Popcorn and Poltergeists

by Nancy Warren

  She was clearly anxious to get on with the next item on her agenda. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Would you mind if we interview your assistant?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Cassandra? Whatever for? Oh, yes, I see. She was Georgiana Quales’s assistant too. Well, if you think she’ll tell you more about this affair than she’s shared with me in the ten years she’s worked for me, go ahead.”

  Chapter 10

  Once we were back outside, Rafe once more approached Cassandra Telford’s desk. She appeared surprised to have him there. “Did you want to make another appointment?” she asked, pulling her day planner toward her.

  “I see you use the old-fashioned approach to keeping track of your employer’s schedule,” he said.

  “I began my career before computers were common. I’ve never completely trusted them. Oh, I do have Professor Cartwright’s schedule on the computer, of course, but I also keep a written record.” She leaned closer. “Just in case.”

  “Very wise,” said Rafe, who’d come of age when the printing press was a novelty. “As you know, I’m here to evaluate and value the college’s book collection, and I’ve asked Amelia’s permission to try and track down whatever happened to the Brontë and Shelley manuscripts.”

  Her pleasant expression grew distressed. “Such a terrible loss. I’m one of the few still here who remember. Those were dark days.”

  “It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. You were Georgiana Quales’ assistant, too, of course.”

  “I was.”

  “Amelia says Georgiana met with an American book collector shortly before her tragic accident. A Mr. Reginald Cameron.”

  Her earnest gaze dropped to her desktop, and Cassandra Telford pushed her glasses more firmly onto the bridge of her nose once more. “Yes. I believe she did.”

  He glanced significantly at her open planner. “Would you still have any record of his meetings with Professor Quales?”

  “Oh.” She glanced at the closed door. “I’m not certain…”

  “I did ask Professor Cartwright for permission.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She stood and turned. Behind her was an ornate credenza. She opened it, and below a bank of files was a shelf where planners were neatly shelved. “I keep them in chronological order. Let me see.” She pulled out two books. “Georgiana Quales died in June ten years ago. Here is the planning book for that year and for the previous year.”

  Rafe watched as she put the two books on her desktop and opened one of them. “I understood from Amelia that they only met a couple of times.”

  She glanced up with a wistful smile. “It’s been ten years, Rafe. I can’t remember her schedule as accurately as I did at the time.” Then she began flipping pages, stopping to scan and flipping forward. Finally, she said, “Here we are.” She turned the book so Rafe could see it, and I moved forward to peer at the open planner too. She pointed with her index finger to a square on a page. “February twenty-six. Reginald Cameron. They met here in her office at ten in the morning. It wasn’t a long meeting, as you can see, as she had a meeting with the chancellor at eleven.”

  “Did she meet with Mr. Cameron again?”

  “Yes. I believe so.” She flipped a few more pages ahead. “Here it is. March twelve. Lunch.”

  Rafe looked at the page. “There are no other appointments on her calendar for that day.”

  “No.”

  “Was that unusual?

  “It was a Friday. She would sometimes use the afternoon to catch up on paperwork.”

  “Is it possible she didn’t come back from lunch?”

  The woman’s lips compressed, and it was a moment before she spoke. “Georgiana Quales was a dedicated administrator. She was not one to shirk her duties.”

  “I agree with your assessment,” he said with his charming smile. “I merely want to get a picture of what may have happened.”

  “I don’t know whether she came back that afternoon. It was ten years ago, and my memory isn’t that good.”

  “Did you know who Reginald Cameron was?”

  She closed the book and stacked it neatly on top of the other. “Not then, no. But of course, it later came to light that he was a wealthy American book collector.”

  “Why would Professor Quales have met with him? Had lunch with him?”

  “She may have believed he wanted to donate part of his collection to us. People do, you know.”

  Did she believe that, or was she hoping to convince us?

  As we walked down the hall, and once we were well out of earshot, I said, “That assistant agrees with you that Georgiana Quales was a woman of integrity.”

  “Yes. And no one sees a person more clearly than their assistant.”

  We walked back down the wide staircase. “You don’t have business at Warwick tomorrow, do you?”

  He made a back-and-forth motion with his head. “I do have business at Warwick, but it doesn’t have to be conducted tomorrow.”

  “Hmm. I don’t even need my witch powers where you’re concerned. I can read you like a book.”

  “You should come with me,” Rafe said.

  I looked at him. “To Coventry?”

  “Yes. It’s a pleasant drive.”

  I much preferred a country drive with Rafe to a day in the wool shop, but I didn’t want to be a complete pushover. “I have a business to run.”

  “And you have excellent staff who can manage the shop very capably in your absence.”

  That was true. And most of them actually knew how to knit, which was definitely a benefit when running a knitting shop. “But are you sure we’re going to find anything interesting? If all he had was her workplace address, doesn’t it sound like he was estranged from his sister or mother or whoever Susanna Morgan was?”

  “It’s partly the workplace address that’s piqued my curiosity. Besides, I was sincere. Hearing about a loved one’s death should always happen in person and not by telephone.”

  “All right. I’ll come.”

  “Good. And now, do you want to go back to the shop?”

  “No. I want to go back to the library.”

  Eldra Johnson, the chief librarian, was a tall, angular woman so thin I wondered if it hurt her to pick up a stack of library books. She had chunky black hair, heavily stencilled eyebrows, and was wearing a fuchsia cashmere sweater over black pants and high-heeled boots.

  I introduced myself and explained that I was here to help Rafe and make some educated judgments about the unpublished manuscripts of Victorian handicrafts. Even though I wasn’t much of a knitter, it would be really cool to see how Victorian women had approached these crafts in a time when there was no television or internet and educated women rarely worked outside the home. When Silence Buggins had listed her many knitting projects and the praise she’d received from them, it had reminded me a bit of the way a modern woman might list her degrees or boast about her job promotions.

  Eldra looked behind me as though expecting to see another person. “We’re leaving soon. You’re not planning to work in the library by yourself, are you?”

  I was glad she seemed to be referring to the poltergeist, as I hadn’t really known how to introduce the subject. “Yes.”

  She looked at me. Tapped red painted fingernails against her desktop. “I wouldn’t advise working here on your own,” she said at last.

  “Why not?”

  “Lucy, I don’t want to frighten you, but strange things happen here when you’re alone.”

  I decided to save her the trouble of explaining. “I’ve heard about the poltergeist, if that’s what you mean.”

  She looked relieved that I already knew. “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

  “Has it ever hurt anyone?”

  She looked around as though other people might overhear us and, clearly realizing we were alone, said, “I’ve never witnessed any violence personally, but there have been a couple of serious accidents.”

  “Are you
referring to Wilfred Eels? The caretaker?” I thought I’d better ask in case there were other mysterious accidents I hadn’t heard about.

  She nodded. “So you know?”

  “Yes. Do you think he was killed by the poltergeist?”

  She began to place books behind her on the shelf. They were holds for students to pick up. “Anything is possible, but I’ve never felt anything malicious.”

  “So you have encountered the poltergeist?”

  “Well, it’s more that strange things have happened in the library that I can’t account for. Sometimes I’ll walk into an area and it just feels freezing cold and I feel compelled to back away. Sometimes I’ll go fetch a book and it’s missing. It will turn up in a completely different section, even when I know it was shelved correctly. They aren’t things that you can prove. The logical explanation would be that I’d mis-shelved the book or the heating’s playing up. It’s more like the work of a prankster than a vengeful spirit.”

  She must know the college gossip better than I did. “The rumor is that the former principal, Georgiana Quales, is responsible.”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t here then, so I never met the former principal. The poltergeist never attempts to communicate with us or send messages, and I’ve never felt frightened. I’ve just witnessed the things I told you about. Although that’s unnerving enough. The incidents have always happened when people were alone in the library. That’s why there are always two librarians on staff now. It’s the same with the students. We tell them to come in pairs or groups. Of course, mostly they don’t come at all. Or a couple of them will come hoping to scare themselves silly, as though they were in the cinema seeing a horror movie. When nothing happens, they leave.” She turned around and gave me a sarcastic look. “Usually without availing themselves of the resources of the library.”

  “Do you think I’ll be in any danger if I work here by myself this evening?”

  “Frankly, no. But would I take the chance?” She shook her head. “Probably not. Especially not after poor Wilfred.”

  Since she seemed happy to chat, I wondered if I might glean some more information about the dead caretaker. “I believe he was working here the day of his accident.”

  Her face immediately took on a sad expression, and she glanced toward the stairway where he’d fallen, which was blocked off with police tape. “That’s right. A pane of glass was cracked. He and I joked that it was the work of the poltergeist. Probably it was just the building shifting. Things are always cracking and breaking.”

  “Was the caretaker afraid to work here by himself?”

  “No. He said he enjoyed the company.” She smiled. “He was like that. Liked to have a joke.”

  “You don’t think the poltergeist somehow caused him to fall?”

  “No. I think he had an accident. The stairs are bad. If we had more money in our budget, they’d be fixed. Now, they’ll be blocked up until we can find a way to pay for a new staircase.”

  I looked around, but the library seemed empty. “Aren’t you alone now?”

  “No. Fiona McAdam is in here somewhere.”

  I was pleased that Fiona was feeling well enough to be back at work, but if what Eldra said was true, I wouldn’t see any poltergeist activity so long as she was there. I’d have to wait her out. Not being a vampire or the bravest woman on the block, I didn’t relish being stuck here into the wee hours, though I knew that Rafe would be in the building. With his extraordinary hearing, all I had to do was yell and he’d be on me in a flash.

  Eldra led me to the alcove where they kept the original Victorian manuscripts about crafts. Amazingly, considering their age, they’d only been simply bound and shelved. Although they were part of the research collection and couldn’t be checked out, any student with grubby fingers could handle them.

  If we found the manuscripts had value, even if it was only historical novelty, perhaps we could do something about protecting them better. I felt weirdly protective of these manuscripts. It was all that remained of those women who’d worked quietly on their handicrafts so long ago. Unsung heroines of the needle.

  I settled my things on a study table in the alcove, turned on the lamp that would add illumination like a spotlight and then decided, before I got started, to let Fiona McAdam know I was here.

  I found her two alcoves down. She was sitting at the matching table to the one that I had chosen and had several books around her. I recognized the alcove as the one Judith Morgan had been working in when she had the strange experience. This was the Brontë corner. Fiona’s laptop was open, but she was scribbling with a pen and notebook. She still had her arm in a sling, but she looked much less pale than the last time I’d seen her. A bruise had come out on her cheek, but other than that, she looked surprisingly well. She looked up when I came close. And smiled at me. “Lucy. How nice to see you here. You’re back to help Rafe value the knitting diaries of Victorian ladies, I understand?”

  She said the words with a kind of superior smirk, as though women writing about knitting and tatting projects had no value. I suppose they didn’t have any literary merit if compared with Shakespeare’s plays or even Charlotte Brontë’s personal letters, but to me they were just as interesting. In truth, probably more so.

  “You’re not afraid to be in here on your own?” I asked her.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I would like to blame a poltergeist, but I just had a silly fall and don’t remember it.”

  “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but could Wilfred Eels have attacked you?”

  Her eyes opened wide. “The caretaker? Why would he attack me?”

  I shook my head. “It was a crazy idea.”

  The trouble with Wilfred Eels was that I had never met him. I could make no judgment apart from what I’d heard from other people. Rafe had enjoyed pleasant conversations with the caretaker. And Rafe, I thought, was an excellent judge of character. But then, chatting with someone about the weather was hardly conducive to understanding a man’s moral fiber. I looked around me at the stacks of books stretching two stories up and filling alcove after alcove. I could strain my neck in any direction and see books and more books, as well as bound manuscripts, periodicals and no doubt student theses. “You don’t think the missing Brontë and Shelley manuscripts could be here in the library somewhere, do you?”

  She took off her reading glasses and blinked a couple of times. “I think if they were here, they’d have been found by now. Certainly I’ve read everything either by or pertaining to the Brontës at St. Mary’s. It’s an impressive collection. But no, I’ve never come across anything like that.” She sighed. “And I wish I had. It’s so sad to see the school struggling.”

  “Do you think that Georgiana Quales sold them?”

  She seemed to contemplate my question, leaning back. “I never knew the woman. It’s possible, I suppose. I wouldn’t like to speculate.”

  “I see they’ve moved your talk to next week.”

  “Yes. I needed some time to recover.” I said again that I was planning to go and looking forward to it and then I went back to my own alcove. It’d been a few years since I was in college, but there was something so familiar about a school library. The endless rows of books, the polished wooden floor—I could almost smell the anxiety like little ghosts of previous students cramming for exams or frantically trying to write a paper in one night that should’ve been started a month earlier. I knew Oxford students were smarter than most, but I doubted they were that different.

  I picked up the first of the Victorian-era manuscripts. It was really just a front for me to be here, but since I had to outwait Fiona, I decided to take a look anyway. I went back to the librarian’s desk and caught Eldra before she left and asked her for a pair of white gloves for handling rare manuscripts. I was pleased to find that she had them, and she nodded approvingly at me for asking. At least someone apart from me saw value in these old records of women’s handiwork.

  Suitably gloved, I opened the first m
anuscript with anticipation. However, my excitement soon dimmed. Whoever had written this had tiny, cramped writing that had faded in the hundred and fifty years or so since it had been written. Had paper been expensive then? I asked myself as I squinted, trying to read the lines so close together that sometimes the words overran.

  I thought that Fiona was being unkind when she called them ladies’ knitting diaries, but that’s very much what this one looked like. Something about pickling what looked like pigs’ ears and was no doubt something entirely different. I turned the page. Here was a hand-drawn pattern for some tatting. I was bored already. I was doubly pleased, now, that I’d come up with that idea for Silence Buggins to go through these. I couldn’t have Silence coming in here, though. If anyone saw her, they’d think they were seeing another ghost.

  It was nearly an hour before I heard Fiona McAdam packing up. I was so bored by that time that while I had the world’s most tedious account of tatting open in front of me, I was sneakily writing some social media posts about the knitting store on my phone.

  Finally, Fiona McAdam left, after wishing me a fruitful evening, and I was alone. The old door clicked shut rather noisily when she left. But I didn’t need that signal to let me know I was alone. I felt it. I felt the emptiness all around me. Rows and rows of books looking down, silent witnesses to me yet again proving that I wasn’t much of a scholar. I got up and stretched my back and decided to take a slow walk around the library. I was nervous, but I didn’t walk through any cold patches. No books mysteriously reordered themselves. I felt that I was alone. In a way it was a relief, but I had come here to confront the poltergeist. I’d give it another hour, I thought, then I’d make a circle and try to draw out the ghost.

  Being in a library with no one in it was kind of eerie. It was as though the books had a secret life and I was interrupting them. With no one there to read them, take them off the shelves, talk about them, did they just sit quietly? Shelf after shelf of them? Maybe they talked amongst themselves, shared information, ran quiz nights.