by EJ Lamprey
***
‘Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a blunt instrument. You don’t need me, William. This room scripts itself. You even have a couple of hideous Art Deco bronze statuettes to hand as weapons.’ Edge turned slowly on her heel to examine the musty, gloomy library with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with leather-backed books. She went over to the nearest rack to pull a book free, with some difficulty. ‘Swollen with damp. What a shame, this room must have been lovely in its day. It’s freezing! What happened to your aunt?’
‘There wasn’t one, he was a die-hard misogynist, didn’t give a toss for family. Remember that WC Fields quote about women being like elephants: interesting, but you wouldn’t want to own one? That was my uncle to a T. He certainly found women interesting, and he had some wild parties here back in the days when he was making money hand over fist. There’s no wonder there’s not much left; champagne flowed like water, nothing but the best, wall-to-wall loose lovelies. A great role model for a growing lad.’ He looked round nostalgically. ‘I hate seeing the place like this, collapsing in on itself.’
‘I can't see you being able to move here yourself.’ Donald was using a laser tape measure and jotting the results in his notebook. ‘It would cost every penny you’ve ever earned in royalties to put it right.’
‘And more.’ William, a successful but not best-selling SF author, was slightly regretful. ‘But I can’t sell it as it stands. Butler says if anyone is injured by any of the traps I’d be liable, so there’s no giving it away either. The Foundation won’t take it unless I make it safe, and that’ll cost a packet. Only alternative is to keep it, and, as you say, let it fall into extremely expensive picturesque ruin. So what do you think about a murder weekend? As soon as possible, before the weather gets too bad and the place turns into a complete icebox.’ He shot a disgruntled look at the library fireplace, where the fire he had lit was smouldering sullenly. ‘If Vivian’s prepared to cook, at least the food will be good.’
Edge raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought you said the kitchen was horrendous?’
Vivian nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, it is. The oldest and biggest range you ever saw. And no fridge, just a still room next to the scullery, which would make a wonderful pantry. But it’s absolutely enormous. We could rent a commercial stove and a few freezers and fridges and still have enough room to dance reels, trust me. And the guests would be mucking in and helping themselves, so I wouldn’t be doing three full meals a day. It could be fun.’
‘Oh, it could be excellent. Not terribly cosy, but in summer you wouldn’t need more than three jerseys to fight off hypothermia,’ Edge said drily. ‘Why not go for a writer’s workshop, William? You said that place you were at last week cost a fortune, and that would be a week or a fortnight at a time, much more money. You could stick with a murder theme, invite thriller writers?’
‘I don’t think anyone would stay longer than a weekend,’ William said frankly, and gestured generally round the gloomy library. ‘Would you? We’d have to stay longer as well, remember. No thanks.’
‘Mmm. I’m thinking that for a really good murder weekend you’ll need actors to keep it moving along, and that would cost a fair bit.’
‘And dingy is all very well, but for guests paying through the nose, you’ll need good sets and that costs too.’ Donald cast a final glance at an ominously dark shadow on the ceiling and looked across. ‘Creaking hinges and fake cobwebs, at the very least. Addams family style, or more subtle creeping horror?’
William’s eyes brightened. ‘Addams family! I hadn’t even thought of that. Edge would make a good Morticia and you could be Gomez, dance with all the female guests.’
‘I was joking,’ Donald said resignedly. ‘And you are certainly not pimping me out to women on the prowl for adventure. Edge won’t permit it. She’s shatteringly possessive.’
Edge smiled across at him. ‘It’s a good cause, Donald. You can dance with the scarier ones, I really won’t mind. William will have to take care of the pretty ones.’
William snorted. ‘I expect them to take care of each other. Actors and expensive sets, though, that’s not going to leave much over for the rates and taxes. Do you think a writing retreat would work? The place I stayed had a phenomenal library, all mod cons, and top food. We can’t offer that here.’
‘But you are offering tons of atmosphere, especially if Donald tweaks it up a bit. More to the point, a bunch of writers who specialize in thrillers would be pretty good at finding those booby-traps for you, and they’d enjoy themselves in the process.’
‘That’s actually not a bad plan. And it is a great atmosphere, a sight more evocative than the place I tried. You could have something.’
‘How’s the electricity supply?’ Edge grimaced involuntarily as she glanced up at the dim chandelier. ‘And you’d need Wi-Fi because you’re not going to get any writers here unless they can plug in to their life-support systems.’
‘Dodgy.’ William admitted. ‘There’s no signal here at all, it’s a complete dead spot. Look at your mobile phone, you’ll see. Still, that’s fixable. I’m pretty sure we could sort out a piggyback signal of some kind. Donald, what do you think?’ He looked around for the other, who was frowning over his notebook. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m puzzled. I was re-checking my measurements. There’s a gap between the drawing room and this room.’
William nodded, impressed. ‘You’re good. Aye, there is. A hidden room. My uncle thought it was undetectable. I’ll show you later. What,’ he repeated, ‘do you think?’
Vivian rubbed her arms and moved closer to the sullen fire. ‘This horrible fire hasn’t stopped smoking and the room hasn’t warmed up one iota since you lit it. No relaxed evenings chatting in the library, that’s a given. You couldn’t ask much for your workshops. Would it be worth the work?’
‘Ten bedrooms, that leaves eight for guests.’ William did a brief mental calculation. ‘Even at half what I paid, it would help. I could ask that much. I mean, it’s very grand, people would like that.’
Donald put back the book he had pulled from the library shelves and fastidiously wiped his fingers on a dusty cushion. ‘It was very grand. That was a first edition but it’s falling apart.’ He glanced up at the tiered shelves of books. ‘If the musty smell in here is anything to go by, they’ll all be the same.’
‘Okay, so they’re slightly foxed.’ William, taller than most men, made a long arm to tug on a book higher up and looked dismayed as the spine came away in his fingers.
‘Foxed?’ Edge spluttered with laughter. ‘Try buffaloed. Water-buffaloed! I’m sorry, William, but the books are past saving.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Cameron, for underlining the obvious.’ William looked round the library wistfully and sat heavily on one of the leather Chesterfields, twins to the ones in his bungalow at the Lawns. ‘This used to be the best room in the house. I can’t think what my uncle was doing, letting it get so neglected. He loved books.’
‘You did tell us he was pretty frail by the end,’ Edge said fairly as she cautiously perched on the arm of the Chesterfield. ‘When you were here before did you look around? Is the rest of the place in the same condition?’
‘I had a look when I went off to hunt for a loo,’ Donald put in sardonically. ‘Had to go upstairs in the end. The rooms are incredibly old-fashioned, and the walls are splotchy and stained. The damp problem in winter must be horrendous.’
‘Ah.’ William abruptly looked a bit guilty. ‘Glad you made it back. I should have warned you, one of the bathrooms has a booby trap. Whatever you do, if you go into the one on the far right, do not touch the red switch on the wall outside. It was the most laddish of all his pranks: the idea is when you heard someone inside you flipped the switch, they finish their business, walk towards the door and whoosh.’
‘Whoosh?’ Donald stared at him. ‘The toilet explodes?’
‘No.’ William snorted with sudden laughter. ‘The floor opens. He was a bit addicted
to slides, and this one shoots you out of the house altogether, into the hydrangeas. You wouldn’t want to be caught on your way in, you’d be washed out on a wave of involuntary pish.’
‘Your uncle sounds quite the character.’ Donald wasn’t amused. ‘No wonder the Foundation isn’t clamouring to have the place. Not the moment when you want the bottom dropping out of your world. We disable that one.’
‘Probably need to rebuild the whole bathroom to get it past modern health and safety regulations.’ William sobered again. ‘It all comes back to money. Again.’
‘What about the fortune?’ Vivian swivelled to present her hips to the sullen fire.
William lifted his heavy shoulders in his familiar shrug. ‘He told me not long before he died that there was a fortune hidden here,’ he told Donald and Edge. ‘He was a bit gaga by then, and living in the past. If there’s anything hidden at all, we’re probably talking a few thousand pounds in a suitcase. There’s precious little in his bank accounts, royalties on his inventions dropped off sharply since his heyday. I did look in the hidden room when Vivian and I were here last week with Butler, since that was the obvious place for it, but there was nothing.’
Donald looked disappointed. ‘Unless you can find that fortune and it runs to serious money, you have to ken the clock’s ticking on it even being habitable.’
William growled in frustration. ‘So what the hell do I do? Return the keys to Butler, and still be stuck with the rates and taxes, which are not shy? Sell it as it stands with an indemnity clause which may or may not hold in the face of a serious accident? The other option is to make it safe for the Foundation, and I wouldn’t know where to start. I thought Butler would have a copy of the house-plans, with every trap marked, but he says not. I’m beginning to think Edge may have hit on something with a writer’s retreat. Even if I only charge expenses, we could challenge the writers to find the traps. I agree the bathroom one would have to be disabled, but some are harmless, just alarming.’
‘Show us one then, go on.’ Donald’s blue eyes were bright with interest. ‘Is one of the books a Jack-in-the-box?’
‘Ha.’ William heaved himself back to his feet. ‘You’ll love this.’ He stumped across the room, peering at spines of books, then gave a grunt of satisfaction and prodded at one with his stick. There was a click and a section of the bookshelf swung open. He nodded at Donald. ‘Hold that open.’
Hidden room
Donald put his hand on the door obediently, peering into the Stygian darkness beyond. ‘The missing room. It’s not much of a trick, though—oi!’
The door twitched out of his fingers and slammed hollowly back into place. At the same time the door to the hall swung shut with an ominous click as it locked, and an icy draught swept the room as the flames died in the fireplace. Within seconds the coals were as dark as though they had never been lit.
‘My uncle never did like people poking round on their own,’ William remarked with satisfaction. ‘If you nip straight into the hidden room and shut the door, nothing happens. Hold it open too long, and you trigger the trap. There was a buzzer in his room which let him know when it was found, so he could come unlock the main door. He used to tell guests the library was haunted. That’s probably why it got so neglected, the cleaners likely believed him.’
Edge hugged herself and shivered. ‘I hate to be the one to say this, William, but he’s not going to be coming to let us out. At least, I hope he’s not, or I will go into strong hysterics. You’d better have a back-up plan.’
‘Of course I do.’ He looked patient. ‘I press this bit of moulding, and hey presto.’
Vivian looked at the library door, which stayed stubbornly shut. ‘So presto it. I want the loo, a coffee, and something to eat.’
William pressed the rosette in the moulding again, frowning. ‘I’m sure it was this one. Maybe this one?’ He tried a few others, higher and lower. The door didn’t budge.
‘Didn’t you see how it was done last time?’ Edge asked Vivian, who shook her head.
‘Stuart Butler went outside for a cigarette, and I grabbed the chance to go out with him and defrost in the sun. William said he wouldn’t be long. I was to come find him if he screamed, or didn’t reappear. ’
William shrugged. ‘I told Butler how it worked, which book to press in case, but I didn’t trigger it last time. I went straight in. There’s a handle on the inside of the hidden room for getting out.’
‘How did it get so cold in here?’ Donald crossed to the fire and hunkered down to look at the coals. ‘No wonder this didn’t burn well, if it’s jiggered. Can I light it again, or will it not light again until the door opens?’
‘Click your lighter,’ William ordered and moved slightly sideways to toe an almost invisible mark on the hearth. Donald’s lighter flared, and the flames climbed again to their previous listless height, eddying in the insistent breeze. ‘Looks like that’s still all we’ll get, it used to be a real blaze. The smoking was probably cobwebs and dust. Blast the old man and his old broken traps!’
‘You’re as bad as he was, deliberately triggering it.’ Vivian moved resignedly back to the fireplace. ‘Now it’s really perishing in here!’
‘Concealed cold air vents. They close again when the door opens. I can’t switch them off separately. Damn!’
‘This rosette, was it?’ Donald peered at the first one William had tried, jiggled it slightly with his thumb, and pushed hard. The library door to the passage clicked and the chilly draught stopped instantly. Edge lunged over to pull the door wide with a gasp of relief.
***
They drank their coffee in the main hall, trying to ignore the accusing glares of the many stag heads mounted on the walls. A stooping eagle spread impressive wings overhead, cruel beak shrieking eternal mute defiance, but dusty sunshine was now streaming through the windows and the hall was noticeably warmer than the rest of the house, beautifully proportioned and grandly, if shabbily, furnished.
‘Loving the décor.’ Donald glanced up, met the reproachful stare of a slightly threadbare stag and winced. ‘So, plans. You said you checked the hidden room. I could keep measuring, checking for other hidden rooms. That’s easily done.’
‘I genuinely don’t think there’s any cache worth finding.’ William combed his auburn beard with fretful fingers. ‘I’d rather we looked the place over for the writers, see what has to be done, if it could be done.’
‘Tiptoe through this mausoleum expecting rusty old traps to malfunction the way the hidden room did?’ Edge looked nervous. ‘What are we likely to find?’
‘I don’t think there would be skeletons.’ William tilted his head back, his eyes screwed up in memory. ‘There were sudden draughts, lights that go out without warning. Rustling noises. Blood spots that appeared and disappeared.’
‘Lurking houseplants.’ Donald looked saturnine. ‘There’s a hideous fake one in the passageway upstairs, matches that one over there. I thought I must have brushed it as I went past, it plucked at my sleeve. I turned round to steady it, and if a plant could whistle and gaze into space, that’s what it was doing. I thought I’d imagined it.’
‘Half the writers I know would have tried to strike up a conversation with it.’ William gave one of his rumbling laughs. ‘Pure Uncle. Grant would be up for it, right enough, but it would take weeks to get it ready and I doubt we could coax him to Scotland in November.’
‘No chance.’ Edge was emphatic. ‘He lives in Tenerife because he can’t stand the UK climate!’
‘Not quite true.’ William said mildly. ‘He rents a place in the countryside which, come to think of it can’t be far from here, on an annual lease. Has done for a couple of years, but aye, he only uses it in summer for a couple of weeks at a time.’
‘It can’t be as cold as this place,’ Edge said stubbornly. ‘Even here in the hall I’m wishing I’d brought a heavier jacket. Some writers may be up for adventure, but none that I know are keen on freezing.’
William sho
ok his head impatiently. ‘It has to be now. You’ve forgotten we’re all off to South Africa in December. Vivian and I aren’t due back until March. That’s not only six months wasted, this place won’t make it through winter without heating, which means a live-in caretaker, and that’s a further financial drain. Haul in the writers, find the traps, get them fixed, get it off my hands before we leave.’
‘Now?’ Donald quirked a brow at him. ‘Make a few phone calls to all the local writers we ken who are sitting staring into space wondering what to do with themselves, stock the pantry, and sit back?’
‘It isn’t impossible, Donald.’ Edge ticked off on her fingers. ‘Organize Wi-Fi, bring those cleaners in for a serious run-through, rent the kitchen equipment, rent or buy bedding – we could do it, but it would cost, and that’s the last thing William wants.’
‘No, part of the reason I want to hold a weekend is that the costs for doing it up could be put against tax, if there’s income as a result. I expect to lose money, but a tax loss would be quite handy. As it is, I can’t claim the overheads on a property I don’t use. What about finding writers?’
Edge shrugged. ‘I’m in a couple of big writing groups with busy Facebook pages, and I do know a few popular bloggers who would think it a hoot to spread the word. You have a huge network on Twitter. There are thousands of writers out there, they can’t all be busy. If we can get some kind of publicity out of it for them, they’d be trampling each other to get here first. Get them not only to look for the traps, but for the cache as well.’
William opened his mouth, looking impatient, but Donald cut in first. ‘You don't think it’s worth it, big man, but they won’t know that. They might as well be looking for that at the same time, and there’s a fascination about booty, ken, it’s,’ he sought a word, then shrugged, ‘it’s glamorous. The idea of hidden treasure, I mean. It could be a letter from a bank revealing a secret bank account. A writer looking for things that go bump in the night wouldn't even glance at that. One with an eye out for a fortune would. If it is a bank account, at least interest would have accrued on the lump sum. It could be share certificates, and if he picked a company thirty years ago that was still thriving today, you’d be quids in. It’s not impossible. Did the land agent have no idea at all? Or the executor?’
