I turned it over but there was nothing further. I searched the notebook for the rest. Flicked back through the pages, even held it by the spine and shook it very carefully. Nothing.
But what could it mean? Which similarities? Which other story? What consequences? And who had seen fit to deliver such a warning?
A shuffling in the corridor. I sat stone-still, listening. Someone was coming. My heart hammered in my chest; the letter shook between my fingertips.
A split second of indecision, then I stuffed it inside my notebook and pressed the cover flat. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Percy Blythe and her cane silhouetted in the doorway.
How I made it back to the farmhouse I cannot tell you; I don’t remember a second of the walk. Presumably I managed to say farewell to Saffy and Percy, then stumble back down the hill without doing myself bodily harm. I was in a daze, completely unaware of anything that took place between leaving the castle and arriving back at my room; I couldn’t stop thinking about the contents of the letter, the letter I had stolen. I needed to speak to someone immediately. If I were reading its contents correctly – and the wording wasn’t especially complicated – someone had accused Raymond Blythe of plagiarism. Who was this mystery person, and to which earlier story were they referring? Whoever it was had specified having read Raymond Blythe’s manuscript, which meant that they’d read the story and written the letter before the book was published in 1918; that fact narrowed the possibilities but was still no real help. I didn’t have a clue as to whom the manuscript might have been sent to. Well, I had a clue: I work in publishing, I knew it would have been read by editors, proofreaders, a few trusted friends. But those were general terms; I needed names, dates, specifics before I could ascertain how seriously I should take the letter’s claims. For if they were true, if Raymond Blythe had misappropriated the story of the Mud Man, the ramifications were enormous.
It was the sort of discovery scholars and historians – convalescent fathers in Barnes – dreamed of, a career- making scoop, yet all I felt was nauseated. I didn’t want it to be true, I longed for it to be some sort of joke, a misunderstanding even. My own past, my love of books and reading, was inextricably linked with Raymond Blythe’s
Be that as it may, I
I needed help, and I knew just the person to give it to me. Back at the farmhouse, I avoided Mrs Bird and made a bee-line for my room. I’d picked up the telephone receiver before I’d even sat down. My fingers tripped over themselves in their rush to dial Herbert’s number.
The phone rang out.
‘No!’ I grouched at the receiver. It stared back blankly.
I waited impatiently, then tried again, listened and listened to the faraway lonely ring. I chewed my nails and read my notes and tried again, with no more satisfaction. I even considered calling my dad, stopped only by fears of what the excitement might do to his heart. And that’s when my gaze fell upon Adam Gilbert’s name on the original interview transcript.
I dialled, I waited; no answer. I tried again.
The click of someone picking up. ‘Hello, Mrs Button speaking.’
I could have wept with joy. ‘This is Edith Burchill. I’m ringing to speak with Adam Gilbert.’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Burchill. Mr Gilbert’s gone up to London for a hospital appointment.’
‘Oh.’ A trembly deflation rather than a word.
‘He’s due back in the next day or two. I could leave a message and have him telephone you when he returns at the end of the week, if you’d like?’
‘No,’ I said; it was too late, I needed help now – and yet, it was better than nothing. ‘Yes, all right. Thank you. If you could let him know that it’s rather important. That I think I might have stumbled on something related to the mystery we were discussing recently.’
I spent the rest of the evening staring at the letter, scribbling indecipherable patterns in my notebook, and dialling Herbert’s number; listening to the phantom voices trapped inside that empty phone line. At eleven o’clock I accepted finally that it was too late to continue stalking Herbert’s empty house; that, for now at any rate, I was alone with my problem.
As I headed for the castle next morning, exhausted and bleary-eyed, I felt as if I’d spent the night tumbling through the wash. I had the letter concealed within the inside pocket of my jacket and I kept slipping my hand in to check it was still there; I can’t explain why exactly, but as I left my room I’d been compelled to retrieve it, to tuck it away safely and carry it on my person. To leave the letter behind on the desk was unthinkable, somehow. It wasn’t a rational decision; it wasn’t through fear that someone else might happen upon it during the day. It was a strange and burning conviction that the letter belonged with me, that it had presented itself to me, that we were attached in some way now and I had been entrusted with unravelling its secrets.
When I arrived Percy Blythe was waiting for me, pretending to pull weeds from a plant pot by the entrance stairs. I saw her before she noticed me, which is how I know she was pretending. Right up until the moment that some creeping sixth sense made her aware of my presence, she’d been standing upright, leaning against the stone of the stairs, arms wrapped across her middle, attention fixed on something in the distance. She’d been so still, so pale, that she’d looked like a statue. Though not the sort of statue most people would choose to stand in front of their house.
‘Any sign of Bruno?’ I called, wondering at my ability to sound normal.
She made a small performance of surprise at my arrival and rubbed her fingers together so that tiny pieces of dirt sifted to the ground. ‘I don’t hold out high hopes. Not with the cold come in as it has.’ She waited for me to reach her, then extending her arm, invited me to follow: ‘Come.’
It was no warmer inside the castle than out. Indeed, the stones seemed somehow to trap the cold air, making the whole place greyer, darker, more bleak than before.
I expected that we would follow the usual corridor towards the yellow parlour but Percy led me instead to a small hidden doorway, tucked behind an alcove within the entrance hall.
‘The tower,’ she said.
‘Oh.’
‘For your article.’
I nodded, and then, because she’d started up the narrow, winding staircase, I began to follow.
With each step, my sense of unease grew. It was true what she had said – seeing the tower was important for my article – and yet there was something indefinably strange in Percy Blythe suggesting that she should show it to me. She’d been so reticent thus far, so reluctant that I should speak to her sisters or see her father’s notebooks. To find her waiting for me this morning, outside in the cold, for her to propose showing me the tower room without my having to ask first – well, it was unexpected, and I am not made comfortable by unexpected things.
I told myself I was reading too much into it: Percy Blythe had selected me for the task of writing about her father, and she was nothing if not proud of her castle. Perhaps it was as simple as that. Or perhaps she’d decided that the sooner I saw what I needed to, the sooner I’d be on my way and they would be left once more to their own devices. But no matter how much sense I made, the niggling had started. Was there any way, I wondered, that she knew what I had found?
We’d reached a small platform of uneven stone; a narrow archer’s window had been cut into the dusky wall and
