Free Ghost Music by Graham Masterton

the keys. It may have been dark, but it was only 3:35 in the afternoon, and the Westerlunds must have all been at work, or at school. I took the two keys out of my coat pocket, chose the larger one, and let myself in.
    Inside, the hallway was gloomy and cold, with a flagstone floor. I managed to find a light switch, and it illuminated a bright clear-glass lantern hanging from the ceiling. On one side of the hallway stood a side table, with a vase of cream silk roses on it, and a brass letter-rack. On the other side hung a gold-framed mirror, blotchy with age like the surface of a stagnant pond, with a reflection of me in it, looking pale and tired and unsure of myself.
    There was a
smell
, too, quite unlike New York. A smell of very old building and coffee and something that might have been cheese.
    At the far end of the hallway I could make out a shadowy spiral staircase, with stone steps, leading upward. I picked up my bag and was just about to climb up to the second floor when there was a sharp knocking at the front door. I put down my bag and opened the door.
    It was the taxi driver, and he was smoking.
    â€œYes?” I asked him.
    Smoke streamed out of his nostrils. “You stay in this house?”
    â€œThat’s the idea, yes. And, listen, I don’t want to know about sex clubs or gay clubs or restaurants or any other tourist attractions, thank you.”
    â€œYou know what happen in this house?”
    â€œNo, I don’t know what happened in this house, and to tell you the truth I don’t care. Now, please, I’m very tired and I just want to get my bag upstairs.”
    â€œIf you know what happen in this house, you stay in hotel. I know good hotel. Amaranten, on Kungsholmsgatan. I fix you best room, cheap.”
    â€œPlease, no thank you,” I told him. “Now, go away, will you?”
    The taxi driver was about to say something else, but then he shrugged, and walked back toward his cab. Halfway across the sidewalk, however, he stopped, and turned around. “I give you warning, remember that!”
    â€œOkay, okay. You give me warning. Now, good-bye, already.”
    He shook his head one more time, climbed into his taxi and drove away. Jesus. And I used to think that New York taxi drivers were persistent.
    I closed the front door, picked up my bag yet again, and climbed up the spiral staircase. Halfway up to the second floor, the timer on the lights clicked off, and I was left in total darkness. I shuffled my way up the next few steps, keeping my left shoulder against the wall, and even then I took one too many steps when I reached the top, and stumbled forward into the darkness, colliding with another side table, and knocking something metallic onto the floor. It sounded like a vase.
    Putting down my bag, I groped around the walls until I found a light switch. Another lantern showed me that I was standing on a long landing, with a narrow mustard-colored rug running along it. I had knocked over a tall copper jug, so that dried stalks of honesty had scattered across the floor. I picked them all up and rearranged them as artistically as I could. Any broken bits and pieces I brushed up into my hand and dropped them inside the jug.
    At the end of the landing there was a wide black-painted door. I approached it, and took out my second key. The door unlocked almost silently, and I pushed it open. Inside the hallway, there was a table lamp with a green and yellow glass shade, which had obviously been left on for my benefit.
    I carried my bag inside. Kate had been right. This apartment was vast, and awe-inspiring. The hall alone was nearly half the size of my living room at St. Luke’s Place, with a window that looked out over the harbor, and a huge faded tapestry hanging onthe wall, with an ocean scene of galleons and sea monsters and scudding clouds.
    To the right of the hallway, a long corridor led to a wide pair of double doors, glazed with small octagonal panels of yellowish