winston asked the same thing. You would think that would be an option, wouldn't you? It used to be, but the rope was damaged and never repaired."
Portia, meanwhile, walked over to one of the windows at one side of the drawbridge. An ambulance and two police cars, a panel of lights flashing across the top of each, were pulled up outside. Five policemen were on the lawn, staring helplessly across at her. Not knowing what else to do, she waved and then with her forefinger and smallest finger, mimicked someone talking on a telephone. One of the men, small and white-haired, sprinted over to his car; minutes later the phone rang at the reception des
k. St. Just ran over and picked it up.
"Yes, it's murder," Portia heard him say as she approached. "Is fire on the way? Good. You'll need a ladder and some way to winch up a portable generator. Yes, I know, it's incredible they didn't realize. A fuel-generated power source would have prevented it."
So it was that half an hour later, the hotel guests, who by this point had gathered in Mrs. Elksworthy's room, as having the best view, were treated to the sight of firemen wading waist deep in moat muck over to the base of the castle, carrying overhead a ladder up which they proceeded to climb, and gaining entry through one of the lower, unused bedrooms. Two men carrying a generator in a sling followed behind; it was hoisted knapsack-style by the two men at the window. St. Just, Portia, and Donna were there to greet them.
"We'll need the guests' cooperation," said St. Just. "Everything that isn't powering that drawbridge will have to remain shut off."
Donna went to find Robbie and his maintenance crew. Some time later, to the sound of faint cheering from Mrs. Elksworthy's room, the grind and moan of the drawbridge coming down could be heard.
____________________
"DCI St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary," he said, and held out a hand to the Scottish DCI, resisting the temptation to bend at the knees to meet him on a more level playing field. Ian Moor was an elfin man who must just have passed the height requirement for acceptance onto the force. He wore a handlebar moustache that looked pasted on but undoubtedly was real-two dramatic white swoops that cupped either side of his round face. It was a face mobile and alive with an expression of happy anticipation; his eyes twinkled with evident pleasure at having a brand new case to solve.
St. Just pulled out his wallet and opened it with a reflexive snap. Moor took the leather holder from his hand and stared at his photo ID with the gimlet eye of a museum curator presented with a suspicious artifact. Then, ostensibly satisfied, he closed the wallet with deliberate care before handing it back.
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