The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (3 page)

He was distantly aware of his hostess saying something about the contents of the room having been sketchily catalogued some years ago – something about someone writing a thesis which had never been completed – but he scarcely heard, because a sheet of paper, half folded inside an old envelope, had partly slid out from the clipped papers. It was a letter, handwritten but in writing so erratic that Michael received the impression that urgency or despair had driven the pen. The stamp on the envelope was foreign, and did not convey anything particular to him, but the letter was on thin, age-spotted paper, and the date at the top was November 1917.

He could not, out of courtesy to his hostess, sit down and read the entire thing there and then, but he had caught sight of the first few sentences and the words had instantly looped a snare around his imagination. The direction at the top was simply to ‘my dearest family'.

They're allowing me to write this farewell letter to you, and I should be displaying bravery and dignity in it, so that you all remember me in that way. Only I can't do so, for I am facing a deeply dishonourable death – and an agonizing death – and I'm filled with such terror that I'm afraid for my sanity …

For my sanity's sake I mustn't be caught, the young man in the shadowy garden had said.
There could be no connection with this letter, though. This was one of the heart-rending farewell missives that soldiers wrote before going into battle – the letter that was sent to their families in the event of their death. The reference the writer made about facing a dishonourable death was slightly odd, though. Had he been an army deserter, facing a firing squad? But in that situation would he have been allowed to write to his family?

It took all of Michael's resolve to put the folder back on the table, but he did so, and then realized that a phone was ringing somewhere nearby, and that his hostess had gone out of the room to answer it. He remained where he was, looking longingly at the folder. Who were you? he thought, and he was just thinking he might have time to read more when Luisa returned.

‘It seems there is a problem on the road to the village,' she said, and Michael heard the note of strain in her voice. ‘A short while ago the storm brought down a tree, and it's lying across the road just outside the house.' A brief shrug. ‘It happens here at times. But it means the road is impassable and likely to be so until tomorrow when they can clear the tree. I'm sorry, Dr Flint, but it will be impossible for you to reach the village tonight.'

‘Can I drive round it?' asked Michael, after a moment. ‘Or go in the other direction? There's surely a pub or something where I can get a room.'

‘I'm afraid not. The tree is almost immediately outside the gates. Even if you could drive in the other direction, that's more or less a straight run until you come to the coast road. There're a few odd houses, but no pubs or inns.' With an obvious effort, she said, ‘So of course you will stay here.'

She did not manage to completely conceal her reluctance, but Michael thought it was because she had suddenly been faced with the practicalities of an unexpected guest. He said, ‘All right. Thank you. But you don't have to go to any trouble. I can make up a temporary bed for myself somewhere.' Banishing recollections of his many culinary disasters, he said, ‘I can even sort out a meal this evening.'

‘That won't be necessary. The girl who comes in the mornings prepared a casserole today. It only needs heating and there will be more than enough for two.' With a return to her previous imperious air, she said, ‘We will dine at seven.'

It will be all right, thought Michael, standing in the large bedroom on the first floor. This is simply an old house, a bit creaky and whispery, a bit gloomy. But it's in the depths of the Fens, for goodness' sake, so it's entitled to be gloomy and whispery. As for the boy I saw earlier, he was most likely a local, caught where he shouldn't have been. He remembered he still had not mentioned it to Luisa, and thought he had better do so over dinner.

And, looked at in a positive light, staying here might mean he could get to know Luisa a bit better – they would be eating together this evening, and she might open up about her family, which could be interesting and also useful.

On closer investigation, the house was not as bad as its exterior suggested. It was a bit dingy, and there was an overlying dimness in most of the rooms which might be due to the damp, or simply to some thrifty person having put low-watt light bulbs in all the fittings. Most of the rooms looked as if they were closed up, and Michael thought Luisa probably only used two or three of them. It was rather sad; a house like this ought to be filled with people. He wanted to believe that Luisa had a large family who frequently came to stay, but when he remembered how definite she had been about not being able to offer a couple of nights' hospitality, he doubted it.

His bedroom opened off an L-shaped, partly galleried landing and had dark, old-fashioned furniture and a deep bed. There was a slightly battered radiator which, when Michael tried the dial, clanked into a reasonable degree of heat, and sheets and blankets were to be found in a linen cupboard. By the time he set out his washing things in an outdated but adequate bathroom, he was able to inform his reflection that it would be quite safe to stay here for one night. He did not examine his use of the word ‘safe'.

It was not quite six o'clock, and the folder with the sad, desperate letter was calling to him with a siren's lure. If nothing else, he could at least read the whole thing before tracking down the dining room for dinner with Madeline Usher. Presumably, Fosse House was not so far into Gothic or baronial tradition that somebody bashed a bronze gong for dinner, and Michael supposed his hostess would find him when the promised casserole was ready.

Flurries of wind blew spitefully through the ill-fitting windows, and when Michael went past what seemed to be a chimney wall he could hear the gale moaning inside it. Luisa was right, it did sound like whispering voices. Perhaps that was all he had heard earlier in the garden.

The walls of the main landing were partly panelled, and a series of framed photographs and prints hung on them. Some of these looked as if they were of Fosse House, and Michael paused to study them more closely.

The shots were nearly all rather smudgy groups, the faces indeterminate, and without names or dates they were not very informative. The sketches were fairly bland landscapes, probably local scenes, but one sketch was not a landscape, and it drew his attention at once. It hung at the far end of the landing, partly in shadow, and it was not very big, perhaps twelve inches by sixteen. But even from its shadowy corner, it was vivid and imbued with life. It showed a spartan-looking dormitory with wooden-framed bunk beds and deal tables. Young men, wearing some sort of uniform, sprawled on the beds or lounged over the tables, some apparently playing cards or even what could be chess with home-made pieces.

Michael found the sketch disturbing. At first he thought it was because the room was obviously a prison, with the men having the air of animals herded together. But as he went on looking, he began to realize his sense of unease was not engendered solely by the bars at the narrow windows or the glimpses of an enclosed yard beyond them. It was because the young men were being watched – and apparently without their knowledge. Three or four other men were standing outside the narrow windows, peering furtively in. Even depicted in pencil, their faces were unmistakably sly and gloating. They wore uniforms with an insignia lightly drawn on the arms and shoulders, and spiked helmets. Michael knew next to nothing about military history or uniforms, but he thought it was a safe guess that these were the distinctive headgear of the Imperial Prussian Army. Then was this a German prisoner-of-war camp? If so, it was a curious thing to find in an English country house. Or did it tie up with that letter dated 1917?

He stepped closer to the sketch, trying to make out more details, and it was then that he saw the figure seated on the edge of one of the card schools. The young man was dressed carelessly and casually like the others, but the artist had taken more trouble with the details. The deep-set eyes under the slightly untidy hair were distinctive, and on one cheekbone was sketched a small mark – a mark that might have been a leaf that had blown there and become stuck.

It was an exact replica of the young man Michael had seen earlier. The young man who had feared for his sanity and had begged not to be caught. But it could not possibly be the same person. In any case he had only seen the boy for a few moments and he might not be remembering him clearly. But he knew he was, and with the intention of finding something to dispel his wild imaginings he took the sketch down and carried it to a nearby wall light to examine it more closely. In one corner was a squiggle of unreadable initials – presumably the artist's – and beneath it the words ‘
Holzminden,
November 1917'. Michael thought Holzminden was a place rather than a name, and he foraged for the notebook without which he seldom moved to note the details. It could all be checked later. The sketch itself might even be something Nell would find interesting and want to investigate, although pictures were not really her province.

The sketch did not seem to yield any more clues, and Michael replaced it. The likeness would be due to nothing more than a strong family resemblance, and it had nothing to do with his research into the Palestrina Choir, and the music and poetry of the Great War.

He walked slowly along the landing, studying the rest of the display. The photographs included several sepia faces in romanticized surrounds, but there were later ones as well, mostly from the 1940s. It looked as if Fosse House had been used as a small hospital of some kind in WWII; there were photos of the house with nurses and young men in wheelchairs on the lawns. Near the end, half in shadow, was a shot of a long room which Michael thought was at the house's front. It seemed almost to echo the Holzminden sketch; again there were young men in uniform, some clearly badly wounded, others happily waving crutches or plastered arms at whoever had been behind the camera. As in the sketch, some were playing cards. Others were reading newspapers and looked as if they had put their papers down to pose for the photograph. A typed label proclaimed it as having been taken in Fosse House in November 1943.

There were no prying faces in this, but standing in the doorway watching the others was a man who conveyed the air of being apart from the rest. He was not quite in the light and there was a blurred look, as if he might have moved at the moment the shutter was pressed. Michael felt a tremor of unease. It could not be, of course, and yet—

He held the photo closer to the light, and the unease deepened, because he seemed to be looking at the man from the Holzminden sketch. Or was he? Yes, there again were the deep-set eyes, the distinctive cheekbones, and the blown-leaf birthmark or scar. It was undoubtedly the same man. Except that it could not be. He could not be in the sketch and the photograph, not twenty-five years apart and looking exactly the same. Nor could he have been in the dark gardens of this house earlier tonight.

Whatever the explanation, it was an odd thing to come across. Michael could not escape a curious feeling that this young man, whoever he was, had somehow been picked up out of 1917 and dropped into a slot in 1943. And then dropped into the gardens today, as well? It was patently absurd. He studied the blurred edges of the boy's figure in the later one. Could some kind of double exposure be the explanation? Had someone tried to photograph the 1917 sketch and superimpose it on the 1943 one – perhaps wanting to depict the links between the two wars or create a montage? But the boy was seated at a table in 1917 and standing in a doorway in 1943, and it did not look as if the photograph had been taken with anything more than a box Brownie. He went down the stairs,
still trying to think of an explanation.

The hall was wreathed in shadows, and only the faintest light came through the narrow windows on each side of the door. Michael glanced round, wondering if he should switch on a light – always supposing he could find a light switch – then saw a figure walk across the right-hand window immediately outside. He stood still, expecting to hear a knock at the door, hoping this might be news to say the tree had been cleared already and wondering if he should answer the knock when it came.

But the knock did not come. Instead the door rattled and creaked heavily, as if someone was leaning against it. Someone's trying to get in, thought Michael. Is it the boy I saw earlier? Should I open the door or call Miss Gilmore? Moving quietly, he went up to the window and tried to see out. But it was too dark and rain streaked the window. He waited, but the door was motionless, and there was only the keening wind and the rhythmic tapping of the rain against the windows. Perhaps it had only been the storm he had heard, and the reflection of tree branches blown against the windows. He repressed a shiver and headed for the book room.

As soon as he opened the folder containing the letter, he felt its sadness all over again. The faint concern about an intruder and the puzzle of the sketch and photo receded, and he smoothed the letter out carefully, then turned it over to read the writer's name. The signature stood out clearly. Stephen Gilmore.

Stephen. Did that name fit those features? Michael thought it did. Saints and martyrs and an English King. He turned the letter back and as he did so a scrap of fabric that had been in the envelope slid out. There was a small star and an insignia. Stephen's regiment or unit and his rank, presumably. Had this been sent to his family after Stephen had suffered whatever shameful death had been waiting for him?

Nell, delving into the histories and provenances of the antique items she bought and sold, had sometimes said that to turn up old documents was like having a hand reach out from the past and feeling long-ago fingers curl around yours. It was a friendly sensation, she said. But as Michael began to read Stephen Gilmore's letter, he was aware only of apprehension. There's something terrible at the end of all this, he thought. It might not be contained in the letter, but I think it's contained in this house. No, I'm being absurd.