‘For you, it isn’t all that way-out. But you have drunk most of the bottle,’ agreed Nell, looking round for the waitress to request black coffee.
‘So I have. I don’t think I’m actually drunk, although I might be slightly light-headed with relief at being away from that house. You may have to carry me up to bed.’
‘How times change. Once it was the other way round,’ she said, deadpan.
‘Have you seen the stairs here?’ demanded Michael. ‘They’re the steepest and the narrowest I’ve ever seen, and the bedrooms are on the second floor.’
‘The sooner we set off, the sooner we’d get there.’
‘That’s true. Let’s not bother with coffee after all.’
Twenty-Three
Thin morning sunlight fell across the old timbers of Fosse House’s hall, but in the corners were thin spiked shadows, like severed spider legs.
Nell stood in the hall, looking about her. ‘I see what you mean about it being eerie,’ she said. ‘Is that the library through there?’
‘Yes. And that’s the main drawing-room where we saw – whatever or whoever we saw last night,’ said Michael.
‘Let’s save that for later. Can I see the Holzminden sketch? I’ve brought my camera,’ said Nell. ‘If the solicitor agrees, I could send one or two photos out for some tentative opinions.’
Michael would not have been very surprised to find the sketch had vanished from the half-landing overnight along with the rest of Fosse House’s chimeras, but it had not, of course.
Nell stood in front of it for a long time. ‘It’s remarkable,’ she said at last. ‘At first you think it’s just a charcoal sketch – quite a good one, I think – but nothing more. Only, the longer you go on looking at it, the more you see in it. I could wish Hugbert’s wife hadn’t destroyed the other one.’
‘I find it unsettling,’ said Michael, studying the sketch. ‘And that’s throwing roses at it.’
‘It’s very unsettling,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’d want to be in a room with it for too long.’ She reached out a tentative hand to trace the outlines of the figure seated on the bed. ‘So that’s Stephen.’
‘Is it how you imagined him?’
‘Not entirely, but almost. He’s younger than I thought. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it? War’s heartbreaking anyway, but that one took—’
‘The flower of England? “They went with songs to the battle, they were young; straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow …” I can’t recall any more of it,’ said Michael.
‘Just as well. If you say anything about remembering them at the going down of the sun I shall dissolve in floods of tears. Is this the photograph from Word War Two?’
‘Yes.’
Nell studied it intently. ‘Yes, I see,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t see anything strange unless you looked at the sketch at the same time. He’s just a man in the background. But there’s the impression that he isn’t quite in the photograph – that he’s not entirely one of the group.’
‘I wonder if any of those men saw him,’ said Michael. ‘Although it looks as if he’s in uniform, so they might have accepted him as another patient.’
Nell repeated the gesture of tracing the shadowy figure in the photo, then stepped back. With an air of closing one subject and preparing for the next, she said, ‘What now? There’s a good hour before the solicitor will get here. The underground room?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think you’d better come with me. Will you stay up here?’
‘No,’ said Nell firmly. ‘I’m coming with you. I want to know what happened to Stephen as much as you. And since we’re quoting anything that comes to hand on this trip, isn’t there a line about, “Follow thee my lord throughout the world”?’
‘There is, but I’m a bit old for Romeo.’
‘I don’t care if you’re the ghost of Hamlet’s father, I’m not staying up here while you chase shadows in the cellars.’
‘I’ll leave the main door open, I think,’ said Michael. ‘Because if Pargeter turns up early, we mightn’t hear his knock while we’re down there.’ He propped the door open with a small chair, then produced the key Luisa had given him.
Even seen halfway through the morning, the underground room was daunting. Nell shivered and thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket as Michael shone the torch around the walls.
‘It’s like a shrine,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But a shrine for who?’
‘Stephen, I should think. Luisa certainly seems to have had a bit of a romantic feeling for him.’ The torchlight came to rest on the oak chest, and Nell gave a sharp gasp.
‘So that’s it.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s much bigger than I was imagining,’ she said. ‘And much deeper. It’s almost waist-high, isn’t it? It looks like a dower chest. Young ladies often brought them to their new homes when they were married – they were intended to hold bedlinen, mostly. They can be quite valuable. Can I have the torch a moment? Thanks.’ She knelt down, shining the torch directly on to the chest. ‘It’s oak,’ she said, ‘and it’s probably English. Oh, and there’s ebony inlay – can you see? Here and here. Some of it’s chipped, which is a pity. Those dreadful chains probably did that. But the carving is lovely, isn’t it? I should think it’s early eighteenth-century, which would make it very sellable. It’s a pity about the scratches and the chipped ebony, though, because that will devalue it, and—’
‘What is it?’ said Michael as Nell broke off abruptly.
She was sitting back on her knees, staring at the chest. ‘Listen,’ she said, very quietly.
‘I can’t hear anything. If it’s footsteps, it’s probably Mr Pargeter arriving early—’ Michael stopped, his eyes on the chest.
‘Can you hear it?’ said Nell in a half-whisper.
‘Yes. It’s something scratching. It might be mice,’ said Michael, looking about him. ‘They might be at the back of the chest, or—’