by Rhys Bowen
“And we wondered why anybody would choose to build a new house to look so old and uncomfortable.”
“It was to remind Brian Hannan of his homeland, I understand. And to remind everybody else that he’d come from a peasant cottage and could now afford a castle.” I turned back to them. “So you’ve seen it before? I remember that you stayed in Newport last summer.”
“Of course we’ve seen it. We could hardly miss it, could we, Sid?” Gus said. “My cousin’s estate is next door and our windows looked straight at the monstrosity.”
“Wait—your cousin’s house is next door? You don’t mean the house built like a Roman temple, do you?”
“Exactly.” They laughed.
“What a coincidence.” I led them up to the cottage door. “Here we are. Cozy but cramped.”
“How awfully quaint.” Sid laughed again. “Not only does the man build the most uncomfortable-looking castle but he’s added the peasant cottages around it too. Has he imported an Irish bog or two for the peat?”
“We shouldn’t laugh about him,” I said, suddenly remembering. “The poor man was murdered two days ago.”
“Mercy me,” Gus said. “Daniel nearly dies of pneumonia and your host gets murdered. And you thought you were here for a quiet week on the seashore.”
“I know.” I opened the front door. “As I said, it’s rather cramped, so I’m not sure how we’ll manage with sleeping arrangements…”
“Molly, don’t worry about us,” Sid said. “It’s all sorted out. Gus telephoned her cousin the moment we received your telegram, and the upshot is that we are most welcome to camp out in marble luxury next door. The housekeeper there will take care of our needs and we shall be free to look after you and Daniel.”
“That is wonderful,” I said. “Here, let me take those wet coats.”
“How very dinky.” Sid was already poking her head in doorways. “A real Irish cottage. And supper already laid out on the table.”
“I’ll take you up to see Daniel and then we can eat,” I said. “We should go quietly just in case he’s sleeping.”
But he wasn’t. He opened his eyes in surprise as we came in.
“Daniel, dear. Look who has come to be with us,” I said.
“Now I suppose I’m to get no peace from a pack of women,” he replied, but his eyes were smiling.
“I can see you are on the mend, Captain Sullivan,” Sid commented.
As for me, I felt as if a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. My husband was getting better and my dear friends were here to support me. Everything would be all right after all.
Twenty-five
I awoke to a great crash and leaped up, my heart thumping. Was it someone hammering on my door, or trying to break in? Part of my brain was already calculating how long it had been since I’d been allowed an undisturbed night’s sleep. Daniel beside me murmured in his sleep but didn’t wake. Instinctively my hand went to his forehead and I was relieved to feel it pleasantly cool. I grabbed my robe and tiptoed to the stairs. At that moment the room was bathed in a flash of light and I realized that the crash I had heard was only thunder from the storm that had been threatening. I went over to the window and watched as lightning flickered out to sea. Thunder rumbled again nearby and the heavens opened in a veritable downpour. I stood for a while watching it until the thunder died to a distant murmur and the rain abated.
I was about to go back to bed when I saw something pale moving through the bushes. I peered out into the blackness of the night wishing for more light, trying to work out what I had seen. Then it appeared again, closer this time. There was no mistaking what I saw: A person dressed in white was dancing in the rain. The boys’ white lady. I was downstairs in an instant and ran toward where I had seen it. It, or rather she, must have heard me coming or sensed my presence because it ran lightly across the lawn to the tower and then simply disappeared. I followed, my feet cold and tingling on the wet grass. I reached the tower and searched diligently. No sign of her. Nowhere she could have gone. I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up as I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. I had to conclude that there had been a ghost after all. The ghost of a young woman. Who was she and why had the family never mentioned her?
I dried myself off and climbed back into bed, snuggling against Daniel in an attempt to bring back warmth to my cold, wet body, but sleep wouldn’t come. A dead child who must not be spoken of—a young woman in white who was never mentioned, and now a murder. Daniel had always said to me when speaking of investigations, “First find the connection.” What had happened at this place, to this family that they were keeping from the rest of the world? And who was the mysterious woman in white? I was determined to find out.
At first light I was still awake. Daniel beside me was breathing peacefully but noisily. However it was no longer the rattling rasping of someone who was suffocating in his own fluid. I got up and dressed silently, then I let myself out. It was a lovely still morning with the promise of a fine day ahead. Birds were chirping in the trees. A squirrel ran across the grass, then up the nearest cedar tree when he spotted me. I headed straight for that tower and started to pull apart the ivy, looking for a hidden door. After a long and diligent search I was forced to the conclusion that there wasn’t one. The ivy here had really been allowed to take over in this part of the house, growing thickly and unbroken around the base of the tower.
I extended my search to the castle wall on either side. The ivy was not so rampant here. But neither was there any kind of door or opening through which a person might have slipped. My figure in white had definitely not run around to the front door or to the back of the house. I would have seen her against the darkness of that building. I stared up in frustration. The first windows seemed to be in the upper floors and they were closed. I was about to give up when I noticed a tendril of ivy on the ground. Of course it could have been brought down by the force of the storm, but I parted the ivy close to where it lay. No, I hadn’t missed the door, but what I did see was a solid trunk of ivy tree stretching upward and dappled daylight shining down on me. It might just be possible for someone young and agile to climb up inside the ivy at this point. I had no idea where she would be going, but it was worth a try. I hitched up my skirts and was tempted to remove my pointed and impractical shoes. After I slipped on the wet ivy a couple of times I did remove them, leaving them hidden under the ivy.
Then I hitched up my skirts in a most unladylike manner and up I went. It really did seem as if there was a route upward. As I climbed higher the ivy branches became more fragile and I worried about it supporting my weight and pulling away from the castle wall. I was high now—at least two stories up, but nowhere near at the level of the turret itself. I hesitated, wondering where this would lead and whether I was risking my life for nothing. But then I found a couple of ivy leaves that were crushed, as if someone had gripped the branch right there.
So I kept on going and came at last to a small window, hidden from the outside world by the ivy. It was closed but I tugged at it and it swung open. It was arched like a castle window with tinted leaded panes. I peered inside and saw a narrow stairway going up and down. It was no easy challenge to squeeze myself and my skirts through but after a heart-stopping moment when a tendril of ivy did come away from the wall, I made it. I found myself standing on the staircase. In one direction it descended into darkness. On the other it went up, hugging the castle wall. There were no doors that I could see. The narrow stair was enclosed and cut off from the rest of the building.
So up I went, my heart beating faster in anticipation of what I might find. It must lead up into the tower. It was dimly lit with that one window of tinted yellow glass and then no other form of light for quite a while. At the top I came to a doorway. It was shut. I turned the handle, rattled it, but it must have been locked from the inside. Frustration welled up in me. I was so close and I wasn’t about to give up now. I knelt down, trying to put my eye to the keyhole, but the
key must have been in it as I could see nothing. I realized in annoyance that I hadn’t yet put my hair up. A good hairpin might have been able to dislodge that key. I didn’t relish climbing all the way down again and then back up with the right tools to gain entry, but I was prepared to do it if that was what it took to find out the truth.
Let me tell you that going down was harder than climbing up. I slithered, got my skirts caught, scraped my toes, and was generally thoroughly vexed by the time I reached the ground. I found my shoes and went back to the cottage, carrying them in my hand. Once back at the cottage I removed my wet stockings and underskirt, giving me one less layer to encumber me. I wished I had dared to pack my bicycling bloomers. How much easier it would be if ladies were allowed to wear them on a regular basis. Then I found a small knife in the kitchen drawer and took a sheet of writing paper from the desk. Thus armed I recrossed the lawn. The sun was now coming up over the ocean, painting the water with lovely streaks of gold. I felt a renewed sense of urgency. Gardeners would be arriving. People in the house would be up and around. Young Sam might want to go fishing, if the shed was unlocked.
I reached the ivy unseen and slipped inside. The second climb seemed to take forever and I wondered at one point whether I had taken another route upward and missed the window. But there it was at last and I climbed through more easily with one less layer of clothing to hinder me. Up the stairs I went, slid the sheet of paper under the door and then used the knife to push out the key. I heard it drop with a loud clunk and hoped that I had positioned the paper correctly. I held my breath as I pulled it out carefully and was delighted to see the key lying on it. In a few seconds I turned the key in the lock and the door swung open. Before me was a good-sized, rather large Spartan room with bare floors, dotted here and there with braided rugs. It was lit by another arched window, this one paned with clear glass so that I could look out at the grounds and the gate. On the far wall was a fireplace but no fire was lit and over it was a painting of Jesus with the little children. In one corner of the room was a bed, unmade, with coverlets half falling to the floor and over it a large crucifix. The other furniture consisted of a small table with two chairs, an overstuffed chair—rather the worse for wear—a small wardrobe, and a cupboard with a doll and teddy bear sitting on top of it. In the middle of the floor there was a dollhouse and a big rocking horse in the corner. A child’s room. I felt a wave of fear run through me. A child’s room kept as a memorial to a dead girl? But the bed had been slept in and the dollhouse was open with a baby doll in a cradle sitting on the rug.
I looked around for an occupant but the room was empty. There was a door on the far side. I found myself tiptoeing over to it. The bare boards creaked as I crossed the room and I held my breath. But the door only opened onto a sort of anteroom with a sink, a tin bath, a small stove, and various foodstuffs on a shelf. That was all. So where was the person who lived here? Had she gone down the stairs to other rooms where she spent the day?
I came out of the anteroom and was about to walk back to the door when I heard a low voice.
“Otay wee awa n baba, Coween.”
“Wee awa.”
All my thoughts of ghosts came back to me. Then I realized that the sound was coming from under the bed. I crept toward it and lifted the comforter that was about to fall to the floor. Looking back at me was the face I had seen in the window, the face I had seen on the portrait in town. Her big eyes were staring at me in pure terror and I noticed that they were not bright blue, as in the portrait, but were greenish brown. I also realized, of course, that she was not four years old, but a girl of eleven or twelve with long light-brown hair. The hair was still plastered to her forehead the way it would be if she had been out in a rainstorm and had not dried or brushed since. She was still wearing a white nightgown but I couldn’t tell whether that had dried on her or was a fresh one. After her initial frozen shock the girl was now looking around like a trapped animal for a way of escape.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,” I said gently. “I’m a friend.”
She stared at me, silent, unblinking.
“I saw you dancing in the rain,” I said, smiling at her. “That must have been fun. And you put a flower in my hair when I was asleep, didn’t you?”
She was staring at me, unblinking, not giving any sign as to whether she heard and understood what I was saying or not.
“Are you Colleen?” I asked.
Still she didn’t reply or move.
“Colleen?” I asked again.
A tentative smile crossed her face. She picked up a big rag doll with yellow hair that had been lying on the floor beside her. “Coween,” she said.
I was confused. “The doll’s name is Colleen?” I asked. “Or your name?”
It was her turn to look confused now, her eyes darting, ready for flight. “Coween,” she said again, holding the doll close to her now.
“And what’s your name then?”
She was starting to inch away from me. I could tell she wanted to get out from under the bed so that she had room to escape. Suddenly I saw her eyes shift from me and open wide in terror.
Mrs. McCreedy stood behind me and in her hand was a knife.
Twenty-six
“I knew I couldn’t trust you from the very beginning,” she said in a threatening voice. “You with your poking and prying where you’ve no right to be. Well, I hope you’re satisfied now because you’ve just condemned her to death.”
I scrambled to my feet, standing in front of the child to protect her. All kinds of thoughts were whirling through my brain. Colleen had never died at all. This crazy woman had kept her hidden away and captive all this time. The child on the floor whimpered and attempted to crawl away.
“It’s all right, Kathleen, love,” she said gently. “You’ll be safe, don’t worry.”
“Kathleen?” I frowned. “Not Colleen?”
“Coween.” The child scrambled under the bed to pick up the doll and then backed into a corner.
“I’m not going to harm her,” I said. “I saw her outside running around in the storm last night and I had to find out who she was.”
“Outside? Don’t tell me she’s managed to get out again, has she? I wonder how on earth she did it this time.”
“She opened the window halfway down the stair and she climbed down the ivy. I followed her route. That was how I got in.”
“But I leave the door locked.”
“Somehow she managed to open it,” I said.
Mrs. McCreedy shook her head. “She used to be such a docile little thing. She’d play happily with her toys and eat her food and that was that. But recently she’s grown restless. I found she’d got out once before but I thought we’d taken care of that.”
“I think she’s been outside several times while I’ve been here,” I said. “The two boys reported seeing a ghost, and I was asleep in a lawn chair when I heard singing in a strange language and awoke to find a flower in my hair.”
“I told the master it wasn’t going to work much longer and we’d have to decide what to do with her,” she said. “Is that why he brought you here? He wanted to show her to you and see what you’d recommend?”
“Mrs. McCreedy, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “And please put away that knife. I’m not a threat to anybody. I don’t know why Mr. Hannan invited Daniel and myself here and I don’t know who this child is or anything about her.”
She looked down at the girl who was now sitting on the floor, hugging the doll to her, humming to herself as she rocked back and forth.
“Go back to your playing, Kathleen. Everything is all right. You can tell Colleen everything is all right.”
Then she took my arm none too gently, her fingers digging into my flesh, and led me across the room and into the little scullery area, closing the door behind us.
“I could kill you now,” she said. She was standing between me and the door, the knife still in her hand. “Nobody knows about this place
but me now that the master is dead. Plenty of cubbyholes to hide a body.”
“My husband knows where I was going,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “And I don’t know why you’d want to kill me. I told you I meant no harm.”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant, the harm has been done. They’ll find out about her and then it will be all over for the poor little thing.”
“Why should it be?”
“Because they’ll send her back.” She sounded close to tears. “After all I’ve done for her all these years to keep her from harm.”
“You called her Kathleen,” I said slowly. “She’s not Colleen?”
“Colleen is dead,” she said flatly. “You knew that. You’ve seen her grave.”
“Then who is she?”
“Kathleen’s her name. She was Colleen’s twin.”
“Colleen had a twin sister? Then why is she kept up here rather than with her family?”
She leaned closer to me. “Because she killed Colleen. She pushed her sister over the cliff.”
“But she was four years old. She couldn’t have known what she was doing.”
“I’m afraid she knew, all right. She was observed, you see. Creeping up behind her sister and then giving her that awful push. She was always the strange one, poor little thing. Colleen was the most adorable little girl you could ever imagine—blonde curls, blue eyes, dimples, and a disposition to match. Everybody adored her. And Kathleen, well she had the same features but without the prettiness, if you know what I mean, and her hair was mousy while her sister’s was golden, and she was sullen and stubborn and withdrawn. She hung back when Colleen ran into your arms. How do I put it—she simply wasn’t as lovable.”
“So you think she got rid of her more lovable twin?” I asked.
“I know she did.”
“What did she say about it? Was she sorry? Did she think it was an accident?”
“We don’t know. At that moment she stopped speaking. I don’t believe she remembers a thing about it, and she’s even forgotten she had a twin. It’s as if she blotted the whole thing from her mind. As you can see she calls that doll Colleen and she speaks to it in gibberish, but that’s the only time she speaks. Not a word to me although she may nod now and then.”
