seems very amenable.”
“He is, isn’t he?" Such was her enthusiasm that I smiled myself. "Captain Pollock can’t stand him," she continued. "He’s far too satirical and Captain Pollock doesn’t understand and thinks he’s being got at. Then Miss McAllister - to whom Captain Pollock has been doing what my grandmother used to call ‘paying attention’ for donkeys’ years - gets all flustered and calls Cesare ‘Your Grace’ or does something equally ridiculous, and it’s all simply screamingly funny but I am not allowed to laugh.”
“I assure you,” I said, maybe a little awkwardly, “I find him very charming and good company. I am glad you brought him here.” This, at least, was true. For all his seeming aloofness, the Count had a way of creating a sense of privileged confidentiality in every conversation, giving the speaker the impression - however erroneous it may have been - that they were quite fascinating. Nevertheless, there remained something unfathomable about him, and I confess that he had occupied more of my thoughts than should ideally have been the case during those last few days.
“Oh, I must stop off at the stationer’s and see if they have any more of the thick blotting paper,” Mrs. Lorrimer exclaimed to herself. “Come over tomorrow night and we’ll play a rubber. I’ll find a fourth. It’ll give you a break from the gloom up at Endings."
"I could certainly do with one," I said thoughtfully.
"I was there yesterday and the whole place was like the funeral of someone that no one had liked very much, and cold as an icebox to boot.”
“It’s true,” I conceded. “I can’t think what’s come over them. Uncle George is sickening for something, and I dare say Marie-Hélène’s worried about him. Esme’s in a sulk because she doesn’t want to go to school, and even Miss Salmon looks worn out, though I have no idea what could be wrong with her.”
The next thing that happened unsettled everyone. I was at breakfast one morning, when the peace was shattered by the sound of Marie-Hélène screeching at the gardener’s boy. It was so rare for her to lose her composure in any way that I got up and hurried to the site of the excitement. From what I could gather, someone had left a dead rabbit on the patio, and she had almost fallen over it. The gruesome sight had terrified her, and assuming one of the garden staff to be to blame, she was giving the boy the full benefit of her feelings.
“She did it,” a voice whispered behind me suddenly, and I spun round to find Esme staring viciously over my shoulder at her stepmother.
“What?”
“I saw her. She goes out at night.”
“Ridiculous. Even if she does, why on earth would she do something like this?”
“Ask her.” All the while Esme had not taken her eyes off Marie-Hélène.
“Well for God’s sake don’t tell that to anyone else,” I said hurriedly. “They’ll think you’re spiteful about being sent away, either that or just plain mad.”
The boy took the dead rabbit away, still vociferously protesting his innocence, and an uneasy peace reigned once more. Esme stayed away from the house as much as she dared. I only saw her once, in the distance, on the edge of the woods, talking animatedly to a young man. Our village has a relative shortage of such creatures, with most of the young people going to search for work in the county town or further afield in London, but despite the limited selection available to me, I was too far away to tell who it was.
I did not feel inclined to go for a walk that day, the weather was heavy and close. No doubt a storm was coming. I expected the weather to break that night, but nothing happened, and we continued in a state of fidgety discomfort all through the next day. It seemed that even the birds fell silent in the oppressive atmosphere, and Uncle George did not bother to shift his sleeping form progressively from bed to deckchair to couch and back to bed again.
Only the ever-helpful Miss Salmon seemed to have the energy for any activity, and she busied herself with the packing for Esme’s departure for school, which was to take place the following day. She hurried up and down the stairs, despite the heat, making list after list. I sat in the drawing room, attempting to go over my notes for the book, while Marie-Hélène pretended to embroider a set of napkins, shifting incessantly in her chair.
I had given up on Provençal ritual incantations for the time being, and was staring out of the window, watching hopefully as a bank of thick clouds massed on the horizon. Finally, Miss Salmon interrupted my thoughts.
“Excuse me, Mr Crosby. I think this is yours. I’m afraid I found one of the kittens playing with it in the hall upstairs.” It was a sheet of foolscap paper, and did indeed appear to have come from one of my notebooks. I took it and looked a little more closely, before the true horror of what I saw began to sink in. It was a painstaking translation of a passage on the summoning of demonic entities, extracted from one of Bishop Lucius’ annexes to the Sertum. The paper was covered in drips of candle wax, and other, darker stains. It could quite easily have been my work, but for the fact that not one word was in my handwriting.
“But this…” I stared helplessly at her, and then at Marie-Hélène, who smiled bitterly.
“Shocked?”
“You? What have you..?”
“Moi? Try asking Little Miss Bluestocking, if you can find her.”
I ran upstairs, calling for Esme. Someone had left the front door open, despite the approaching clouds. I ignored it and hurried onwards. Esme’s bedroom door was not locked, and I flung it wide. The room was empty except for a large black cat, the father (if these things can be presumed) of the kitten that had, indirectly, led me here. It was sitting bolt upright on the bed, watching me superciliously out of impenetrable emerald eyes.
I turned back, still calling. And hurried towards the stairs. I froze when I reached the gallery. Esme and d’Amato were silhouetted in the light from the open door. I stared at them, the one lost in an admiring, raptured gaze, the other staring straight at me with an evil little smile, which said far clearer than words: this creature is mine and you will not take him away.
The moment broke and they turned to head briskly out of the door, Esme catching it with the handle of her parasol to pull it closed after them. I took the stairs two at a time, and was able to grab the handle just as the catch clicked. I wrenched the door open, but it was too late. The park stretched before me, devoid of all life.
Quite soon after that Uncle George went on a long trip to Switzerland for the good of his health. The house was shut up and the servants put on board wages, as Marie-Hélène took the twins up to town with her. The last I heard of her, she was hosting séances in her drawing room led by a woman calling herself Madame Lévi. Mrs. Lorrimer has continued in excellent health and spirits, and still regularly travels in Italy, while Miss McAllister became Mrs. Pollock shortly after Easter the following year.
My book was eventually found by the much-maligned gardener’s boy in a greenhouse on the edge of the estate. I had a very difficult time explaining the damp patches to the powers that be at the British Library.
4. Gwai Gusi
The University of Hong Kong is a good-ish, tranquil-ish seat of learning, as far as these things go. It regularly appears close to the top of international rankings, and its students tend to go on to take up worthy-if-dull positions in the civil service. It also owns quite a large proportion of the few remaining examples of British colonial architecture in the city. Its red-brick cloisters would not seem out of place in Henley or Durham, and sit apologetically among the chrome and glass that surrounds them.
If there is one particular tradition that stands out and makes Hong Kong University unique, it is ghost stories. It is traditional for older students to scare the pants off new arrivals during induction week in August, with tales of star-crossed alumni and suicidal professors who still haunt the silent corridors after dark.
Lucy Lau Ying, freshly accepted into the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, had not attended induction week. Shortly after passing her HKDSE with flying colour
s, she had been hit by a delivery van just outside Tin Shui Wai Park. The driver had been very apologetic, though Lucy had insisted that the collision was entirely her fault. The damage, however, had been done: Lucy had broken both legs and received a severe concussion. Thus, while her classmates had spent the summer either celebrating their exam results or drinking to forget them, Lucy had spent most of her time in hospital, having titanium screws inserted into her tibiae.
The process was both dull and painful, but at least meant that by the time the Autumn term started she was able to hobble round the campus on crutches. The university authorities had kindly switched her fourth-floor room in Halls for one on the ground floor, to be shared with another girl in a similar condition (as a result of an encounter with a recently mopped staircase). The other girl had apparently not yet been deemed fit to begin her studies, as the room was bare and empty when Lucy arrived. She had few things with her, intending to pack up her personal effects and bring them from her parents’ house later in the term, when she was better able to handle moving large boxes.
The concierge helped her carry her suitcase through from the taxi, and she was able – though not with any particular efficiency – to arrange her clothes in the wardrobe by herself. She had spotted a little supermarket