What a Ghoul Wants (18 page)

“Which is?”

“There is a sizable lump on the man’s head.” I took it that the good doctor was likely
the coroner.

“A lump, you say?” the inspector asked. The man certainly liked to repeat things.

“Yes. At the base of the skull.”

“I see. Then he slipped and fell into the moat, striking his head, and that’s perhaps
why he drowned?”

The doctor shook his head and rocked on his heels. “Oh, I doubt it, Inspector.”

“You doubt what? My theory?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because there is also a sizable lump on the man’s forehead.”

My brow furrowed, and I wanted to ask the doctor why that mattered, but the inspector
asked first. “What does that prove, Dr. Engels?”

“Well, the man certainly didn’t strike both the front and the back of his head at
the same time, Inspector!”

Lumley looked taken aback. “How do you know they happened at the same time?”

“The blow to the back of the man’s head was severe enough to crack the skull, and
by the swelling evident there, it’s clear to me that it occurred antemortem. He would
have died within minutes if he hadn’t drowned first. The blow to the front of the
head also shows signs of swelling, though not as severe. I believe Lefebvre was struck
very hard from behind before he tipped forward into the moat, striking his head on
a rock or the bridge as he went in.”

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” Lumley asked.

The doctor smiled wryly at him. “Yes, Inspector. You have another murder on your hands.”

“
Another
murder?” I said, and the inspector turned to look at me, his expression suggesting
he was quite surprised to see me still standing next to him. Without answering me,
he said, “Thank you for alerting us to Mr. Lefebvre’s body, Miss Holliday. I’m sure
I’ll be in touch with you very soon.” With that, he motioned for the doctor to accompany
him back down to the tarp that I guessed was covering Lefebvre.

“This way, Miss Holliday,” the constable said, extending his arm out to me like a
proper gentleman.

The constable was growing on me. “I never thanked you for saving my life yesterday,”
I told him.

“Least I could do after you went in after Mr. Whitefeather,” he said humbly. “I give
you a fair amount of credit too. That water was bloody cold.”

“It really was,” I agreed, my mind still on the mystery behind what the coroner had
revealed. “Constable Bancroft?”

“Yes?”

“What was the doctor referring to when he suggested that Mr. Lefebvre’s death was
another
murder?”

The constable lifted my elbow to steady me as I got into the rowboat. He didn’t answer
me until he was settled in too and had lifted the oars away from their resting place
on the sides of the boat. “I believe he was referring to the suspicious nature of
Mr. Brown’s drowning,” he said, leaning back to dip the oars into the water.

“What suspicious nature?”

The constable pushed on the oars, bringing his face closer to mine in the process.
“Merrick’s wrists appeared to have been bound before he went into the moat.”

My eyes widened. “He was tied up?”

The constable managed to shrug in between rows. “Maybe. There’s no sign of the rope,
just the burns on his wrists. Could be that he got free of them but drowned anyway,
or they popped off when his body became bloated. Either way, Dr. Engels thinks his
hands were tied together before he went into the water.”

I sat up a little straighter in my seat as a cold chill traveled down my spine and
I shuddered. Had Merrick really been murdered by someone other than the Widow? Certainly
her ghost wouldn’t have tied him up before drowning him. And why would someone kill
the kindly desk clerk? He’d seemed like such a nice young man, why would anyone want
to hurt him?

And, for that matter, who had murdered Mr. Lefebvre? A likely suspect had to have
been his wife. She’d had the most murderous expression on her face when she’d spied
on him kissing the male model.

But then I reconsidered that. For good reason the spouse was always the most obvious
suspect—why would she risk murdering him when she could simply divorce him and take
half his wealth?

We were midway across the moat as I considered who else might have had a hand in the
fashion designer’s death. I had the sudden feeling I was being watched and looked
to my left, and that’s when I saw the faint outline of a man near the water’s edge
on the castle side of the moat. He was tall and slim, and tugging at something around
his neck, and in an instant I felt I knew who it was. But a moment later, he was jerked
violently forward, and pulled headfirst into the water. I could even hear the splash
of water that accompanied it, and I put a hand to my mouth, knowing that I’d just
seen Mr. Lefebvre’s ghost being hauled into the water by the Grim Widow.

“Did you hear that?” the constable said, drawing my attention back to him.

“What?” I asked, unsure what specifically he’d heard.

The constable paused his rowing and looked in the same direction where the splash
had come from. “It sounded like someone just fell into the water,” he said. Then his
eyes swiveled to me. “You didn’t see anything over there, did you?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to alarm the kind man, and even if I’d told him what
I’d seen, there wasn’t anything he could do to help Mr. Lefebvre now.

After another search of the water with his eyes, the constable got back to rowing.
“This castle has always given me the willies,” he muttered.

When we made it to the shore, I barely waited for the constable to secure the boat
before I was out of it and scrambling up the bank to the bridge, where a very tall
ladder was angled against the stone. I eyed it a bit warily until Bancroft came up
beside me and promised to hold it steady.

“How will I get down once I make it up there?” I asked him.

He pointed his flashlight up the stone. “There’s a watchtower with a set of stairs
leading down into the courtyard. Just climb through the open window and you’ll be
able to find your way from there.”

I thanked him and got to the task at hand. I made it over to the other side within
just a few minutes.

John greeted me as I was coming up the walkway to the front steps. After giving me
a brotherly hug, he said, “There’s a lot of yelling going on in there.”

I eyed him quizzically until I picked up the faint sound of raised voices coming through
the thick wooden front door. “Who’s upset now?”

“One of the other guests. First, he was ticked off that someone was yelling loud enough
at three in the morning to wake him—”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess—Gilley?”

“Yep. Gil’s been doing a lot of shrieking since you headed over to the south wing.”

I sighed wearily. “Is Mr. Crunn kicking us out?”

John actually laughed. “Nope. The opposite. He’s suggesting that the guy find other
accommodations more to his liking. They’re arguing about it right now actually.”

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. Man, was I beat. “I have a feeling I know who the guy is.”

“He’s a total douche bag,” John commented as we both turned to the door.

When John opened it, the full volume of the man in the main hall yelling at poor Mr.
Crunn came to my ears and I winced. “Jesus,” I said, nudging John in the side. The
ghastly man had worked himself up into a frenzy, yelling so loud his complexion was
crimson, and he was pointing his finger straight into Mr. Crunn’s face. “I’ll sue!”
he bellowed. “I’ll sue you lot for the full cost of our holiday and pain and suffering
and I don’t give a blast who owns this old pile of rubble, even if it’s owned by the
bloody queen!”

“Mr. Hollingsworth, please!” cried Mr. Crunn. “It is hardly conceivable that we would
be responsible for such unfortunate happenings as these! And while I am quite sorry
that your stay with us has been made unpleasant by recent events, I can hardly compensate
you over and above the cost of your stay here, especially as you and your wife have
suffered no other ill effect other than to have had your sleep interrupted this morning.”

“No other ill effect?!” Hollingsworth bellowed. “What about the emotional toll? Here
we are, on holiday in this musty old place, which you lot have overpriced, I might
add, and we’re not here but a
day when there’s not one but
two
deaths on your doorstep! Not to mention Mrs. Hollingsworth and I couldn’t leave if
we wanted to! Mechanical failure to the drawbridge, my aunt Petunia! The emotional
toll on my wife alone has been enough to warrant a sizable contribution from this
establishment!” In the corner I saw his poor wife cringe as her husband’s beady eyes
flashed to her.

“Mr. Hollings—”

“Plus room and board! Plus a bit extra for petrol to see us back home! Now loosen
those purse strings, Mr. Crunn, or I’ll sue, I will!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” I snapped, moving forward quickly to the two men. “That’s enough!”

“Mind your own bloody business!” Hollingsworth yelled at me.

“When you yell loud enough to wake the dead, pal, it becomes my business!” I meant
that quite literally too.

Hollingsworth stepped forward threateningly and John shot to my side like a rocket.
“The lady said to chill out, buddy,” John said, holding himself to his full height,
and he was at least three inches taller than Hollingsworth. For good measure, John
even poked the belligerent man in the chest. “Now get back upstairs and stop causing
a scene, or you and I are gonna have a problem.”

Hollingsworth’s eyes appeared to welcome the challenge. He snarled menacingly and
pushed up the cuffs of his bathrobe, and that’s when Michel stepped forward and aligned
himself with John. “Don’t even think about it, bloke,” he said levelly.

Next to me, Gilley also sidled up, crossing his arms over his puffed-up chest like
he was Dwayne Johnson.

With the four of us squaring off against him, Hollingsworth didn’t have much choice
but to back off. He gave us all a really dirty look before stalking away with threats
to ring up his solicitor and sue our pants off. We waited until he’d disappeared up
the stairs to relax our stance. “I
hate
that guy,” I muttered.

“Maybe we should feed him to the Grim Widow,” John said.

I smiled wickedly at the thought, but then I remembered his wife and my eyes sought
her out, hoping she hadn’t heard. By the horrified expression on her face, she had.
“Aw, crap,” I muttered. “Ma’am,” I said, moving over toward her, “I’m really sorry.
That wasn’t very nice of us.”

She said nothing. Instead she ducked her chin and hurried off down an adjoining hallway.
I noticed she didn’t go up to her room to join her husband, which I thought was smart.
In the state of rage he was in, she’d be a fool to be locked in the same room with
him. Of course, I probably already thought her a little bit of a fool for staying
with him in the first place.

“I’m dreadfully sorry to have dragged you into that,” Mr. Crunn said, pulling my attention
back.

“It’s not your fault, Mr. Crunn,” I assured him. The sweet old man looked as exhausted
as I felt. “I think you should turn in, sir.”

But the old man shook his head. “I can’t, Miss Holliday. The police may need something
from me, and I have poor Mrs. Lefebvre’s tea to prepare.”

“The police probably don’t need you for a little while yet, Mr. Crunn. Why don’t you
see if you can catch at least a little bit of sleep until then, and we’ll go prepare
the tea for Mrs. Lefebvre, okay?”

Crunn looked ready to drop, and he sighed gratefully. “Thank you, Miss Holliday,”
he said. “The kettle is in the kitchen on the stove and the tea is on the shelf above
it. There are several tea service trays already set out for breakfast. Mrs. Lefebvre
is in room two twenty-seven. It’s down the hall on the left from your room.”

I waited for Crunn to move off before I motioned for the boys to follow me. I wanted
to tell them about what I’d learned from the constable. They were full of questions
that I couldn’t answer, and now that the adrenaline from confronting Hollingsworth
had worn off, I was finding my thoughts becoming muddled again. And when Gil demanded
his sweatshirt back, I didn’t have the energy to fight him, so I shrugged out of it
and gave it over.

Once the tea service was prepared, I handed off the duty of taking it up to Mrs. Lefebvre
to Gil. My
ever
supportive (insert sarcasm here) BFF almost said no until Michel said he’d be glad
to go with him, and then Gil’s sullen mood turned downright perky. I didn’t think
Michel would return Gil’s obvious affection for him, but that was an issue best dealt
with later, after I’d had some solid sleep. As Gil and Michel left to take the tea
service upstairs, I put a hand on John’s shoulder and said, “I’m going to bed. Wake
me in six hours. Once Heath gets back, the crew has a lot to discuss.” I then headed
straight upstairs to bed, and was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

John didn’t wake me in six hours. Or eight. Or even ten. He left me alone for nearly
eleven solid hours, so when I woke on my own at four p.m., I was much better rested,
but seriously out of sorts.

Emerging from my room, I was about to go in search of someone from the crew when I
found John coming up the stairs. “I was about to come get you,” he said.

“Is it really four o’clock?”

“Yep. Teatime. You hungry?”

My stomach growled loudly. “Apparently so.”

“Come on. Heath’s downstairs. He’s been waiting for you to get up and I had to threaten
bodily harm when he said he wanted to wake you.”

I was a little miffed that I’d missed my sweetheart’s return from the hospital. “I
told you to wake me at eleven a.m.”

John offered me a sideways smile. “One thing I know about you and Heath is that you
are the two most sleep-deprived people on this crew. Whether you agree with me or
not, you needed some rest, M. J.”

After a moment I put a hand on his arm. “You’re right, guy. Sorry I snapped at you.”