Darker Still Read Online Free PDF

perspective line of the woodwork and floor along the bottom of Denbury’s bookshelf was now interrupted. By a book.
    One of the books on the lowest shelf was tilted out from the bookshelf so that part of the title was just barely visible.
    The Girl …
    It was a good thing I could not squeal, for I might have made a scene. First his ghost—a rude one at that—and now this? My blood was alternately hot with excitement and cool with fear. What did that mean, The Girl ? Was this image of Denbury asking for help? And did the book title mean anything at all other than a sign that the painting was somehow alive ? Haunted after all! How many ghosts could one young man have?
    Before I could clear my head and decide whether I would tell Mrs. Northe and Maggie of these developments, a small and beady-eyed man entered the room. It would seem all bad omens come in threes.
    The man wore an ugly tweed suit, and his hair was plastered with some sort of unappealing agent that reeked of sour mint. His gaze went right to me, and he leered. I returned my attention to the painting, suitably offended. He seemed to remember himself and bowed after a moment, but not before I felt the keen desire to plunge myself into a hot bath to rid myself of his stare. I shuddered. After already having been improperly chatted up by a ghost, I determined that this man was decidedly hateful. He took a step closer and stared at the painting with a sort of triumph, an uncanny look.
    “Mr. Crenfall,” Mr. Sullivan boomed suddenly, sweeping into the room and stepping directly between us, for which I gave him a thankful glance that he received with an apologetic grimace. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be alone in a room with that man, and Mr. Sullivan seemed quite aware of it. “There you are indeed, sneaking in and out. What sort of businessman does so?” Mr. Sullivan scolded. “Mrs. Northe and I were just discussing Lord Denbury here, and she has made you an offer you cannot refuse.”
    Mrs. Northe eyed me with concern for a moment before moving into the room a step, with Maggie triumphantly behind her. “Backed, of course, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And the very City of New York,” Mrs. Northe added for good measure.
    I raised an eyebrow but then remembered I wasn’t supposed to be hearing this.
    Crenfall’s piggish eyes flickered from the painting to Mr. Sullivan and then to Mrs. Northe. He leered at Maggie, and then he laughed nervously. “But Mr. Bentrop has confided to me the highest purchase price. He plans to return early from his trip to Egypt just to procure the portrait.”
    “Bentrop does not have the resources to outbid me and the Metropolitan together.” Mrs. Northe stepped closer. Even from a distance, she towered over Crenfall. “Come now, Mr. Crenfall, I’m not a dullard. You’ve been showing strange favoritism, and that won’t do in my circle. I’ve a wide circle. You don’t want the press, the wealthy patrons who have built this fine temple of art, and indeed the city getting any more involved, do you?”
    Crenfall opened his mouth as if to protest, but Mrs. Northe drove her point further. “Tell Bentrop not to bother coming home from Egypt. He may continue his grave-robbing in peace.”
    The broker was wholly out of his league. Maggie was beaming. Clearly she relished the power and privilege her aunt wielded so effortlessly. Crenfall’s shoulders, tight with worry, fell and he shrugged as if acquiescing defeat when he should have been kissing Mrs. Northe’s feet for the sum she would pay.
    Muttering, he left the room. The sale of the painting evidently wasn’t about money after all. For any of them. And I now knew why. Unnatural happenings were afoot.
    “Well,” Mrs. Northe said brightly, turning to Denbury’s portrait. “My fine chap, you’ve got yourself a new mistress!”
    Maggie sighed again, staring up at him with fawning eyes.
    I’m sure it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a certain