The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion (21 page)

“How do you like the place?” he asked.

Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “How do
you
like it, Mr. Tarnish? Have your nights been . . . restful?”

Seymour seemed taken aback by her frank question. Not Harlan Gilman.

“He hasn’t seen any ghosts yet, if that’s what you mean.” Tottering on his cane, the heavy man moved closer to the woman. “If you ask me, it’s only a matter of time before he does.” His tone was snappish.

Seymour shifted uncomfortably and shot Gilman a dark look. “Don’t be stupid, Harlan.”

Brainert edged closer to me. “I’m not surprised Harlan’s gone negative,” he said quietly. “There’s bad blood between him and Seymour since Seymour decided to move out.”

I frowned. “I thought maybe Seymour might reconsider the split and invite Harlan to move in, too.”

Brainert shook his head. “Apparently Mr. Gilman took
Ghostbusters
and
The Exorcist
a bit too seriously. He’s heard the wild rumors about Miss Todd being frightened to death in this house, and he says he won’t take any chances.”

“Brainert, do you know if Harlan is having any money troubles?”

Brainert nodded. “I’m sure he is. With Seymour moving out, he’s asked Hardy Miles to be his housemate. Hardy’s still thinking about it, but I hear Harlan’s got some serious credit card debt.”

I didn’t like the sound of that and I took a harder look at the fat man. Was that cane just a prop? Could Harlan really get around much easier than he was letting on? Could he have been the one to cut Seymour’s brakes for, say, a cash payoff from Miss Todd’s sister?

My gaze drifted to Ophelia, who appeared to be wringing the life out of her tumbler of green tea. “Don’t discount your friend’s opinion so fast,” she told Seymour rather loudly. “This house could very well be haunted. It’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

Seymour looked at her askance. “Do you really think it is? Haunted, I mean?”

Ophelia scanned the room again. Her eyes lingered on me—or Jack, I couldn’t be sure. I shifted from foot to foot.

“There are spirits present,” Ophelia finally said with authority. “I’m not certain they are connected to the house, however.”

While everyone within earshot began to murmur uneasily, I sighed with relief. The last thing I needed was for Ophelia to accuse me of traveling around with my own personal ghost.

“Well,” Seymour said, “until I actually see an apparition, call me a skeptic. I mean, what does an actual ghost look like, anyway?”

“Maybe like the spook on that hokey movie the other night. What was it called?” Leo scratched his beard. “The one on Channel Ten—”

“Oh yes, that was
The Screaming Skull
,” Brainert said before catching himself. He looked away, but it was too late.

Harlan Gilman snorted. “
You
actually watched
The Screaming Skull
?”

“I . . . I was only flipping channels,” Brainert stammered. “I just happened to see—”

Seymour cackled. “One of the cheesiest horror films ever made. The ghost is just a lot of dry ice and a cheap anatomical skeleton. And I mean
cheap
! You can actually see the wires holding it together, and the saw line across the forehead where you can remove the skull cap and look inside.”

Everyone giggled. Everyone except Ophelia Tuttle.

“Of course it all looked rather silly in the movie,” Ophelia said. “But I’m sure your reaction would be very different if
you
actually saw a screaming skull in your bedroom one dark night.”

The laughter faded quickly.

The conversation went dead for a moment (appropriately enough) and then (mercifully) the doorbell rang again.

“I’d better get that,” Seymour said, running off.

“Ophelia seems convinced this house is haunted,” Brainert said quietly to me.

I gulped my drink. “Brainert, what exactly do you think about that sort of thing?”

“Well . . .” Brainert stroked his chin. “Some of the greatest minds of Western civilization believed in the occult, even attempted to practice magic.”

“Like?”

“The poet Virgil. He was said to possess supernatural abilities. Then there’s John Dee, the English mathematician who was also the court astrologer for Queen Elizabeth the First. And did you know that Casanova, the legendary Renaissance lover, once summoned evil spirits inside the Coliseum? He wrote in his autobiography that malevolent ghosts followed him through the streets of Rome, bedeviling him for an entire night.”

“Hear that, Jack?” I whispered.

“Of course, that’s just the ancient world,” Brainert continued. “If you prefer more modern examples, there’s the poet William Butler Yeats, who belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, along with fellow scribblers Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen. Mark Twain was active in the Society of Psychical Research. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies and earth spirits and tried to communicate with them. And some of psychologist Carl Jung’s writings about the collective unconscious could be mistaken for a mystical treatise.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes!”

For the next two minutes, my academic friend continued to talk—lecture, actually. The one-sided discussion included grimoires, alchemy, and highlights of the life story of Cornelius Agrippa.

I nursed my drink, which only slightly impaired my ability to follow his conversation. I do remember that at some point, Seymour swept back into the party like a Nor’easter hitting the Rhode Island shoreline.

“Everyone!” he announced with a huge grin on his face. “I’m pleased to introduce you to an unexpected guest. Ms. April Briggs.”

All male eyes, once again, turned toward the new female arrival clinging tightly to the arm of Seymour’s royal blue smoking jacket.

“Briggs,” I silently repeated to myself. “Now why does that name ring a bell?”

“Oh, my God, Jack, I think I know who April Briggs is.”

“There was an ‘A. Briggs’ who signed Miss Todd’s funeral home guest book. No address, just the first initial and last name.”

“She must have. Why else would she have come to the funeral home!”

Having lived in Manhattan, I immediately recognized April Briggs as an obvious come-from-money type. So chicly thin she could have been a poster child for Tom Wolfe’s “social X-rays,” she possessed matinee starlet teeth, high cheekbones, and long, model-straight blond hair—which may well have been brunette and kinky before the salon got finished with her. She had runway height, health-club muscular legs, and leather sandals that were hand-tooled in Italy or my son doesn’t have red hair and freckles.

April’s crepe party dress appeared to be designer quality. The turquoise color perfectly matched her eyes—which may or may not have been sporting contacts to enhance the electric blue-green shade. Her tasteful string of pearls gave off the whiff of money, too. The woman’s appearance was so polished I had to get a bit closer before I could pinpoint her age, which (once I saw the fine lines around the edges of her mouth and eyes) I pegged at closer to fifty than forty.

“She’s not old enough to be Miss Todd’s sister,” I whispered to Jack. “But she could still be related—a niece or cousin, some relative who has an interest in Seymour’s inheritance.”

Just then, an elderly woman strolled in. Her slender frame was elegantly sheathed in a finely tailored navy pantsuit of summer silk. Her eyebrows were lightly drawn in with pencil, her shoulder-length hair dyed a rich chestnut and smoothed into a neat ponytail, and a delicate black lace shawl was draped around her narrow but still-straight shoulders.

Dean Pepper approached her. “Ah, Mrs. Fromsette, how have you been?”

My eyebrows rose. “Jack, that must be the other woman who signed the book at Miss Todd’s funeral:
Mrs. Arthur Fromsette
. She also wrote down a Larchmont Avenue address.”

Though advanced in years, Mrs. Fromsette’s blue eyes were bright and her movements vigorous. As Dean Pepper took the older woman’s hand, I edged closer to the couple.

“I haven’t seen you since, well . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Yes, Wendell, not since Mr. Fromsette’s funeral. How are you, Professor? And how are things at Mr. Fromsette’s alma mater?”

“Very well, thank you. And as always, St. Francis is on the move. Have you come tonight to greet our new neighbor?”

Mrs. Fromsette nodded. “My daughter saw the invitation I received and insisted we drop by. She’s happy to see this old house lit up again.” Lifting a wrinkled hand, she gestured to the attractive blonde attached to Seymour’s side. “You know my daughter, of course, April Briggs. She’s visiting again from Boston.”

“Yes, April and I bumped into each other at the bakery and caught up.”

I sighed with that exchange. “Another lead bites the dust,” I told Jack. “Mrs. Fromsette is just an old neighbor, and A. Briggs is her daughter. No mystery there.”

Dean Pepper brought the older woman over to Seymour.

“Ah, Mrs. Fromsette,” Seymour said. “Did you find the restroom then?”

“Yes, dear boy. It’s been a long time, but I still remember where it is.”

“Can I take your wrap?” he asked.

Mrs. Fromsette shook her head vigorously. “No!” She pulled the black shawl around her more tightly, her blue eyes suddenly looking like a wounded animal’s.

Everyone around the older woman froze, Seymour included. His mouth went slack and he didn’t appear to know what to do or say. Nobody did.

After a moment of silence, Mrs. Fromsette obviously realized her inappropriate reaction and shook her head. Her fingers twitching nervously, she forced a smile and changed the subject, gesturing broadly to the silver-framed photograph of Miss Todd.

“It’s good to see this place so full of life again,” she said with exaggerated cheerfulness—as if trying to will normalcy back into the moment. “Miss Todd was so reclusive.”

“You knew her well?” I asked, stepping up. I quickly introduced myself.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. McClure. No, I didn’t know her that well,” Mrs. Fromsette replied. “She was always a very aloof, standoffish neighbor.”

“Did you know she had a sister?”

“Yes, I did,” the woman replied with a nod. “I never met her, but Timothea once mentioned her to me. She said they had a falling-out many decades ago.”

I leaned closer. “Do you know her name?”

Mrs. Fromsette shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I’m sure it was Todd at one time. But Timothea said her sister married and moved to Newport. Mr. Stoddard must know more. Emory Stoddard is the lawyer who handled all of Miss Todd’s affairs. He had an office in Newport until recently. Now I believe he’s working out of Millstone.”

“I know Mr. Stoddard. We’ve met,” I said aloud, and to Jack, I silently said—

“Did you hear that? Stoddard
had
an office in Newport. That confirms what I already suspected.”

“Dire enough to maybe arrange the death of his client? You heard Mrs. Fromsette. She believes Miss Todd’s sister resides in Newport. I’ll bet the sister’s the one who hooked up Miss Todd with Stoddard’s firm in the first place.”

Mrs. Fromsette was still speaking to me. “. . . and I did want to meet Mr. Tarnish. I understand he was very kind to Miss Todd in her last days.”

“She was a nice lady.”

“And you’re a very nice man,” April said, still clinging to Seymour’s arm.

Seymour blushed at the attention. Dean Pepper blinked in surprise. Brainert’s Spock eyebrow rose.

“Is she flirting with him?” I whispered.

“Undoubtedly,” Brainert replied. “Can’t imagine why.”

Meanwhile, Dean Pepper glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry to say I have to go. I’m giving a lecture about John Milton at the Episcopal Church tomorrow afternoon, and I haven’t even written it yet.”

“Thanks for coming, Wendell,” Seymour said.

April smiled and leaned closer to the mailman. “Would you mind showing me around?”

Seymour nodded like crazy. “Sure.”

She pointed. “How about telling me about that poster above the mantel?”

“Love to!” Seymour grinned. “The actor is Pierce Arm-strong. I actually met the gentleman . . .”

I have to admit, I was pretty surprised to see a woman like April looking up at Seymour Tarnish with flirty female interest—then again, I probably would have been surprised to see any woman doing the same. On the other hand, the mailman had transformed himself, and it wasn’t just the smoking jacket and Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Cranky Seymour was virtually bubbling over with good cheer and masculine confidence. It
was
sort of attractive.

“You know, Jack, for the first time I can actually see marriage in Seymour’s future.”

I jumped at the chill Jack had sent my way. “What do you mean?”