Warburton Grange's dining hall was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room with heavy, dark beams and two iron chandeliers that hung from rusty chains. Their candles guttered in the drafts, sending shadows playing around the long table and across the faces of Warburton ancestors in the serried row of portraits that marched down the length of one wall. I noted the features of the Colonel, the square jaw and sharp cheekbones, represented in more than one of his ancestors, male and female alike. I even saw one of the man himself, in his mid-twenties or so, standing next to a woman a couple of years his junior seated on a stone bench beneath a spreading elm. She combined the family's strong features with feminine softness to make her quite a handsome figure. The wild mass of auburn hair that framed her face suited her, better than, say, Laurel Warburton's blonde locks would have. I decided that she must have been the late Catherine Dashiell, the Colonel's sister.
On the opposite wall, there was a massive stone fireplace, large enough for a person to stand upright in, if they felt like immolating themselves in the searing log fire. It looked positively medieval, right down to the snarling firedogs that flanked it.
"A relic of a more barbarous time," Shizuru said softly, answering my thoughts so perfectly that I wondered if I'd spoken aloud, until I realized that she was gazing at a boar's head, the trophy of some past hunt, mounted high on the wall. On the other side of the chimney a stag with a spreading rack of antlers matched it. Medieval was right, I thought: history. The past saturated the dining room as it did the rest of the Grange. In an environment like this, ghosts and spirits seemed almost reasonable.
We'd been the first ones to arrive; Laurel Warburton followed a few minutes later in company with a tall man in his early thirties. He had sandy-colored hair nearly the same shade as Shizuru's, only with a bit more definite brown to it. He had a trim, neatly-clipped moustache and a lean, attractive face that contrasted with the Warburton look.
"Miss Viola, Miss Kuga," Miss Warburton said, "let me present my fiance, Dr. Edward Brayle. Edward, this is Miss Shizuru Viola."
"The eminent London specialist," he commented, taking her extended hand and nodding crisply by way of a bow.
"And this is her associate, Miss Natsuki Kuga."
I didn't bother extending a hand for him to bow at while he glanced over my attire with an assessing—and, I thought, dismissive—gaze.
"I hope that you'll be able to give Laurel some relief," he said to Shizuru. "Has she told you about our situation?"
"Yes, and we have been introduced to the Colonel," Shizuru added.
"Then you can understand."
"I can try my best to understand, but a single meeting can't give me the entire picture. Not the way it can be seen by his family"--she glanced at Miss Warburton--"or those who are close to him."
"I see what you mean," Dr. Brayle said. "Still, I can't help but wonder if this is really the right decision, to call in an outsider. This is a private matter, one which deeply affects us all. I don't want to see Laurel put through the strain of public proceedings." He took Miss Warburton's hand and held it between his. He seemed all solicitude, but I couldn't help but wonder if his concern for her was as much concern for himself. A doctor had a reputation to uphold, and it could hardly benefit him to have a wife whose father had been brought before the commissioners in lunacy.
"We are here to help your family," Shizuru said, "not to cause trouble for you."
Dr. Brayle nodded.
"I understand. Even so, when outsiders are brought into a situation--"
"She told you that she was here to help," I snapped. "Miss Warburton is Shizuru's client, isn't she?"
Shizuru touched my arm lightly, a clear signal that she wanted me to back off. I reined in my temper with effort.
"The point is, she's a professional, like you, Doctor, with a code of conduct that applies to that profession."
He looked from me to her.
"I apologize if I have given offense, Miss Viola."
"Not at all, Dr. Brayle. I understand your concerns perfectly, but I can assure you that I have no interest in prying into matters that go beyond what I was hired to resolve."
Dr. Brayle might have said something, but at that moment another man entered the dining room. He was not particularly tall, about Shizuru's height, with auburn hair that was shot through with gray although his neatly trimmed beard was free of silver. He wore a suit of country tweeds as if he'd just come in from outdoors; perhaps he had.
"Ah, Laurel, I see your guests have arrived."
"Yes, Uncle Gregory," our client said, and repeated the introductions.
"We dine en famille here at the Grange," Dashiell provided. "I'd apologize for the informality of it, but I can see that it suits you," he added with a glance in my direction. Humor twinkled in his dark eyes, and the comment drew a smile from Shizuru as well.
"I admit that I wasn't expecting a formal party when I came here," I said, a bit truculently.
"No, quite the opposite," he agreed. "Shall we sit? The dinner should be served soon enough."
We ranged ourself at the long table, clustered near one end. The seat at the head was left unoccupied even though there was a place setting at it; I assumed it was the absent Colonel's. Miss Warburton and Dr. Brayle sat at one side while Dashiell, Shizuru, and I were at the other. The crystal and highly polished silver glinted in the lamplight, and even I could tell that the china was expensive and of high quality. Only a few minutes after we sat, Ashworth entered, bringing the soup.
The meal itself proved to be plain English fare without any particular frills, not bad but slightly bland, hinting at the situation where one of the male servants had been pressed into replacing the duties of the departed cook. Shizuru was largely responsible for the dinner-table conversation, drawing out in turn the taciturn Dr. Brayle, the genial but subdued Dashiell, and the worried Miss Warburton. I wondered if she was gaining an impression of them, using the conversation to gauge their mood and mannerisms, or if it was just her nature in a social gathering. Perhaps it was both.
It was Dashiell who brought the topic back around to the matter which was on everyone's minds.
"So, Miss Viola, can you tell us if you have made any progress in this matter?"
I expected that Shizuru would put him off or otherwise refuse to discuss the case, but she surprised me by replying directly.
"It's very early yet, of course," she said, "but having met the Colonel, I can say that I believe the matter falls within one of three possibilities. As I said earlier to Miss Warburton, it is clear that her father is under a genuine strain, caused by a female apparition of some nature. The question is what, in turn, created the apparition."
"But can you say that there actually is an apparition, as you call it?" Dashiell pressed further.
"Oh, certainly. I believe you mean, what if what he sees or senses is but a phantasm of his own mind?"
He frowned at her plain speech, his lips looking nearly as ruddy as his beard.
"That would be the first of my three possibilities. In that case, the matter obviously lies within your purview rather than mine, Dr. Brayle." The doctor nodded in acknowledgement. "If that does prove to be the case, then all Natsuki and I can do would be to establish it and retire from the field."
A shudder ran through Miss Warburton. Dr. Brayle reached down and took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
"Courage, my dear. If that is the truth then we must face it. But you say that is only one of three possibilities, Miss Viola?"
Shizuru nodded and took a sip of her wine, an indifferent red that had been served to complement the beef.
"That is quite true. A second possibility is that some person or persons, wittingly or unwittingly, is or are causing the apparition. In short, a human agency that can be found out and identified."
"That's outrageous!" Dashiell said. "To claim that one of us could--"
"I did not say that the human agency had to be a family member," she replied placidly, "or even that the results were what that person intended, or that whatever the Colonel sees was knowingly produced. But, where humans are involved, they leave traces, and finding those traces is my profession. By finding the person or persons, the phenomena can be stopped or at least shown to be what it is." She again turned to the doctor. "I believe that would go a long way towards helping Colonel Warburton, would it not?"
"Certainly, that would seem to be his best hope, although I would advise against making even that assumption. There may be other functional causes, after all."
I couldn't help but wonder why Dr. Brayle was so pessimistic in dismissing Warburton's sanity. I'd have thought that, as Miss Warburton's fiance, he'd want to offer her hope, not crush it. Though I supposed it might just be that in his medical opinion he believed the Colonel hopelessly mad and saw any suggestions otherwise as pipe-dreams, pointless and a source of pain in the long run. Facing reality took courage, too.
"Yes, that is quite possible," Shizuru observed. "I hope to discover the cause of what has happened here, but its effects are a different matter."
"I am glad you appreciate that."
"We all have our professional limits, Doctor." Neither her expression nor tone changed in the slightest, so it was impossible to say if it was meant to chide him or not.
I figured that it was.
"Miss Viola," Dashiell spoke up again, "you mentioned that there were three possibilities for what the Colonel sees. The shadows of his own mind, and the result of human action seem to cover all of the options. So what is the third?"
Shizuru gave him the full force of her smile.
"The third possibility is that Colonel Warburton is encountering a genuine apparition."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"A ghost?" I protested as we wound our way up a narrow staircase. "Shizuru, you can't be serious?"
"Didn't we already discuss this on the train?" she dodged the question. I really hoped this wasn't going to be one of those times when getting a straight answer out of her was next to impossible.
"No, I called spiritualism bunk and you teased me without actually saying much of anything."
She paused on the stair, then turned and smiled over her shoulder at me.
"Well, then, perhaps it is best to leave it there."
"Shizuru!"
The smile vanished at my expostulation, and she pursed her lips in thought.
"I am certain that there is a ghost haunting Warburton Grange, though whether it is some spirit out of a bogey tale or merely a shadow cast on the souls of the residents I cannot say. Does that answer Natsuki's question well enough?"
I nodded.
"Yeah...yeah, thank you. Though I still think you're wasting time thinking about a real ghost at all."
"Then our present errand should suit Natsuki, since we are in search of evidence."
"Where to?"
"The late Mrs. Warburton's bedroom. As Miss Warburton said, the Colonel has insisted it be kept locked since her death. I have hopes of verifying something."
How it was that she found her way to the part of the manor where the family's bedrooms were located I didn't know. I could only guess that she'd been filling in a plan of the Grange in her mind as we were taken from room to room. She soon found the door we wanted because it was locked.
"Shall we ask Miss Warburton for the key?" she mused.
"It's all right," I said. I stooped to examine the lock; as I'd suspected, it was a simple one, certainly no obstacle to a determined burglar. I took out a ring of skeleton keys, one of the souvenirs of my misspent adolescence. With a little teasing, one turned in the lock and freed the catch.
"There."
"Natsuki is very talented," Shizuru said, sounding like she was genuinely impressed.
"I'm glad that I was able to do something useful." On some of Shizuru's cases, I had to admit, I felt like my purpose was just to provide her with company. Of course they were her cases, not mine, but even so it was a feeling that I disliked.
The room I'd unlocked was different than the others I'd seen thus far in the Grange. The décor had ranged from the stark and ancient, like the dining room or the stairs outside Warburton's study, to the masculine, like the study itself or the parlor where we'd met Shizuru's client. This room was different. The furniture was elegant rather than solid, and of a lighter shade than the mahogany darkness we'd seen. Cream-colored hangings on the canopied bed and curtains at the window added to the impression, and even the walls were done in a light, off-white shade with gold trim.
"Could you light a lamp, Natsuki?" Shizuru asked. "There's little light coming in from the hall anyway, and I'd like to be able to close the door in case anyone walks by."
"Now you're happy I carry matches." There was still oil in an elegant cut-glass lamp on the nightstand; I lit it and trimmed the wick so that it shed good light, and Shizuru closed the door. There was a second door in the room, I noticed, with the key still in the lock. I assumed that it led to the Colonel's bedroom.
"I hate these kind of arrangements," I said, "where the husband and wife have separate rooms."
"Ara?"
"It seems lonely, sleeping apart like this. I mean, if I ever got married or fell in love, I'd think I'd want to lay next to him when I fell asleep, right? I mean, to just...you know...then up and go back to my own room, or him to his, seems almost cold."
For a second, Shizuru looked like an actress who'd missed her cue, because her next line felt as if it came a moment late.
"I did not realize that Natsuki was a romantic."
For some reason—maybe that unaccountable delay—I didn't blush or get taken aback by her teasing, but instead was able to grin back at her.
"You mean, you can't tell that just by looking at me?"
"Of course, but appearances can be deceiving," she said, already back to her usual self.
I glanced at the lace hangings on the bed and thought about how she was correct. Shizuru, on the other hand, looked at the floor.
"We're leaving tracks in the dust," she said. "It's true; no one has been in this room for months."
I looked down and saw that she was right; there were no other marks on the floor or rug than our own.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I can rule out one possibility, and test a theory."
I glanced back up at her, curious. Typically, she didn't explain, but crossed to the dead woman's vanity table. She beckoned, and I brought the light over. It glinted in the dusty mirror, and I suppressed a flinch at the sight our weirdly shadowed faces.
There were several glass bottles set out on the vanity, which was as dust-covered as the floor. Shizuru picked them up one by one, removing the stoppers and sniffing.
"Lavender water...rosewater...ah! This one is from Lafreniere of Paris; I use it myself."
"Shizuru, what are you doing?"
"There isn't any jasmine among these perfumes," she said, setting down the last of the bottles.
"Jasmine?"
"Did Natsuki not scent it earlier?"
"Earlier? Jasmine? No, I...no, wait, I do remember that. Just once, though."
"As did I. Miss Warburton does not wear the scent, so that lends it a certain significance."
"Wait, are you--?"
She turned her smile on me.
"Then you do understand now?"
I shook my head.
"No, I don't. The perfume didn't come from here, that much is obvious, but what does that mean?"
"It means that we need to look at the garden."
"Where the Colonel said that he fired at a prowler?" I remembered Miss Warburton's story. "Except that it wasn't a prowler, of course."
"Of course," Shizuru agreed, "but not a phantasm, either."
Her last hint finally gave me the nudge I needed to realize what she'd been driving at.
"Because one man's delusion doesn't leave a scent for other people."