The Ghost Writer

by John Harwood

  As indeed it was, but the planchette had moved on again. From the tail of the final T, a faint pencil line meandered back towards the left-hand edge of the sheet, then downward in a sudden decisive swoop into thin, spiderish script:

  Try the cellar

  ***

  In the smoky, flaring candlelight, the tunnel was alive with shadows thrown by the branched candelabra in barred crisscrossing patterns over the timbers of the door, multiplying my own gestures in monstrous dumb show. I felt the heat of the flames as I set down the candelabra and turned the beam of the torch in my other hand on to the black padlock.

  Here in the tunnel it would be just as dark at midday. And I would have spent another sixteen hours imagining what I might find on the other side of this door. With a certain fatalistic dread, I saw that the keyhole in the padlock had a short central pin, just right for the barrel of the one key I had not yet identified. The lock scraped and grated; the body of the padlock dropped away from the hasp. I lifted the latch and opened the door a fraction.

  Nothing came out. The torch beam wavered down a narrow, precipitous flight of steps on to another flagged floor, dark with moisture. There was a handrail attached to the wall on the left of the stairs, but no banister on thè other side, just a sheer drop to the stones below. A raw, urinous odour drifted up to me. Racks and shelves, mostly empty so far as I could see, extended along the walls. Patches of lichen flickered in the torch beam. The cellar was long and narrow. Beneath the end wall, I could just make out a mound of something that looked like earth.

  The more I played the torch over that mound, the less I liked it. The candles gave far more light, but the flames dazzled me no matter where I held it.

  I had been kneeling with the open door propped against my shoulder. When I moved away, it swung closed of its own accord: the bar slid almost to the top of the catch. I tried it again, letting the door go from hard against the side wall. This time the bar slid up and over and dropped, unnervingly, into place. One of those massive Victorian irons in the laundry would wedge it securely open. But then I noticed a small metal eye in the top of the door above the latch. At the corresponding point on the wall, in the vertical gap between two blocks of stone, a hook had been mounted so that it hung inside the recess. I dropped it into the eye and shook the door hard to make certain it was secure.

  As I did so I noticed that the inside of the door was scarred by numerous vertical gouges, especially along the joints where the planks met, as if some savage animal had tried to claw its way out of the cellar. I remembered the deep scratches in the floor of the bedroom cupboard.

  DOWN HERE THE AIR WAS COLDER STILL: CHILL AND DAMP and stale. I had the torch in my right hand, flames trailing from the candelabra in my left. A cobweb flared along the shelves-mostly anonymous tins and bottles, labels long gone-as I approached the dark mound. Not earth: a black tarpaulin shrouding an irregular form about five feet long. I stretched out a reluctant foot and twitched the covering aside.

  Something scuttled from the heap. I recoiled, shuddering, and bumped against the shelves. The whole end section came crashing down, shattering glass and sending cans rolling and clattering into the dark. By a small miracle I kept hold of both the candelabra and the torch. The flames guttered wildly but did not go out, and as the light steadied I saw amidst the debris a small yellow package tightly tied with string.

  As I bent to pick it up I heard another, softer sound from above. The creak of hinges. I had not even reached the foot of the steps before the door swung shut. The click of the latch dropping into place was audible even through the heavy planks.

  BY THE END OF THE THIRD HOUR I HAD EXHAUSTED EVERY avenue of escape. The timber was like iron; the door closed flush onto a broad lip of stone, so that the edges were inaccessible from inside. I might have forced a blade between the planks, or prised them apart with a crowbar or even a heavy screwdriver, but there wasn't a single implement in the cellar. The entire construction of the shelving was wooden, much of it rotten, none of it strong enough to make an impression on the door. There were no tools, no knives; nothing bigger than a rusty nail. I tried scraping at the timber with broken glass, and cut my hand badly without making any impression. I tried the keys themselves: most were the wrong shape for gouging, and those that were thin enough had bent and then broken. I thought of prising up a flagstone to use as a battering-ram, but I had nothing to prise with; they were all immovable. I had even overcome my dread of what might be hidden beneath the black tarpaulin, and found only a pile of rotting sandbags-left over from the Blitz, perhaps. I tried hitting the door with one and it split on the first blow, showering me with damp sand.

  Now, as I sat on the top step with my back against the immovable door, the torch was noticeably dimmer, though I had used it as sparingly as possible, and the first of my four candles-I had put out the other three as soon as the first wave of blind panic subsided-was almost gone. On one of the intact shelves I had found a pool of long-congealed candle wax, with an empty matchbox beside it. The corroded tins had all held paint or household cleaners. I had no food, no water, no jacket: only a filthy, sweat-soaked shirt and trousers, a box of matches, almost full, a fading torch, and three more candles.

  I had read somewhere that you could survive for many weeks without food, so long as you had plenty to drink, but only four or five days without water. My mouth and throat were already parched. I'll be with you in three more days, maybe sooner, Alice had said in her last message. Tomorrow was Saturday. But even if it occurred to her that I might be trapped here, she had no way of getting into the house, and Mr Grierstone's office would be closed all weekend. So even if a very long chain of even ifs' came out my way, there was no hope of rescue before Monday at the earliest. And would anyone hear through the floorboards whatever sound I was still capable of making by then?

  My frenzied efforts at escape had given the panic an outlet. Now it was rising like water up the steps towards me. A force that could use a planchette to write 'Try the cellar could just as easily unhook a door. Exactly the sort of thought I mustn't think. I would be crouching in the dark soon enough. Use the last of the torch to search the cellar again.

  I had left the candelabra at the foot of the stairs. Beyond the circle of light, I could just make out the wreckage of fallen shelves and broken glass, and a faint gleam of yellow: the package, which I had dismissed as simply a folded section of waterproof cloth: there appeared to be nothing solid inside, and the knots were too tight to undo. But I might as well be sure.

  Only about an inch of candle remained. The flame swayed as I passed, spilling molten wax on to the floor. I used a piece of broken glass to cut the string. In the centre of the package I found several sheets of typescript, also tightly folded several times over, with the typewritten side outwards.

  ***

  Within seconds she was drenched, and though Harry met her with an umbrella as she approached the house, the roar of the thunder drowned every attempt at speech.

  Towelling her hair dry in her room, while thunder rolled and reverberated overhead and the electric light flickered after every flash of lightning, Cordelia was seized by a reckless impulse to put on the emerald green gown. Earlier in the week, she had spent several hours brushing and sponging and pressing it, and airing out the musty smell. But how would she explain its sudden appearance in her wardrobe? and besides, it would upset her uncle. She chose another dress, also green but in a lighter shade, and went down to the kitchen, where she found Harry helping Beatrice assemble a cold supper.

  "I'm sorry for what I said in the lane," said Beatrice, as soon as she came in. "You startled me, that's all; I didn't mean it. No"-as Cordelia reached for an apron-"you've done everything all week; Uncle has a glass of wine waiting for you."

  "Yes, you put your feet up, old thing," said Harry. "I'll be in in just a minute."

  Though Cordelia had grown used to being "old thing" in company, she had not realised until that moment just how thoroughly she disliked it. But aft
er insisting that she was not jealous, she felt obliged to accept. Harry's minute stretched to what felt like ten, and when he did join her and her uncle and aunt, she could not decide whether he was simply being his usual self, or behaving like someone determined to pretend that nothing whatever was wrong. The hiss of rain and the constant rumble of thunder made conversation difficult, and then, after an especially fierce flash of lightning, the electric lights went out, leaving them to dine by flickering candlelight, which made it impossible to read anybody's expression, even when you could hear what they were saying.

  Gradually, the thunder receded and the rain diminished until there was only the drip drip drip from the eaves onto the gravel outside. The wind, too, had died away, and when Uncle Theodore opened the window, cool damp air wafted into the dining-room. Aunt Una retired to her room; but still Harry, Beatrice (who had evidently taken the confrontation in the lane as sanction for casting off her reserve with him) and Theodore chatted on, until Cordelia could bear it no longer, and more or less ordered Harry to accompany her upstairs to the studio.

  The air was so still that, rather than light a lamp, she simply took one of the candlesticks from the sideboard.

  "Anything the matter, old thing?" Harry asked, as they approached the stairs.

  "Don't call me that any more! I'm not old, and I'm not a thing." And, she almost added, I'm not yours, either.

  "Sorry, old-I mean-er-sorry," he said, sounding aggrieved, and they ascended in silence while she choked back one angry opening after another, so preoccupied with her suspicions in regard to Beatrice that they had reached the second-floor landing before she remembered "The Drowned Man".

  It came to her as she went to fetch the key of the studio from her room, leaving Harry to wait in darkness on the landing. She could not say anything about Beatrice without sounding jealous, and putting herself even further in the wrong, for he might be perfectly innocent on that score. But she could set him a test: she would place a strand of her hair between the covers of "The Drowned Man", and leave the door unlocked that night; if he lied about it in the morning, she would know, and break the engagement regardless.

  Though it had been cool on the landing, the day's heat was still trapped in the studio. She lit the candles on the table, and placed her candlestick in a holder on the lectern. When she knelt on the bed and opened the window, the candle flames barely wavered. There was no moon, but the sky had cleared and she could see starlight glimmering on the wet grass beyond the flagstones below.

  She stood up and turned to Harry, who was standing beside the easel, and, it seemed to her, ostentatiously ignoring the lectern.

  "What's the matter, old-sorry, I mean, what's up?"

  "Nothing," she said coldly, thinking, how could you possibly not know?

  "Not still upset over that little spat in the lane?"

  Too angry to reply, she tugged at the ring he had given her, meaning to fling it in his face, but it would not come off.

  "Good, I knew you wouldn't be. Look here old-sorry, I'm quite done up, I think I'll turn in. Don't worry about a candle. 'Night."

  He dabbed a perfunctory kiss on her cheek and retreated to the doorway. In silence, she extinguished the candles on the table and retrieved her own from the lectern.

  "Er-aren't you going to shut the window?"

  She shook her head, and removed her key from the open door as she left. Dazzled by the flame of her candle, she could not see his expression, but her own was surely unmistakable.

  "I see-leaving it to air-er, good idea. 'Night." He set off down the stairs in his irregular, slightly crab-like fashion, while she watched, still speechless, until he had vanished into the dim, starlit recesses of the flight below.

  BACK IN HER ROOM, SHE REMOVED THE OFFENDING RING with soap and sat on her bed rehearsing what she would say when she returned it to him in the morning. Or should she go down to his room and have it out now? No; that would only upset her uncle, and give Beatrice something more to gloat over. She would wait until she could get Harry alone in the wood. For an hour or more she paced up and down her room, sustained by the heat of her fury. But as it began to cool, doubts crept in. Harry hated scenes, and would go to any lengths to avoid a quarrel; perhaps he would have apologised if she hadn't been so hostile. And what-supposing he was innocent where Beatrice was concerned-was he supposed to apologise for? Calling her "old thing"? She had never protested until tonight. For being chronically unpunctual? She had never objected to that, either. For his lack of ardour? Again, she hadn't complained of it. Was he supposed to read her thoughts? Yes, said a rebellious voice, because I know I can read his. But how could she be so sure? He had been ardent enough, last Sunday on the riverbank; her headache had put an end to that. A wave of self-loathing rose up like bile; she buried her face in her pillow and wept for a long time.

  She must have fallen asleep, for after an indefinite interval she woke in darkness, with the impression of having heard a door close. Or had she only dreamt it? She slid off her bed, still fully dressed, and crept out into the corridor. No light shone beneath her sisters door, but the door to the landing stood open, and as she came nearer, she saw a faint glimmer of yellow light on the polished floor outside the studio.

  Candles burned in the sockets on either side of the lectern. His hair was dishevelled, his feet bare, his shirt half-unbuttoned. He had also lit the triple candelabra on the table; its light shone full upon her face as she stood with her hand on the handle of the half-open door, but he did not see her. His forehead gleamed; she could see the reflection of the flame moving over his temple as he swayed slowly back and forth. Once again she waited, willing him to look up, her anger rekindling as the seconds passed. A stirring of the air set the candles flaring the portrait of Imogen de Vere, which stood just to the left of her line of sight, caught her awareness, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

  She closed the studio door softly and returned to her own room, where she lit another candle, and changed into the emerald green gown. It was a little loose around the bodice and shoulders, but that would not matter; and her hair was still pinned up. She took out the veil, and for the third time drew it over her head.

  The mirror showed only a flame floating in black mist, but that did not matter either; she knew the way blindfold. Her sisters room was still dark and silent as she made her way back along the corridor.

  Even through the veil, she could see that his gaze remained fixed upon the lectern. She took a step into the room, then another. Still he did not see her. Three more paces, and a hooded shadow fell across the portrait as she came between it and the candelabra on the table. He looked up, and though his face was little more than a blurred impression of features, it seemed to her that he smiled. Then he began to speak, but so softly that she could not hear him through the muffling folds of gauze. She raised both hands and threw back the veil.

  The smile faded; the words died on his lips. For several seconds he stood petrified. Then, very slowly, his expression changed to one of disbelieving horror. She began to back away, her shadow growing larger as she retreated until she bumped against the table. The room suddenly brightened; something moved upon-no, in-the bed, at which she had not even glanced before. In the flaring, crackling light she saw Beatrice's head upon the pillow, a bare arm and shoulder emerging from beneath the sheet, eyes opening wide as Cordelia tore off the burning veil and beat at her hair with both hands.

  The flames around her head went out, with a horrible smell of singed hair; the blazing remnants of the veil floated across the room and settled upon Henry St Clair's palette-tray. Cordelia stood paralysed, watching her own narrowly averted fate enacted upon the canvas. A tongue of fire darted up one bare arm and across the shoulder of the emerald green gown; the beautiful face seemed to rise up in flight; and then, with no memory of an interval, she was stamping with her bare feet at the smouldering ruins of the portrait, with acrid fumes burning her throat, and a thousand tiny red sparks floating and settling and crawling abou
t the floor.

  She had knocked over the candelabra on the table; it too had gone out, but the two candles on the lectern still burned. Someone had been screaming; she did not know whom. Harry had not moved; he stood gripping the lectern with both hands, his mouth half open. Beatrice had wrapped herself in the sheet and was shivering on the edge of the bed, staring at her sister with glazed, uncomprehending eyes. Cordelia's hands and the back of her neck were beginning to sting painfully. Aside from the stinging, she felt perfectly numb; her mind had frozen in mid-thought, somewhere between Harry and Beatrice and what her aunt and uncle would do now that Ashbourn would have to be sold.

  But now Harry was folding away "The Drowned Man". Meticulous as always, he fastened the clasp, took up the black volume and placed it under his left arm. He might have been walking in his sleep, or perhaps the dream was hers, for it seemed to take him an age to cover the few paces that separated them. She thought he would pass her without speaking, and knew that she ought to be angry, angrier than she had ever been in her life, but the feeling would not come, nothing would come; until he stopped between her and Beatrice and muttered something that sounded like "Sorry old… sorry." And then, quite clearly, "I must, you see."

  The open window was directly behind him; one good push would send him reeling backwards past Beatrice, across the bed and over the sill. Something must have showed in her face, for he flinched away from her, hugging the black book to his chest. Beatrice, now with her clothes clutched against the sheet, held out her free hand as if inviting him to help her up. But he did not see her; his eyes remained fixed upon Cordelia, to whom he repeated, "I must have it, you see." Then he turned and made for the landing at a horrible hopping run.

  Cordelia followed, not knowing what she meant to do. From the doorway, she saw him silhouetted crabwise against the starlit window as he reached the head of the stairs. Then she was thrust violently aside. A pale figure darted across the landing and flung itself at Harry. His arms flew up, and he lurched violently forward, clutching at the black volume as it sailed over the banister. One foot caught on the rail, and for an instant he seemed to hang motionless in the void. Whatever sound he made in falling was drowned in Beatrice's scream before she vanished, wailing, down the stairs.