I stood looking out of the back door, realizing that she could have come out this way without being noticed. A picture of her lying dead at the foot of the cliff flashed into my mind. I’d leave that search until I’d been through the whole house. I went up the servants’ stairs and peeked into the bedrooms one by one. Behind one door I heard shrieks. I flung it open to see two little boys jumping on beds with toy guns in their hands while the nursemaid was standing with a look of despair on her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I told them they weren’t allowed to play but they don’t listen to a thing I tell them.”
“You know what your parents told you,” I said, wagging my finger severely. “No playing out of respect for your grandfather. If you want to do something fun get out some paper and write an adventure story. Take yourselves up the Amazon.”
Two sets of eyes lit up. “The Amazon? That’s where you find anacondas,” Alex said.
“I can’t spell ‘anaconda,’” Thomas complained.
“Your brother will help you. And don’t forget the illustrations.”
They rushed to get to work. The nursemaid gave me a grateful smile.
“Did you want something, ma’am?” she asked.
“I was looking for Mrs. McCreedy. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her?”
“Not recently,” she said. “And why don’t you write in pencil, Thomas. We don’t want ink spilled on this carpet.”
I left them and finished my tour of the bedrooms. The main staircase did not go any higher so I went back to the servants’ stairs, up another flight, and found myself on a bleak and bare landing.
“Hello, Sarah?” I called. “Any sign of Mrs. McCreedy up here?”
She appeared further down a hallway. “Not yet, ma’am. She’s not in her room. I don’t know where else to look. There’s an awful lot of box rooms and spare rooms up here.”
“Check them all,” I said.
She looked puzzled. “What would she be doing in box rooms? I’ve called her name enough. Surely she’d have heard.”
“Check anyway.”
I went to the other end of the hall. It opened to a landing with doors all around. Some were locked. I found a key in one and tried the other doors. Some opened, some didn’t. What I found were empty rooms. But one on the far right opened into a narrow passage. It was dark and I couldn’t find an electric light switch. I went down it cautiously and found myself in a round area like a rotunda. As far as I could make out in the dim light it was nicely paneled in dark wood, with statues in niches around the walls. This must be the tower, I realized and looked for a door that might lead me higher. There was none. No door of any kind. So I had to conclude that Mrs. McCreedy had been telling the truth—it was just a folly, an unfinished area. I looked up at the ceiling and could make out what looked like a wooden trapdoor in the plaster. Mrs. McCreedy had said that you could only get up there with a ladder, so that must be the entry. But it was firmly closed and there didn’t appear to be a string that one could pull to open it. I stood there for a moment, trying to work out if the tightness in my chest that I felt was as a result of worrying about Mrs. McCreedy or if I was experiencing that same feeling of dread that had overcome me the first time I entered the house. I found myself looking around nervously, but no ghost appeared.
“I’ve done looking up here, ma’am,” Sarah called. “And she’s not anywhere.” She hesitated and then shouted with alarm in her voice, “Where are you, ma’am?”
“I’m coming,” I called back. I saw the relief in her face when I reappeared. I wondered if she sensed my alarm or had her own reasons to be uneasy up here. “I think we’d better check the grounds. She’s nowhere in the house.”
We went back to the staircase and walked down one flight then the next.
“Should we go and see first whether she’s turned up outside?” Sarah suggested, clearly not welcoming a long search around the estate.
“I suppose that might be a good idea,” I agreed. We reached the cavernous foyer at the front of the building. As we crossed it we heard footsteps. We looked up as someone came down the main stair toward us.
“Was someone calling my name?” Mrs. McCreedy asked.
Twenty-two
“Where were you?” I asked. “We were looking all over for you.”
“We searched the whole house,” Sarah added.
Mrs. McCreedy was obviously flustered but trying not to show it. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she said. “I’ve been here all the time. Up and down taking the clean laundry up to bedrooms. There’s never a moment’s peace in this house. You say you’ve been looking for me? We must have just missed each other, that’s all.”