The Christmas MEGAPACK ®. Nina Kiriki Hoffman
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Craig’s brows contracted.
“Was it a sudden death, Mrs. Forrest?”
She nodded.
“He was found in the river early one morning two months ago. He’d been shot.”
“Naturally, you had the police in.”
This was definitely more in his line than the unhappy spirits of Burmese dancing girls.
“They can’t find out who did it. I don’t believe they ever will.”
Craig was remembering newspaper reports of some young Putney hotel proprietor being pulled out of the river. At the time it had sounded to him like a murder job. He said only:
“So you’re running the place alone now?”
She shook her head.
“No. My husband’s partner is still there. Mr. Craig—”
But he interrupted to ask:
“Has he been scared by the ghost too?”
“He saw it before I did. The next night we waited up together to see if it came again. It did.”
“Exactly what sort of a performance does this dancing girl put over?”
“Scoff if you like, Mr. Craig. It isn’t so funny once you’ve seen it. She suddenly appears in the corridor—from nowhere, it seemed to me, but Arthur said he thought she walked right through the wall—then she cries out: ‘I’ll haunt this house’ twice and the second time she adds: ‘Until my death be avenged!’ It’s always the same words. Then she disappears.”
Craig remained unimpressed.
“Looks like somebody will have to avenge her death then,” he remarked lightly. “If she is indeed a ghost. What does she look like?”
Sophie Forrest shuddered.
“Horrible. Wild, with blood all over her dress and black hair falling about her face.”
He regarded her silently for a moment. Then:
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“I thought,” and there was a touch of pleading in her voice, “that if you would come down tonight and see for yourself, as an outsider you know, it would help. Then, if it is a ghost, I suppose I shall have to get out. It’s scared off everybody in the hotel so there won’t be much point in staying anyway.”
“How are you going to pass me off? As a ghost-layer, a guest or just myself?”
She answered him quickly.
“A guest. Pretend you have come to stay over Christmas.”
“What is your partner’s name besides Arthur?”
“Lennox. Arthur Lennox. He says he is going to shoot at the thing if it shows up again tonight.”
“Which, if it is a spook,” Craig observed, “won’t inconvenience it much. All right, I’ll come. It’s one way of spending Christmas Eve that I haven’t tried yet.”
She didn’t answer him but stood up, collecting her bag and gloves off the desk.
“I’ll be along in time for dinner,” said Craig. “I hope your plum-pudding’s good.”
“It’s good,” she said.
He wondered if she really hadn’t any sense of humor or whether it had all been knocked out of her by the goings-on at Putney.
He saw her politely to the door.
“By the bye,” he said, “you haven’t told anybody about me?”
“Nobody.”
“Not even Lennox?”
She stared at him.
“I said nobody, Mr. Craig.”
He leant against the doorpost whistling softly to himself as she disappeared down the stairs, then, the whistle still on his lips, he went quickly back to his desk. He sat down and put his feet up in their favorite position. He might as well be comfortable, he had a number of telephone calls to make.
When he hung up finally from his chats with the Putney police and Scotland Yard, he leant thoughtfully back in his chair and gazed intently at the ceiling.
Among other items that interested him quite a lot he had learned that the late Mr. Nick Forrest had a brother.
* * * *
River View Private Hotel stood dark and dismal in its own grounds, the mist from the river swirling about its gaunt grimness.
“Blimey!” exclaimed the dejected looking little individual who had clambered out of the taxi at Craig’s heels. “Looks okay for all the works and no mistake.”
“Setting certainly has atmosphere,” Craig agreed.
He turned away from the illuminated meter of the taxi and stood looking up the drive. He laughed lightheartedly.
“Never mind. Mrs. Forrest should have a nice comforting drink ready and waiting.”
“Couldn’t be any readier than I am,” the other retorted.
Their footsteps crunched up the drive, Craig’s companion trotting miserably in the rear, muttering:
“Christmas Eve too. Cor!”
The door was flung open as soon as they set foot on the steps and Craig had a shrewd suspicion their approach had been watched by Sophie Forrest from some unlighted window.
“Mr. Craig,” she said swiftly, glancing back for a moment over her shoulder. “Come in. Your room is all ready for you.”
Her welcoming manner couldn’t disguise her nervousness. She caught sight of the other man as he followed Craig into the lighted hall.
“Who is he?”
Craig said easily:
“This is Brown. He wishes to spend Christmas here for want of a better place to go. His wife has just left him.” Craig encountered a startled look from the woman. He grinned at her. “I shall want another room,” he said firmly:
His voice was loud enough to benefit any inquisitive ears that might be listening.
Later in the evening Craig found Arthur Lennox was the jovial and hearty type. When dinner was over Arthur became the life and soul of the party. Despite the fact that there wasn’t anybody in the place with the exception of the three men, Mrs. Forrest and a pudding-faced stolid maid, he was full of a misguided Christmas spirit plus jokes which sounded as if they had come out of a cracker and were about as funny. Unlike Sophie Forrest, who was very silent, the possible appearance of any ghostly visitation did not seem to worry him.
At ten-thirty Craig could take it no longer.
“If you will excuse me, Mrs. Forrest, I think I will go to bed.” He included the man he’d called Brown with a movement of his head. “It’s been a somewhat exhausting day.”
“It’s early,” Arthur Lennox protested.
“Mr. Brown always goes to bed early,” said Craig piously.
The big clock down in the darkened hall had struck half-past eleven when there was a light tap on Craig’s door He opened it without switching on the light.
It was Sophie Forrest.
“I just wanted to make sure you were ready,” she whispered.
He answered in a low voice:
“I’ll be there when the fun starts.”
She nodded, satisfied, and crept silently away. At a few minutes to midnight Craig’s door slowly opened again.
“We’ll