And One to Die On(44)

“No, it didn’t.” Bennis shook her head. “You just stopped knowing people who indulged in it. If there were valuable things like that to sell—intrinsically valuable things, you know, because they had gold in them or precious gems—this would be a different kind of auction. It might not even be an auction.”

“Maybe not. I still don’t see why anybody is going to want to bid on a pair of 1920s curved-heeled high-heeled shoes with straps with big rhinestone butterflies on them going across the instep. I’m describing this badly. They were on Lilith Brayne’s table. I kept trying to figure out how she managed to walk in them without the butterflies ripping the tops of her feet to shreds.”

“I used to wear clogs when I was in college,” Bennis said. “I tried some on a couple of months ago and I nearly broke my foot. I don’t know how anybody ever walked in them, but I used to, and I don’t remember it being much of a problem.”

“I’ve always thought women had very peculiar feet,” Gregor said.

Bennis had finished her cigarette. She stubbed the butt out in her glass ashtray and reached for her pack again. After months of going without, Gregor realized, she was now smoking exactly as she had before she had ever quit at all.

Bennis took a deep drag, blew a new stream of smoke into the air, and said, “I think when we get back to Philadelphia, I’m going to start a collection of pictures of all the weird and uncomfortable things men have worn for the sake of fashion over the years, and every time somebody like you tries to tell me how strange women are about clothes, I’m going to—What was that?”

That was a crack, sharp and harsh, like the sound of a two-by-four being broken in half. Gregor stood up, instinctively on the alert, and as he did the lights went out.

“Oh, damn,” Bennis said irritably. “A power failure.”

“I don’t think so,” Gregor told her.

The next thing they heard was another crack, this time stronger and closer, and then a high giggling cackle that seemed to rain down upon them from somewhere above their heads. Then there was a bright flash of lightning very close, followed by a clap of thunder loud enough to burst eardrums.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Bennis said, more anxious now than irritable. “I hate electrical storms.”

“Where are your candles?” Gregor asked her.

Bennis didn’t answer. Gregor got up and looked around for them himself, on the vanity table, on the bookshelves near the door. He finally found a candelabra with three candlesticks in it on top of Bennis’s bureau. He picked it up and walked it over to her, guided by the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“Here,” he said. “Light these.”

“Good idea.” Bennis took the candelabra from him and used her Bic to get the candles lit. The light that resulted wasn’t much to talk about, but it was something. Bennis handed the candelabra back to him. “Don’t go away now, Gregor. Wait until the lights come back on. I really do hate electrical storms.”

“We’re both going to leave,” Gregor said firmly. “Get up and follow me now.”

“Why?”

The cackling came again, high-pitched and hysterical, piercing wood and glass until it seemed to fill up their ears.

“What the hell is that?” Bennis demanded.

“The House on Haunted Hill,” Gregor said sarcastically. “Get up and get moving.”





2


The rest were all out in the hall already, in various states of dress and undress. Some were holding candles. Some hadn’t realized they had candles to hold. Gregor tried to sort them out and make sure they were all there, but in the darkness it was too confusing. He saw Lydia Acken in a nightgown and sedate blue kimono, and Kelly Pratt in a pair of designer jeans Gregor suspected he’d pulled on hastily over nothing at all. After that, the faces and bodies seemed to shift and meld and dissolve.

Above their heads, the cackling came again, much louder and clearer out here. Lydia Acken jumped and shivered.

“What is that?” she asked plaintively. “It sounds like the sound track from a horror movie.”

“That’s about it,” Gregor said.

“You mean somebody is watching a horror movie around here somewhere?”

That was Richard Fenster, Gregor thought. Instead of answering him, Gregor went out onto the landing and across to the start of the family wing. The doors on this corridor were all closed, but as Gregor watched one of them opened. Geraldine Dart came out of it, holding a candelabra with six lit sticks and pulling the belt of her robe more tightly around her. She saw Gregor and nodded. Then she shut her bedroom door and came down the hall to the landing.