Between mouthfuls of chicken, Michael gave Nell the gist of Luisa’s story. Nell listened with the absorbed interest that he always found endearing, then said, ‘Yes, I think I see. How sad. Was she mentally unbalanced, do you think?’
‘I think,’ said Michael, and heard a slightly defensive note in his voice, ‘that she was affected by having spent her whole life in that house. She hardly ever saw anyone or went anywhere. I think most people might become a bit odd in those circumstances. And her father sounds very odd indeed.’
‘I do feel rather sorry for her.’
‘I think there was more in her life than it might sound. She was certainly regarded as something of an expert on the Palestrina Choir, and quite a number of very learned people used to contact her. I think there might have been a fair amount of interest – even purpose – in her life.’ He laid down his knife and fork. ‘Can I see Hugbert’s letters, now? If you’re having pudding, I could skim-read them.’
‘I won’t have pudding, but I’ll share some cheese with you, please. You can skim while I eat.’
Michael read the letters, forgetting about the cheese, but occasionally reaching for his wine glass.
‘Hugbert fills in a lot of the gaps,’ he said eventually.
‘Yes. And it sounds as if Luisa’s journal fills in a lot more. There’s still an awful lot we don’t know, though.’
‘I wonder if we ever will,’ said Michael, closing Hugbert thoughtfully. ‘The largest blank is what happened to Stephen, isn’t it? Booth tried to find that out, but he doesn’t seem to have done so. And his search was much nearer to it than we are now.’
‘But in the end it led him to an asylum,’ said Nell.
‘I’d like to think he didn’t die in there, but I’m afraid he probably did.’
‘I’d like to know about Leonora,’ said Nell. ‘It sounds as if Iskander stowed her away with those people in Holland and collected her when they escaped from Holzminden – did you pick up that bit in Hugbert’s letters?’
‘I did.’
‘Do you think she came back to Fosse House with Stephen?’
‘Yes, I do. I know I’ve given you a potted version of Luisa’s journal,’ said Michael thoughtfully, ‘but I don’t think I’ve really conveyed the strangeness of it. There are passages where she almost sounds as if she thinks she actually is Leonora. Leonora had some kind of disability, according to Iskander – it sounds like club foot or something of that kind. Luisa seems to have developed a similar lameness.’
‘So you’re following all the traditions of classic hauntings which would argue that for Luisa to be – um – shadowed so strongly, Leonora must have lived at Fosse House at some stage?’
‘Don’t mock me, you heartless wench.’
‘I’m not,’ said Nell, smiling. She snapped off a piece of celery, then said, ‘How about Stephen and the Holzminden affair? Do we think he really did shoot Niemeyer’s brother?’
‘You’re remembering the sentence, aren’t you?’ said Michael, seeing her shiver slightly. ‘Bayoneting.’
‘It’s horribly brutal, isn’t it? Did the brother eventually die, I wonder? Hugbert doesn’t say. I suppose it might be possible to find out, although I’m not sure where you’d start.’
‘I can just about believe that someone else fired that shot at the brother,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘But it’s stretching credulity to snapping point.’
‘I could believe it. Those two were greatly disliked, and Karl – the Kommandant – sounds as if he was a vicious brute. Hugbert said the shots from Stephen’s rifle went into the ceiling and the walls of the gatehouse, remember. And Stephen protested his innocence all the way through.’
‘I think he’d do that anyway.’
‘You don’t believe he got away, do you?’ said Nell.
‘No, I don’t. I think that’s why he’s still there.’ He glanced at her. ‘A violent death being one of the top ten favourite motives for a ghost to haunt.’
He said it with deliberate lightness, but Nell replied, quite seriously, ‘Hugbert thought Stephen was still there. What was it he said?’ She reached for the book. ‘“I think he’s still at Fosse House … And it’s a bad feeling to think of him in that lonely, dark old house.”’
‘Luisa thought Stephen was still around, as well. So did her father, although I suppose some of his evidence can be discounted, poor chap. But I’ll swear I saw Stephen myself, on two occasions at least. Only – it’s all so ethereal. What we’re seeing are little more than shadows. Silhouettes at lighted windows. What was it you said in the garden tonight? That we’re just too late or just too early to see the reality. By the time we get there, only the shadows are left.’ He grinned a bit wryly. ‘I do know how bizarre it all sounds.’
‘You seem to attract the bizarre,’ said Nell. ‘But I’m getting used to it.’
‘Are you?’ said Michael, looking up. ‘Enough to face a future filled with bizarre stuff?’
There was a pause, and he thought: damn, I’ve gone too far. I’m not even sure what I meant. But Nell said slowly, ‘That might be rather a tempting prospect. Hadn’t we better sort out the spooks first, though?’
‘We’ll go hand in hand into the spook-ridden sunset,’ said Michael gravely.
‘You know, I’ve almost sometimes wondered if you and I together are some kind of catalyst for ghosts,’ said Nell. ‘Like two chemical elements. You mix them or blend them and you get – I don’t know – something explosive. Hydrogen or nitroglycerine, or something.’
‘You and I together are an explosive combination anyway, even without the spooks,’ said Michael, putting his hand over hers for a moment.
‘I know. We’re very lucky, aren’t we?’
‘I do think,’ said Michael as Nell withdrew her hand in quest of another sliver of cheese, ‘that Luisa would like me to find out what happened to Stephen. I almost feel as if she was handing me the ghosts, that last night. That sounds really way-out, doesn’t it? Do you think I might have had too much wine tonight?’