Free The Ginger Cat Mystery by Robin Forsythe Page A

and flung the door open.
    â€œDo you believe in spirits, Crawley?” asked Vereker as he looked round the gloomy, low-ceilinged room.
    â€œIf they’re good, a drop now and then don’t do you no harm, but there’s nothing to compare with good wine, sir,” replied the butler, his mind evidently still pursuing its former train of thought.
    â€œI mean ghosts, Crawley,” said Vereker with a broad smile.
    â€œBeg pardon, sir, I thought you was referring to refreshments. Ghosts? Bless my soul, I’ve lived with ghosts all my life, sir. Last two places I was in both had ghosts hauntin’ them.”
    â€œEver see one, Crawley?”
    â€œNot a ghost of a one, sir, if you’ll pardon the joke. I won’t say there isn’t no such thing, as some do, but with me seeing’s believing and I’ve not seen one yet. Don’t particular want to, neither. There’s plenty to do with the living without troubling about them that’s dead and gone.”
    â€œBy the way, Crawley, what’s this other key?” asked Vereker as he extracted from the music room door its larger key and another one dangling to it on a small circle of cord.
    â€œFor the door leading down into the garden, sir,” replied the butler.
    â€œI see,” remarked Vereker and crossed the room to the door the butler had indicated.
    This was a modern door. It opened on to a winding flight of stone steps which led down to the gravel path running through the spacious gardens at the back of the house.
    â€œWere this door and steps here when you came to the Manor, Crawley?” asked Vereker.
    â€œNo, sir. That was one of Mr. John Cornell’s improvements. Although the room was never used much, Mr. David Cornell used to come and sit here at the piano for hours with Miss Stella. He used to let himself in from the garden by that door. But he said he didn’t like the feel of the room. Although he can’t see, he said he was sure it was a haunted room, so Mr. John bought him a piano for the bungalow and he hasn’t been in the house for over a year now.”
    â€œHas he still got the keys to the doors?” asked Vereker immediately.
    â€œNot that I know of, sir. There was some argument about those duplicate keys. Mr. David said he returned them to Mr. John, and I know for certain they were in my key cupboard for a while. Then they went missing. We never found them and didn’t trouble any more about them.”
    â€œI suppose he used to come here and compose,” remarked Vereker.
    â€œThat’s what he called it, sir. I don’t know nothing about music, but all that twiddling about on the keys don’t seem music to me. I like a good song like ‘John Peel’ and that one which starts with ‘In cellar cool.’ But he’s a proper musician, I must say. I once came in here when he was working and he asked me what he could play for me. I asked him if he knew ‘My dear old Dutch’ and he simply played it right away, I was glad he couldn’t see that day because he played it so beautiful the tears were running down my cheeks before he’d finished. I’d lost my old missus just five years before to the very day.”
    Crawley heaved a sigh and added, “Yes, sir, he’s a proper musician all right.”
    During Crawley’s reminiscence Vereker’s restless eyes had been busy. A chintz-covered settee in a bay window overlooking the garden had particularly attracted him and, bending over it, he had looked at it with the most minute attention. Finally he picked from the chintz cover with a small pair of steel forceps some almost invisible object and carefully put it away in his note-case between a folded sheet of paper beside the one he had discovered on Frank Cornell’s lounge suit. Then on hands and knees he examined the carpet close to the settee with his magnifying glass. Satisfied with the scrutiny, he rose once more to