THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH—SCOTLAND’S MOST HAUNTED PUB
“Is it the most haunted one?” I asked Brigid as we stood out front.
She shrugged. “I see ghosts everywhere.”
I opened my mouth to ask her to explain that further, but Birk interrupted.
“Good morning,” he said as he got out of his car.
“Birk, I have a question,” I said as we came together. “Do you remember seeing Louis Chantrell at the event for the children’s hospital?”
Birk hesitated and bit his lip as he thought a moment. “Oh. I do. I was just walking through, and he said hello. He behaved as if we knew each other, so I did too, I think. It had been years since I’d seen him. Even the other day at Deacon Brodie’s, I didn’t put it all together. Goodness, it has been years, but I feel terrible for forgetting.”
“You had some of Shelagh’s horses there. You didn’t remember he worked for Shelagh when you saw him there?”
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Ritchie John worked for me. I didn’t know until this moment that Shelagh’s horses were part of the event. I only stopped by to write a check for the cause. I didn’t organize any part of it. My people run things just fine without me.”
“Years back, when you and Shelagh were close, how did Louis treat you?”
“He was fine.” Birk frowned. “Until we broke up. He was none too pleased. He told me as much, but it was only a brief moment of vitriol.”
“You broke it off with Shelagh?”
“No, lass, but it was I who had to ask her to leave a group we were a part of. Mutually, we ended our relationship. I suppose that could be twisted around some though.”
“I do too, I guess.”
Birk shook his head. “It’s been a long time, Delaney.”
“Right.”
Brigid had been listening to Birk and me with focused attention. She didn’t say anything, but I was sure she processed every word.
“Shall we?” Birk reached for the door and pulled it open.
It was a tunneled, undergroundish establishment; it sure seemed a likely place for ghosts. Whoever oversaw the furnishings had done a great job of playing up the reputation. Since it was daytime, I was sure we didn’t get the full effect of the lighting, but the purple-painted and naked lightbulbs probably filled the place with an eerie glow at night.
There was a tunnel where scary or B movies could be watched, a pocket of space that reminded me of a stark church with concrete pews. A pool table took up another tunnel, and old jailhouse bars filled the entrance to another; I couldn’t determine if there were more tunnels to discover farther along. Throughout the pub there were several skeletons, enjoying a dance or a drink or a meal, or just poised to observe the still-living crowd. I shivered, at either the sights or the distinct chill in the air.
Inspector Winters greeted us and filled us in. The police were long done with their search for any sign of Shelagh in the pub. They didn’t think the owner, Krew Gilbert, had anything at all to do with her disappearance.
“Mr. Gilbert has been waiting for you,” he said. “Poor man. He needs to get home, but when he found out you were the treasure hunters, he insisted upon staying. He shut down for the day because he’s low on staff and just couldn’t find the energy to work.”
The three of us nodded, and we all walked toward the sick man sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, a box of tissues at the ready. We would have to work to avoid his violent sneezes.
“Are ye here because of the hunt?” he said as we approached.
“We are,” Birk, Brigid, and I said together.
Birk and I looked at Brigid; she shrugged.
“I just need tae know one thing: What book did you get at the last clue’s location?” Krew asked.
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” I said.
His eyes rolled up to the sky briefly. “Thank the heavens. I can get rid of this burden now.”
Krew scooted off the stool and walked toward the other end of the bar.
“It’s in my safe. Come on, everyone, I’m sure you’ll all want to see this, and I don’t want to be accused of doing something behind the police’s back.”
The three of us and Inspector Winters followed Krew into his tiny office. He closed the door and then tugged the chain on a desk lamp, filling the room with yellow light. He faced the wall behind his desk as the four of us remained on the other side. An old painting of a bowl of apples hung on the wall, and I wondered if Krew had been the artist. Our host pulled one side of the painting away from the wall to expose a safe. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Inspector Winters shake his head a tiny bit. I didn’t say anything aloud, but I agreed with what he was probably thinking—the cliché of the safe’s hiding place made its security less than ideal.
“I will be so glad to get rid of this,” Krew repeated. “It’s been stressful just to have it under my roof.”
Krew turned the safe’s dial back and forth and then cranked the handle. He reached in and ever so gently drew out a wrapped package. He turned and handed it to me.
“Take it and never bring it back here again. It’s very valuable, apparently.”
“Okay, Mr. Gilbert, I need to understand the circumstances of how you came to be in possession of this,” Inspector Winters asked.
“There’s a note in the package. A woman in a hat and with a scarf around her face—so I have no idea what she looked like—brought that package in to me, but all the previous negotiations were done over the phone.”
“Negotiations?”
“How much money they would give me to keep it in my safe. The amount is ten thousand pounds, and I’ve already deposited it. I’m not giving it back, so don’t bother asking. The rest of the story is on that note. I’m keeping the money. Make yourself at home in here while you look.”
Krew walked around the rest of us and out of the office.
Inspector Winters sighed. “Let’s have a look.”
I did everything carefully. Opened the bag, peered inside, reached in, grabbed the book, and took it out. It was wrapped in two pieces of fabric, both of them made of white cotton. I would have preferred seeing something more hermetic, something made specifically to protect these sorts of artifacts, but now wasn’t the time to be critical.
After I unwrapped the book, I knew immediately that it was an extremely valuable copy of Jekyll & Hyde.
Made with a simple red hardback cover, there wasn’t much to it. However, this one was spotless. I could imagine it in the secret room in Shelagh’s library.
“This must be it,” I said.
Brigid, Birk, and Inspector Winters looked at the book and then at me. Birk was the only one whose eyes held any reverence. He knew the wonder of this object; Brigid and Inspector Winters just saw another old book.
I lifted the cover and turned to the title page. The title and the publisher—“Longmans, Green, and Co.”—were listed, as well as “Price One Shilling.” And yes, the copyright date had been scribbled and then written over. The 6 in 1886 was not in the original print. The book might have been one of the most terrifyingly beautiful things I’d ever seen.
“Aye, that’s it,” Birk said.
“Where’s the note?” Inspector Winters asked.
I knew he was anxious, we all were, but I took the time to rewrap the book before I reached back into the bag and removed the note. I unfolded it and handed it to Brigid. Shelagh hadn’t invited her to the hunt, but I was beyond caring who was involved and ready to use any of Brigid’s contacts to get to the bottom of where Shelagh had gone. I hoped this maneuver made her feel welcomed to the team.
She read aloud:
“‘Congratulations! This is the book. You’ve done it. Make sure you sign this paper and ask the proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, to sign it too. I will use this to confirm that you are the winner of my library, this book and my other most prized treasures. Oh, I can’t wait to hear what you’ll do with everything. See you
soon. Shelagh.’”
“You know what this tells me?” Brigid said as she looked at Inspector Winters. “Other than the obvious, I mean.”
“What?” he said.
“That she had nothing to do with her disappearance. She wouldn’t have written the letter this way if she had. She’s truly been taken.” Brigid handed me the note.
“Aye,” Inspector Winters said. “We are operating as if her disappearance is real.”
I looked at the short, handwritten paragraph. I understood why Brigid’s mind went in that direction, but something else had started niggling at me, somewhere in the back of my brain. What was it?
It came at me with such force I had to sit down on Mr. Gilbert’s chair. In fact, my knees wobbled on the verge of buckling. A few moments earlier I’d been imagining the book in Shelagh’s secret room. The full force of that vision hit me hard.
“Delaney!” Brigid said as she came around Inspector Winters and took my arm.
“What is it?” Inspector Winters asked.
Pictures flashed through my mind. Shelagh in her library, Edwin and I standing at her front door, the mess in the library after she was gone, and then the blood.
“Did you confirm if the blood on the doorframe was Shelagh’s?” I asked Inspector Winters.
“I have no idea, lass,” he said. “Why?”
Poor Inspector Winters. This wasn’t even his case. I’d called him. I’d taken him from his other investigations just so he could help me with … well, with mine, as strange as that was.
“I just thought of something that I should have considered a long time ago,” I said.
“What?” Inspector Winters asked, impatience now marking his tone.
“Did the police search the secret hiding place in Shelagh’s library?”
“Again, I don’t have any idea.” Inspector Winters took out his phone. “I don’t know about any secret hiding place. I don’t know what the officers know.”
I swallowed hard, not understanding why I hadn’t thought to mention it to them before. “We should let them know.”
“Right away.” Inspector Winters moved to right outside the office.
“Did you know about the secret room?” I asked Brigid.
“No, Delaney. She never said a word.”
I looked at Birk.
“I never even thought to mention it to anyone. I thought everyone knew,” he said.
“I bet she wasn’t taken from her library that day. I bet she was hidden. That’s why we didn’t see her.… It somehow makes more sense.” My voice was pitching too high. “What if she’s still there?”
“Holy moly,” Brigid said.
“Holy something,” I said as we heard Inspector Winters start issuing instructions into his phone.
TWENTY-NINE
I felt stupid. Beyond stupid. I didn’t understand why I hadn’t mentioned the secret room to the police. It wasn’t that I was trying to keep the secret.
“You were upset,” Birk said. “No one else mentioned it to them, and we all knew about it. She showed us all.”
“But Edwin and I were there the moment she was taken. No one else understood the circumstances.”
Brigid and I had climbed into Birk’s car. We followed Inspector Winters toward Shelagh’s estate. The police inspectors in charge of the case were going to meet us there.
It felt like we were moving in slow motion. I wanted to be inside that library, opening that secret door, and finding Shelagh. I just knew that’s where she was. It was the only thing that made sense. It was the only way there could’ve been no trace of her leaving, other than the bloody handprint. Why the timing had been so swift.
“Now I wonder about the handprint,” I said. “As I look back on it, it seems weirdly unreal, like it was drawn there or blotted perfectly. There were no smudges to it. I didn’t process that until right now.”
“But it was blood, Delaney. It came from someone,” Brigid said.
“Was it really, though?”
“We’ll see.”
When we finally got there, Birk parked his car next to Inspector Winters’s, whom we followed inside to the library. The other officers were already there, waiting unhappily.
I walked around everyone toward the shelves in the back of the room. I found the right book immediately and pushed on it. The door clicked and swung open. The police inspectors moved me out of the way as they entered, but I followed them into the small space. Brigid craned her neck to look from the entry.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was that Shelagh wasn’t there. No one was. However, there was clear evidence that someone had been. Things were in there that Shelagh wouldn’t have allowed: an empty water bottle and discarded biscuit wrappers littered the floor. There was no obvious blood, but someone had been inside this space, drinking water and eating cookies. It could have been anyone who knew about the room and had access to her house.
I held tight to the fact that there was no sign that anyone had been hurt, no visible blood.
“She could have done this herself,” one of the inspectors said.
“Or maybe not,” Inspector Winters said.
A voice sounded from the outer room of the library.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Jacques,” I said as I looked at Inspector Winters.
We all exited the secret room and saw Jacques. He was dressed in jeans and a sweater, but he looked unkempt, as if he’d just awakened.
“What’s going on?” Jacques swept his bed-head hair back with his hand. “Did you all just let yourselves in?”
“We need to talk to you in a minute,” one of the official inspectors said. “Everyone wait right outside the door, except for Ms. Nichols.” He looked at me. “We’d like a word with you first. Please sit over there.”
I was told to call them Boyd and Harris, and they were mightily suspicious of me, even after I told them I was the one who’d brought the secret room to light. They thought my timing of doing such a noble thing, when no one was inside it anymore, seemed odd. It was hard to blame them; it was their job to be suspicious of everyone.
“We’d like to know when exactly Shelagh O’Conner showed you the room,” Boyd said, his mouth in a serious, inquisitorial line.
I told them the details. I told them I thought the other participants in the hunt had seen it too, including Jacques. They told me they’d talk to Jacques, as well as Birk and Tricia, all about it, but I couldn’t stop kicking myself. How had I not remembered the room until now?
“Can you explain why you didn’t mention this room to us before?” Boyd asked.
I sighed. “I really don’t know. I can only chalk it up to the trauma or something, but I didn’t even think about that room until today, probably because I saw a book that was kept in there. You know about the treasure hunt?”
“We do,” Boyd said.
“We’ve found the prize.” I nodded toward the hallway. “My friend Birk has it. Seeing it must have made me remember the room, because that’s where Shelagh said the book had been kept. She told me it was a secret room. Maybe my subconscious decided to keep the secret.”
As explanations went, it was pretty weak, but it was the best I could do.
They stared at me a long moment, hoping I’d say more. I thought about calling my attorney, but I really just wanted them to find Shelagh and solve the murder of Ritchie John. I’d answer whatever questions they asked even if I made myself look bad—though hopefully not guilty—along the way.
“Do you think she staged it?” I asked them.
They weren’t there to answer my questions.
“Tell us about your relationship with Ms. O’Conner,” Boyd said.
“There wasn’t one. I’d just met her.”
After a few more times of being asked the same sorts of questions, I decided that the police truly didn’t think I’d done anything criminal. I wished I could eavesdrop on their conversation with Jacques, but it wasn’t to be. They dismissed me and moti
oned me to leave the room, then asked Jacques to join them.
However, I turned around and walked back to them.
“Do you know for sure the handprint was blood?” I asked.
They looked at me but still weren’t in the mood to answer any of my questions.
“I mean, maybe double-check if you haven’t determined that yet. And maybe it wasn’t Shelagh’s. Just saying,” I added, because I couldn’t help myself.
“Thank you, Ms. Nichols. You may go now,” Boyd said.
Other than Jacques, no one had waited in the hallway, but I was glad to see that Brigid, Birk, and Inspector Winters were out front. It was cold outside but the sky was bright blue, currently not a cloud in sight.
“Glad they didn’t arrest you.” Brigid bounced herself away from Birk’s car.
I shook my head. “I think they just wanted a little clarification.”
“Makes sense,” Inspector Winters said.
I looked at the house and then back at Inspector Winters. “Do you think this will help find Shelagh or Ritchie’s killer?”
“I don’t know, Delaney. I hope so. The other inspectors spoke to me briefly. I also told them about the charity event.”
“Happy to welcome them to my stables,” Birk said.
“What will you do with the book?” Inspector Winters asked me.
“Birk is going to put it in his safe,” I said.
“I am,” Birk added. “However, I will make it available to the police if they want it.”
“Aye.”
Brigid moved to my side. “Now what?”
“They’ll want to talk to Birk, but I’m going back to the bookshop.”
“I’ll take you,” Inspector Winters said.
“I’ll get to work too,” Brigid said.
“I’ll take you too.”
Before we left Birk, though, Inspector Winters faced us all. “Be careful, everyone. I mean it, maybe more than I ever have. Remember, the Monster hasn’t been caught. The killer hasn’t been caught. I have no idea if all this is tied together, but each of you is a part of … something, and now you have a priceless book in your possession.”
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