Free The Murder Hole by Lillian Stewart Carl Page A

of the loch left a trail of questions like bright
after-images across vision and memory alike. She knew she couldn’t
answer any questions now. She knew she couldn’t even ask any. And
yet the sparks swirled on and on . . .
    The noise of a shutting door jerked her out
of a merciful doze.
    Had she forgotten, under the circumstances,
to lock the outer door? And if so, who had just come into the
house? Jean put slippers on her sock-clad feet and a robe over her
flannel nightgown and listened at the bedroom door. Nothing. She
called, “Hello?” Nothing. Turning on the hall lights, she stepped
cautiously down the stairs. The front door was locked. Several
yellow broom blossoms lay on the floor of the vestibule. She’d
tracked those in herself, right?
    She’d been half-asleep when she heard the
sound. She’d probably misinterpreted the slam of a car door or
traffic noise from the road below.
    She trudged back upstairs and checked the
bathroom and the mystery room across the hall from the bedroom,
bracing herself in case its door flew open when she turned the
knob. It, too, was still locked. Less puzzled than resentful, Jean
left the hall light on, locked the bedroom door, and lay down on
the bed. By sheer force of will she at last slipped into stupor . .
.
    Again she spasmed into alertness. This time
she heard not only a door shutting, but also footsteps and the
creaking of the hall floor. Slowly she swiveled her head toward the
bedroom door. The light-slit beneath it wavered and steadied, as
though someone—something—had come out of the locked room and walked
down the hall. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled like
feelers on the pillowcase, and the air condensed around her
shoulders, pressing her against the mattress. Resistance is
futile .
    She lay quietly, every sense extended and
shrinking at once. The rich aromas of coffee and pipe tobacco
filled her nostrils and then dissipated. The steps stopped. Voices
murmured, a man’s voice and a woman’s, rising and falling
simultaneously, like dissonant chords. Then the woman screamed.
    Jean jerked in horror, then reminded herself: They’re ghosts. It’s a memory-video. I can’t do anything to
change it .
    The scream either ended abruptly or attained
such a high note Jean could no longer hear it. But she could feel
it, a raw, chill bite in the air and along her nerves. What she
heard was the crashing and thudding of a body falling down the
stairs. And then silence, a silence so deep that her own breath,
her own heartbeat, seemed to reverberate in the night.
    Nothing else happened. After a while she
managed a long exhalation. She pulled the duvet up to her chin,
thinking that if she lived to be a hundred and fifty, she would
never get used to sensing ghosts. And now she’d sensed two at
Pitclachie House. The first one, the one outside in the shrubbery,
had been only a wisp of feeling, a trace of dismay and dread. This
one, though, had real power, searing emotion, behind it. There had
been if not a murder here, then a sudden and unexpected death.
    To say that Ambrose had spent so many years
shut up in his study that even death couldn’t pry him out was to
evade the real issue. His spirit was lingering here in the Lodge
because it had some unsolved business. Was it too great a leap of
extrapolation to think that business was the death of his wife?
    Had Eileen fallen down the stairs? By
accident? On purpose? Had Ambrose hidden her body? Or had this
particular scene happened long before her death? Who knew?
    Those questions found space on the already
crowded carousel in Jean’s mind, and spun round and round until at
last, in exhausted self-defense, she fell into a doze and stayed
that way, drifting in and out of a restless sleep, until she woke
suddenly to a ray of sun streaming through an inch-wide gap between
the curtains.
    Birds were caroling. The clock showed eight
a.m., hours past dawn. Groaning, Jean crawled from the bed and
padded across the icy