Chapter Nine

“There he is, Becky.” Ellie’s voice made Randall turn toward the two girls as he passed through the kitchen on his way upstairs. The girls had apparently been having their afternoon tea, which they abandoned to come rushing up to him. “We’ve been looking for you all day. And haven’t been able to find you anywhere. You or Mr. Thorton.”
“He just went upstairs…” Randall trailed off. Harry had come through the front door, and taken the will up to his room for safe keeping. Randall now stood debating whether to communicate their recent errand to town. “Probably wouldn’t be prudent,” he thought. “Tell these two, and the whole world would know in twenty minutes.”
His thoughts on the subject were wasted, however, as Becky cut off any end to his sentence. “You’re not going to believe this, sir, but we heard a ghost last night!”
“Um, a ghost? How do you know it was a ghost?”
“Well, what else could it have been?” Becky, usually much more practical and level-headed than Ellie, was considerably alarmed.
“You see,” Ellie put in, “I heard this noise coming from Becky’s room.”
“But I thought the noise was coming from Ellie’s room.”
“Our rooms are right next to each other,” Ellie went on in an awed whisper. “It must have been inside the wall!”
“What made you think it was a ghost?” Randall asked, recalling the fruitless chase the night before.
“Can you think of anything else that makes strange noises in the walls?”
“Don’t worry your heads over it. It was probably a mouse,” Randall tried to reassured them, though not fully certain of what he was saying himself.
“It was not a mouse!” Ellie’s tone clearly expressed her annoyance. “I think I can tell the difference between noises made by a mouse and noises made by something else.”
“Oh yes,” Becky said. “It was a ghost. It was definitely not a mouse.”
“Why didn’t you call someone when you heard the noise?” Randall asked.
“I didn’t know what it was until this morning when Ellie told me. I didn’t think anything of it until she told me it was a ghost,” replied Becky.
“I didn’t actually say a ghost,” the other girl explained defensively. “I ask her what she had been wailing about last night. When she said she hadn’t been, and that she thought it was me, well, I knew we heard something. And since it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Becky, and the noise came from inside the wall. Well, what would you think?” Ellie blurted out. With that, she sat back in her chair and started to cry.
Becky quickly became her practical self again as she rushed to reassure her friend that, if she felt uncomfortable, they would spend the night in town, or at a friend’s. They certainly didn’t need to stay the night if Ellie did not wish.
Randall tried to extricate himself from the situation. Ellie was obviously distressed, either by the thought of having heard a ghost or by the fact that she’d been caught believing in something so silly. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m sure that if it was a ghost, it was a harmless one.”
“Oh, by the way,” Becky said in a low tone, turning to him as she poured another cup of tea for her anxious friend, “Someone’s been moving around those big chess men in the ballroom, like they were playing a game with them or something. I would not have thought anything of it. I’d have thought Ellie had been cleaning, only she would have put them back where they belong, you know.”
Randall was inclined to agree that this was an odd occurrence, and started for the ballroom. He had reached the door before he noticed Harry coming from the back stairs.
“I’ve got an idea,” Harry said to him. “We’ve been going on the assumption that Edmond’s key is likely to be in the front staircase. Maybe it’s in the back stairway. It’s less used, and anything Edmond was hiding wouldn’t be noticed at once. At least, not as soon as if it were hidden on the main stair.”
“It’s an idea,” Randall assented. “We can check it in just a minute. But first, Becky said that someone has been playing chess with the pieces in here,” he said entering the room, and surveying the black and white game pieces. Most of the pieces were still lining the walls, but several had been placed on the square tiles in the ballroom as though a life-sized game had been played. Randall, followed by his friend, made his way around the waist-high pawns to where the white knight lay next to the opposing queen.
“Well if that isn’t cheeky,” Harry said.
“What is?” Randall asked in reply.
“Look at the moves these pieces have made. The white knight has been captured, and the white king has trapped himself in a castle,” Harry pointed out, and then paused as he realized what message had been left for them both. He furrowed his brow. “He’s in checkmate. What an impudent threat.”
Randall shot a quick look at Harry. “Threat?”
“Certainly, a threat. Look, this white knight?” he said stepping over to the toppled piece, “is me. And the white king is you.”
“And this person wants to tell us…” Randall trailed off, unsure of how to finish.
“Wants to threaten us,” Harry corrected him. “The knight has been sacrificed to trap the king. And the king is in checkmate by the black queen.”
“So the person we’re dealing with is a woman?”
Harry was skeptical. “It’s a pretty flimsy assumption. I mean, there are only so many women around here with brains enough to undertake this treasure hunt. Or,” he said after another moment’s thought, “this person may have used the queen to signify that he or she is more powerful than the king.”
“So the queen may not be important at all?”
“It might be, but it might not. I imagine one of your live-in employees is behind this. After all, servants are notorious for knowing everything about anything. And it probably wasn’t a woman after all. At least, I don’t think any of them here are strong enough to move these big pieces.”
“Actually,” Randall said, picking up the black queen and setting it against the wall, “these pieces are hollow. So we still don’t know anything definite about this person.”

When they had replaced the pieces, Harry again expressed his desire to examine the back stairwell. They did so, but after an hour of close inspection, had turned up with nothing. “I guess you were right,” Harry said standing up. “It must be in the front stair after all.”
“Sure looks like it, we can go over it again after lunch.”
When the time came, they started on the main section of the stairs and worked their way up and over to the left balcony, and down towards the front of the castle. They were about three-quarters of the way down the hall, when Louis passed through. He stopped when he saw them.
“Lose something?”
“I just dropped one of my contacts,” Harry called down. “We’ll find it.”
“Oh, I’ll get a torch. They’re easier to find if you shine a light on them.”
“Do you really wear contacts?” Randall asked when Louis had left the hall.
“No,” Harry replied, “but he doesn’t need to know that.”
They were just about finished with the left balcony, when Randall called Harry over. With a bit of effort, one of the spindles could be twisted around. When they could turn it no more, a small door projected from the bottom of the next post. Randall reached into the cavity and withdrew what looked like a carving chisel. The handle was of a delicate lacework design, and the blade had deep grooves in either side.
“Edmund’s key?” he asked aloud.
“It must be,” Harry said.
Randall quickly pocketed the tool when he saw Louis returning with a flashlight. He moved casually in front of the section of rail. “Oh thank you, Louis, but we did find Mr. Thorton’s contact.”
“Yeah, see?”
Louis looked glanced at Harry’s empty outstretched hand. If he didn’t see any sign of a tiny transparent lens, he certainly gave no indication of it. Harry’s hand closed before Louis could look twice. “Alright then,” Louis said, “I’ll just put this away.”
When he had disappeared for the second time, Randall turned his attention back to the railing. Try as he might, he could not force the little door to close again. “Can’t just leave it that way,” Harry pointed out.
“I know. Becky is too efficient. She’ll see it for sure.”
Harry tried twisting the spindle in reverse. The little door closed on its own.
“You know,” Randall commented, “after all this is over, and we’re not working against someone, I’m coming back through all these hiding places, and figuring out how they work. The garden statue, the library door, this spindle--it seems awfully complicated for seventeenth century knowledge.”
“Actually, if you think about it, they were probably more advanced as far as mechanics. They didn’t have electricity, certainly, but wouldn’t that make them all the more skilled in the crafts they did possess?”
“Hmm,” Randall half-assented. “Now where to?”
Harry paused for a moment to think. “Let’s go get the green book. We’ll check the wording of Richard’s note, and then go on from there.”
But when Harry opened the little volume, he found that the riddle from the chessboard was missing.
“Oh, no,” Randall moaned, “the phantom strikes again!”
“At least he didn’t take the will for whatever reason” Harry replied, holding up the still sealed envelope. "He didn’t know what it was, or didn’t want to tear it open to see. And the chessboard riddle will do him no good. We’ve already got the knight.”
“I still wish he hadn’t taken it.”
“We’re only one step away from the treasure. Hopefully we can find the last key before it makes a difference,” Harry said opening the book. He began to walk around the room, thinking more clearly for the motion. “Let’s see, six metallic mosaics. Only one is the key, but the other five are part of it.”
“Six parts together...could it be shaped like a hexagon? or a cube?” Randall suggested, climbing onto the bed, and finding it a much more comfortable position for thinking than pacing the room like his friend.
“Is there anything like that in the museum?” Harry said turning to him.
“I really don't know. If there were, Louis would certainly know about it."
“True," Harry thought aloud. "I wonder how we could find out without asking him directly. He's still high on the suspect list. If he is our phantom, he'll understand exactly what we want, no matter how clever we think we may be.”
"We could approach Larry," Randall said, "and tell him what we're looking for, subtly suggesting that Louis might know where it is."
"But then we run the risk of Larry mentioning to Louis that we asked about it," Harry reminded him. He sat down next to him on the bed and thought for a moment. “Hmm, if it's a mosaic, wouldn't it be in a room that contains other artworks?”
Randall vetoed that idea. “There weren’t enough art related objects to set aside an entire room. Any artwork would be placed with items related by period or design.”
“Then we have to get Louis’ notebook. Any idea where he keeps it?”
“He usually has it with him, but he has a small office off the lobby. I would guess he keeps it in his desk when he isn't using it. We would have to wait until dinnertime to check it out. He goes to help Patrick set up the meal, and we could check it out without his knowledge.”
“Okay. In the meantime, we should take a look at this will,” Harry suggested, drawing the document out of the envelope.
It was rather lengthy, so Harry took the first few pages to the table to review, while Randall took the remaining ones and sat down on the bed. After an hour, Randall threw the papers aside.
“All these legal terms are mind-numbing,” he declared.
“I don’t get it,” Harry said. “It says Peter left the estate to his son, Douglas, and to his step-son Thomas the sum of thirty thousand pounds. The other two children received similar monetary bequests. But Thomas was clearly the eldest descendant. Shouldn’t he have gotten the castle?”
“Oh, of course!” Randall jumped off the bed. “It’s so simple! It makes perfect sense!”
“If it’s so simple, would you mind letting me in on this sudden revelation?” Harry demanded.
“It explains everything. We know Thomas was undeniably the eldest, but Douglas was Peter’s firstborn. The castle has always gone to the first born child, but the firstborn is usually the oldest child.”
At that moment there was a knock on Harry’s door. Randall shot a quick glance at Harry, who rose and opened it to find Louis.
“There is a telephone call for you, sir,” Louis said addressing Randall. “Woman from the historical society. Gave the name Elaine.”
“Thank you Louis. I’ll take it up here.”
When he left, Randall turned to Harry. “Do you think he was eavesdropping?”
“I certainly hope not, but in future I think we should keep our voices down. Would you meet me out in the garden when you’re done?”
“Sure.”
Harry was sitting in the garden making notes in his casebook, listening to the sound of the gardener’s shears snipping away when Randall came up to him some time later.
“Good news. I found out who Thomas’s…”
“Not so loud,” Harry whispered, motioning towards the sound of Cole’s hedge clippers, and leading him away from the spot. “What did you find?”
“The direct descendant of Thomas Greystone is a woman by the name of Danielle Robinson. It didn’t take as long as they thought.”
“That’s it?”
“Well I figured since it was a issue of the inheritance, the direct descendant was the only one who mattered much,” Randall explained.
Harry nodded in assent. “I’ve been narrowing down our list of suspects, trying to figure out who is most likely to harass you with these accidents and the ghost masquerade.”
“Have you come up with anything?”
“Right now it would seem as though the butler were our strongest suspect. He’s the right height for the phantom. He has a motive in ambition. He wears white gloves.”
“That’s too easy. I know he wears gloves, but…”
“You’re being influenced by the idea that the butler always does it.” When Randall offered no other reason for his doubt, Harry went on. “Servants generally know a great deal, especially butlers that listen at doors. More importantly in this case, he knows a great deal about Greystone family history, probably much more than is written in the exhibits.”
“Larry must know a great deal too,” Randall pointed out. “With all that research, he’s bound to come across useful information, like the stuff he told us about William. And don’t forget he is almost always in the same room as the entrance to the secret passage.”
“Except of course, when he’s walking through the hall with a small package the size of the book the night it went missing,” Harry insinuated. “He’s number two on the list.”
“Let’s not forget,” Randall said stopping. “The gum wrapper down in the key room. Ellie chews gum all the time and both maids would have easy access to any room in the castle.”
“True, but the wrapper is considered evidence. Evidence can be created or destroyed at the will of the suspect. We had found the room, they know we’d have seen that someone had been there. They needed to start framing someone. Anyone could’ve dropped the gum wrapper to throw us off.” They discussed the aspects of the case further, going over what they knew repeatedly while walking through the garden until Louis would be out of the museum and helping Patrick.

One of the streets in the town we visited when we went to the historical society. The sign in the bottom right is for the restaraunt we ate at. It was the first time I had fish and chips from paper drowned in salt and vinegar. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but it was heaven! I’ll have to remember the name of that place.