He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, staring down at the food on his plate. He hadn't yet touched it. His companions weren't paying much attention to their supper either.
“A sudden knocking from the other side of the room made me jump out of my skin. It was the sound of knuckles on the wooden panelling of the far wall. Knock-knock. Knock-knock. Over and over, progressing across the wall. I leaned over the side of my chair, looked back, and saw the ghost.”
“The same as Miss Flowers described?”
“In every respect. She was drifting alongside the wall, with an arm raised, banging on the panels. I watched, and I don't mind admitting that I was paralysed with fear. Perhaps half a minute passed, then something-I don't know what-alerted the phantom to my presence. She suddenly swirled around and a pair of ghastly eyes, blacker than pitch, glared at me with such malevolence that I screamed in terror. The thing then vanished, just as the maid said, as if blown away by a wind.”
Sir Alfred looked up at the portrait of his ancestor.
“It was Lady Mabella,” he whispered.
“What makes you think so?”
“The eyes were hers.”
“But Mabella de Tichborne lived hundreds of years ago, man! How do you know what her eyes were like?”
Tichborne stood. “Wait,” he said. “I'm going to get something.”
He left the room.
“What do you think?” Lushington asked Burton, in a low voice.
“Were it only Sir Alfred who saw the apparition, I might consider him mentally disturbed,” Burton answered. “But we have the girl's account, too. And you yourself have heard the knocking.”
“I haven't heard a thing,” Doctor Jankyn said, “and I'm a light sleeper, what!”
“I shall sit up tonight!” Swinburne declared. “I want to see this mysterious phantom for myself!”
“We can't discount the clocks, either,” Burton added. “They provide empirical evidence that something very peculiar is happening in this house.”
“In that case, you'd better add the gunroom to your list,” said Lushington.
“What? Why?”
“All the guns have jammed. No explanation. In fact, the only shooters on the estate that work are those the groundsman keeps in his lodge.”
“That's extraordinary! Would I be right to suppose that they stopped working at the same time as the clocks?”
“Not sure, but probably, yes.”
The men gave their attention to the meal until, a few minutes later, Sir Alfred returned, holding a sheet of parchment. He sat and said: “Listen to this. It's been in the family for generations. A poem. No one knows what it signifies.”
He began to read: “Hell's bane black, lamenting ‘neath tears,
That weep within My Lady's round,
Under the weight of cursed years,
By her damned charity bound. “One curse here enfolds another,
Vexations in the poor enables,
Consume if thou wouldst uncover
Eye blacker than Lady Mabella's.”
“My Aunt Agatha's blue feather hat!” Swinburne screeched. “But that's awful! Hideous doggerel! Who wrote it? A simpleton?”
Sir Alfred Tichborne cleared his throat and said: “According to family legend, it was written by Roger de Tichborne himself. It was passed to my father by my grandfather, just as it had been passed to him by his.” He handed the parchment to Burton. “As you can see, it clearly suggests that the Lady Mabella had notably black eyes.”
Burton looked at the paper, nodded, and said: “Could I borrow this? I'd like to examine it more closely.”
“Be my guest.”
“I say, Richard!” Swinburne said, excitedly. “That seems rather-”
He stopped, brought up short by a fierce glance from his friend.
Burton turned back to Tichborne. “Your second and third sightings of the ghost-what happened?”
“The second was three nights later. I was woken in the night by the knocking, which was coming from the upper landing at the top of the stairs. I left my bed and went to investigate. Lady Mabella was there, moving- floating, really-from the top of the staircase toward the bottom, rapping on the wall as she went. The instant I saw her, she turned, cut me through with those dreadful eyes, and vanished.
“Two nights ago, I saw her again. This time it was in the corridor that leads from the main drawing room to the billiard room. I'd come down to fetch my cigars. It was about half-past two in the morning.”
“Another sleepless night?”
“Yes. I've been having a lot of them since this blasted Claimant affair began. Anyway, I was walking along the corridor when, all of a sudden, the air in front of me thickened, a mist formed, and it took the shape of Lady Mabella. She seemed to be facing the other way, for when I took a step backward, a board creaked beneath my feet and the mist whirled, bringing her eyes around to face me. They pierced me through, then suddenly the ghost rushed forward and wrapped me in such an intense chill that I passed out on the spot. When I awoke, perhaps thirty minutes later, I returned to my room, collapsed onto my bed, and passed out again. In the morning, I found that my hair had turned entirely white.”
“Good lord!” Burton exclaimed. “You mean to say it turned white overnight?”
“Jankyn and the colonel will attest to it. The day before yesterday, my hair was dark brown in colour.”
Burton looked at Jankyn and Lushington. They both nodded.
For a few moments, the men ate in silence. The maids had withdrawn, and only Bogle moved about the table, keeping the diners well supplied with wine and water.
“May I ask you about another matter?” Burton enquired of Tichborne.
“Of course, Sir Richard. Anything.”
“Would you tell me about the family legend-the one concerning a fabulous diamond?”
“My goodness, how do you know about that?”
“Henry Arundell mentioned it. What's the story?”
“Oh, there's nothing much to it. It's whispered that my grandfather found a large black diamond in South America. It's utter nonsense.”
“But how did it arise?”
“From idle gossip. When Sir Henry returned from his travels, he stopped the dole and became something of a hermit, banning everyone from the estate. In an attempt to explain this behaviour, the locals came up with idea that he'd brought a fabulous jewel back with him and was scared to let anyone near it. Utter bunkum, of course. There's no such diamond, of that I'm certain.”
“Then how do you account for his actions?”
“It's all very prosaic, I'm afraid. The annual gift of free flour was attracting hordes of beggars to the area, which is why he stopped it. As for keeping people off the land, that's not entirely accurate, for he had a gang of builders coming back and forth. The truth is, the old house was falling down so he had it demolished and replaced with this one. Banning people from the estate was simply a safety precaution while the construction took place.”
“Ah. I see. As you say, very humdrum.”
“Yet by stopping the Dole,” Swinburne commented, “he invoked the witch's curse.”
“Yes, the old fool!”
After supper, they spent the rest of the evening in the main parlour, where they smoked, drank, and made plans. It was decided that Burton would patrol the house from midnight until three in the morning. Swinburne would then take over and patrol until dawn.
By ten o'clock, Sir Alfred, who'd been drinking without cease, was nodding off.
“I haven't slept well for days,” he slurred. “Perhaps tonight the bloody spook will give me some peace!”
