The Harry Starke Series Books 4 -6: The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set 2 (The Harry Starke Novels - The Boxed Sets)

by Blair Howard

  I handed the keys to him, and we waited by the open door while he fetched our bags. He came galloping back up the steps with a bag under each arm and a suitcase in each hand.

  “We don’t get many guests at this time of the year. This part of Maine can be a very lonely place, especially during bad weather.” He looked up at the sky and smiled. “Like now. In fact we have only four guests right now: a couple of elderly ladies and a couple of guys, here for the fishing, so they said. Funny thing is, though, I haven’t seen a pole between ‘em. Still, maybe they don’t take them out of the car until they get where they’re going.” He stopped talking again to take a breath.

  My God, the man can rattle on.

  We passed through the front door and into a large, semicircular foyer with a black-and-white checkered floor. Definitely Herman Munster land.

  The reception desk was to the right. Two doors bounded a flight of stairs straight ahead, one on either side. To the left of the desk was a large stone fireplace, two overstuffed armchairs, and a sofa. A small log fire burned in the grate.

  “Now then,” he said, dumping all four pieces of our luggage on the floor. “Give me a minute. I need to let Mary, my good lady, know you’ve arrived, then I’ll show you up to your room. If you give me a hint as to which of them you’ll need right now, I’ll grab ‘em and have Perkins bring the rest up when he’s done fetching wood for the fire.” And with that he disappeared through one of the doors next to the stairs.

  “What the hell are we doing here?” Amanda whispered to me as she shook the water from her jacket. “Whatever possessed me to do this? I should have just taken Duckworthy’s offer and sold the place and been done with it.” She looked up at the vaulted ceiling more than twenty feet above and shuddered. And then Strong was back.

  “Which two?”

  Amanda pointed them out, both hers, of course, and Strong picked them up.

  “Follow me, if you please. I’m sorry we have no elevator. Your grandmother wouldn’t have one installed. Too expensive, I suppose. Then again, she always said,” he continued, chattily, “that an elevator would spoil the ambiance of the place. And that’s really what the Towers is all about, ambiance.” And with that, he started up the long flight of stairs.

  Jeez. I was, as the English say, gobsmacked. Oh it’s got ambiance all right.

  “This old house has quite a history,” Strong prattled on, still climbing. “It’s more than two hundred years old, you know.”

  No we didn’t know, and I wasn’t that interested in knowing.

  “It was built in the late 1700s by one of those English lords, colonists, who owned most everything in the state. Lived here for almost a hundred years, his family did, until they sold it. Then, for more than forty years, it was the home of a wealthy English immigrant. Jonathan Miles, his name was. He was your great-great-grandfather, wasn’t he, Miss Amanda? Quite a character he was, so they say.”

  Amanda glanced sideways at me and rolled her eyes, and we followed him up toward the second floor landing. Strong continued his narrative unabated.

  “They do say that he arrived here from England sometime before the turn of the century, the twentieth century, that is. They say he had a woman with him, his wife. That would be your great-great-grandmother Elizabeth, but she left him some years later. They say she met someone, a man, and ran away with him. I don’t know much about that. Nothing much is known about her, or him for that matter.”

  He paused at the top of the stairs, took a deep breath, and then continued on up toward the third floor.

  “He had plenty of money, though. He must have to have been able to buy this place. It must have been something special back then. Nobody really knew where he came from, or why. Kept himself to himself, so he did. Had a housekeeper, a butler, an’ a cook.... Whew, these stairs wear me out.” He paused for a moment, and took another deep breath before continuing.

  “He married again soon after Elizabeth disappeared. Georgina her name was. She came to a really sad end. Fell from the cliff tops just in the front of the house, so she did. Most people thought it was an accident, some said it was suicide, and still others said she was pushed. Can’t see that, though. No one ever found out the truth, and the old man never got over it. After she died he was rarely ever seen outside of the house, so they say. Became something of a recluse, so he did. When he did go out, he went walking along the cliff tops, usually on days like today, in the rain and wind…. Ah, just stories, I suppose. Spent most of his life shut away in one of the upstairs rooms, the sitting room, so the story goes. The old boy died in 1929, and the house passed to his only daughter, Sarah, your great-grandmother. It was her husband Henry who turned the house into a hotel, but she hated it here, hated the house, and so they moved out, went south to warmer weather. Can’t say I blame her. It does get a bit bleak here during the winter.”

  He was puffing now, but kept right on going.

  “She was quite young when she passed, but you would know all about that, now wouldn’t you? Their only daughter, your grandmother, inherited it, but she didn’t like it here either. She spent only a few days here, then decided the place was haunted and headed back south. I don’t think she set foot in the house more than a couple of times since. When George, the previous manager, decided to retire, she hired me through an agency, sight unseen; he interviewed me, George, and that was that. I met with her only three times. Been here ever since, we have, me and my Mary. It gets lonely sometimes, especially in the wintertime, but we love it. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Whew, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Strong stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs and put the bags down. We were on the third floor, and he was breathing hard. And no wonder.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Give me just a minute to get my breath. These are the family rooms, where your folks lived. I’ve had a nice room prepared for you. It’s just down the hall, that way. Oh, thanks,” he said, as I picked up one of the bags. “Okay, here we go, just a few steps more.”

  “You say my grandmother thought the house was haunted?” Amanda asked.

  He nodded. “That she did. Told me so herself.”

  He picked up the other bag, and we followed him along the hallway. Amanda brought up the rear, shivering.

  “Harry,” she whispered. “It’s so cold up here.”

  I had to agree with her. The air on that top floor was icy cold.

  “Stop,” she cried.

  We stopped and turned to look at her, startled.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” she whispered. “What’s in there?” She pointed at a door.

  “Why that’s the sitting room,” Strong said. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “This is it, isn’t it?” she whispered, her voice so low I could barely hear her. “This is the room where he lived for all those years. Isn’t it?”

  “That’s right, Miss Amanda,” Strong said, “But the place has been renovated and redecorated half a dozen times since he died. I don’t think there’s anything left in there that belonged to him. Mrs. Sarah had it all removed, except for the painting over the fireplace.”

  “I want to see,” she pleaded. “Please, I have to see inside.”

  “You want to do it now?” Strong peered at her over the top of his glasses, but he put the luggage down and pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, squinting over then in the dim light until he found the one he wanted.

  “I was going to give you the full tour,” he said as he turned the key. “But you’re the boss.” He grinned as he pushed the door open, and then took a step backward. “There you go.”

  Amanda hesitated for a second, then stepped into the room. I followed her, and it was then that I suddenly noticed I wasn’t cold anymore. It was quite warm inside, although there was no fire in the grate and, as far as I could see, no heating vents either.

  I looked around. Strong was
right. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the room, except that it was huge; it had to be at least forty by sixty feet. Other than that, it was a typical old world sitting room. The far wall featured three large windows with floral drapes. To the right, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves bounded either side of a huge fireplace. An antique clock stood on the mantle, and above that hung a large painting of a young woman. To the left of the windows on the adjoining wall was a door to another room. The furnishings were old—not antique, but obviously expensive. A large writing desk, a half dozen comfortable-looking easy chairs, a couple of large coffee tables, a dark tan leather sofa, a baby grand with a bench seat. A heavy, intricately carved sideboard stood against the wall to the left along with two high-back chairs, one on either side of it. A couple of oriental rugs covered the blacked, heart pine plank floor in front of the fireplace. The big flat-screen television and modern phone seemed incongruously out of place.

  Amanda stood for a moment, looked around, and then, with a sheepish smile, shrugged and turned and walked quickly out of the room.

  “Is everything all right?” Strong asked.

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I just knew I had to go into that room. I....” She pressed her hands to her face. “Oh hell, I don’t know. I had a funny feeling, that’s all. It’s no biggie.” Suddenly, she was shivering again.

  I took her by the arm. “Come on, honey. You’re cold from the rain. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a hot shower and a rest.”

  I picked up the bag and gestured for Strong to move on, and then followed him to a door all the way at the end of the hallway.

  “Here we are,” he said, as he opened it and then stood aside for us to pass through. “Now then, what do you think of that?” He was beaming.

  I looked around in amazement. It was indeed a beautiful room. Amanda, eyes wide, must have thought so too, for she walked to the window and then turned to face us, nodding.

  It was circular, perhaps thirty feet in diameter. We were obviously in the main tower. Furnished throughout in the Queen Ann style, it featured four beautiful, velvet-covered chairs, two sideboards, and a sofa. Two upholstered white high-backs and a small matching table stood in front of the big bay window­­—not really a bay window at all, just part of the great curved wall, with a smaller window set on either side of it. The windows were flanked by red velvet curtains, and on one side by a harpsichord, painted off-white and trimmed with gold leaf. The walls were covered with what looked like ivory silk, but was probably vinyl wallpaper. But it was the magnificent four-poster bed that was the centerpiece of the room. Completely encircled with red velvet drapes tied back with thick golden ropes, with ivory satin sheets and, at the foot of the bed, a long, low seat upholstered, again, in red velvet. The red carpet was accented by patterns of woven gold: chains and ropes. To top it all off, a small coal fire burned in the tiled fireplace. It was a room fit for royalty.

  “You’re now on the top floor of the main tower,” Strong said to Amanda. “We keep it for special occasions. Your grandmother insisted we maintain it like this. She allowed us to use it occasionally as a guest room, for honeymoons, anniversaries and the like, but…. Well, we don’t get many of those. Not any, really. The Towers is not really the sort of place you’d think of when you’re planning a honeymoon, is it. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had one here.” He shook his head. “Anyway, here you are, and that’s wonderful. I hope you enjoy it. “

  “Oh, I know we will, and thank you so much, Mr. Strong,” Amanda said, smiling wearily.

  “No problem. Will there be anything else?”

  “We’ll need to talk of course, but not right now. Right now I need to eat something. Do you serve dinner?”

  “We do, but we usually require a bit of notice.” he looked at his watch. “It’s… almost five. Let me see what we can rustle up. It might be a bit potluck though. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t want to cause you and Mrs. Strong any trouble, but we’re a bit out of the way, aren’t we, and I didn’t see a restaurant after we left the highway. Even a sandwich and some hot tea would be nice.”

  “Now don’t you worry,” he said, stepping toward the door. “We’ll find something better than a sandwich. Shall we say seven o’clock? The dining room is just off the foyer­­—never could bring m’self to call it the lobby.”

  “That will be fine. We’ll rest a little and freshen up.”

  He nodded, walked out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him.

  As soon as he left, she grabbed me by the arms and planted a soft kiss on my lips, and then laid her head on my chest. Hmmm. Good start.

  “Harry,” she said, as she leaned back in my arms and looked up at me. “There’s something about this place. I don’t like it. I want to get the business stuff sorted out and then get out of here. I think I know exactly how Grandmother must have felt. Did you hear him? He said she thought the place was haunted.” She shivered involuntarily.

  I stared at her. “Well, we already knew that.”

  She shrugged, turned away, and dropped into one of the antique chairs. “It’s stupid, I know, but…. Don’t you feel it?”

  Funnily enough, I did remember feeling cold outside the sitting room. But hell, the whole house was cold, even the room we were in, even with the fire burning. Must have been the huge bay window­­—all that cold glass. “Er… no. Not really. Come on Amanda, you don’t believe in all that paranormal garbage? I know you don’t.” Even as I said it, I could see by the look on her face that she did.

  “No… but… no, of course not. It’s just that…. I don’t know. Something came over me. Harry, I haven’t been feeling like myself ever since we left Brunswick. And then that room. I’ve been in it before. I know I have, and yet I also know I haven’t. I’ve never set foot in the house before today; I didn’t even know it existed. I haven’t been farther north than Boston in my life. What the hell am I supposed to think?”

  I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t like Amanda. She was usually a stable, analytical journalist with a mind like a steel trap. I shook my head and sat down in one of the big chairs opposite her, in front of the crackling fire. No sooner had I done so than she got up, and sat down on my lap. When she put her arms around my neck and kissed me it… it was different. I looked up at her. She was smiling at me, but she also had what could only be described as a faraway look in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she whispered. “It will all be fine. I’ll get Strong sorted out and we’ll get out of here. Now, just relax. Enjoy yourself. Watch.” She stood, took a step backward, and slowly began to remove her clothes. It wasn’t something she’d never done before, but this time was somehow different, I can’t explain it. Not even now.

  She turned her back to me and for several minutes stood in front of the full-length mirror, wearing only her bra and thong panties. She just stood there, swaying back and forth, as if to some unheard melody. Then she turned and stepped toward me, leaned forward, put her hands on the arms of the chair, and kissed me. Then turned and walked past me into the bathroom.

  Damn, she’s lovely, but what the hell was all that about?

  A few seconds later, I heard the toilet flush and then the sound of running bath water. And then… nothing. All was quiet.

  Suddenly, I was worried about her. I got out of the chair and went to the open bathroom door. She was lying in the clear warm water, her eyes closed, breasts just breaking the surface. She was humming softly to herself. I’d heard the tune before, but not since I was a child. It was something my grandmother had sung to me when I wasn’t much more than a baby. I couldn’t remember what it was called, but I did remember the tune.

  What the hell is wrong with her?

  I turned away and left her to it, sat down again in front of the fire, and waited.

  She was still wet when she came out of the bathroom. She came up to me and then just stood for a moment, her body glistening,
so beautiful she took my breath away. Then she handed me the towel, turned away to face the fire, and waited while I dried her back. She turned again, kissed me gently on the lips, took my hand, and said, very softly, “You know, we still have an hour before dinner.”

  Well? What the hell would you have done?

  Chapter 6

  An hour later we were dressed and ready to eat—no, I was starving. And so was Amanda. Our bedroom had warmed up a little, but when we stepped out onto the landing it seemed as if a chill breeze was blowing from one end to the other.

  “Damn,” I said as she slipped her arm through mine. “This is one drafty old pile, and that’s no lie.”

  She laughed, and still was laughing when we passed by the door to the sitting room, only now her laugh wasn’t quite so spontaneous. It seemed a little forced, no humor in it. She grasped my arm with both hands and hurried me on past it. As we descended the first flight of stairs I noticed something else strange: the farther down we went, the warmer it became. So, you ask, what’s strange about that? There were fires burning on the ground floor, several of them—and that was the problem. Warm air rises. So why the hell was it so damned cold up there?

  The log fire in the lobby—okay, foyer—burned fiercely; the wood crackled. Strong stood behind the desk, doing what I had no idea. Hell, he looked busy, but there were only four other guests besides us.

  Guests? Us? I have to get out of that mindset.

  He smiled widely when he saw us, and hurried across the checkered floor.

  “Everything all right?” he asked. “Did you find everything you needed? Good. The dining room is just through here.” He pointed the way through a door to the left of the staircase, and then stood to one side.

  Okay, so I love antiques, but this, at least for me, was way over the top. The damned dining room was so ornate it was like something out of Downton Abbey.

  The fireplace was huge, carved from some sort of white stone, with a wood mantle above. A fire burned in the grate, but it was now more embers than flame. There were huge paintings on the walls, most of them hunting scenes. One of them, however, was different. Over the mantle hung a huge portrait of a man seated at a small writing desk. It was a dark painting, both in mood and tone. The background was black; the desk and chair were so dark they were almost black; the man himself was dressed in dark green tweed. His white skin stood out starkly against all that. The face was heavy, florid, with hooded eyes and bushy black brows. His dark brown hair was receding at the temples and gray at the sides. It was a serious look: the narrowed mouth was turned down slightly at the corners in a slight, but grim smile.