Bernard and Susan were next through the door, moving remarkably quickly for people their age. Bernard’s face was flushed from exertion, but his hands were clenched into fists; ready to defend himself and Susan. She was moaning to herself, in between gasps for breath, her face slack with shock. They helped each other across the room to their favourite chairs, and dropped into them.
Chloe and Stuart were the last to arrive. Moving at a more than reasonable pace, but not actually running. She looked shaken, he looked even more protective than usual. Stuart saw Chloe to the nearest chair, then hurried back to the door, slammed it shut and jammed the waiting chair into place. Giving it a good hard shove, to make sure nothing would move it.
‘What is it?’ said Penny. ‘What’s happened? Is someone after you?’
‘Where are Nicholas and Caroline?’ I said.
Penny looked round sharply, as she realized they were missing. I looked from one traumatized face to another. Their breathing was slowing now as they regained their composure, but none of them said anything. They exchanged glances, as though they all wanted someone else to speak first. And I thought I sensed something that might have been guilt. What had they done? What had they run away from? I looked at Stuart, and he faced me squarely.
‘It started with footsteps on the landing outside our rooms,’ he said. ‘Human footsteps, but … there was something wrong with them.’
‘They sounded soft,’ said Chloe. ‘Strangely muffled … It was horrible.’
‘Like the cloth-wrapped feet of a mummy?’ said Penny.
I was ready to say something sharp to her, but didn’t when I saw how the others were looking at each other. None of them was ready to say it out loud, but they were all thinking the same as Penny. I drew up a chair facing them, and gestured for Penny and Stuart to sit down too.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Talk me through it.’
‘The footsteps started outside our room,’ said Chloe. ‘They just seemed to be there suddenly, with no warning. Someone tried the handle of our door, but Stuart had a chair in place. I called out, asking who it was, but no one answered. I went over to the door to listen, and heard the footsteps move on down the corridor.’
‘They tried my door,’ said Marjorie. ‘But I had a chair jammed up against it, too. Whoever it was rattled the door hard, trying to force it open, but the chair held. I couldn’t say anything. I was too scared.’
‘Then they came to our room,’ said Susan. Her eyes were red and puffy from where she’d been crying again. Her voice was a very small thing, almost wiped out by shock and strain. ‘Bernard had put a chair against the door first thing, thank God. They kept trying the door handle, turning it back and forth and pushing against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. I shouted for them to go away. They didn’t say anything.’
‘I was ready to go out and confront them,’ said Bernard. ‘But Susan wouldn’t let me.’
‘By then I had my ear pressed against our door, listening to what was going on,’ said Stuart. ‘I was ready to go out too …’
‘But I wouldn’t let him,’ said Chloe. ‘I’d back Stuart against any man … but this didn’t sound like any man.’
‘Eventually, whoever or whatever it was realized they couldn’t get into any of our rooms,’ said Stuart. ‘The muffled footsteps moved away, back down the corridor towards the stairs, until I couldn’t hear them any more. I pulled the chair away from our door, opened it, and looked out. There was no sign of anyone, no sign anyone had ever been there. I called out to the others and told them it was safe to come out. And they did.’
‘I didn’t want to,’ said Marjorie. ‘I was so scared I was trembling like a leaf, but I was more afraid of being on my own. You don’t know what it was like, listening to those awful sounds! Knowing something monstrous wanted to get in, to get to me.’
‘We gathered together on the landing,’ said Chloe. ‘We were all really shaken. I thought I was brave, until then. I mean, I’ve seen some things but …’
‘None of you saw what made the noises?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Stuart. ‘No one opened their door at any point. I’m sure. I would have heard.’
I thought about that. Could any of them have opened their door and gone up and down the corridor trying doors, and then sneaked back into their room, without being heard? It didn’t seem likely. And what could have been so wrong about those footsteps to affect everyone so badly?
‘That was when I realized Nicholas and Caroline hadn’t come out of their room,’ said Stuart. ‘I banged on their door. Shouted their names, told them it was safe to come out. They didn’t answer. I was ready to kick their door in, but …’
‘Marjorie had hysterics,’ said Chloe. ‘Saying over and over that she had to get back to the drawing room, where she’d felt safe. And once she started, that was all any of us could think of.’
‘I was upset!’ said Marjorie.
‘I led the way down,’ said Stuart. ‘I couldn’t let them run through the house on their own. But I didn’t go fast enough for all of them.’
‘I was scared!’ said Marjorie. ‘I wasn’t thinking …’
‘So I took up the rear, to watch everyone’s back,’ said Stuart. ‘Keeping Chloe close to me, for safety. Just in case … something bad was loose in the house.’
‘You left Nicholas and Caroline behind?’ I said. ‘No wonder you all looked so guilty.’
‘I had to protect the people with me!’ said Stuart. ‘Now they’re safe, I’ll go back up again. Check on Nicholas and Caroline, make sure they’re all right.’
‘Anything could have happened to them,’ said Penny.
‘I didn’t want to leave them!’ said Chloe. ‘He’s my brother! We just got … swept up in the moment.’
‘You don’t know what it was like up there,’ said Marjorie. ‘It was horrible …’
‘Stuart,’ I said, ‘You stand guard over these people. Penny and I will check out the top floor.’
‘I’m going with you,’ said Stuart.
‘No!’ Chloe said immediately. ‘You can’t leave us!’
‘Someone’s got to be in charge here,’ I said to Stuart. ‘If only to keep them from doing something stupid.’
‘You’re not armed,’ said Stuart. ‘You should take something with you.’
‘Whoever or whatever you heard, it couldn’t get past a closed door,’ I said. ‘So it can’t be that strong. You’re sure you only heard one set of footsteps?’
I looked round. Everyone nodded.
‘They sounded … weirdly light,’ said Stuart. ‘As though there was no real weight to them. Like a ghost walking.’
‘Or a dead thing,’ said Marjorie.
Everyone was nodding now.
‘Once we’re gone,’ I said to Stuart, ‘wedge the chair under the door again and keep everyone in here. No one is to leave this room, and don’t open the door to anyone but me. I’ll yell out, so you can be sure it’s me.’
‘Why don’t we all just leave?’ Marjorie said loudly. ‘Just … get in our cars and go. This house is a death trap.’
I looked at Stuart. ‘Is that what you think we should do?’
He looked at Chloe. She shook her head stubbornly. Her face was still unhealthily pale, but she was back in command of herself. ‘I need to know what’s happened to Nicky and his wife. We’re safe in here, and Security is on the way.’
I didn’t look at Stuart. We both knew no one was coming.
‘No one leaves this house,’ Chloe said flatly. ‘Not until we find out who killed my father.’
‘You still think it was one of us!’ Marjorie said angrily. ‘How could any of us do something like that? It was inhuman. We have to go!’
‘Once you’ve left the house,’ I said, ‘you could go anywhere.’
‘He’s right,’ said Bernard. ‘We stay. All of us.’
Marjorie looked like she still wanted to argue, but no one was on her side. She sank back in her chair and scowled sullenly.
/> ‘As soon as Penny and I have determined what’s happened, we’ll come back down and tell you,’ I said. ‘Then we can decide what to do next.’
I got to my feet, and so did Penny and Stuart. I looked round the room. No one wanted to look at me. I pulled the chair away, opened the door, and looked out. The long corridor stretched away, disappearing into its shadows, silent and empty. I stepped out into the corridor, and Penny was quickly there at my side. Almost trembling with eagerness to go chasing into danger, so she could stare it in the face and ask it pointed questions. Sometimes I wonder which of us is supposed to be looking after who. The door slammed shut behind us, and I heard the chair being jammed back into place. Someone wasn’t taking any chances.
‘Is it just me,’ said Penny, ‘or does this corridor feel more than usually quiet?’
‘Silent as the grave,’ I said.
‘Not really helping!’ She looked at me. ‘Can you hear anything? Smell anything … unusual?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s go upstairs and see if that changes.’
‘Fine!’ said Penny. ‘I’ll punch them in the head, and then you kick them when they’re down.’
‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ I said.
We strode off down the corridor, heading for the first set of stairs. By now I knew where every room in the house was, and the quickest way to get there. Our footsteps sounded clearly on the wooden floorboards, nothing soft or muffled about them. The shadows were still deep and dark, but I was getting used to that. And as long as I didn’t look at the artefacts and exhibits, they couldn’t look back at me.
‘Do you think Nicholas and Caroline are dead?’ Penny said quietly. ‘There could be any number of reasons why they didn’t answer.’
‘Any number,’ I said. ‘But not many good ones.’
We moved quickly through the silent house, keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings, but there wasn’t any sight or sound of anyone else. We hurried up one set of stairs after another, and by the time we hit the third flight Penny was seriously out of breath and puffing like a steam train with asthma. She waved for me to go on, but I wouldn’t leave her on her own. I waited patiently as she slumped against the banister, getting her breath back. Finally Penny nodded stiffly, and we set off again.
‘Why can’t people be killed in bungalows?’ she growled. ‘Everywhere we go, it’s always stairways and corridors … And in future, you might want to consider going armed.’
‘I have done in the past,’ I said. ‘When the mission demanded it. But when you carry a weapon, that’s always going to be your first response to a tense situation.’
‘Right now, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing,’ said Penny.
‘But what if I were to glimpse something moving, out of the corner of my eye,’ I said, ‘and then opened fire to protect myself or you? Only to find the moving thing was Professor Rose. He’s still around here, somewhere.’
‘That is kind of odd, isn’t it?’ said Penny. ‘I mean, shouldn’t we have bumped into him by now? Why hasn’t he made himself known? Where could he be that he hasn’t heard all the commotion and come to ask what’s going on?’ She looked at me sharply. ‘Do you think he’s dead, too?’
‘No point in guessing,’ I said. ‘In a tense situation, it’s always too easy to jump straight to the worst-case scenario.’
‘To be fair,’ said Penny, ‘that is how most of our cases turn out.’
‘Then let’s try to be optimistic,’ I said.
We stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down the third floor landing. It all seemed quiet and empty. I did spot one thing: the floor here was carpeted, as opposed to the wooden floorboards in the rest of the house. Which might have contributed to the muffled sound of the footsteps. Penny leaned in close to murmur in my ear.
‘Can you smell blood?’
‘It’s been hard for me to smell anything in this house,’ I said. ‘But up here, away from the collection, the scents are fainter and more diffused. I can smell flowers in vases, soaps and perfumes … but no blood.’
‘You can smell all that, through closed doors?’
‘Yes.’
‘Decidedly weird. No blood … That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
‘Usually,’ I said.
Nicholas and Caroline’s door was still closed. I knocked loudly and called out to them, but there was no reply. I tried the handle, and it turned easily. I eased the door open. There was no chair in place to stop me.
‘Do you think it was open all along?’ said Penny.
‘Could have been,’ I said. ‘Stuart said he was ready to kick it in but never got a chance. Why isn’t there a chair jammed against it? Nicholas and Caroline had just as many reasons to be cautious as everyone else … I’m going in. You stay by the door.’
I pushed the door all the way open and stepped carefully into the room. Nicholas and Caroline were lying on the floor, side by side, not moving. Penny made a noise behind me, but stayed where she was. I looked slowly round the room. No sign of a struggle, nothing out of place. Nicholas and Caroline hadn’t even got round to picking up the clothes they’d left scattered around the room when they changed for dinner. Perhaps they never got the chance. I knelt down beside each body in turn and checked for vital signs, but they only confirmed what I already knew.
‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’ said Penny.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not a mark on either of them. No obvious cause of death. Their faces look surprisingly peaceful.’
‘Caroline had a poker to protect herself,’ said Penny.
I looked around. The poker was lying on the bed, as though it had been dropped there quite casually. Nothing about it to suggest it had ever been raised in anger.
‘Can I come in?’ said Penny.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But be careful. This is a crime scene, let’s not contaminate things more than we have to.’
Penny entered the room one careful step at a time. She looked at the bodies and shook her head sadly. ‘This is … eerie. They could almost be sleeping. It’s like they just collapsed and died, for no reason.’
‘There’s always a reason,’ I said.
‘Could they have been frightened to death by the mummy?’
‘What we saw in the sarcophagus wasn’t exactly scary,’ I said.
‘It’s probably different when you open your bedroom door to find it standing there grinning at you,’ said Penny.
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘But Caroline had her poker. And she wasn’t the kind to scare easily. She would have gone down fighting.’
‘Whoever Stuart and the others heard, wasn’t strong enough to force open their doors,’ said Penny. ‘So Nicholas and Caroline must have opened the door to their killer. Why would they do that?’
‘Only one answer makes sense,’ I said. ‘They knew who it was. And didn’t see that person as any kind of threat.’
‘Then the killer must have identified himself, or herself, through the closed door,’ said Penny. ‘Why only speak to Nicholas and Caroline? And why kill them, rather than the others?’
‘Because they opened the door,’ I said. ‘Question is did this happen before the killer continued on down the corridor to try the other doors, or did it happen afterwards? If the killer spoke to them first, why didn’t the others hear? They heard the footsteps clearly enough.’
‘You mean Nicholas and Caroline could have already been dead when Stuart was knocking on their door?’ said Penny. ‘If that’s the case, he couldn’t have saved them anyway.’
‘He didn’t know that when he abandoned them,’ I said.
‘This case just gets more and more complicated,’ said Penny.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It does. What happened in this room is completely different to what happened to George. He was bludgeoned to death. Nicholas and Caroline look like they died in their sleep.’
‘On the floor?’
‘More likely in mid-step.’
‘Remember the stories fr
om Egypt?’ said Penny. ‘The local people who died because of the curse from no obvious cause!’
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ I said. ‘The way George died suggested rage, even a desire to punish. What happened here feels more … calculated. And while I can see all kinds of reasons why people might want George dead, why Nicholas and Caroline? They had no money; they’d even been cut out of the will, according to Marjorie. And I don’t see how they could have made an enemy out of anyone here, when they hadn’t been back to visit the family in ages.’
‘Perhaps they saw something concerning the first murder,’ said Penny. ‘Something they didn’t realize was significant. But still important enough that the killer had to silence them before they could blurt it out and give the game away.’
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘But why such a different manner of death?’
‘Because the killer wasn’t mad at them?’ said Penny. ‘Killing George was personal, but silencing two witnesses was just business.’
‘George was beaten to death,’ I said. ‘I can understand that. But I have no idea how Nicholas and Caroline died. It’s as though their hearts just failed or they simply stopped breathing.’
‘Could it be natural causes?’ Penny said tentatively.
‘Together? Simultaneously and in exactly the same way? I don’t think so.’
‘Poison, then?’ said Penny. ‘Some kind of gas sprayed into their faces? I saw that in a spy movie once.’
‘A poison would leave some sign,’ I said. ‘In the face, eyes or lips … And I’m not smelling anything unusual.’
‘Injections?’
I looked at her. ‘Can you really see them standing still for an injection? Bare your arm, please, it’s time for your mummy immunization shots …’