Property of a Lady

He was in the hall when the rapping came again, and this time it was unmistakably overhead. It was coming from the bedrooms.

It was probably perfectly innocent – a window open and banging against the wall, or a trapped animal. No, an animal would bark or yowl. Wilberforce had once been accidentally shut in a cupboard on one of Oriel’s landings, and the entire college had heard his indignant demands to be rescued. And this sound was sharp and echoing and somehow filled with desperation. Michael remembered, and wished he had not, the Rachmaninov suite that began with three sonorous piano chords intended to represent a man buried alive knocking on the underside of his coffin lid to get out. He was so annoyed with himself for remembering this that he started up the stairs before he could change his mind. The stairs creaked ominously, and he expected the knocking to ring out again at any moment. It did not, but Michael had the strong impression that someone was listening.

As he reached the main landing, the knocking suddenly came again, louder and more frenzied. Did it spell out a plea? Was it saying: let-me-out . . . Or was it: let-me-in . . . ? On the crest of this thought something moved on the edge of his vision, and Michael looked across to the attic stair.

Fear rose up, clutching at his throat, because there was someone there. Within the clotted shadows was a thickset figure crouched against the banisters.

For several seconds Michael stood motionless, staring at the figure, a dozen possible actions chasing across his mind. There was a confused impression of a pallid face, with the eyes so deep in the shadows that they appeared to be black pits, and of thick fingers curled round the banister rails.

Michael heard himself say, challengingly, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ and at once the man moved, flinching back into the shadows. There was a scrabbling movement, and the man turned and ran up the narrow stairs to the top floor.

Michael thought he was as brave as most people, but he was damned if he was going to confront an intruder in a deserted attic with nobody in calling distance. He ran back down the stairs, slammed the door and locked it, then dived into his car and reached for his phone to call the police.

By the time a portly constable arrived, the intruder appeared to have got away.

‘Very sorry indeed, sir, but it seems he’s escaped us.’

‘It’s impossible,’ said Michael as they stood outside the house, staring up at the windows. ‘He was on the stairs, and he went up to the top of the house – I saw him go up there. There can’t be any way for him to have got out. In any case, I locked the front door when I came out – to keep him in there. And I waited in my car until you got here.’

‘You saw for yourself, Dr Flint,’ said the policeman. ‘We went in every room and every last cupboard.’

‘Yes, we did,’ said Michael, puzzled.

‘And the two other outer doors were locked. The scullery door, and the garden door at the side, as well.’

‘There were no keys in any of the locks,’ said Michael, frowning. ‘Which means that if he got out that way, he could only have done it by unlocking a door and locking it again behind him.’ He looked at the policeman. ‘And that’s absurd. Unless—’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless he’s got keys to the house,’ said Michael slowly and unwillingly.

‘Surely not. Likely, he managed to climb out through a window at the back while you were phoning. It’ll have been some tramp looking for a night’s dosshouse.’


‘He didn’t look like a tramp,’ said Michael, remembering the round, pallid face and the black-pit eyes. ‘I think I’d better have the locks changed while I’m here. Is there a locksmith who’d do an emergency job at the weekend?’

‘No one in Marston Lacy, sir, but I can give you a couple of numbers a bit further afield.’