Chapter 2

By dusk, as the clock over the hearth told it, the storm was raging fiercely. One could not tell the time of day by the window. Lightning flashed and thunder shook the old inn despite its sound, thick, stone construction.

Passepartout had taken the emergency message to the telegraph station around two that afternoon. By his return, the valet had been soaked to the skin and miserable despite his overcoat. The innkeeper's wife and older daughter had met the drenched servant at the door and taken him in hand straight away. He and his clothing had then been dried and made warm again as soon as possible. After that errand, Passepartout had had little to do but spell Miss Rebecca at the sick agent's bedside and watch the storm.

In the more casual atmosphere of the country inn, mealtime formalities had been laid aside. Passepartout had been freed from serving the meal, as he was a guest in this house, too. The proprietress sat him at a side table with a coach driver for one of the other guests to enjoy his meal.

Phileas and Rebecca had been asked to take seats at a long table in the common room set up for all the inn's guests while the innkeeper's younger daughter watched over Richard for them. The landlord's wife had apparently decided to treat everyone to a more formal supper with better than the usual table settings and a succession of delightfully well-prepared dishes.

Several other travelers had been forced off the roads by the wretched weather before suppertime. They also took seats to enjoy the inn's excellent food. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, the guests had been talking amongst themselves, making introductions and speaking of their recent travels and business. They included an elderly couple traveling back to their home on the west coast after a trip to France. The small silver haired good lady chatted with Rebecca before the meal and gave her sympathy, "for the poor boy upstairs, so ill. Pneumonia is such a dreadful thing. But one can recover; so, do keep up your spirits. Your brother will be in my prayers," she offered with a sympathetic smile.

Another of the trapped travelers was a minister who had been on his way to Sheffield on horseback, after performing a wedding. The clergyman was scarecrow thin and not overly talkative. He was enjoying the good meal as if it were a banquet speaking only to ask for "just a little bit more, if you please."

The last two visitors, drifting in late, were brothers from France touring England. They looked to be only a year apart to Phileas; one twenty-five and the other twenty-four or so, fresh out of university in any event. Phileas, who had sat in the common room nursing ale, had been inflicted with their chatter as the two young men devoted themselves to draining the landlord's ale supply. In the process, they had complained in their native tongue about the weather and their bad luck getting stuck in a backwater village. They had been on their way to London from Edinburgh on horseback. Phileas frowned in their direction several times as he had sat through it, considering them overdressed and far too arrogant for their age. They laughed together oblivious of it, making crude comments as if no Englishman could understand them. Two perfect examples of spoiled fops.

At the table, they were only marginally better behaved. They had taken seats together on the far end of the table speaking quietly in French and keeping separate from the table conversation.

The evenings after dinner entertainment was, as expected, ghost stories. The tragedies of the inn were recalled for the entertainment of the guests. The ghost story of a former landlord's murdered wife, who could still be seen occasionally dressed in a black dress, bonnet and boots was told. "But she came from the first inn that sat on this site," the landlord said. "The building you see now was built after the first had been destroyed by fire in 1630. That fire brought about the next unfortunate spiritual inhabitants to this place. Two young girls, named Sarah and Emily. They were killed in the blaze. Their shades are never seen, but at night, the doors to the upper rooms will open and close of their own accord. And then girlish giggling will echo down the halls. The lasses are no bother, really. Who would begrudge a pair of eternal playmates a harmless prank or two?" Mr. Potts finished his well-practiced recitation.

Phileas shook his head at the superstitious drivel, admiring only how the man's diction improved as he gave his nightly narration. He knew the stories. He had first heard them when his family had been traveling through. For the fun of it, Erasmus had tried to imitate the ghosts by banging his father's door open and closed late in the night.

Phileas, who had been a sound sleeper, had not known what his brother was about. Ignorance had not saved him the next morning. Both boys had been birched, soundly, behind the stables for disturbing their father's sleep. And the imp had denied it all, even as he had received his punishment, which did not surprise or fool Sir Boniface in the least. Phileas smiled to himself at the bittersweet memory. He had often been pronounced guilty by relation to his precocious little brother. It had taught him, among other things, to never turn his back on the imp when there had been mischief to be had.

Passepartout, who was not at all adverse to a good spook story, had enjoyed himself immensely through the telling. Jean had been raised from infancy with these sorts of stories at the knee of his grandmother. He had already spent most of his free time at Shillingworth Magna collecting local lore. He was now working on learning all the stories of Derbyshire. He and Jules Verne had a lively correspondence trading these myths and legends. His brush with real ghosts and vampires, rather than putting him off such interests, had made him more enthusiastic for them. Tonight, Passepartout intended to spend his watch on the sickly secret service agent talking with the landlord about the inland mermaid that lived in a stagnant deep-water pool hidden in a bog near Hayfield.

From their side of the table, the French brothers laughed at the tales, making derogatory comments in French about female ghosts and what they might really be searching for in the guest rooms. Phileas frowned on the young men but said nothing. The elderly matron next to Rebecca, however, was thoroughly scandalized at their overly crude comments and made no attempt to pretend she hadn't heard. Her husband, in response, turned a very stern eye on the offenders, giving them a look designed to deal with disreputable young men. It worked instantly. The brothers quieted quickly, made apologies, and removed themselves to the far side of the room.

After a dessert of apple tarts was served, Phileas and Rebecca moved to the chairs near the hearth, away from the main group to speak. Between the thunder and noise of the pounding rain, nothing of softly spoken voices could be overheard. To further ensure their privacy, they lapsed into a game of name that language. To anyone listening without a strong talent in linguistics, it would sound like an exercise in scholarly one-up-manship.

"The papers are military dispatches and battle plans," Phileas explained quietly in Cantonese. "Rather precise plans for an invasion into the Netherlands. There are troop orders, intelligence reports… It is a complete essay on who ordered what and how it is to happen."

"Cantonese," Rebecca identified. She whispered in Attic Latin, "How on earth could Richard have come by such information?"

"Latin, Phileas identified. "I would think the question is who gathered it up and gave it to him?" Phileas said in Aramaic. "One does not find that sort of information lying about in one place to be scooped up. Someone took time to make copies of high command orders, steal marked maps, and gather reports… Someone who had high security access inside Prussia's military. Perhaps the man he mentioned earlier was his source."

Before Rebecca could name the language and form her reply in Greek, hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. The innkeeper's thirteen-year-old daughter rushed to the kitchens. "Mama, Mama! Come quick! The gentleman… he can't breathe!"


Phileas, Rebecca, and the innkeeper's wife ran for the stairs at once, while the elderly couple and the minister watched in silent sympathy. In the upper room, Richard was in deep distress. His eyes were wide with fear as he choked with the effort to draw a breath into his fluid filled lungs.

Rebecca went straight to his side. She took the hand that was reaching for her.

Holding Rebecca's hand for dear life, Richard looked up to her, pleading, as if she could make it better.

Rebecca, who could bandage a gunshot or splint a broken limb, had no training in dealing with this. All she could do was hold his hand, giving him as much comfort as she could.

The effort to breathe was finally more than he could handle. Richard's eyes rolled up into his head and he lost consciousness. Moments later, with all the fight in him gone, Richard stopped breathing altogether. His heartbeat took a few minutes longer to cease, but cease it did. It was all over within ten minutes. The village doctor, who lived nearby, had been summoned only in time to pronounce his death.

When it was all over, Phileas came to his cousin's side by the bed. Gently, he pulled Rebecca's hand from Richard's death grasp and lifted the sheet over his face. Tears were streaming down her face. Phileas was not unmoved. He had held fellow agent's hands himself as death took them, including his own brother's. It was never easy to do it or see it done. He gently replaced her friend's hand with his own, giving Rebecca something, he hoped, would be warm and reassuring to hold onto.

"I am deeply sorry miss, sir," Doctor Glover said. "Was he a family man?"

"Yes, he was," Rebecca replied through tears. "We will have to inform his wife. Poor Brenda…" She looked at the sheet-covered body once more before extracting her hands from Phileas's sweet gesture. She nodded and turned to leave the room.

Turning to the door, Rebecca witnessed a sight that shocked her so badly she was frozen in place and rendered speechless. There by the door was Richard, fully dressed, resting his back against the wall watching them; and beside him stood an old woman in an old-fashioned black dress and bonnet. A flash of lightning lit up the two with an eerie blue light. In that second, Richard's eyes made direct contact with Rebecca's. They no longer pleaded for life. There was something very different in his eyes now, and just as urgently in need of communicating. But before it could be explained, the flash was gone, and so were the two people.

Rebecca fainted when they disappeared.

Phileas heard her surprised sharp intake of breath but did not turn in time to see the two extra presences in the room. He caught her before his cousin hit the floor. The doctor turned to Rebecca in time to see Phileas's action. "The poor woman," the doctor said. "The shock was too much for her. Carry your sister to her room. I will tend to her."

Phileas did not agree with the doctor's assessment but did as he was told. He did not think he had ever known Rebecca to faint in her life, unless doing so deliberately, as a rouse. But she was not faking it now. Rebecca was a rag doll in his arms.

In her room, Phileas put her down on the bed while Doctor Glover took a bottle of hartshorn out of his bag. Rebecca revived quickly when the bottle was waved under her nose. "What… where…"

"It is all right my dear," the doctor said. "Just rest here for a while. You will feel better in a moment."

What Rebecca had witnessed came back to her, almost as soon as she woke. She gulped down a shudder but kept her silence. There is no way I'm going to admit to seeing ghosts. "Really, I am all right now. Silly of me… Sorry." To prove it, she sat up despite the doctor's cautions. Once the old doctor was satisfied Rebecca had recovered, he patted her hand sympathetically and made his leave.

Phileas saw the doctor out and came back to sit beside his cousin on the mattress. "Are you really all right Rebecca?"

Rebecca started and turned back to him, shakily. "Quite. Really, it was nothing."

Phileas knew when he was being held out on but did not choose to call her on it. Her color was returning to normal, and she seemed better. Rebecca would tell him when she deemed it right. "As you say but stay here to recover yourself. I will see to Richard's body."

"I will do that, and thank you," Rebecca said.

Phileas took her hand giving it a quick squeeze before leaving the room. Once the door was closed, Rebecca gave up the effort to hold in her shock. She very carefully searched around the room, examining each long dark shadow the oil lamp cast for something that did not belong. Once Rebecca was fully satisfied that she was alone, she closed her eyes in silent prayer that she would never see such a thing again.