Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“If you’ve seen her, she was. The cleaning girls use the staff passageways almost exclusively. They’re also not full-time and, it’s my understanding, they have the greatest turnover. Usually, they’re young women who go to the college in town. When they earn their degrees or certificates, they move on.”
If they used the staff passageways exclusively, then they’d have healthy knowledge of them.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
“Not the current ones, no.” Another heavy breath from Ian and then, “I’ll make a call. Set my investigators into diving into those two first.”
“Do they live here?”
“I don’t know. Some of them have, as a benefit of their employment. No skin off our noses. We have the room. Some don’t. I don’t tend to pay attention to the intricacies of the running of the house, and not only because I don’t actually live here.”
He did pay attention, but perhaps not to that level.
And…
Okay, time to get into the creepiest part.
Or, the second creepiest part.
“Tell me about these passageways.”
His expression grew understanding, and he assured, “There isn’t an entry into my room.”
At least there was that.
“Okay, but tell me about them anyway.”
“Honestly, if someone had the time and energy, it wouldn’t be hard to know about them, though, it’d take quite some effort. In past times, they were used often, and not just by staff. It was a running joke that a husband could run into his wife, both of them on their way to an illicit liaison.”
“Members of the family?”
“Yes, most definitely, but also guests. If they wrote about them in letters or diaries or told others who did the same, anyone who was looking into Duncroft House could piece them together and use that information to move around this house, in large part, sight unseen.”
Not…
Good.
“Is there an entry into the Whisky Room?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“This is fiendish, Ian,” I remarked.
“I know, darling. But it’ll also be figured out. My investigator can lift fingerprints, evaluate the footprints in the dust, thoroughly check the house, including the staff rooms. Stevenson already has a plan to keep the staff occupied so she can do so without being seen.”
Although he’d mentioned her before, that time it struck me.
“Your investigator is a woman?”
“The one coming is. I have two. The other one will remain in London and look into the staff and assess outside motives for someone to pull this shit.” His aura changed, and he said, “Don’t drink anymore Amaretto unless Stevenson gives it to you himself.”
I felt gooseflesh glide over my skin when I asked, “Why?”
“I’ve been feeling sluggish the last few days, including right now, and it isn’t just having half a whisky at midday. Daniel and I had a talk about how this started, you mentioning the flute from your dream, and he told me Portia has been dreaming too, and she seems more highly-strung when she’s here, sometimes even erratic. I grew concerned, mentioned it to Dad. He’s a G and T man. After dinner, he goes for port or brandy. Mum is G and T too, and after dinner brandy or sherry. He says they’re not experiencing any changes, though he’s noted that Mum seems more vague than normal.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I asked Daniel, and Portia likes to unwind at the end of an evening with an Amaretto too. She’s been drinking it from the decanter in the Wine Room. Daniel also isn’t experiencing this, but outside lager, he’s a vodka man.”
“Are you saying…?”
I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.
“I’m saying I’ve noticed a marked change in your affect when we finish the night with a drink. You seem you, but hazier, and you yourself have told me you’ve felt off. Then there are your dreams, and the things that happened to you are frightening, your responses natural to them. But Daniel mentioned in passing that Portia was very upset by how scared you were with what Brittany did. She said, you might not enjoy horror movies and scary things, but she’s never seen you like that.” He gave me a ghost of a smile. “She said you’re always together.”
It was nice Portia thought that of me.
But he still wasn’t saying outright what I thought he was saying.
So I asked after it. “Do you think someone put something in the alcohol?”
“I think I told Stevenson to carefully switch all of it out but keep what’s been decanted so my investigator can take samples of it. The new will still be out for anyone to slip something into it, so Stevenson knows if we call for a drink, he’ll have bottles locked away and will serve us directly from them.”
One could say there was no way to express how I really, really didn’t like this.
Which was why I tried, perhaps hopelessly, to offer, “They’re just dreams, honey, and some woman touched my face in the pitch dark wearing a dead woman costume in the middle of the night. My response to that wasn’t unwarranted.”