by J. D. Robb
But the portico doors were open.
And there was a scent in the air, a subtle perfume of . . . roses.
He searched every room in the house, including the basement. Also the elevator, although he had no idea what he was looking for there. He didn’t expect to find anything, and he didn’t. Last, he checked his equipment, although he had less than no faith that his thermometers, barometers, wind socks, compasses, and chimes could actually detect anything. If only he’d had some notice, some warning—if only he’d taken a picture of the dancer with one of his cameras. Then he’d know.
Then he’d know? What rubbish. He knew now! Angiolina Darlington had outfoxed him, that was all. He wasn’t used to that. He was the spooker, not the spookee.
In bed, he talked himself back into a state of calm. Look how rational I am, he thought. About to drift off to sleep in a haunted house. If I believed in ghosts, I’d be up all night.
He made the mistake of opening his eyes and letting his drowsy gaze drift to the mirror over the bureau.
The message had changed.
Who loves
Believes the Impossible.
Very literary ghost. Either that or he’d just been visited by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Five
Then Angie went too far.
But she was having such fun, and everything was going so well. Besides, after she’d gone to all the trouble of bringing Margaret and the leftover halibut, it would be a shame not to use them.
She got the music room ready in no time, making hardly a sound—easy when one was barefooted. And when one’s “ghost dog” antagonist was either deaf or the dimmest terrier on earth. She took a final look around. Window ajar so Margaret could escape, check. Fish bits scattered on and between piano keys, check. Door closed, check.
“It’s up to you now, sweetheart,” she told the cat as she released her from her pillowcase prison. “Hope you’re hungry. Make a lot of noise, Margaret; otherwise they’ll both just sleep through it.” Instead of waking in fear and confusion to the eerie, tuneless sound of piano music in the dead of night. And finding nothing but—
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Psssst, a spray of rose cologne: the dancing ghost’s signature scent. Also, it would mask the smell of halibut.
—And finding nothing but an empty, moonlit room, redolent with the mysterious odor of roses. And then, just when Mr. Cleland decided he was imagining things, what would he hear? Chilling strains of the Gypsy violin again, coming from . . . he knew not where. And by the time he figured out where, it would be gone. And so would Angie.
All in all, an excellent night’s work.
Setting Margaret gently on the piano bench, she gave her a kiss, retrieved the pillowcase, perfume atomizer, and fishy-smelling paper wrapper, went to the mantel, tilted the portrait of her parents over it (dressed as Beatrice and Benedick for a burlesque production of Much Ado About Nothing), and disappeared into the black maw of the fireplace.
Luckily she knew these stairs, wasn’t likely to stumble in the pitch black en route to the second floor. When she reached the tiny landing, though, she trod carefully, not anxious to knock over any of the props she’d hastily stashed here after her dance performance, the shuttered lantern with the gauzy lens, the footstool, her yellow wig. And her violin, which she found now by feel, propped against the cool brick wall where she’d left it.
She hadn’t planned this third trick as carefully as the other two. I’ll play it by ear, she’d thought. And now it was time to do just that, with a piece by a Belgian violinist she’d learned, sort of, from a gramophone record. But should she start playing it now, here, just down the hall (but behind a floor-to-ceiling mirror in a gilt frame) from Mr. Cleland and his dog? Or should she wait for—
Never mind. Margaret took the decision out of her hands by bounding up onto a bottom octave just then—a tremendous leap, it sounded like, reverberating with a nice atonal bang. Angie waited, holding her breath. More piano notes, higher—Margaret was making her way up the scale—and then the sound of feet and paws nearby. Muttering. A rustle of movement, of rushing. Well, wait, not so fast, Angie worried; give her a chance to finish eating. Pounding feet on the stairs now. Oh dear. And now—why hadn’t she foreseen this?—a din of horrendous barking and hissing, screeching, howling, the crashing of objects and the yelling of oaths.
A distraction, that was the ticket. But suddenly she couldn’t remember how the Gypsy piece started! Play anything, she thought, and struck up a mazurka she knew well—she taught it to her music students. Sort of Gypsyish. She slowed it down, gave it a mournful edge. The cursing downstairs stopped, but not the animal ruckus. She kept playing, straining to hear what was happening between long, sad violin strokes.
Bow poised, she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. A muted scrabbling was coming through the false wall—the mirror’s back. He was out there. She was found.
Run!
No, don’t! Stay still, don’t make a sound. He’d never figure it out, that pineapple finial at the bottom corner blended into the mirror’s gilt edge too well, he wouldn’t turn it, he’d never . . .
The mirror tilted. Pale light streamed in. Angie set her violin down and ran.
Down instead of up—a mistake. She might have lost him in the attic, but the mayhem waiting for her in the music room doomed her escape. Anyway, how could she leave Margaret halfway up the wall, clinging wildly to the window drapes, spitting and terrified? “Astra!” she yelled, grabbing for his stubby, ecstatic tail, missing.
And then the worst. A horrible, horrible thumping in the wall above the mantel, all the more horrible for how long it went on. Mr. Cleland crashed into the fireplace and lay dead.
Six
“I’ll pay you more. Not much more, but then, you don’t have to do much. Just say nothing.”
Henry made a show of being unable to raise his head to the glass of water Miss Darlington was holding to his lips. It worked; she moved even closer to him on the sofa and slid her cool fingers to the back of his neck. “You don’t have any money,” he pointed out, taking a small, pitiful sip. His head throbbed, but Miss Darlington’s ministrations were making up for it.
“No, but I will have as soon as my grandfather’s lawsuit is settled. Any day now, I expect a windfall.”
“The gramophone disk?”
“No, his new bicycle pedal. Someone else took credit for it, so now it’s in court. If we win, the A. A. Pope Company will market his recessed-cleat, dual-sided, spring-actuated, clipless pedal, and I’ll be rich. Well.” She made a deprecatory moue. “Not rich. But, by God, I’ll have enough money to buy this house back from the bank!” She set his head back on the sofa cushion with a bit too much force; he winced. He sensed a sore subject.
They were in the small parlor off the dining room, where she’d moved him, with some difficulty, so that they, or rather she, couldn’t be seen from the street when she switched the electricity back on. Now she rose from the sofa and started pacing. A habit, he’d noticed.
“The lawyer says a decision is coming down soon, so all I have to do is stall—make sure nobody buys the house in the meantime. Which means all you have to do is keep quiet. You just continue your ‘experiments,’ during the course of which you determine that Willow House is definitely haunted.”
“There’s no need to make those little quote marks in the air,” he said testily. “What makes you think I’m not a genuine, legitimate spirit investigator?”
She stopped pacing and looked at him. A minute passed. Somebody’s lips twitched first, or it might have been a tie. Their hoots of laughter were definitely a tie. A good sound, in which Henry heard not only hilarity but immense relief on both sides. Thank God, the jig was up. He threw his feet to the floor and sat up, holding his head, groaning and laughing at the same time.
She came to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right? Nothing feels broken?”
“A bruise or two,” he said manfully, “nothing s
erious.” He felt as if he’d been beaten with planks. How many steps had he fallen down? “So tell me, Miss Darlington. Why are there hidden staircases and secret sliding panels in your otherwise beautiful home?”
“It’s not a secret—you’d probably have found out anyway. Eustace Darlington’s brother inherited the house after Eustace’s suicide, or whatever it was—”
“You mean he didn’t drink poison after murdering his wife?”
“Well, he might have. He died not long after she did, and they say he was complaining of stomach pains.”
“What about the musical Gypsy lover?”
“I’m not sure how that story started. She fell in love with somebody, but I’ve also heard it was her music teacher. Who was Jewish. Anyway—after they died, Eustace’s brother got the house, and when he died, he left it to his son, who was a strict abolitionist, very religious. He’s the one who built the secret stairs—they go from the first floor to the attic. So escaping slaves could hide here.”
“The Underground Railroad!”
“It’s a fairly well-known fact in Paulton, but I was hoping you’d be gone before you heard about it.” She sat down again beside him. “So tell me, Mr. Cleland,” she said, mimicking him. “Were you scared?” Her twinkling eyes invited him to be honest.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh, come on. Not even a little bit?”
“Of course not.” The writing on the mirror might have given him a slight start, but he wasn’t going to admit that to her. “I take it you don’t believe in ghosts at all?”
“Certainly not. And neither do you.”
“So you’re quite positive Willow House isn’t haunted?”
“Don’t be silly. Not that I haven’t heard things—yes, I have, but they certainly weren’t ghosts.”
“What kind of things?” he asked, interested.
She regarded him for a moment, but instead of answering, she waved her hand and said, “Nothing, never mind.”
He’d have pressed, but they were interrupted just then by the sound of yipping, whining, and toenail scrabbling: Astra trying to get to the cat, still closed up behind the music room door.
“Astra!” Henry hollered, and after a moment the dog trotted into the parlor. “Come over here and behave yourself.” Instead, Astra made a beeline for Miss Darlington, to whom he seemed to have taken a shine.
“Naughty ghost dog,” she chided, playing with the two front paws he put on her knees. “Shame on you for terrifying poor Margaret.”
“He really is a ghost dog, you know. You don’t believe it?” he said when she rolled her eyes. “Astra! Astra, do you feel something?”
Astra lifted his head and sniffed the air, bulging his eyes and snarling his lips.
Henry thought Miss Darlington might slide off the couch, she laughed so hard. Delight filled him. For some reason, he blushed.
“So he’s not from Calcutta?”
“A little west of there. Baltimore, to be exact. I inherited him from a friend.”
The clock struck one. They had an argument about whether he would walk back with her to Mrs. Mortimer’s (“You’re not going anywhere—you’ve just fallen down a flight of stairs!” “You are not walking home alone in the middle of the night.” “I do it all the time!”), which he won when they remembered there was no reason for him to stay here tonight anyway. He could walk home with her, then slip into Smoak’s from the back.
They passed no one on the quiet, empty streets—as she’d predicted. “We have a lot to discuss, a lot to arrange,” she said, resettling Margaret in her pillowcase. “The first thing is to get a story published in the newspaper about Paulton’s new ghost detective. I’ll take care of that; you just wait for a call from Walker Hersh.”
“Of the Republic,” Henry recalled.
“After that, I’m quite sure you’ll be getting an invitation from Mrs. Grimmett. She’s dying to meet you.”
The moon had set. Nothing stirred on pitch-dark Lexington Street, not even a cricket. But when they arrived at Mrs. Mortimer’s, they huddled together under the branches of a white dogwood to say good night. Just in case.
“Shall we meet tomorrow, Mr. Cleland?” she asked softly. “I have a music lesson in the morning, but we could have lunch—”
“Please. If we’re going to be partners, don’t you think you should call me Henry?”
“Henry, then. And I suppose you should call me Angie.”
“A pleasure.” He smiled.
She frowned. “We still haven’t discussed the nature of our new partnership. I said I would pay you more, but we never settled on a fee.”
“Partners don’t charge each other fees. They’re partners.”
“Oh. Well.” She sounded surprised, almost incredulous. “Well. That’s . . . Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. What instrument are you studying? Could it be the Gypsy violin?”
He was growing addicted to that delighted burst of a laugh. “No, I teach the violin,” she said. “And the piano. I did it at Willow House as well, to supplement my grandfather’s . . . irregular income, but now I do it to keep body and soul together.”
“He left you nothing?”
“The house and his debts. They’ve canceled each other out.”
Her wistfulness made him want to cheer her up. “I forgot to tell you: the dancing ghost is an absolute triumph. Quite a brilliant illusion.”
She shifted Margaret in order to clap her hands—gently, so they made no sound. “I know! Isn’t it? I’ve only done it twice before, but people are completely convinced.”
“What, ah, what garment is that the ghost is wearing?” he couldn’t resist asking.
“Oh, just my nightgown.”
“Your summer nightgown, I assume.”
“What do you mean?”
“The, um . . . ” Why was he getting into this? “The, um, transparent nature of it.”
“Trans—” She stood very straight. “Surely not. Do you mean it’s—you can—”
“See through it.”
“No, that’s impossible. Dear heaven.” The whites of her eyes went very big. “You’re teasing me.”
He shook his head.
“But no one’s ever said that, never even hinted—and they would, you know they would, if you could—if you could—”
“Oh yes, they would. So it must’ve been just tonight,” he said quickly. “Perhaps the lighting was different.”
She seized on that. “The light! When I’ve danced on the balcony, I’ve always shined the lantern from the side, but tonight, in the hall, I had to do it from below, and I stood on a footstool. Did it look like I was in midair?”
“Amazingly.”
“That’s it, then. The light.” She buried her face in the pillowcase. “You’re not teasing?” came out a cottony mumble. “You really could—see—”
“No, not really, hardly anything. Don’t know why I mentioned it. The barest glimpse, a mere suggestion, certainly nothing—lewd, just the reverse, in fact, quite natural and delightful—”
A soft, rising scream in the back of her throat finally shut him up. She backed away, clutching the cat to her chest, pivoted, and ran.
“Oh, well done. Good job.” Henry rapped his knuckles against his skull. “Blockhead.” But crossing the lawn to Smoak’s back door, he looked up at the sky and laughed. What a day this had been. It didn’t say much for the quality of his life lately, but he couldn’t remember when he’d had so much fun.
Seven
“ ‘ “I know what I saw,” said Cleland, “but I never rely on my senses alone. That’s what my extremely sensitive gauges and sensors are for; the tricks of my trade, as it were.” ’
“Hm,” Angie said, looking up from the front page of this morning’s Paulton Republic. “Not sure you should’ve put it quite like that.”
“Come at ’em head-on, that’s my motto. Say it before they can.” Mr. Cleland—Henry, rather—swung at an insect with the fly bat she�
�d just given him for a present. “Got him! Say, this is ingenious. This screen thing on the end, it doesn’t displace much air, so the fly doesn’t know it’s coming.”
“That’s the idea.” She went back to the newspaper. “ ‘Besides witnessing a dancing ghost, Cleland claims to have heard violin music “coming from everywhere and nowhere.” In addition, mysterious writing appeared on the mirror in the bedchamber in which he was sleeping.’ Oh, that’s good; everybody loves mysterious writing. What did it say?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Me?” She laughed. “Even I can’t be in two places at once. ‘ “Taken by surprise, I was unable to photograph the ghost at the moment of her appearance. However, often a spirit’s ectoplasmic shadow can be captured after a materialization, and I submit that this photograph represents just that: the vestigial imprint of a spirit manifestation on the atmosphere.”’ Ha-ha!”
They chortled together. When Henry leaned in to see the photograph better, she could smell the bay rum on his freshly shaved cheek. “Came out pretty well, don’t you think?” he said.
“Considering it’s crumpled tissue paper on a string, I think it came out beautifully.” More chortling. “How long have you been a photographer?”
“Not long,” he said vaguely—but he was vague on almost anything that had to do with his immediate past. She, on the other hand, found herself telling him all sorts of things about herself she normally wouldn’t tell someone, especially a man, on a mere three days’ acquaintance. But Henry was so easy to talk to. And unshockable, at least so far. He seemed more of a friend than he possibly could be—so much so that she’d begun telling herself to be careful.
“Here’s the only part I don’t like.” She pointed to a paragraph in the article. “ ‘In addition to changes in temperature, wind direction, and barometric pressure in the vicinity of the ghost’s materialization, Cleland claims there was also a bad smell. “It permeated the house. Indescribable. I can only call it the odor of Death.”’”
“What’s wrong with it?”