The Ordeal of the Haunted Room

by Jodi Taylor

  He continued, more strongly now. ‘I took up a candelabrum and examined the room. Dust was everywhere and it was obvious no one had been in there since . . .’ He choked. Mrs Harewood held a brandy to his lips. ‘. . . Since my father’s death.’

  I was watching him closely. Normally you look to see a person regain their colour but Henry Harewood was losing his. His hectic flush was slowly dying away.

  He was continuing. ‘Having assured myself I was completely alone, and drawn by the warmth of the flames, I seated myself by the fire and went to pour some wine.’

  ‘It was the wine,’ cried Mrs Harewood. ‘I knew it. Henry, the wine was poisoned.’

  ‘Please pardon my contradiction, madam,’ said Markham, ‘but it was not.’

  Henry shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter – I didn’t have time to drink it.’

  He chugged back some more brandy and Markham said, ‘Continue, sir.’

  Henry stared at Markham for a moment, obviously attempting – as so many had done before – to ascertain exactly who this person was and what did he think he was playing at, while not being so discourteous to his guests as to point out their servant’s impudence. A real social conundrum but I’ve learned just to go with it. He – Markham – usually knows what he’s doing. It amuses him to play the clown but trust me – he’s not.

  ‘Well, I opened my book. The Iliad.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve been meaning to enjoy Pope’s translation again but there never seems to be the time.’

  His eyes clouded.

  ‘Henry!’ said his wife sharply, obviously long accustomed to recalling her spouse from whichever academic hinterland he’d wandered into.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ he said absently, and then, more strongly, ‘yes. Well, I opened my book and almost from the first page the lines seemed to dance before my very eyes. I felt an overwhelming desire to relax, to lean back, to close my eyes and fall fast asleep.

  I exchanged a glance with Markham and Peterson. Peterson had laid his hand protectively on the vase. Barnstaple and John continued to stand motionless and forbidding. The Argonath.

  ‘I have never felt so tired. No matter how I struggled, my lids were heavy. My breathing slowed. My head was so thick. I could no longer remember where I was. Or even who I was. I just had to sleep.’

  His wife buried her head in his shoulder. ‘Oh, Henry.’

  ‘Now, my dear.’ His movements were a little uncoordinated but he did his best to pat her in a reassuring manner very similar, probably, to the way he would calm a gun-shy spaniel. ‘I am here now. It’s all over.’

  Mr Chance looked up from the fire. ‘Sir, it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that since you did not complete the Ordeal, it is, unfortunately, not all over.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ cried Mrs Harewood. I was really getting to like her. I could just see her in a green and purple sash campaigning for women’s suffrage in the decades to come. But back to the plot.

  Mr Lillywhite, looking still more unhealthy, even for a member of the undead – sorry, clergy – stammered, ‘Forgive me, Mr Harewood, but I must ask – were you conscious of any . . . any pagan presence at all?’

  Harewood laughed. ‘My dear sir, I was barely conscious. I felt as if my whole body were being dragged backwards into the dark. A tiny voice was shouting at me to rouse myself, to leave the room forthwith, but my limbs were too heavy. I could not move them. I could not resist in any way.’

  ‘But you must have, dearest,’ said Mrs Harewood. ‘We heard you banging on the door. We heard you shouting to be released. Do you not remember that?’

  He passed his hand over his forehead. ‘I am not sure. I have no recollection. I suppose I must have.’

  I looked at his hands. They were unmarked and perfectly clean. I remembered the solicitor Chance’s grubby paws, but for Henry there had been no bruising and his fingernails were intact. These were not the hands of a man who had pounded on a door, shouting for his life.

  ‘Mr Harewood,’ I said. ‘Out of curiosity – how did you rouse yourself sufficiently to alert us to your predicament?’

  Yes, I really was talking like a heroine in a Victorian melodrama. Any moment now I would be saying, ‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand . . .’ thus enabling the big strong hero to explain everything to the little woman.

  ‘Well,’ he said, blinking. ‘It was the damn— the strangest thing. I felt myself going and then – so strange – a searing pain in my left arm.’

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck lift. ‘Please, can you show me?’

  Obligingly, he rolled back his shirt sleeve and there, two inches below the inside of his elbow – an angry red burn. That had to have hurt. No wonder it had roused him.

  I stared at it. Markham stared at it. Peterson stared at it. Three of St Mary’s finest, trained to deal with every emergency known to man – and quite a few that haven’t been invented yet – and we gawped like idiots.

  Eventually, I said, ‘That looks painful.’

  ‘It is,’ he said, rolling his sleeve down again. ‘But Mrs Trent will have an ointment for it. She usually does.’

  ‘You should be grateful,’ I said. ‘The pain, however caused, was sufficient to bring you temporarily to your senses.’

  He nodded. ‘I pulled myself out of the chair. I knew this was no normal slumber. Nothing – nothing could have induced me to sleep – to close my eyes, even – in that accursed room. Holding to the furniture for support, I managed to propel myself towards the door. All the time I could feel my strength ebbing away and my senses sliding into darkness.’

  ‘And yet you managed to batter at the door,’ said Mr Chance, a slight note of scepticism in his voice.

  He shook his head. ‘I have no memory of that. I am surprised I could even lift my arm.’ He smiled at his wife. ‘And then I opened my eyes and found myself here.’

  He looked around the room. We watched the realisation dawn. ‘The Ordeal . . .’

  ‘Is not important right now,’ said Mrs Harewood, firmly.

  ‘Is not important at all,’ said Markham. ‘You will want to take legal advice, of course, but I don’t think anyone is going to quibble over this year’s Ordeal. You’ll get a free pass, I think.’

  Mrs Harewood twisted to look at him. ‘Who are you? Really.’

  ‘He’s my brother’s manservant and we’re all perfectly normal people,’ I said, telling one of the biggest lies of my career. ‘We are exactly who we claim to be. Chance passers-by. My brother sustained a genuine accident and we sought shelter in your house. That we arrived tonight is only a coincidence. We have no connection in any way to your Haunted Room. Which is not haunted, by the way.’

  Another untrue statement but now was not the time to mention that something had burned Henry’s arm. Something had pounded on the door.

  ‘But . . . but a man died in there,’ cried Mr Lillywhite. ‘I was there. I was present at the time. I saw it all. A man died without a mark on him.’

  ‘Except for a small but deep cut on his left arm?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said my husband had been poisoned,’ cried Mrs Harewood. ‘Is it possible his father was as well?’ A thought evidently struck her. ‘Was the poison somehow introduced through the cut on his arm?’

  Mr Lillywhite appeared distraught. ‘Madam, I cannot feel that this is a conversation at which you should be present. Your distress must be overwhelming.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Harewood simply. ‘But my patience is rapidly coming to an end. Why . . . ?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Peterson, at the table. ‘I think we can answer that question. With your permission, of course, Mr Harewood.’ He held up the vase of spills he’d brought over from the Haunted Room.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ enquired Mr Chance, sharply. ‘That is estate property. Give it to me.’

  �
�No,’ said Peterson. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘My dear man, I am the family solicitor. We have been with the family for decades and after the unfortunate circumstances this evening . . .’ He stopped.

  ‘Go on, Mr Chance.’

  ‘Please do not make me say this in front of Mrs Harewood.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry to have to announce this here and now and in front of everyone, but Mr Harewood has not completed the Ordeal, has he? I am, therefore, with enormous regret, unable to allow Mr Harewood to assume full control of the estate.’ He turned to Henry Harewood. ‘My dear sir, never have I been more reluctant to carry out my duty.’

  ‘So, to be clear,’ said Markham, interrupting him. ‘Access to the Haunted Room is by means of three different keys, and one of each is held by you, the reverend and Mr Harewood himself.’

  ‘That is so,’ Lillywhite said, puzzled. ‘So no one person can access the room. Not on his own.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Chance. ‘That is how the Ordeal was designed. No one person can access the room and every part of the Ordeal must be confirmed by at least two independent witnesses.’

  ‘And no one can gain entry between the Ordeals?’

  The reverend shook his head. ‘No, it is always kept locked.’

  Mr Chance was impatient. ‘I have said this several times. No one single person can carry out the Ordeal.’

  Markham was thoughtful. ‘So, anything placed in the room during Mr Harewood senior’s Ordeal would still be there today.’

  The room was suddenly very still.

  Henry Harewood was struggling to rise from the sofa. ‘I don’t understand. What is this about?’

  ‘My dear sir,’ said Mr Lillywhite, bending over him. ‘Please do not exert yourself. You have experienced a terrible ordeal. I believe I have, on several occasions, warned of the perils of this unchristian . . .’

  Harewood knocked his hand away. I had a feeling the vicar’s dining days at Harewood Hall were over with.

  Peterson pulled the vase of spills towards him and looked at it. I looked at it. Markham looked at it. Everyone looked at it.

  It was just a normal little vase. Cheap, white and narrow, holding around a dozen paper spills. You know what I mean. Unwanted paper, torn vertically, rolled up and used to light lamps, fires and candles. Every Victorian room had a jar of them on the mantel.

  ‘I don’t understand either,’ said Mrs Harewood stoutly. She left her husband to join the group around the table. ‘What is so special about this vase?’

  Markham once appeared onstage at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. He played the Ghost in Hamlet. Because he’s an actor, you know. We didn’t hear the end of it for years and years and now, just as we’d thought it was safe to go back into the water, his thespian talents were waking to a second spring. He walked slowly to the table and picked up the vase.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  And to prove it, he pulled out the spills and hurled the vase to the floor, where it smashed into pieces. Tiny fragments of china flew through the air. The maids screamed in alarm. Disappointingly, no one swooned.

  Mr Chance recoiled. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘The jury is still considering its verdict,’ said Markham.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘The vase is unimportant,’ said Markham. ‘But to a dying man, trapped in a locked room with only minutes left and no means of communication, these spills were the only paper in the room.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Mr Harewood. ‘What could he have possibly wished to communicate?’

  Motionless, Markham waited until every eye was upon him. The pause thundered on and on until it became almost unbearable and then . . . his big moment . . .

  ‘The name of his murderer.’

  The word sensation didn’t even begin to cover it. For a very, very long time no one moved. No one spoke. Everyone stared at Markham. And then at the spills. And then back to Markham again.

  And then, with a sudden roar, the windows blew wide open. The curtains billowed across the room, dragging themselves across a small table and sending a tray of glasses flying. A heavy gust of rain blew into the room. The decanter lay on the floor, brandy slowly seeping into the carpet.

  The through draft was making doors slam in the hall outside. As if whole platoons of poltergeists were out on a pre-Christmas works outing. The reverberations caused a picture to slither down the wall and crash to the floor, evoking more shrieks and screams from everyone. We were like a haunted house on steroids.

  Everyone stood frozen – whether from the shock of Markham’s pronouncement or the fear of something prowling around the house trying to get in, I couldn’t tell. I looked around the room. Everyone’s face registered shock or fear or complete incomprehension. Mrs Harewood gave a faint cry, took two paces backwards, collided with a sofa and sat down in a hurry. I didn’t blame her.

  Surprisingly, Mr Lillywhite was the first to speak.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said in what I assumed was his pulpit voice. ‘I have never heard such utter nonsense. This man has no idea what he is saying. Who are you to burst in here making wild accusations? I beg you, Mrs Harewood, please do not allow whoever these people may be to distress you any further after the unfortunate events of this evening. I suppose Christian duty precludes us from expelling them forthwith into this dreadful weather.’ From his expression I guessed doing his Christian duty was a bit of a struggle at the moment.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ I said, ‘I think we can close the windows now. Now that the fresh air has revived Mr Harewood, there is no point in the rest of us catching pneumonia.’

  No one moved so I crossed the room and closed them myself, shutting out the wild night. Abruptly, the sound of wind and rain subsided. I pulled the sodden curtains across the windows for good measure and picked up the decanter. There was still a good amount left. When I looked around again still no one had moved.

  Mrs Harewood swallowed. ‘Is there . . . I would like . . . no, I demand an explanation. What is happening here?’ She looked at Markham. ‘You have been very free with your accusations. Now back them up with evidence.’

  Technically, it was my assignment, but now was not the moment to push myself forwards. I suspected my credibility with both the church and the law was fatally compromised anyway and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. I nodded at Markham to continue.

  He looked around the room. Mr Chance still clung to his position of dominance with his back to the fire. Barnstaple and John still stood, poker-faced, at the door. The maids had clustered together in the far corner. They looked terrified but I bet wild horses couldn’t have dragged them out of this room. The Reverend Lillywhite had taken refuge behind the sofa. Whether to protect the Harewoods or himself was not clear.

  Markham cleared his throat. ‘Let us proceed traditionally and begin at the beginning. Mr Harewood senior did not survive the Ordeal of the Haunted Room. He was discovered dead, and I’ve been told his face was mysteriously congested and everyone assumed a stroke or fit of some kind. There was not a mark on him apart from a small cut on his left arm, just below the elbow, which had bled but not substantially so. Certainly not enough to cause his death. I do not know if an autopsy was carried out . . . ?’

  Harewood shook his head. ‘No. The scandal . . . the gossip . . . My mother died shortly afterwards. She never fully recovered. She always said everywhere she went there were looks and whispers. No one would visit us. We could barely get tradesmen to deliver.’ He tailed away.

  ‘That was very unfortunate,’ said Markham, ‘but I think you will agree those weren’t the only consequences of that night.’

  ‘No.’ He cast a look at Chance. ‘My father had failed to complete the Ordeal and his full inheritance couldn’t be released.’

  Chance
spread his hands. ‘My dear Mr Harewood, as I explained at the time . . .’ He gritted his teeth. ‘And several times to Mrs Harewood subsequently – my hands were tied. I had no choice.’

  ‘And I am assuming,’ said Markham, ‘that, as tonight, Mr Harewood’s body was removed from the Haunted Room with all speed?’

  The Reverend Lillywhite nodded.

  Chance flushed. ‘There was such turmoil. Such shock. We did not know what to do. There was Mrs Harewood to attend to. The doctor to summon. The maids were in hysterics. Chaos reigned and somehow . . .’

  ‘And the Haunted Room?’

  ‘Secured by Barnstaple the moment we left. In case . . .’ Chance stopped. In case anything escaped were the words not spoken.

  ‘Never mind that now,’ said Mr Harewood, turning to Markham and Peterson. ‘You said my father was murdered. Who? Who murdered him? I demand you tell me immediately.’

  Lillywhite drew himself up. ‘This is preposterous. I cannot think what these people could possibly be suggesting.’

  ‘I am suggesting,’ said Peterson and suddenly his tone was not so pleasant, ‘that Mr Harewood senior was a man of courage and resource. Realising he was dying . . . realising who had killed him and why . . . he improvised. Recognising he had only seconds of life remaining to him, it was vital he convey the identity of his murderer to the world. He had nothing upon which to write until his eye alighted on the spills so close to hand. He broke a glass, nicked his arm and inscribed the name of his killer, in his own blood, on one of the spills we see here tonight and, in his dying seconds, replaced it in the vase on the mantel.

  He took a breath. ‘Mr Harewood, the name of the person who killed your father has been sitting, undiscovered, in the Haunted Room since the last Ordeal. Unknown to anyone. Even the murderer.’

  Chance stared at the spills in Markham’s hand. ‘Are you saying . . . ?’