Property of a Lady(11)
‘And you’re actually going to spend the night at Charect House, are you, miss – uh, Dr Wilson?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘They say William Lee’s been seen at Charect a time or two,’ put in the much younger police constable rather hesitantly.
‘More than a time or two from all I ever heard,’ observed somebody else.
‘Rot,’ said the police sergeant with determination. ‘William Lee’s dead and under the ground and been there more than seventy years, so let’s have no more nonsense about dead folks walking around. It’ll be clanking chains and creaking gibbets next,’ he said with an air of good-humoured exasperation.
The young constable volunteered the information that they had, in fact, checked Charect House earlier in the day. ‘We went right through it, cellar to attic,’ he said.
I heard one of the men from behind him mutter, ‘Rather you than me.’
‘Well, it was done to proper police procedure, and there was nothing to be found,’ said the sergeant, raising his voice as if to make sure no one missed the statement. ‘Nothing at all. Not William Lee, nor anyone else. It’s a bleak old place, though, I’ll say that for it.’ He looked back at me. ‘Best be on your guard.’
‘I will.’
‘And if you see anything suspicious, send for us.’
‘Of course.’
10 p.m.
As is often the way, Charect House’s personality is entirely different by night. From being a rather forlorn old place, with sagging timbers and rotting floors, it’s become deeply forbidding. Even from the track leading up to it, it looked as if it was leaning forward to take a look at whoever was brave or foolhardy enough to approach it. But I’ve seen more glaring-visaged houses than you can shake a stick at, and I know it’s simply an illusion: the effect of shadows and clouds behind an erratic roofline. Prop up a sagging roof joist and nail a few tiles into their proper place, and everything’s rose-tinted.
I bounced the estate car up to the front door and set about unloading the cameras and tape recorders. And now I’m inside the haunted house and night has fallen. That looks dramatic, written down, but when you get down to it, haunted houses are seldom very dramatic. They’re generally chilly, and the worst part of the vigil is boredom. That’s why I keep a journal to help pass the time.
10.45 p.m.
I’ve positioned the cameras and tape recorders all over the house – in the long drawing-room, in the dining room, and in the hall, where there’s a view of the stairs. There’s a smaller room, probably once used as a morning room, but I haven’t bothered with that. I haven’t bothered with the kitchens, either. But I’ve put cameras in the two main bedrooms. They all have light-sensitive settings, so that any movement within their range will trigger the shutter. I’ve got a Polaroid camera in here with me.
There’s no power on, of course, but I’ve got a good supply of batteries for the recorders, which I’ll have to replace at regular intervals. For my own light I’ve got two electric torches and a couple of oil lamps – what used to be called bullseyes. I will do a good deal for the furtherance of the Society’s work, but I’m blowed if I’m going to sit all night in the pitch dark.
There’s quite a lot of furniture in the house. I hadn’t expected that, and it means I can make myself reasonably snug – although I do draw the line at actually lying down in one of the sarcophagus-sized beds upstairs. I may be a cynic and a sceptic, but I’ve read all those gothic ghost tales about ravished marriage beds and spectral bridegrooms. Not that I ever got as far as a marriage bed or a bridegroom, spectral or otherwise, and I shouldn’t think I ever will, not now. Still, they say what you’ve never had you never miss, and I’m having a very full and interesting life without all that bouncing around in beds and having to put up with a man’s moods and wash his socks. (Although in the privacy of these pages, I’ll admit I wish my army captain and I had done some bed-bouncing before he went off to be frizzled to death by that wretched bomb. That’s what you get for trying to stay virtuous when all around you are flinging virginity to the winds. Ah well. Can’t be helped now.)
More to the point, I’ve rigged up a makeshift desk in the drawing room – I suspect it was once a library, with all the shelves that are still in place, so I think I’ll refer to it as that for the rest of this report. I’ve beaten about three pounds of dust out of an old wing chair, and I’ll be perfectly cosy.
I’ve put a large truncheon on the side of the chair – and never mind how I acquired it! If there’s a child-stealer prowling around and he lights on Charect as a likely lair, he’ll get very short shrift from me. On the other hand, if William Lee, dead for over seventy years, turns up, he’ll have to be given quite different treatment.
Note to self: interesting to hear those references to William Lee in the Black Boar. I do know the house was built in the late 1700s by a John Lee of Shrewsbury, so William must have been a descendant. If the house passed down through the Lee family that would explain why I didn’t find any land transfers or transfers of title when I searched – at least, until after WWII, when the place seems to have been passed from one government department to another until it ended up with J. Lloyd’s council committee.
11 p.m.