She shook her head. “Save me a scone,” she said. “And not one of those nasty ones with fruit in it.”
Walter left. A minute or two later there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Jane called out.
She was surprised when Miriam entered. Miriam set Lilith on the bed, where the dog immediately curled up and went to sleep.
“We need to talk,” Miriam said. “Did you throw that man off the tower?”
“I did not,” said Jane. “Did you have someone do it in order to frame me?”
Miriam snorted. “Why should I hire someone to do anything?” she said. “If I wanted to do you in, I would just stake you myself.”
“In your dreams,” said Jane, shutting the suitcase she’d been packing.
“Then if you didn’t do it and I didn’t do it, who did?” Miriam asked.
“Lucy thinks maybe it was Our Gloomy Friend,” Jane told her. “Who the hell is that?” said Miriam.
Jane found a piece of paper and wrote down Charlotte’s name. She handed it to Miriam.
“Charlotte Bron—”
“Shh!” Jane hissed. “We don’t say her name. Why do you think I wrote it down?”
Miriam crumpled up the paper and tossed it on the floor. “Not this nonsense again,” she said.
Although Miriam had almost been killed by Charlotte during Jane’s last encounter with her nemesis, she refused to believe that Charlotte was who Jane said she was. Jane had given up on trying to convince her—and had of course never revealed her own true identity to Miriam.
“Regardless of who you think she is or is not, Our Gloomy Friend is a very real danger,” Jane said.
Miriam sighed. “All vampires are a danger and need to be destroyed,” she said. “This one is no worse than the rest. I can handle her.”
“Yes, you did so well against her last time,” Jane remarked. Before Miriam could start an argument the door opened and Walter came in. He was carrying a cup of coffee on top of which was balanced a scone. When he saw his mother he said, “My two favorite people in one place.”
“I was just leaving,” said Miriam, picking up Lilith. “I have to finish packing.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll see you on the bus,” Walter said, setting the coffee on the dresser and handing Jane the scone.
When his mother was gone Walter asked, “What was that about?”
Jane sat down in the room’s one armchair and took a bite of the scone. “Nothing,” she said. “She just wanted to borrow some hand cream. This weather is hard on old skin.”
Walter chuckled. “I’m glad to see the two of you are getting along better,” he said, more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
Jane finished the scone and drank the coffee while Walter gathered up the last of their things. Then they went downstairs and out to the waiting bus. Lucy and Ben were already there, and Jane and Walter took the seats beside theirs. The other members of the group were scattered throughout the bus. No one was particularly talkative, which only added to the gloomy mood of the morning.
When the last person—Orsino, looking very much like a grumpy bear who had been awakened a month too early from hibernation—was on the bus, they left. This time there was no briefing from either Chumsley or Enid. Only when the bus passed a sign reading CLONAKILTY did Jane remember where they were headed.
Chumsley stood up. “Clonakilty is not our final destination,” he said. “We’ll be visiting a house a bit beyond the town limits. However, you might be interested to know that in 1999 Clonakilty won the Tidy Towns competition for the neatest town in all of Ireland.”
Jane, looking out the window at the rows of gaily painted houses, said, “It really is very clean.”
“Like Disneyland,” Ben said.
“Or Singapore,” said Walter.
Thus awed by the cleanliness of Clonakilty, they passed out of it and into the countryside. A quarter of an hour later they turned onto a narrow lane, and five minutes after that they passed through a stand of trees and exited the other side to find themselves looking at a manor house.
“Ah,” said Brodie in a booming voice. “Gloxhall House. I recognize it from my textbook back at Dalhousie.”
“Brodie is exactly right,” Chumsley announced. “We are indeed at Gloxhall House. While it’s now generally overlooked in favor of more showy homes, Gloxhall is one of Ireland’s hidden gems. It is important not least of all because it was designed and built by Fiona Byrne, one of the few female architects of her time. Not that anyone knew she was female,” he added. “Fiona disguised herself as a man and attended school under the name Kevin McCready. It wasn’t until her death at age eighty-six that her true identity was discovered.”
“Just another tragic example of the way in which women are overlooked in the profession,” Enid said.
“I’m sorry, dear. Did you say something?” Chumsley asked, grinning broadly. “Another interesting fact about Fiona,” he continued, “is that she is widely believed to have been a witch. Among her possessions was found a diary in which she recounted numerous encounters with demonic beings in the house.”
“More nonsense perpetrated by misogynists!” said Enid.
“In particular, she is believed to have had as her familiar a creature called a red cap,” Chumsley said as Enid fumed. “Red caps are notoriously bloodthirsty sprites who get their name from knocking their victims on the head with rocks and then dyeing their caps in the blood. Fiona’s red cap was called Squish. Very appropriate that, what with the rock dropping and all.”
“Enough of this twaddle,” Enid said, standing up and opening the bus door. “Everybody into the house.”
They all exited, with Chumsley bringing up the rear. As Enid marched briskly up the path to the house, Chumsley sauntered along next to Jane and Walter.
“Is it true about the red cap?” Jane asked. “Meaning, is it true Fiona wrote about him in her diary?”
“Yes,” said Chumsley. “Of course, it’s all the ramblings of a madwoman, but she wrote it.”
“How very interesting,” Jane said. “I should like to have known her, I think.”
“Pity she died in 1888, then,” said Chumsley.
“That
The inside of Gloxhall House was indeed impressive, all marble floors and grand staircases and pictures of horses in gilt frames. The group wandered through its three grand living rooms, thirteen bedrooms, and two libraries marveling at the woodwork and ceiling construction, the joinery and ingenious layout. Mostly the tour was narrated by Chumsley, although Enid added the occasional caustic comment here and there regarding Fiona Byrne’s oppression at the hands of men.
At one point, while touring the west wing of the house, Jane felt the need to visit the toilet and excused herself for a moment. Certain she had seen a bathroom down a particular hallway, she went down it again. Only now it seemed unfamiliar to her, and when she turned the knob on the room she believed would be the one she sought, she was surprised to find instead a bedroom she had not yet visited.
She stepped inside and without knowing why shut the door behind her. The bedroom was not particularly large, and the furniture in it was plain but well constructed. A four-poster bed took up most of the room, curtains of dark red silk hanging from the tester. A washstand with a pitcher and bowl stood to one side of a small dresser over which was set an oval-shaped mirror. On the wall closest to the door there hung a painting. It was to this that Jane gravitated.
The painting was perhaps two feet wide and half again as tall. Done in oils, it depicted a woman with red hair wearing a white dress in the artistic style. She was standing in a garden of roses, in front of a stone wall. On the wall stood a small man, perhaps a foot high, wearing a pointed red cap. The woman had her right hand on his shoulder, and he looked out at the viewer with an expression of unconcealed malice.
“You would be Squish, I imagine,” Jane said.
“I would,” said a voice with a heavy Scottish accent. “An joost how did ye find this room?”
Jane started, then looked toward the bed. Seated on the edge was the little man from the painting. “You’re much uglier in person,” she said.
“Thank ye,” said Squish. “Now answer ma question afore I bash ye on the head with a rock.”
