The Case of the Phantom Cat

by Holly Webb

  “Oh, Maisie,” Alice moaned. “It’s true!”

  “Of course it isn’t! Look at this lovely house,” Maisie said bravely. “How could it be haunted? It’s so beautiful.”

  But she couldn’t help glancing behind her as Annie showed them into the drawing room. The entrance hall was beautiful, but it was full of dark pools of shadow, where the strangest things could be lurking…

  The delicious lemon cake and the scones that Mrs James had sent up for tea almost cured Alice of her ghost worries, but not quite. She was still nervous in the big house and she didn’t like walking down the passages without Maisie.

  Luckily, the two girls had bedrooms next to each other, with a little door that opened between the two. Maisie was fairly sure that her bedroom was about the size of the whole basement floor of her house at 31 Albion Street. And the huge four-poster bed was bigger than her entire bedroom.

  “Goodnight, Maisie!” Alice called sleepily from the next room. They had decided to keep the little door open so that they could talk to each other, but they were just too tired to chat.

  “Goodnight!” Maisie called back.

  Eddie whined and yawned and curled himself into a tiny ball on the old blanket. Annie had found a basket for him in the kitchens, but Maisie was hoping Eddie might decide to sleep on the end of the bed. Her toes were quite chilly.

  It was darkest night when Maisie woke up a few hours later and at first she couldn’t remember where she was. Even in the darkness she could tell she wasn’t in her cramped little room at home – the air smelled different. And there was a strange noise, not the watchman calling the hours, or a cab-horse trotting home. A wailing noise…

  Maisie clutched the blankets round her and wriggled up a little, suddenly remembering that she was in a haunted house.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she whispered fiercely to herself. Saying it out loud made her feel more certain somehow. She reached out for the box of matches and her hand shook a little as she lit her bedroom candle. She held it up, nodding as she ticked off a list of things that should be there – Eddie in his basket, the huge mahogany wardrobe where she’d hung her few dresses, the darker shape that was the open doorway to Alice’s room.

  The wailing noise came again, followed by a horrified gasp from the room next door.

  “Maisie!” Alice sobbed. “A ghost!”

  And through the door came a small white shape, wispy and thin. A little white ghost cat, that padded across the room and disappeared.

  Eddie woke up, snuffling and whining, and then let out a sharp, surprised bark. He jumped out of his basket and pattered across the room to Maisie, with his tail held tightly against his legs.

  Maisie stared at him, her heart thumping. A ghost cat! She had seen a ghost cat! And Eddie had seen it, too! Then there was a whispering noise and a little thud and she shrank back against the pillows, wondering what was going to run through her room next.

  A white, fluttery shape appeared in the doorway. Maisie had actually opened her mouth to scream before she realized it was only Alice – Alice in her lace-trimmed white nightgown. Alice, who was even more scared than she was.

  “Did you see it?” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

  “Yes. Look, get in with me, you’ll freeze.” Maisie beckoned her over to the bed and Alice scuttled towards her.

  “That was a ghost!”

  “Yee-eesss. Maybe.” Maisie wasn’t quite so sure now. After all, a moment ago, she would have sworn Alice was a ghost, too. And who’d ever heard of a phantom cat?

  “Maisie, how can you doubt it?” Alice gasped. “The boy was right – and Annie. We both saw it. A real ghost! We must go back to London tomorrow morning. I can’t stay here with a ghost!”

  Maisie looked at her thoughtfully. “It was only a cat, though. I thought you liked cats.”

  “Not spectral ones!” Alice shuddered.

  “I know it was scary,” Maisie murmured, “but it didn’t seem to be a mean ghost… If it was one, which I still don’t believe it was.”

  “What else could it have been, though?” Alice squeaked indignantly. She sat up and glared at Maisie. “We didn’t imagine it!”

  “I know… And Eddie saw it, too.” Maisie sighed. “But I don’t want to go back to London. Think of all that horrible fog. You won’t get better – or not as fast, anyway.”

  “I think I’d rather be ill than haunted,” Alice said, but she sounded uncertain. “Papa was so pleased that he’d found this house for us. He told me before we left that he’d been very worried about me staying in London.” She sighed. “You’re right, Maisie. We can’t go back. Not just because of one little ghost cat, anyway.” She gripped Maisie’s wrist. “But if a skeleton walks through my bedroom clanking with chains, Maisie Hitchins, or anything carrying its head under its arm, we’re going home that very minute, do you hear? Even if we have to freeze on the station platform all night waiting for a train!”

  “Lessons! You can’t mean it, Miss Sidebotham!” Alice protested. “I’m ill.” She coughed pathetically to prove it, but Maisie had seen the size of the breakfast she had eaten and the governess had, too.

  “Perhaps not a full morning of lessons then,” Miss Sidebotham agreed. “Since you are still recovering. But you can’t be allowed to forget all that you’ve learned, Alice.”

  “And what’s Maisie to do while I’m doing arithmetic and sewing?” Alice asked.

  Miss Sidebotham sniffed. “Perhaps she could help the maids. The house is understaffed.”

  Maisie looked down at her plate, embarrassed. It was true that she would usually be doing the sort of things that Annie and Cissie and Lily were doing. She had felt very strange sitting about being waited on. But Miss Sidebotham didn’t have to say it in that nasty sort of voice.

  “Maisie is a guest! Papa invited her!” Alice snapped indignantly.

  Miss Sidebotham gave another of those meaningful sniffs. This one clearly said that Mr Lacey had been very much misguided.

  Maisie twisted her napkin in her fingers and comforted herself that at least she didn’t have a name that sounded exactly like Side Bottom. And the bottom to match, even with a corset that was laced so tight it creaked. The governess was lucky that Alice was far too well behaved to tease her about it. “I can help the maids, Alice,” she said quietly. “I could dust our rooms, at least.”

  “Good.” Miss Sidebotham nodded triumphantly. Then she patted the frills at the front of her dress and frowned. “My spectacles! Now, where on earth are they? Have either of you girls seen them?”

  Alice shook her head and looked gloomily into what was left of her porridge.

  Maisie frowned thoughtfully. Miss Sidebotham usually wore her little gold pince-nez spectacles on a fussy gold chain, so that they hung round her neck when they weren’t perched on the end of her nose.

  “I haven’t seen them, Miss Sidebotham,” she said, shaking her head. “Not since yesterday, I’m sure.”

  “I must have left them in my room. Alice, I have left your books on the table in the lilac parlour, where we shall have our lessons. Go and cast an eye over your Latin vocabulary, while I find my spectacles.”

  Maisie was in the hallway with Eddie, admiring the chandelier and thinking about going down to the kitchens to ask for a duster and some furniture polish, when Miss Sidebotham came hurrying down the marble staircase.

  “Maisie! When did you say you saw my spectacles?” she snapped.

  “You were wearing them when we had dinner, Miss,” Maisie told her. “You couldn’t find them upstairs?”

  “No! Someone has taken them! That gold chain was a present from one of my previous employers and it is most valuable. I know I left the spectacles in the china tray on the dressing table in my room. Someone must have stolen them!” Miss Sidebotham was scarlet with rage and practically shouting.

  Alice popped her head out of the lilac parlour. Maisie wondered if the maids could hear from down in the kitchens.

  “It
must have been that insolent girl who answered the door to us yesterday. She lit the fire in my bedroom this morning and she woke me, quite deliberately, clattering the fire irons about.”

  “If she were going to steal your gold chain, Miss, she wouldn’t want to wake you,” Maisie pointed out. “She’d want you to stay asleep in case you saw her take the chain.”

  “Don’t be so impertinent!” Miss Sidebotham snapped. “Of course it was her. Unless you took them yourself, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

  Maisie gaped at her, shocked. She had never been accused of stealing before and she didn’t know what to say.

  “Maisie isn’t a thief!” Alice cried, running out into the hallway. “She’s a detective!”

  “Nonsense.” Miss Sidebotham looked crosser than ever and when Annie came into the hallway from the kitchens, the governess glared at her.

  “Is anything wrong, Miss?” Annie asked. “We heard a-a disturbance.”

  “Did you indeed?” Miss Sidebotham sniffed again. “Yes, there most certainly is something wrong. My spectacles – and the gold chain attached to them – have disappeared.”

  “Oh dear, Miss.” Annie frowned. “Could they have fallen off your dressing table?”

  “So you knew that’s where I had put them?” Miss Sidebotham snapped.

  “Well, yes, Miss. I saw them when I came in to light your bedroom fire this morning. The dressing table’s by the window, you see. If you remember, you asked me last night to open the window for you in the morning. Quite determined about it, you were.”

  “Fresh air is most important,” Miss Sidebotham said, nodding.

  “That’s as may be, Miss, but that window stuck something dreadful. Not been opened in years, I’d say. So I was rattling away at it, right next to the dressing table. Of course I saw your spectacles.”

  “Hmmm.” Miss Sidebotham still sounded suspicious and Annie frowned back at her.

  “Why, Miss? You’re not suggesting I took them, are you?”

  The governess folded her arms and looked down her nose at Annie – which was quite difficult, as she was considerably shorter than the maid. “You are the only person who has been in my room.”

  “Well!” Annie folded her arms, too, and glared so furiously that Miss Sidebotham stepped back, nearly falling over Eddie. “I never heard the like. Calling me a thief! I’m not staying here to be treated like this.” She started to undo the ties at the back of her apron, as if she intended to throw it on the floor and march out of the house there and then.

  “Please don’t go, Annie.” Alice hurried forward. “Miss Sidebotham, I’m sure we’ll find your spectacles. It must be a mistake. They must have fallen down the back of the dressing table or something.” She ushered her governess over to one of the little chairs, murmuring, “Don’t worry”. Then she came over to Maisie and Annie and added in a whisper, “I don’t suppose Eddie…?”

  Maisie looked down at the little dog, who stared back at her, with one paw held up and his ears quivering, as though Miss Sidebotham had dealt him a death-blow. She shook her head. “He hasn’t been in her room, I’m sure of it. I bet she’s lost them herself.”

  Annie pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her apron and dabbed at her eyes, although Maisie couldn’t see if she was actually crying. “Such a shock… To be called a thief like that. I’m not sure I can stay here to be insulted…”

  Maisie patted her arm comfortingly. “It’s just a misunderstanding, Annie, that’s all.” She glanced at Alice. If Miss Sidebotham upset Annie again, she was clearly going to flounce off and leave, which would make it even more difficult for the other maids to look after this huge house. Maisie didn’t mind helping out, but the whole point of her being here was to keep Alice company. She could do dusting at home.

  “I hope so,” Annie said tearfully. “It’s bad enough as it is, with all these strange goings-on.”

  “What strange goings-on?” Alice asked in a horrified voice.

  “That’s what I was coming to tell you, Miss. Cissie and Lily say there’s a dreadful smell coming from the library. They went to take off the dust sheets and air it out, seeing as your governess said that you’d want to use it.”

  “Do we?” Alice asked, looking at Miss Sidebotham in surprise.

  “For your lessons, Alice! It will be most useful,” the governess said. “It can’t be that hard to take off the covers and light a fire! I am going upstairs to keep looking for my spectacles.” She swept away crossly and Maisie sighed, exchanging an understanding look with Annie.

  “It isn’t just the smell, Miss…” Annie said, in a doom-laden voice. “Noxious vapours, they say there was. Like a green fog. And then a terrible screeching noise, echoing about the room. The two of them came running back down to the kitchens shrieking as though they were being murdered.” She looked around at them smugly, enjoying her audience. “And they say they won’t go back in there even for double wages,” she added in triumph.

  “Where is the library?” Maisie asked. She still wasn’t sure where half the rooms were.

  “Over on that side of the hall, Miss. Down the passage,” Annie explained. “There’s a couple of small parlours and the billiard room down there, too. It’s all been shut up, though.”

  “Let’s go and see,” Maisie said, picking up Eddie for moral support and marching off down the passage with Alice and Annie following after her.

  “Do we have to?” Alice whispered, as they padded along – the corridor was quite dark, as all the windows had shutters over them, and portraits loomed out of the shadows in a most nerve-racking way.

  “It’s probably just a dead mouse,” Maisie pointed out. “We had one once, behind a wardrobe in Madame Lorimer’s rooms – it stunk the place out.”

  “That wouldn’t explain the noxious vapours, though.” Annie shook her head. “Rising out of the floorboards, Cissie said they were.”

  Alice gasped, but Maisie gave Annie a doubtful look. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I didn’t see them myself, of course,” Annie admitted. “But there was the screeching as well, don’t forget. There’s something unearthly in that room, Miss. Or under it…”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Maisie demanded, as they reached the library door. A pile of cleaning things lay abandoned just outside, where the maids had left them as they’d run away, and even though Maisie was trying hard not to believe in ghosts, the gaping doorway made her shudder.

  “This house is haunted, Miss, I’m certain of it,” Annie said, as they peered cautiously round the door. The library looked perfectly normal now – only as spooky as any dimly-lit room with the furniture covered in dust sheets. “There, can’t you smell it?”

  Maisie and Alice sniffed and Alice started to cough horribly. “Oh, that’s disgusting. Maisie, that can’t just be a dead mouse.”

  “A rat maybe…” Maisie muttered. It really was a dreadful smell – so bad it felt like she could see it, seeping out of the floor and coating the back of her throat.

  “It’s the dead, Miss…” Annie moaned dramatically. “Rising up out of their graves!”

  Maisie and Alice had decided most definitely that they did not need to use the library.

  “Imagine sitting in there!” Alice whispered to Maisie, as they helped Annie carry the dusters and sweeping brush back along the passage and down to the kitchens. “You’d always be wondering what it was creeping up behind your chair and putting its cold fingers on your neck…”

  “Oh, don’t, Miss!” Annie moaned. “This house is built on a graveyard, everyone says so…”

  Maisie sighed. Annie was a born gossip, she thought. And she was doing a very good job of frightening Alice to death.

  “I still think it was a dead rat,” she said firmly.

  “Maybe it’s a ghost rat now, like the ghost cat we saw!” Alice said suddenly, dropping the dustpan so it clattered down the kitchen stairs, and staring at Maisie in horror.

  “You actually saw a g
host, Miss?” Annie gasped and the two other maids came out of the kitchen, looking terrified.

  “She saw it?”

  “Ooohhh, I can’t stay here! Not with all those dreadful shrieking noises…” The youngest of the maids was in tears and she was actually shaking. “They made my skin creep, Miss, and now you’ve seen a real ghost! I can’t stay here, I just can’t.”

  The cook, a tiny lady in a print dress and an apron all covered in flour, came hurrying out after them. “What? You’ve seen it?”

  “It was just a little white cat—” Maisie started to say, but no one was listening to her. Mrs James was having the vapours and being held up by Annie and one of the other maids. The youngest maid, Lily, was kneeling on the floor and calling on the soul of her dead grandmother to save her from this evil house.

  Even Alice looked slightly surprised by the scene she’d set off. “Please don’t cry,” she murmured to Mrs James, but it was no good.

  “I can’t stay here to be murdered in my bed by ghosts!” the cook gasped. “No one said anything about hauntings when I took the job! I’m leaving – now!”

  “And me!” both Lily and Cissie chimed in and Annie nodded grimly, “Me, too.”

  “But you can’t!” Maisie gasped. “You’ve had wages in advance. And you have to give notice, surely, so we can find someone else?”

  “You won’t. No one’s going to want to work here,” Annie pointed out. “Not when we tell them what it’s like. And ghosts weren’t mentioned when we were engaged, like Mrs James said. False pretences, that is. I’m going to pack.” And she marched away up the stairs, with the others following after her.

  “This is ridiculous…” Maisie muttered. “I don’t believe this house is haunted at all. The boy at the station said the last people asked the vicar about a plague pit and he told them it was nonsense.”