Cherringham--Ghost of a Chance Read Online Free PDF Page B

marry.”
    “So after the murder, that’s when the house became a hotel?” said Sarah.
    “I believe so,” said Basil. “In those days Cherringham didn’t have a hotel. The place took off. And it seems the idea of a resident ghost was actually quite good for trade.”
    “But not these days?” said Sarah.
    “Oh, people like the idea over a few drinks, a dinner. Bit of fun. But they prefer not to confront the reality of our continuing life after death. More’s the pity.”
    For a moment, no one said anything. Jack had bent down to look at the carefully folded — and staged — clothes in the bottom drawer. He then opened the others, all empty.
    Sarah walked to the window, appropriately smeary, giving a blurry view of the hotel gardens and the High Street beyond.
    Leaning forward, she could just see the clock tower of the village hall.
    Who knows what happened to Freddy here a hundred years ago, she thought.
    But this was one creepy spot.
    In fact, she wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
    But Jack kept looking around, at the floor, the wardrobe, the unadorned wooden walls, the bed with its inches-thin mattress.
    Then he looked at Basil, nodding.
    A sure sign that Jack wasn't satisfied with something.
    “All went normal up here. During the tour?”
    Basil, in a reflex, brought two fingers up to the right handlebar of his moustache. “Er, during the tour. Absolutely. No sign — or premonition — of what would happen downstairs.”
    Jack smiled.
    “And before? When you were ‘setting the stage’. When you were up here …”
    Jack took a step, and even Sarah felt a chill. “When you were up here alone.”
    Basil’s fingers freed his moustache.
    “Well, no. Some strange things had occurred. Well before the dinner, before the ceremony.”
    Sarah wondered: how did Jack know that?
    Just a lucky shot? Something in this room? A detective's instincts?”
    Basil still didn't seem too forthcoming.
    Jack looked right at him, “What happened, Basil?”
    And now Basil spoke, and Sarah instinctively crossed her arms as she felt the room chill.
    An attic room. A late warm October sun outside.
    Not really cold at all.
    Still … a chill .
    Now that was weird …
    *
    Basil had pointed to the single bulb overhead that he swore he had removed.
    And then to the spot where the pitcher crashed to the floor for — supposedly — no reason.
    Could the man simply be addled, the grey cells getting a little wobbly?
    “What do you think happened?” she asked.
    Sarah was anything but superstitious. The natural world was challenge enough for her without embracing the idea of a supernatural one.
    But Basil turned to her, his eyes darting as if he was still trying to make sense of it.
    “I don't know . That bulb. Someone had replaced it after I removed it. But who, why? And what made that pitcher crash to the floor?”
    Jack tapped the glass pane of the filmy window. The sound startling.
    “A breeze from outside?”
    “Window was shut. Tight. It just happened.”
    Jack nodded.
    Basil looked from Jack to Sarah.
    “I had only one thought later, when I was at the table. Someone must have done those things …”
    “And who do you think that might be?” Jack asked.
    Basil sniffed the air as if the answer — while disturbing — was obvious.
    “Freddy.”

7. Paddy Stover, At Your Service
    Jack waited until Basil had gone into his room and shut the door, still quite shaken from the trip to the attic, before he spoke to Sarah.
    “So Ms. Edwards, this is your village, your people. What do you make of all of this?”
    She nodded at that.
    Sometimes when Jack asked a question like that she felt he was testing how well she took in the information.
    Like a graduate class in solving mysteries.
    She smiled in the gloomy hallway as they took a few steps away from Basil’s door.
    “I know that ‘my people’ — as you say — can be a superstitious lot. All their talk of ghosts and legends. But it seems to me that someone was