Ghosts, Page 2

chair and picked up the paperback to read some more. No doubt something would be happening across the hallway in due course.

  After a couple of minutes, he heard slight movement again: someone creeping away, he decided, not looking up from the book. He waited a few moments, then went to examine the back wall closely, at around eye-height. After a short time, he spotted, as predicted, a couple of tiny imperfections in the wallpaper. Ha! He went and sat down again.

  They were a little below his eye level, he thought; about right for the owner. Well, that was no surprise. Who else would it be? But what to do? Sit here and wait for the show? Or...

  Well, he wasn't a psychic investigator for nothing. He was going to investigate. He went back to the wall and felt around, to see if he could locate the edge of the presumed-papered-over door, or any means of opening it. He hesitated as his conscience pointed out that damaging other people's wallpaper was not proper, but he replied to himself that he was doing it for the sake of science. Well, pseudo-science, anyway.

  But what about these people's livelihood? his conscience asked. That made him think. Well, they were committing fraud, he replied, in his mind. That shut his conscience up, finally. It's good to be good, he thought with a smile, as he returned to groping the back wall.

  Finding the edge of the door proved to be no problem, but how to open it? He felt about some more, looking for a handle. He didn't find one, but he did find a depression where a handle might have been fitted at one time.

  He nipped back to his bag and pulled out a penknife, then returned to the wallpaper and cut the wallpaper away from the depression. Looking in, he could see the axle, or whatever it may be called, on which a handle would be mounted. Excellent. He wondered if the door might be locked. He felt below the handle, but found nothing that might be a keyhole.

  With the penknife, he then cut from the skirting board up and all around the edges of the door, freeing it from the clutches of the wallpaper. Then he went back to his trusty bag, and pulled out a pair of snub-nosed pliers. Gripping the handle-axle thingy with them, he turned it, easily, as it happened. The door opened towards him.

  Beyond the door, he saw a narrow corridor, about a metre wide, stretching to either side. He poked his head in and looked each way. The corridor stretched for some distance in either direction, and he could see other doors. Inspecting the back of his door, he could see that holes had been drilled in it to make peering through possible. He wondered if the Lairds of times past had had a good time watching the servant-girls undressing. Probably, he thought. Some people get all the luck.

  Just then, one of the instruments on the table pinged quietly. He looked back. The expected action was beginning. He dismissed it and went back to his trusty bag. The cameras would pick it all up anyway.

  From his bag, he took a hefty torch: all the better to see with and all the better to pretend it isn't an offensive weapon should it be necessary to defend himself against the not-so-big bad landlord, and should the police become involved. He also made sure he had his mobile phone, which he turned off, since it wouldn't do for it to be ringing when he was sneaking about. Could be useful in an emergency though. And... his secret weapon, a CCD camera sensitive to infra-red: good for snapping people in dark places. He looped its strap around his neck.

  Quickly and quietly he stepped into the secret corridor and pulled the door nearly but not quite closed behind him, so he could find it easily on his way back. He turned right, switching on his torch and quietly walking along the corridor as it passed behind various other rooms. At the end of the corridor, at what he guessed must be the end of the building as well, a steep wooden stepladder on one side led down to another level a short way below. He switched off his torch and listened and watched for a few moments: he could hear something, and after his eyes adjusted, he could see some faint light coming from somewhere.

  Very slowly and carefully, Spider McCool climbed down the stepladder, hoping he wouldn't be seen. When he reached the bottom, he crouched there and looked around. He was in what looked like a low-ceilinged-cellar, maybe 1.5m high. Yet it wasn't the cellar as he was just below the top floor of the old mansion. He hadn't gone far enough down to have reached the floor below either. He was between the two floors. Interesting, he thought.

  Looking around, he saw columns of bricks and short lengths of walls supporting the floor above. The light was coming from some distance away and whatever was going on was blocked by some of these columns.

  He moved quietly, so he could peer around one of the columns.

  Sure enough, maybe 15m away, the landlord was up to something. Spider could see some ropes hanging and some rods sticking down out of the ceiling above, a computer, and some sound equipment. Rubbish, he thought, readying his camera.

  He waited until some wailing noise was happening, and snapped a picture. He hoped the infra-red sensitivity of the camera wouldn't spoil the shots, since there was visible light here after all. He snapped a couple more pictures, then retreated back up the stepladder. Smirking to himself, he made his way back to his room, and closed the secret door carefully behind him. He sat down and poured himself a nice big cup of tea: a job well done, he thought to himself.

  Now: how should I appear when Mr Fraudster takes another peek into the room? he thought. I know: I should be peering out of the doorway to try and see what is going on across the hallway with my own eyes.

  Well, OK, I'll sup some tea and when the instruments die down, I'll do just that, he thought. He sat back in the chair feeling quite satisfied with himself and enjoyed his tea as the instruments went haywire.

  He finished his tea quite quickly as it happened: all that adventuring in the secret passage had generated quite a thirst! He put down his mug and went over to the doorway and peered across the hallway towards open doorway of the room opposite. He casually watched the furniture there bobbing up and down. He folded his arms and leaned against the door-jamb of his room, not really all that interested in the nonsense going on opposite. He glanced up and down the hallway, then back at the room. There were some moving lights in there now, and some wailing again. He wondered how anybody could be fooled by this trash.

  But... they had been. There's no underestimating human stupidity, he thought.

  Eventually, the show stopped, and he decided he'd better look interested. He moved back into his office and arranged himself so he was poking his head around the doorway looking across the hallway. This pose was rather boring and a bit tiring, but he stuck at it, one hand massaging his lower back every now and then to ease the strain a bit.

  Everything was once again totally silent. He listened carefully.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, he heard the quiet sounds of movement from behind the back wall of his room. It stopped, and he felt goose-pimples arise, knowing that someone was watching him now.

  Abruptly, he turned and went back to his table and sat down. He checked the instruments. He sat back and waited, hoping to bore the watcher into clearing off. He didn't like being watched. After a while, whoever was watching obviously got the hint that Spider McCool was not going to be doing much else: the oh-so-quiet sounds of someone creeping off reached Spider's ears.

  After a few moments, Spider quietly picked up his infra-red camera, got up and went across the hallway into the 'haunted' room opposite. He left the light off in there but walked over to the window so he could see out. He waited. A couple of minutes went by and then he saw someone walking down the path away from the mansion. It was too dark to see clearly who it was, but he quietly opened the window and snapped a picture with his infra-red camera. Then he shut the window again and ambled back to his office.

  Now, he thought, to get some proper pictures of that stuff downstairs. He kept the infra-red camera, and pulled a digital camera from his bag: this one was for conventional light and it had built-in flash and picture preview too. He stepped back from the table and took the conventional camera and snapped a picture showing the location of the secret doorway: might as w
ell document the whole thing, he thought. He picked up his pliers and opened the secret door. Stepping back, he snapped another picture, showing the door open. He walked back to it and looked either way along the secret corridor. Nobody there.

  He snapped a flash picture in each direction then headed back towards the stepladder. He snapped that too. He climbed down the stepladder. It was dark in here now. He couldn't see a thing, and he didn't know where the light-switch was. Spider McCool had forgotten to bring his torch. Oh, well.

  He aimed himself roughly towards where he had seen the computer, and snapped a picture, looking at the preview panel on the back of his camera. The flash lit everything up for an instant, and he could see the scene on the preview panel. He would navigate like that. He felt his way around the column of bricks he had hid behind before, then snapped another picture in the general direction of the computer: yes, there it was. Feeling his way, he walked over to it and snapped a few more pictures, showing the computer and the rods and strings going up into the ceiling.

  Turning around, he snapped a few pictures showing the whole 'cellar' as seen from there.

  He heard a sound. He froze. What was it?

  Looking down at the preview panel on his camera, he moved quickly to