Cherringham--Ghost of a Chance (4 page)

Interesting village …

“So, that was all cleared away this morning?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. First thing, I'm afraid. We do have a wedding booked for later in the week. Wanted to get a jump on things. Though, well, we have also had some cancellations.”

Jack watched Sarah walk over to the lopsided chandelier, still dotted with a few mangled candles and spots where the crystalline glass was untouched.

“But this — the chandelier — has not been moved?”

Jack was once again reminded of the fact that Sarah — maybe his best friend in the world even though they came from two different worlds — had developed a real instinct for asking just the right question.

She had become — he had to admit — one rather insightful detective.

“Um. Not sure about that. You'll have to ask Paddy. I mean, they swept up the glass, so they might have—”

“Touched it?” Jack said.

A sheepish nod from Lawrence.

The scene of the crime — if there had been any crime — had been seriously compromised.

Jack leaned in and examined the chandelier itself.

No wonder it had made such a mess — it must have weighed at least a hundred pounds. The spine of the thing was a steel rod with four heavy bolts at the top. Jack could see that all four bolts had nuts screwed on.

He looked up at the ceiling again, trying to make sense of the scene. The bolts were clearly designed to go up onto some kind of plate, then the nuts would be tightened from above.

On the other side of the plate,
he thought.

He turned to Lawrence. “Anyone been tampering with this, you think?”

“I don’t know …” he said. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible. Though I can’t think why anyone would want to.”

Jack looked back to the ceiling. He could see heavy oak joists criss-crossing. A square block of wood, with four holes, was set into the joists, matching in shape the bolts on the chandelier.

“What’s the room above us?” said Jack. “A bedroom?”

“Er, well, let me see …” said Lawrence, seeming confused by the question. “I suppose it’s Room 3 — the bridal suite.”

“Any idea if that room was occupied last night?”

“Hmm. I doubt it, not with a wedding coming in at the weekend. We like to keep it nice and spruce for the happy couple. If you know what I mean.”

“Well, maybe you could check for me,” said Jack. “I’d like to have a look up there too, if I may.”

“Of course.”

“You see, I’m just wondering how the chandelier fell down with those four nuts still screwed onto the bolts.”

Jack watched Lawrence look from the bolts to the ceiling and back again.

“I see,” he said. “Yes, that is a bit strange, isn’t it?”

“Strange?” said Jack. “I think ‘impossible’ is the word I’d use.”

“Unless someone put the nuts back on this morning,” said Sarah.

“Exactly,” said Jack. “Hard to be sure about that though, isn’t it Lawrence?”

Lawrence took a breath and tried to recover from the now obvious faux pas of the clean-up.

“Yes, you’re right,” he said. “Tell you what — the builders have got to sort through the debris anyway, I’ll get them to put anything they find to one side for you, shall I?”

Jack knew this wasn’t going to be much help, but the damage was already done.

“Sure, that’s a great idea,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

At which Lawrence seemed to brighten. “Why don’t we see if we can get the key to number 3 shall we? So you can do your … investigating!”

Jack watched Lawrence shuffle out of the door, and disappear towards reception. He looked at Sarah who shrugged.

“What’s that phrase you use, Jack …?” she said. “Sterile crime scene?”

“Those were the days,” said Jack.

And he turned and headed for reception.

*

“Room three, room three …” Lawrence said to himself.

Jack waited patiently in the lobby with Sarah while the old man leafed through the booking diary at the reception desk.

The receptionist was nowhere to be seen.

“Ah,” said Lawrence. “Hmm. Not quite sure I understand this … But it seems room three is occupied. A single upgraded to a double apparently.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like to book that room out before a wedding?” said Jack.

“Very irregular,” said Lawrence. “I shall have to talk to Crispin. It looks as though he took the booking.”

“And the room was occupied last night?” said Jack.

“It would appear so.”

“So we can’t see the room?” said Sarah.

“Sorry,” said Lawrence. “Not while it’s occupied. I can have a word with the guest — a Mr. Anderson, I believe — and er, ask him if he would oblige us later …”

“Appreciate that,” said Jack.

“Meanwhile, er, perhaps you’d like to see the attic bedroom? That was used in last night’s haunting. Big part of the show you know. No one has been back up there.”

But then — Jack thought — what could the connection be between the empty bedroom in the attic and what happened here?

He did have something else in mind.

“You mentioned that Mr. Whistlethwaite—”

“Basil.”

“Yes, that he's staying at the hotel?”

“Yes. I immediately offered him a room for a few nights. Quite shaken up, poor old chap. Didn't seem right to have him shuffle back up the M1 to the frozen north. Perhaps I can intro—”

Jack looked at Sarah. He guessed she knew where he was going with this.

Jack smiled at Lawrence. “I think we can look into things for you, Lawrence. But Sarah and I would like to talk with Basil on our own. I mean he was here, when it happened.”

“True enough.”

“And maybe have him show us the attic room too.”

“Of course. You can have the run of the place. Anything you need!”

“And if we want to talk to Mr. Stover?”

Lawrence forced another sheepish smile.

“Well, Paddy kind of keeps his own hours. But often he's down in the small office off the kitchen, which is just below this room actually. Or he might be checking bookings or deliveries with our receptionist, Suzie. Not quite sure where she is …”

“Anyplace else?”

Lawrence's smile faded.

“Lunch time, he might be over the road in the Angel. Or up at the Railway — pies are a bit cheaper there you know.” He took a breath. “He likes his lunches …”

“Kind of a hard guy to nail down?”

Lawrence nodded, and Jack guessed that the owner of The Bell Hotel didn't exert much control over his number two.

“Great. So we’ll catch up with him later,” Jacks said.

“If we can find him …” Sarah added.

Her humour lost on the old guy.

Had to be hard for Lawrence, trying to keep this faded lady of a joint running.

“For now, we’ll just pay a visit on Mr. Whistlethwaite.”

“Right. Room 6. Top of the stairs, turn right. Should be awake. He called for some tea to be brought up just a while ago.”

“We’ll find it. And check back with you later.”

Lawrence again clapped his hands together as if — after the great accident — all the pieces were falling into place.

Unlike the shards of crystal swept up and dumped outside.

Jack nodded, and he walked with Sarah to the great staircase leading to the first floor.

*

Midway up the stairs, Jack touched Sarah's arm and nodded to a large, dark painting of a gaunt middle-aged man, dressed in hunting garb, rifle lowered, the bloodied body of a magnificent tiger at his feet.

Behind the man, obedient Indian-looking servants hovered in the shadows.

Despite their master’s apparent success, they didn't seem too happy.

“Some cheery paintings in this place, hum?” he said to her.

“It's not a Novotel, that’s for sure. Those detective instincts telling you anything, Jack?”

They had stopped midway up the grand staircase, on a landing where the stairs turned left and continued up to the guest rooms above.

“Yes. And no. But I sense that Lawrence is worried. Like maybe he knows something that he hasn't shared.”

Sarah smiled. “But will?”

“One can hope. We’ll know more after we talk to Basil.”

“Anything in particular you want me to pay attention to?”

Jack looked away.

With a nod he signalled that they should continue up the stairs, taking the steps slowly.

“Yeah. Press him on what he’s about. These ‘haunted evenings’. Act interested. Does he believe in this stuff? Does he believe in something beyond the smoke and mirrors he uses to make a living? He's been coming here for years. This time, people nearly got seriously hurt.”

“Be good to know what he thinks.”

“Exactly.”

They reached the upper floor and walked down a gloomy hallway toward room number 6, the maroon rug looking blackish in the dark with more grim paintings lining the walls.

“Here we go …” said Jack.

And he knocked.

The man who opened the door turned his head like a lighthouse beam, looking from Jack to Sarah and back again.

Tall, hair as white as snow, a perfectly curled handlebar moustache.

Certainly looks the part,
Sarah thought.

“Yes, can I—?”

Sarah smiled, taking the lead.

“Mr. Whistlethwaite, we’ve been asked to look into what happened last night.”

The man rolled his eyes.

“What a fiasco!”

“Right. Could we chat a bit?”

Now Basil looked past Sarah, right at Jack, standing just behind her.

“Are you the police?”

She looked back and saw Jack smile. “No, Mr. Whistlethwaite — just friends of the hotel. I’m Jack, this is Sarah,” he said.

“An American?”

A yank in the house!
Basil sounded shocked.

“Guilty as charged,” Jack said. “So a few moments?”

Then the man who claimed to commune with the non-living slowly opened the door.

“For Lawrence and his hotel … of course.”

He actually did a slight bow as the door opened, and they walked into the room.

*

Sarah had started by asking Basil his recollections of the moment the great chandelier fell.

And it appeared that Basil — as he insisted they call him — noticed nothing untoward.

“And all the other things that happened, the haunting effects — I imagine you arranged them, set some of those—”

Jack had made the question seem innocent. Just curious about how such ghostly things happen.

“I'm afraid I'm not in the habit of revealing, um, trade secrets.”

“It will go no further than us, Basil,” Sarah said.

Basil nodded. “Well then, yes. I always like to ‘season the pot’, as it were, when attempting to reach the non-living. Seems they like that ambience of fear, of concern.”

“You are a believer then?” Jacks aid.

Basil nodded. “
Absolutely
. I mean, how could I do this if I didn't? But here’s the thing: ghosts, poltergeists, whatever you call them — they are generally benevolent. I’ve been visiting this hotel, visiting Freddy for years. If there was something wrong, I would have known it.”

“Freddy?” Sarah asked.

“The house ghost. Freddy is the spirit that haunts this place!”

Jack had another question. “Wrong? What do you mean ‘something wrong’?”

Basil looked away as if he had said too much.

“Well, if something had changed with Freddy. Something that posed a danger …”

“And you noticed — sensed,” Sarah said, “nothing like that?”

“No. Not during the ceremony.”

Jack picked up the careful parsing of the ghost hunter’s words.

“But before? Somewhere else?”

Basil turned back to them. The man had clearly been rattled by events, but his eyes also showed that he had probably been recently fortifying himself with liquid refreshment.

He nodded. “Yes. Let me … show you.”

Basil walked out of his musty guest room, back to the dark hallway. But then he turned left, away from the stairs down, to the far end of the hallway.

Then he went up the narrow staircase that led to the attic floor of the hotel.

*

Sarah watched Basil throw open the attic bedroom door and gesture to the entrance.

“Got some more visitors for you, Freddy,” he said into the empty room, then turned to them: “Just trying to be polite — you know?”

Sarah caught Jack’s eye and held back a smile.

She waited for Basil to enter, but he just hovered at the door.

He actually seems reluctant to go in,
she thought
.

“You brought people up here that night?” she asked as Jack stepped in, ducking due to the low entrance.

“Yes. Always a big part of an evening devoted to communing with Freddy.”

Sarah followed Jack into the room. Just a small bedroom, bare floorboards and sturdy cross beams above. A simple metal frame bed. A small table with — oddly enough — a pair of old-fashioned spectacles on it. A large wardrobe in one corner.

A chest of drawers, the bottom drawer open.

Clothes actually in it.

Jack turned to him. “So nothing happened up here? You just walked up with your audience—”

“
Participants
,” Basil corrected.

“—up here. To see?”

“The place where Freddy was found dead. Right where you're standing.”

“Dead as in murdered?” Sarah asked, looking down at the fatal spot.

She had to admit — it felt creepy standing here.

“That's what everyone thought at the time, of course. All that blood. The knife wounds, hard to see how they could be an accident or self-afflicted.”

“Was this Freddy’s room?” asked Sarah.

“Largest of the servants’ quarters,” said Basil. “As befitted his rank.”

“How do you mean?”

“Freddy was to all intents and purposes a butler. Head of the household.”

“In charge of all the other servants?” said Sarah.

“Precisely.”

“Any one ever caught for the murder?” Jack asked.

“No. The case of Freddy’s death simply disappeared.”

“Really?” said Sarah. “I thought in Victorian times that murder cases were all the rage?”