The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  “Have you heard the latest?” she said, as I sank gratefully into the seat opposite. “Says here there are street kids following adults around in London. Late afternoons, on cloudy sorts of days, you know. They make money by alerting the grown-ups to ghosts. They tell them they’re being followed, that something in a white sheet is trailing after them, or that there’s a Tom O’Shadows dancing at their heels. The kids carry iron railings stolen from outside houses. Cash is handed over, then they wave the sticks around and send the ‘ghosts’ packing. It’s a complete scam, but they put on a real show. Hair-raising to watch, apparently, and impossible for the adults to disprove.”

  I shrugged off my coat. It was warm in the café, and I was already hot. “Those kids have to make a living somehow. There’s a lot of poverty nowadays. We can’t all be agents, can we?”

  “I know. We are lucky, aren’t we, Lucy? I’ll order some tea. The boys won’t be long. Lockwood’s fetching the bags from Portland Row, and George will be here soon.”

  She busied herself making eyes at the waiters, and I sat back and considered her. It was her skin that always got to me. It was darkly buttery, with not a pimple to be seen. And her features, too—everything was in the right place. There’d been a time when her easy perfection drove me mad, and I knew that in my disheveled, wildly imperfect way, I’d done the same to her. To be fair, since meeting her that morning she’d treated me with careful attention and respect; but since the same could also be said of a gloved scientist holding a blob of plague bacillus on a glass slide, I didn’t read too much into it.

  “How are you finding it, going solo?” she asked once the tea was ordered.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I get to pick my hours and jobs. I work with many different agencies. I make a bit of money.”

  “You’re so brave,” she said. “To leave and strike out on your own. It’s very risky.”

  “Well, it has its compensations. I’ve learned a lot about my Talents and gotten better at managing other people, even the irritating ones.”

  She gave a laugh. Oh, joy—it was the special tinkling one that set my teeth on edge.

  “Someone at Portland Row really missed you, you know,” she said.

  I kept my voice light. “Well, I missed everyone, too, of course….Er, who was that?”

  “Who missed you most particularly?” Her laugh again; her big dark eyes smiled at me sidelong. “Can’t you guess?”

  It was hot in that café. I did something with the sleeves of my sweater. “No.”

  “Me.”

  “Oh. What—? Did you?”

  “I know we had our issues, Lucy, but it’s been odd being the only girl. Lockwood and George are lovely, of course, but they’re both off in their own worlds. George with his experiments, and Lockwood…” Her brow formed shapely furrows. “He’s so restless and remote. He never sits still long enough for me to reach him. I was going to ask you about that, whether you found…Oh good, and here are the boys, too.”

  In a few minutes we were all crammed in together, our bags wedged between us and the steamed-up window. I was bunched close to George, who acknowledged me with the barest nod. Lockwood radiated excitement. His face glowed in anticipation of the night to come. “The team’s all here,” he said. “Excellent! Right, I’ve arranged a taxi ride to Ealing in half an hour. The Fittes representative will meet us at the house. He’ll have the keys.”

  George frowned. “I don’t like this representative coming along. We’re Lockwood and Co.! We don’t have supervisors.”

  “It’s to be more an observer than anything,” Lockwood said. “Fittes is taking our measure. If she likes what she sees, we’ll get more commissions. I think it’s okay.”

  “Okay for Lucy, maybe. She’s a sword for hire.” George’s face was blank behind his glasses. “But we should be independent, surely.”

  “We are,” Lockwood said briskly. “Anyway, time’s marching on. George—you’ve been to the Archives. Did you get all the grisly details about number seven, The Leas?”

  “Up to a point.” George was pulling a disordered manila file from his bag. “This being a modern case, there was plenty about it in the papers, but I don’t have all the details. Like Barnes said, it seems they had to suppress a fair amount; the facts were just too nasty. But don’t worry, I’ve found more than enough grimness for us to enjoy.” He peered around for a waiter. “Have we ordered yet? I’m famished here.”

  “Got a pot of tea coming,” Holly said. “And cakes. Given the subject of our discussion, I thought savories should wait.”

  “Mmm.” George adjusted his spectacles and opened the file in front of him. “You may be right, though personally I could murder a sausage roll. Okay, the trial of the Ealing Cannibal dates back thirty years. The accused, as we know, was a man named Solomon Guppy, who lived alone in a house in an ordinary street. He was fifty-two years old, and had once earned a living as an electronics engineer. Having lost his job some years before, he now repaired clocks and radios; it was a mail-order business. The items were sent to him by post; he worked at home and rarely, except for trips to the shops on Ealing High Street, left the house. When the police broke in, the place was full of pieces of machinery lying open, with their wires and cogs exposed.” George looked up and grinned at us. “Turned out these weren’t the only internal parts he was interested in.”

  Holly made a slight noise in her throat. “George…”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He leafed unconcernedly through the file. “This is the pitch-black story of a giant maniac cannibal. Somebody’s got to supply the jokes.”

  Lockwood tapped his fingers on the table. “Hold it there. When you say ‘giant,’ what does that mean? Penelope Fittes said it took six policemen to subdue Guppy when they came to arrest him. So he was obviously big and strong.”

  George nodded. “Yep. Very big, very strong, and very tall. Six-foot-six in his socks, and bulky. They reckon he weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, and though he had a huge belly, a lot of it was muscle, too. All the sources emphasize what an unnerving figure he was. He barely spoke during the trial, and spent his time glaring around the courtroom from under a mane of unkempt hair. He’d pick someone and fix his eyes on them like he was preparing them for supper. More than one lady felt obliged to leave the room. When they took him to be hung, they had double the usual number of guards escorting him, and the blokes doing it were so frightened, they all got double pay.”

  “Doesn’t sound likely to me,” Lockwood said. “All the prison guards I’ve met have been pretty tough customers. Well, let’s see the pictures of this charmer.”

  George drew out a single glossy piece of paper. “I actually only have one. Oddly, the police never released their line-up shots of Guppy; they kept them secret ‘for the public good,’ whatever that means. But this was snapped by a freelance photographer as Guppy was being led into the courthouse on the day of sentencing. It’s not great quality, but it gives you an idea.”

  He swiveled the photo around on the table. Lockwood, Holly, and I bent close. It was a black-and-white shot, photocopied and enlarged from the original. As George had said, it wasn’t good at all—the image was both blurry and grainy. You could see a police officer in the foreground, and another at the back, half out of view. And in between them was a vast, bulky shape, slope-shouldered and indistinct of feature. One great arm extended awkwardly; you could tell it was handcuffed to the officer in front. The other, presumably also cuffed, was out of sight behind. The head was bowed, also awkwardly; maybe it had just ducked out of the police van, but the impression was of a swollen, shambling thing, horribly out of proportion with the men on either side. Most of the face was in shadow. A few dark smears suggested a heavy brow, a wide-lipped mouth. For some reason, I was glad the picture showed no better detail.

  We all regarded it. “Yes…” Lockwood said at last. “That gives us an idea.”

  “He was a big lad, wasn’t he?” I said.

  “They had to bui
ld a special gallows,” George said. “One strong enough to take his weight. And here’s another thing. On the morning of the execution, a priest was present. He was officiating in case the condemned had a last confession. Well, when Guppy stood on the platform, just before the trapdoor opened, he beckoned the priest over and whispered something to him. Know what happened? Whatever he said was so terrifying, so horrible, the priest simply fainted clean away. And they say Guppy was smiling as the hangman pulled the lever.”

  No one at our table spoke. “Could do with a stupid joke now,” I said. “Got any more, George?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll save them for when we’re creeping around Guppy’s house, trying to avoid his ghost.”

  Lockwood snorted. “There’s a fair number of urban legends getting mixed up with your facts today, George. No one’s that scary, not even a giant cannibal. We all need to relax.”

  And obviously he was right about this. We all sat back, giving each other broad, reassuring smiles. It was at that point that our tea and cakes arrived, delivered by a waitress with lavender garlands in her hair.

  “Right, George,” Lockwood said, when we were fortified. “We don’t have long before the taxi. Tell us about what happened at the house. What do you know?”

  “Found out a little bit about the victim,” George said. “Fellow called Mr. Dunn, lived a few doors up the street. Single fellow, amiable, socially conscious. He used to call on housebound neighbors—the elderly and infirm—do odd jobs for them, help with the shopping. Seems he noticed that Mr. Guppy at number seven seldom went out, and made it his business to stop in on him every once in a while. On the night in question, someone saw him heading over with the famous cake. After that, he wasn’t seen for days. When he was finally reported missing, the police went over. Guppy answered the door, told them that Dunn had indeed visited, but had left for another appointment. He didn’t know what his appointment was, or with whom. It was quite early, but Guppy was already up and making breakfast; the cops could smell bacon cooking in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, ick,” I said. Holly Munro wrinkled her nose.

  “Yeah,” George said. “Anyhow, the police went away, but they returned a few days later, following reports of smoke coming from Guppy’s house. His chimney was blocked; he’d been trying to burn something in the fireplace. That something turned out to be Dunn’s clothes. Most of the other things they found weren’t made public at the trial.”

  Holly brushed a length of hair behind her ear. “How utterly horrid. Do we know where the murder actually took place?”

  George pulled out a pale blue sheet of paper, unfolded it, and set it before us. It showed the layout of the house, which had two main floors, plus a basement. To the side was a garage. At the front and back were yards or gardens. The identity of each room was labeled neatly in red pencil.

  “No one’s sure,” he said. “There was evidence of the crime in most of the rooms.”

  I looked at him. “‘Evidence of the crime’? Meaning…”

  “Bits of Mr. Dunn.”

  “Right. I thought you meant that. Just wanted to check.”

  “The good news is that it’s a small enough place,” Lockwood said. “With the four of us, it should be easy to keep tabs on it tonight. Just a thought, though. We don’t actually know which spirit is informing the house, do we? Isn’t it more likely to be Dunn’s ghost, rather than Guppy’s? He’s the one who died there.”

  “Could be,” George said. “Until we find the Source, we won’t know.”

  “I hope it’s Dunn,” Holly said, and I nodded. It’s not often I actively want to meet the angry ghost of a murder victim, but after seeing the photograph in George’s file, I really didn’t want to meet the owner of that blurry shape, even in death. The others were nodding, too.

  Lockwood took out his wallet and put some money on the table.

  “Time to find out,” he said.

  Despite our best intentions, the afternoon was far advanced by the time we arrived at the house of the Ealing Cannibal. We’d forgotten that everyone liked to get out of central London well before curfew; the traffic on the arterial roads was sluggish, and repair work at the Chiswick roundabout delayed us even more. As the cab moved slowly through the suburban streets of Ealing, the last commuters were already in force on the sidewalks, hurrying home beneath the flickering ghost-lights. The sun had swung low, and a layer of black clouds lay over us like a broken slab of chocolate, with streaks of blue-and-yellow sky showing through the cracks. The air held the threat of rain.

  Whether or not our driver knew the reputation of The Leas, he knew the business we were in and didn’t care to get too close to our final destination. He dropped us, and our swords, workbags, and lengths of chain, at the far end of the street, and we walked the final hundred yards to the house where horrors stirred.

  It’s a common misconception that places that have suffered psychic trauma must look sinister, too, with gaping windows, creaking doors, and walls twisted subtly out of shape. As with people, so with houses—a smiling, innocuous exterior can conceal the blackest heart, and number 7, The Leas, didn’t look like anything much at all.

  It stood halfway along the east side of a crescent of modest detached buildings, each with its own garage, each with its own neat scrap of lawn beside its thin concrete drive. They were fairly modern homes, the windows broad and generous, the roofs made of pleasant reddish tiles. The front doors were paneled with glass and protected by simple, flat-topped porches. It was neither a poor district, nor a rich one. Dark laurel hedges separated the plots, and cypress trees rose up in the backyards, black and sharp as knives.

  Number 7 looked in no worse repair than any of the other houses; in fact, in many ways, it seemed in better shape. The nearby buildings were noticeably shabby, with cars rusting under tarps on weedy drives; small signs, perhaps, that what had happened here so long before still worked its poison on the neighborhood. But the house once inhabited by Mr. Solomon Guppy was white and painted; its lawn mowed, its hedges trimmed. The local council, conscious of civic pride, had not allowed it to fall into disrepair.

  The street was quiet; the only signs of life were small ones: lights coming on in downstairs windows, curtains being drawn. We hadn’t set eyes on anyone until, nearing number 7, a thin figure detached itself from the shadows of the hedge. Arms folded, it waited gloomily as we drew near.

  George let out a groan. “Penelope Fittes must have hundreds of supervisors. Why did she have to choose him?”

  The young man wore the silver-gray jacket of the Fittes Agency and had an ornately handled rapier hanging at his belt. His narrow, freckled face was twisted in an expression of sour disapproval, but we’d had enough experience with Quill Kipps to know that this meant little. He was quite possibly in a good mood.

  “Looking on the bright side,” Lockwood whispered, “Kipps has worked with us before. He already knows we won’t listen to a word he says. That’s going to save a lot of time. Nice to see you, Quill!” he called. “How’s tricks?”

  “Before you say anything,” Kipps said, “I didn’t ask to be given this job. I dislike the idea just as much as you do. Let’s just be clear about that.”

  Lockwood grinned. “I’m sure it’s a match made in heaven.”

  “Yeah,” Kipps said feelingly. “I’m sure.”

  Once one of Lockwood & Co.’s bitterest rivals, Quill Kipps had reached his early twenties, and thus seen his psychic Talents leach away. No longer able to detect ghosts effectively, he had consequently been put in charge of others who could. Personal losses had since mellowed him, and he had fought alongside us in the recent past. Despite being as congenial as a mustard sandwich, he was, we knew, both tough and bloody-minded. As Lockwood had said, we could have had a worse companion.

  George was regarding him skeptically. “So you’re here to spy on us, I take it?”

  Kipps shrugged. “I’m an observer. It’s company policy to supply one when there’s a joint venture with ot
her agencies. Also, Ms. Fittes has asked me to provide you with any assistance you might require. Not that I’ll be much use,” he added, “since, psychically speaking, I’m practically deaf and blind. The most warning I get of something coming nowadays is a sort of squeezing sensation in my stomach, and as often as not that’s gas.”

  “Remind me to station you in a different room than me,” Lockwood said. “Seriously, we’re glad to have your help. So: number seven. Have you been inside?”

  Kipps looked over at the neat, blank house. The descending sun had reached it; the front windows sparkled with reflected light. “On my own? You must be joking. This is a team effort. Hopefully, one of you will get ghost-touched instead of me.” He lifted his hand; a house key hung dangling from a leather fob. “But I do have what you need.”

  Lockwood glanced toward the western sky. “And we’ve still got a bit of time before things get tasty. Let’s go.”

  We took our bags and walked in silence up the drive. Somewhere in the hedge, a blackbird was singing its lovely, piercing song. There was a fresh smell on the air that afternoon, the faint warmth of coming spring. The house waited at the end of the drive.

  We reached the porch without incident; here Lockwood insisted on rigging up a small circle with a lantern inside, as an outer line of defense. With luck, the lantern would remain burning all night, unaffected by whatever happened in the building. It was a place to rendezvous if anything went wrong.

  While this was being done, I stepped onto the grass and peered through the big front window. Inside was a bare room, bisected by yellow sunlight. The walls had brown-striped paper on them; there was a yellowish carpet, but no furniture. You could see faint outlines where pictures had hung; on one wall was an old-fashioned fireplace, swept clean.