‘Yes. He hadn’t got his key, so, as there was a light in one of the rooms, I just hung about long enough to make sure one of the others opened the door to him. I didn’t stay to offer any explanations because it was so late, but I must say that he expressed himself very decently when he called here after breakfast to return the clothes I’d lent him. However, the ducking he got has cheesed him off. He said he was going back to London.’

  ‘I suppose the gramophone record at Salhouse and the business of Dum at Burgh Castle put the idea of the Horning ghost into their heads,’ said Eiladh, ‘but how do you explain the other white lady I saw down by the ferry? That wasn’t just my imagination, you know.’

  ‘I never thought it was, and, but for the half-drowned idiot, I could have got a picture. Mind you, I think the explanation is a simple one. I think she was a village maiden who had sneaked out to meet her bloke.’

  ‘What Dame B. would call “keeping a clandestine assignation”,’ said Eiladh. ‘It didn’t look like that. However, I expect you’re right, unless—’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know who was responsible for the gramophone record at Sal-house Broad, but we’re pretty certain it wasn’t David and his lot who set upon poor old Dum at Burgh Castle, so what if it was the same joker who staged my ghost at Horning ferry to deceive David and Co? It was their assignment last night, if you remember.’

  ‘Yes, but Pavy himself was dressed as the ghost of a girl,’ said Tom, ‘so, if his story is a lie, that means he and the other two intended a hoax but at some point it went wrong. I repeat that they wanted to take a photograph of him—I suppose to show Ma C-T.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Liz. ‘Why should they bother?’

  ‘To keep her happy and interested, I suppose, as she’s not very fond of them at present. Are you going to mention your own white lady to her, Eiladh?’

  ‘No. If you’re right, it would be playing somebody else’s game for them and I prefer to play my own; but if your first idea is right and it was only some village girl that I spotted, well, the whole thing fizzles out.’

  ‘But why should those boys go to a lot of trouble to keep Mrs Crieff-Tweedle interested?’ persisted Liz. ‘They don’t give a hoot what she thinks of them.’

  ‘A grateful return for food, shelter and transport, perhaps,’ said her brother.

  ‘But does it keep her interested?’ asked Eiladh. ‘She soon tumbled to it that the Salhouse plainsong came out of the can, not out of the ghosts; she’s certain Dum was set upon by human beings and now she knows that Salathiel was dressed up as a woman she’s bound to come to the conclusion that somebody is determined to sabotage her ghost-hunt. That’ll make her mad, not interested.’

  ‘If she knows he was dressed up, but, if he’s got any gump at all, he will play down that little bit of information,’ said Tom. ‘Apart from that, you see, he had every reason to be down at the ferry last night, so she can’t query that part of his story. The dicey bit is to explain how he came to be on his own down there, but I expect he’s fixed up some more or less likely story to cover that.’

  The story which Pavy had told her was revealed by Dee when she came to visit them in the middle of the afternoon.

  ‘So you see,’ she said, ‘if Mr Pavy is telling the truth, he was set upon and dressed up in that ridiculous fashion by natives of the place who, probably from loose talk by the three young men themselves at the Swan hotel or elsewhere, have gained knowledge of the reason for our presence here and, for their own bucolic reasons, resent it. What do you think, Mr Carpenter? I mean, after all, we have now made three attempts and each one has produced no evidence except that a practical joker is at work. Our own party claims to be innocent, so we have to look elsewhere, it seems.’

  ‘I have no opinion I care to voice,’ said Tom. ‘Actually, I believe Norfolk people are proud of their ghosts. They might pretend to laugh at us for wanting to track them down, but they wouldn’t resort to violence. It must have been strangers, visitors, who attacked Pavy.’

  ‘Well, I find the whole incident, however it came about, deeply perturbing. We are to test the Belaugh haunting tonight and, in view of the attacks upon my husband and Mr Pavy, I have decided that our three parties shall support one another and that, from now on, everybody will be on watch every night. That was my original plan, and I wish I had never allowed myself to be talked out of it.’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ said Liz, ‘who did talk you out of it?’

  ‘I cannot name one specific person, Doctor Carpenter. All I can say is that there appeared to be a consensus of opinion that people would not be getting enough sleep under the original plan. The real reason, I have since discovered, is that some of us,’ she looked accusingly at Tom, ‘prefer to put our own selfish interests before the communal good. Oh, well, I blame you much less than I blame your three contemporaries. At least you have been engaged in something sensible and constructive; David da Cunha, that wretched Arcati and the down-at-heel Pavy seem to have spent most of their time in low public houses or in playing golf instead of sleeping.’

  ‘I wonder who spilt the beans about that?’ said Liz, when Dee, mollified by Tom’s docility and fortified by tea and cake, had arranged matters for the Belaugh excursion and had taken a stately departure.

  ‘Father Melrose was her informant, I suppose,’ said Eiladh. ‘I expect he snoops. He looks to me like a snooper and we don’t know what he himself gets up to in his spare time, do we? There’s no doubt in my mind that his meeting with Pavy at Coltishall was a put-up job. If I thought it would do any good, I’d warn Dee Crieff-Tweedle against him, but she’s besotted with the nasty man.’

  ‘I don’t see what sort of warning you could give,’ said Liz. ‘The meeting at Coltishall doesn’t prove anything. Besides, as you say, nothing would shake her confidence in him unless—’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Unless you could prove that he is masquerading as a priest and has no connection at all with the Catholic or any other church. That would shake her, but I’m afraid it would turn out to be too tall an order altogether.’

  ‘And I shall take it very ill,’ said Dee at table that evening, ‘if any of you fail to turn up in Belaugh churchyard tonight. In view of the attacks on my husband and Mr Pavy, it is essential that we all keep together on these midnight excursions. Dum could have been injured most severely and Mr Pavy could have drowned, for all those marauding persons cared. If we do catch anybody bent on mischief tonight, I rely upon you three young men and Mr Carpenter to deal with him as he deserves.’

  ‘So long as it’s only “him”,’ said David da Cunha. Dee had had the three men moved back to her own large table so that she could dictate policy to all concerned at one and the same time and impress upon the company that it was a unit and (her remarks implied), a fighting unit, at that. ‘But suppose it turns out to be “them”? I’m a professional photographer not a chucker-out at a downtown dance hall.’

  ‘I abhor violence,’ said Pavy, ‘and I have suffered it.’

  ‘There won’t be any trouble,’ said Arcati, ‘if we all stick together. Mrs Crieff-Tweedle is right about that, and I’m all for it.’

  ‘Exactly my point,’ said Dee. ‘We shall remain in the lounge here until ten, and then drive in convoy to the rendezvous.’ In the lounge she saw to it that the chairs were arranged in so close a circle that the three thirsty young men were trapped in it and the bar waiter, coming up to solicit orders, was so viciously snapped at by Dee that any hope of his serving drinks was clearly out of the question.

  When at last they left the hotel, she led the procession of cars out on to the road which went past the railway station, with da Cunha’s car sandwiched between her own and that of Tom Carpenter, so that she had sight of it in her mirror and Tom through his windscreen, a measure of her distrust of the three young men.

  The drive to Belaugh was a short one, for the road did not follow the windings of the river but, about a mile beyond the railway station, it cut sharply southwest and picked up the Bure below the church which was the party’s destination.

  They parked the cars some little distance from the churchyard and, by the light of an electric torch, Dee reviewed her troops to make sure that nobody was attempting to sneak off under cover of the darkness. There was little fear of such a contingency. The pubs were shut and she had impounded all the car keys, so, having impressed once again upon those present the necessity for absolute silence, she guided the party to the churchyard.

  Here they took up positions on the river frontage of the church whose tower, by daylight, was reflected in the river but which now loomed, the darkest shadow in an almost impenetrable darkness, above and at the back of the watchers. Suddenly the voice of Father Melrose broke the eerie silence which Dee had imposed upon them.

  ‘Come to think of it, dear lady,’ he said in ringing tones which seemed to blaspheme the quiet air, ‘we’ve picked the wrong day.’

  ‘Shush, shush!’ commanded Dee. ‘You will drive her away.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said the priest in a quieter but still clearly audible voice. ‘She won’t appear tonight. The twenty-fourth of August is her date.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet! Be quiet, Father!’ pleaded Dee. ‘I am willing her to appear. She comes from her tomb in the church, as I’ve told you, and takes the path down the river. Listen for the clock to strike a quarter to twelve and keep your eyes open. Oh, I hope, how much I hope there will be no trickery tonight!’

  The priest apparently subsided, for no more was heard of him. The next exclamation came from Mrs Byland.

  ‘Oh, look! Look!’ she called out. On the river a blinding white light had broken the ink-like darkness. In its circle of radiance stood a tall man with outstretched arms. Then the light and the figure both vanished.

  ‘Well, really, Mavis!’ exclaimed Dee, breaking a stunned silence. ‘That was too, too naughty of you!’

  ‘But it was the wrong ghost,’ wailed Mrs Byland. ‘You told us to expect a girl to emerge from her tomb and run towards the river, but what we saw was a tall man in a boat.’

  ‘If only you would have waited calmly, instead of screaming out like that, a mystery might have been solved. All of you,’ said Dee, raising her voice, ‘stand up and identify yourselves.’

  Obligingly the company did so, each uttering his or her name as Dee flashed her torch in everybody’s eyes in turn.

  ‘All correct, dear?’ asked Dum.

  ‘Yes, everybody is here at hand,’ she replied. ‘I believe we have seen the apparition of Lady Alys’s lover and, if only Mavis had kept her head, we might have been at last rewarded by a truly remarkable sight.’

  ‘A chap sniggling eels by moonlight,’ muttered David da Cunha to Eiladh.

  ‘There isn’t any moonlight,’ she retorted. ‘Look, to settle a bet, did you and Roger set about Pavy last night?’

  ‘No. Shut up. Ma’s talking. We togged him up, but we didn’t scrag him.’

  ‘We might have been privileged to witness a reconciliation between two sundered hearts,’ Dee continued.

  ‘You are beside yourself, dear lady,’ said the priest. ‘What we have witnessed—’

  ‘No, I refuse to listen to mundane interpretations,’ said Dee.

  ‘There are some matters which are better left alone,’ continued Father Melrose. ‘I think it is high time we all returned home if we are going to begin to take this nonsense seriously.’

  ‘Not until I have satisfied myself that it is nonsense,’ retorted Dee, nettled at being told that she was beside herself. ‘I do not quit Norfolk until I have satisfied myself upon these extraordinary matters. Let us return to the cars. Thanks to Mavis, we shall get nothing more here in Belaugh tonight.’

  ‘It was the wrong ghost,’ repeated Mrs Byland angrily. ‘In my opinion, the wrong ghost is no ghost at all. It’s all a lot of trickery and I’m getting tired of it. If you believe Salhouse was a trick, Burgh Castle a case of common assault and Horning ferry a drunken frolic, why are you convinced by some magnesium flares and a man waving his arms about?’

  ‘I refuse to discuss it,’ said Dee.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Black Monk, Black Dog

  ‘The sun had already set, and the red reflected light of the western sky illuminated the scene with the peculiar effect with which we are all familiar.’

  J. Sheridan le Fanu — Green Tea

  « ^ »

  ‘Well, one thing is certain,’ said Tom, on the following morning. ‘If there’s any jiggery-pokery going on, it’s not the work of anybody in the party.’

  ‘No, that’s for sure,’ agreed his sister, ‘unless, of course, somebody in the party has an accomplice we know nothing about.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Well, we don’t really believe we saw the ghost of Lady Alys’s lover, or whoever it was, do we? Somebody staged that little demonstration. I expect Dee to be round here at any moment to give us our briefing for tonight. I shall be interested to hear her views on last night’s manifestation.’

  ‘I am beginning to wonder,’ said Dee, when she turned up as they had known she would, ‘whether I was too hasty in supposing that the music we heard at Salhouse was from a gramophone record.’

  ‘I thought you had quite made up your mind about that,’ said Liz.

  ‘Well, so I had, I suppose, but after that wonderful experience we had last night, I am beginning to wonder, as I said. Even the attack on Dum at Burgh Castle could have been made by supernatural agency, I suppose.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to think so,’ said Eiladh ‘and it certainly wasn’t a ghost which toppled Salathiel Pavy into the river at Horning, but simply his own clumsiness. All the same—’ she hesitated and glanced at Tom.

  ‘Yes, go on,’ he said. ‘Tell her. After all, you did see it, you think.’

  ‘See what?’ asked Dee, immediately agog.

  ‘Well, it was because we suspected trickery that Tom and I went to Horning that night, and, while Tom was rescuing Salathiel, I’m almost certain I saw another white figure dart out from near the Ferry Inn and vanish among the reeds.’

  ‘Of course she came from the inn! Her body is buried under the floor of the bar, or so the story goes. But, my dear child, why was I not told of this until now?’

  ‘I concluded it was another joke played by whoever was responsible for the other tricks.’

  ‘But this is most important. We must certainly continue to keep watch. I have made all the arrangements for tonight. Unfortunately we shall be without Father Melrose. He showed me a letter which came for him yesterday inviting him to preach in Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church at Cromer and to stay with a Catholic family in the town this evening.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, tomorrow is Sunday,’ said Liz. ‘I had lost count of the days. What about Pavy? He gave Tom some impression that he wanted to go back to London.’

  ‘Oh, he has been persuaded to change his mind by Father Melrose. Now to the arrangements for tonight: we shall all take part in the watching, as we did at Belaugh—’

  ‘Except for Melrose,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes, Mr Carpenter, except for Father Melrose. We shall dine at the usual time and set out immediately after dinner for Ranworth Broad. Ideally, of course, as the Black Monk of Ranworth is water-borne, we, too, should be in boats, but as the rule about moving hired boats along the rivers by night is strictly enforced, we must take the cars near the church and walk to the water’s edge from there. You, like the rest of us, lost some rest last night, especially if, like me, you were too much excited to sleep when you got to bed, so I suggest you make up for it during the day so that you are fully alert tonight.’

  ‘Make up for it during the day?’ said Tom, when she had gone. ‘Perish the thought. Do you two mind if I leave you to your own devices? I have a yearning to take the car northwards and have a look at Cawston and Salle.’

  ‘I rather wanted to get a breath of sea air at Cromer,’ said Eiladh. ‘Cawston and Salle are not far off my route. Could you manage if I dropped you off at one or the other and picked you up on my way back?’

  ‘Surely. The two churches are only a couple of miles apart. I can walk that easily. Cawston has a stone tower, the stone, it’s said, having been brought from Caen up river to Coltishall and transported by road from there. Salle is just about the finest church in the county and I’m determined not to leave Norfolk until I’ve seen it. But why Cromer? Don’t tell me you’re going to take a look at the Catholic church there?’

  ‘Something of the sort,’ said Eiladh.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I like its name.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Liz. ‘I’d like some sea air myself, and I can go to sleep in a Cromer deckchair just as easily as in one of these at this bungalow.’

  The church of Our Lady of Refuge was open. A woman was dusting the pews. Eiladh and Liz knelt in one of them, and then, this courtesy gesture completed, they approached the woman, who smiled at them.

  ‘You have a beautiful church,’ said Eiladh.

  ‘Yes. You are staying in Cromer?’

  ‘Only for a very short time. We have met the Father who is going to officiate here tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Father Melrose.’

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘You have been misinformed,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow Mass will be served by our own parish priest, as usual. I have never heard of Father Melrose and I am the priest’s housekeeper.’

  ‘Well,’ said Eiladh, when they had left the church. ‘I’ve thought all along that Father Melrose was a phony. Now we know he’s a liar as well.’

  ‘It was rather rash of him to name the town and the church,’ said Liz.

  ‘All done to add verisimilitude and all that.’

  ‘All the same, he took the risk of having somebody check up on him.’

  ‘He didn’t suppose for an instant that anybody would bother.’

 

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