Ashes to Ashes

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  For a fleeting moment she thought he meant the chickens. “Jan and Peter Sorenson? Americans are mostly what grow around here.”

  “I’d like to meet some normal Americans,” he said wistfully.

  Rebecca laughed. So far the poor Scot had met only the occupants of Dun Iain, who probably reminded him of the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace.

  Michael deftly poured boiling water into the teapot. “You don’t think they’ll be servin’ tuna casserole?”

  “Jan’s a good cook, never fear. I was supposed to warn you, though, that they have kids.”

  “I have three nephews. My sister and I call them Huey, Dewey and Louie. If I can put up wi’ them I can put up wi’ anything.” He poured a mug of tea, added milk and sugar, drank. His expression went as blank and mellow as Ray’s did after successful completion of a page in The Joy of Sex.

  She had to think of that. Grimacing, Rebecca warmed up her coffee. She and Michael leaned against their respective patches of counter, exchanging wary glances over their individual mugs of restorative. In the cold, gray light of morning her suspicions of him the night before seemed absurdly paranoid. “So you think the house is haunted?” she asked, taking the plunge.

  He shook his head. “It could be that Steven Spielberg’s set up a special effects lab in the attics.”

  “Cognitive dissonance. Your mind isn’t equipped to deal with unfamiliar input. So you try to familiarize it.”

  “Telling yourself it’s all in your imagination. I don’t know,” Michael confided, “whether I was more frightened of the unfamiliar, as you say, or of goin’ mad. But when it happened to you, too— well that was all right.”

  “Thanks,” she replied dryly. “Although having ghosts in the house does add flair to the proceedings. If there weren’t any, we’d have to make some up, just to spice up the state’s advertising brochure.”

  “Old things do have an air about them. Rizzio’s guitar, for example; you can just feel what it must’ve been like, can’t you?”

  “Oh yes.” He was a closet romantic, no doubt about it. She’d have to stop teasing him about it. “James used to say the things wanted to go home.”

  “They wanted to, as if they were alive? Aye, I think they probably would have done.”

  Plunging even further, she admitted, “I dozed off in the prophet’s chamber and dreamed I was at Culloden.”

  “Culloden,” he repeated sadly. “What a waste.”

  Rebecca sipped her coffee. That had been more of a vision than a dream. Dreams didn’t move objects around and turn on lights.

  “The question,” said Michael, “is whether there are ghosts, spirits, psychic forces— whatever you want— or just bloody-minded humans. And whether it really matters. We still have to live with it.”

  “I’ll tell you what would help with the human element,” Rebecca said. “Changing the lock on the front door and being very careful who gets a key.”

  Michael topped up his mug. “Good idea.”

  “Eric’s idea. He mentioned it last night.”

  “Ah? Timely suggestion, what?”

  She ignored his implication. “And as for the ghosties and ghoulies, maybe I can work them into my dissertation.” That didn’t come out quite as lighthearted as she’d intended, but it would do to serve notice she was staying. If she had to pretend the supernatural existed in order to get her Ph.D., so be it.

  Michael fished a cat hair out of his mug and didn’t respond.

  “Here.” Rebecca picked up the bread and handed it to him. “Make some toast. The chicken’s almost ready.”

  “Chicken and broccoli?”

  “Chicken Divan. Not quite up to Mrs. Beeton’s specifications, maybe, or even Betty Crocker’s, but it’s what we had on hand.”

  “For breakfast?”

  “You can’t live forever on eggs and pork,” Rebecca told him, thinking of the identical breakfasts in every hotel on her British tour. “Be adventurous. Be daring.” She pulled out the baking dish.

  Michael set the toast to attention in the toast rack. A slightly rueful, slightly calculating glance made Rebecca wonder if just putting up with her was as daring as he wanted to be. It rankled, that he’d rather be alone with assorted spooks than have her around. But they weren’t being paid to like each other, just to work together without bloodshed. Even though he was, every now and then, actually likable.

  Darnley sat in an empty chair washing his face while they ate. Or rather, while Michael ate. Not only had Rebecca not quite finished digesting last night’s sumptuous repast, she was so fascinated with the way he mashed his food onto the back of his fork with his knife that he finished long before she did. She gave him the rest of her portion and he ate that, too. “Very good,” he pronounced at last.

  “Thank you. You go on. I’ll get the dishes— this time.”

  Michael refilled his mug and wandered off, looking more like the laid-back academic than Rebecca had ever seen him. Funny how food acted as a tranquilizer. Not that physiology was her field.

  She’d barely piled the dishes in the sink when his bellow reverberated down the staircase. “Rebecca! Get yoursel’ up here!” Well, she thought with a roll of her eyes, peace had been nice. She took off her apron, tempted to shout back, Ah, don’t get your y-fronts in a twist!

  Even with the chandelier shining, the Hall was a murky gray, reflecting the morning outside the windows. At least the rain had stopped pouring and was now reduced to a dispirited drool. Michael stood staring at the long table as though a cobra lay coiled next to his mug. When Rebecca stepped over the threshold, he demanded, “Where did you put the mazer?”

  That big silver goblet? “I didn’t put it anywhere. The last I saw, it was right there. You were looking at it.” As if you were appraising it, she added to herself.

  “It’s gone missin’,” he said.

  “You didn’t put it back in the sideboard for safekeeping?”

  “Why? This is a castle, no a news kiosk. It’s quite defensible… ”

  Rebecca waited while the horrible comprehension washed over him, draining the color from his face. As if on cue his carefully smoothed hair collapsed onto his forehead. “Damn,” he snarled. “I didna check the place last night. Whoever broke in had plenty o’ time tae do a flit wi’ the mazer.”

  “I didn’t check it either. I must’ve assumed thieves wouldn’t call attention to themselves with vandalism. Unless it was meant as a distraction. Nothing of mine was missing.” The coffee that had a moment ago been so delicious was now acid eating away Rebecca’s esophagus. No one would want anything of hers, anyway. “You’re not blaming this on ghosts?”

  Michael pounded his fist on the table, then lunged and grabbed the pile of cups that threatened to fall over at his blow. “Is that why… ” he started to ask, and then stopped, his face hidden, holding the cups.

  “Is that why what?”

  The words came in a rush. “Is that why you gie me the whiskey, sae I’d fall asleep and you and your toffee-nosed boyfriend could… ”

  “Trash my own things and steal the mazer?” she demanded. “Don’t try that on me. You had every opportunity while I was gone to do it yourself. We’re both suspects in this, whether you like it or not.”

  For a long moment the room was silent. A gust of wind rattled the tall windows. Michael and Rebecca stood staring at the jittery teacups. “All right then,” he said at last. “We’ll search the hoose. First, tae see if the mazer’s been moved aboot by the spooks. Second, tae see if anything else has gone missin’. I dinna suppose it would’ve helped if we’d reported the theft last night. We do have tae report it.”

  “Now you’re talking sense. I’ll call Eric. He’s the executor, isn’t he?” she added hurriedly, to forestall explosions.

  But even though Michael’s eyes flared, all he said was, “Aye, that he is. Call him and tell him what’s goin’ on.”

  Rebecca stamped irritably into the kitchen and consulted the list of numbers posted by the pho
ne. Garst, Pruitt, Adler, work and home. She dialed. Darnley, still curled on a chair, opened an eye and closed it again. The door of the lumber room opened with a crash that reverberated through the entry. Rebecca turned her back on the kitchen door. If it wasn’t Michael making the noise she wasn’t going to acknowledge it.

  “Hello!” With just the one word the velvet voice smoothed the hair bristling on the back of her neck.

  “Eric, it’s Rebecca. We’ve got a problem out here.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “We had vandals last night. At least, we think we had vandals last night. And this morning we’re missing an artifact. Or we think we are, at least— Michael’s looking for it now.” That sounded really incisive and vigilant, she scolded herself.

  “What’s missing?”

  “A thing called a mazer, a big silver goblet. I was wondering if you could find a locksmith who’d work on Saturday… ”

  “The mazer? It’s been stolen?”

  Rebecca wondered if the faint static echo on the line was Eric grinding his teeth. “We don’t know for sure yet,” she repeated. “We’re checking to see if anything else is gone, too.”

  “Rebecca, I’ll be right out. And I’ll bring Lansdale, the sheriff. I’ll bring a locksmith, too, if I have to tie him up in the back seat. And you, you take care. Keep an eye on Campbell.” He hung up.

  Now there was incisive. Rebecca nested the receiver tenderly in its cradle. Poor Eric, he was probably envisioning lawsuits with the museum, the state, and any heirs extending into the next century. In a way it was comforting to know that his polished veneer could be scratched.

  The mazer, he’d said, knowing what it was. The newspaper it’d been wrapped in was dated last spring. Maybe he’d wrapped it up himself and tucked it away, thinking it would be safe.

  Good grief, people were coming and she hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen! Rebecca wrapped the apron around her sweater and jeans and started juggling dishes. Somewhere between the cutlery and the saucepan Michael charged through into the pantry and back out again. “I’m up to the top,” he said. He hadn’t found it on the lower stories, then.

  Rebecca arranged the clean dishes in the drainer, ran to her room to tidy both it and herself, then went up one more flight. Judging by the slams and crashes, Michael was looking in the storerooms on the sixth floor. She had the fourth to herself— she hoped. She stood outside Michael’s door, her hands clenched at her sides, arguing with herself. I have a responsibility to my employers. I have a responsibility to myself. I have to live with this man.

  Feeling less like Mata Hari than Gomer Pyle, Rebecca took a deep breath and walked into Michael’s room.

  Even though her hands itched to make the bed, she simply patted down the tangled blankets. Two empty suitcases were beneath the dusty box springs. She slid open the dresser drawers, wincing at each squeak, peered into the wardrobe, checked the bathroom. She found nothing she wouldn’t have expected to find: shirts and jeans, toothpaste and comb, a pair of the green rubber boots called wellies that Britons are born wearing. The mazer was too big to be hidden just anywhere.

  Books lay scattered on every surface. Textbooks, a travel guide, paperback science-fiction novels. There was the spiral notebook. She opened it. Every page was filled with the columns of items and numbers prefaced by pound signs she’d already seen. “Coalport vase. 50. Acquire.” Sounded good to her. If he was into double-entry bookkeeping, she’d never notice it.

  On the bedside table an envelope was tucked behind the clock-radio, a newspaper clipping dangling like a cigarette from its lip. The headline said something about a firebombing in the Western Highlands. Goodness, Rebecca thought, and hoped no one Michael knew had been there at the time.

  Footsteps. Her face flaming with embarrassment, Rebecca catapulted through the bathroom into the big bedroom and started ransacking the cabinets there. The only thing out of place was a cut-glass perfume bottle on the bed. It was icy to the touch.

  She trudged up the stairs and returned the bottle to the dresser. The chandelier in the big bedroom, set amid plaster garlands on the ceiling, glared off the windows in the turrets as if each pane of glass were a mirror backed by mist instead of silver. Michael bounded in the door just as she was counting the other perfume bottles. “Did you find it?”

  Five, six. There had been seven yesterday. “No, I haven’t found it. Is there a bottle missing?”

  “This one?” He set down a small crystal decanter. “They move aboot on their own. Subduction currents or something.”

  “I’ve put this one back twice now. I guess you could be moving them around. So could I, for that matter.”

  “And who’s been sleepin’ in the bed? Goldilocks?”

  Rebecca turned. The pillow was hollowed as if by the print of a head. They had each smoothed it out at least once. “That might be… ” she began, but her voice trailed off. The house creaked and the windows rattled.

  “Elspeth?” asked Michael. “It’s the bed where they laid her oot.”

  Rebecca wondered, in a sort of dispassionate horror, if she was going to scream or faint or be sick. But even though her skin crawled, all she found herself doing was folding her arms and setting her jaw obstinately.

  Michael’s eye moved from the pillow to Rebecca’s stubborn expression. “That’s all right, then. Keep your pecker up.”

  Rebecca disintegrated in laughter. “I wouldn’t use that expression quite so loosely around here.”

  He grinned. “Has a double meaning, does it? I’ll remember that.”

  Neither of them moved to fluff the pillow. As they began opening and shutting cabinets and drawers Rebecca decided he knew perfectly well that expression had another meaning on this side of the Atlantic, and had used it to make her laugh. Maybe it was time for her to do some tension-breaking, too. She asked, “Did you search my room?”

  “Oh,” he said faintly. He turned on his heel and stalked off. She followed him down the stairs quickly enough to see him pause in the door of his own room and survey the contents. Then he shrugged and loped on down the next flight. Rebecca called, “Put everything back where you found it.” His reply was some muttered idiom she didn’t try to decipher.

  She went into James’s room and poked desultorily around. The clothes in the wardrobe were even more heavily scented with lavender than they had been the day before. Elspeth’s hatboxes contained nothing but Elspeth’s hats, the feathers disgustingly molted. The tissue wrapped garments turned out to be a baby’s long lacy dresses and tiny caps. A hundred years ago even baby boys wore dresses.

  Rebecca was sitting back on her heels admiring the fine stitchery when Michael returned. “Naething’s there that wisna there last night,” he announced. “You’re clean. Am I?”

  “You will be as soon as you tell me why you don’t want me here.”

  He sat down so heavily in a rocking chair he almost went over backward. Catching himself, he said, “Excuse me?”

  Well, that chair wasn’t sabotaged. “Why don’t you want me here?”

  For once he was at a loss for words. “It’s no that— I mean, I dinna mean— I… .”

  “Count to ten,” she told him caustically. “Then try again.”

  He rocked back, the chair squeaking in protest, and fixed the wall above her head with his most candid gaze. “The state sent you tae check on me.”

  “My instructions were to work with you. That I was to look out for my own country’s interests was merely implied. Not to mention my own interests.”

  “I already had Adler breathin’ ower me. He should’ve been enough.”

  “But he’s not living here. And he doesn’t have the background to do more than glance superficially at what you’ve been doing, which is probably why… ” She bit her tongue, but it was too late.

  “Aye?”

  “He’s a little suspicious of your accounting. Just as you are of his.”

  “Damn cheek!” Michael said to the ceiling.

  Reb
ecca took a deep breath that didn’t quite fill her lungs. “You haven’t been setting up any little practical jokes, have you? Like fixing the chair in the prophet’s chamber?”

  “What aboot the chair in the prophet’s chamber?”

  “It broke in half when I leaned back in it. The connecting piece, the bracket, it was sawed through.”

  He looked at her in disgust. “Now why would I do that? It was probably dickey from old age.”

  “I don’t have the pieces to show you— Phil took them away.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed Michael. “That might be significant!”

  “Or it might not.” Rebecca began to fold the baby clothes back into their brittle sheets of tissue. Michael rocked briskly back and forth, mouth crimped. She glanced up at him. His reply to her questions had merely confirmed her original suppositions, not told her anything new. No telling what, if anything, he was up to. She laid the crinkly bundles in the wardrobe and said, “I’d thought this was going to be an interesting job, but I didn’t bargain for just how much!”

  “Interestin’ is an understatement.” Michael bounced out of the chair, offered her his hand, and hauled her to her feet. “No matter if the yobbos who’re causin’ the trouble are human or supernatural or both— and I incline to think they’re both— they’re keepin’ us from doin’ our jobs.”

  Accepting the existence of either human or supernatural malefactors in her life was a dizzying leap of perception. Rebecca wondered how long she could postpone brain meltdown. “All the more reason to get on with those jobs,” she replied staunchly. “Right?”

  “Right,” he said, equally stalwart, and they shook on it.

  Chapter Nine

  The silence was shattered by the slam of the front door. Michael’s and Rebecca’s handshake turned into a convulsive clutch. As one they raced to the stairs. When Michael shouted “Hello?” the word echoed into the depths of the house as though down a well.

  “Hey,” called Steve Pruitt’s nasal voice. “Anybody home?”