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“Tragic history: a murder and a suicide,” he grieved.

“No,” said Quandt quietly behind him.

The Jesuit turned around to him quizzically.

“No suicide,” said Quandt.

“No suicide?”

Quandt came over and stood beside him, the porcelain coffee mug still in his grip. “No. No suicide, Father. Two murders.”

“What?”

Quandt looked up at the man in the painting.

“Well, the truth of the matter, Father, is that Auntie apparently was cheating on Uncle and wanted him out of the way so badly that she put a deadly slow-acting poison in his drink. While he was dying, Uncle Edward found the vial that the poison had come in, and he sealed up Auntie alive in the crypt and then died himself right there on the spot.”

“By the crypt?”

“By the crypt.”

“How awful,” said the priest.

“Not quite Romeo and Juliet,” said Quandt.

His wife came up beside them. “Just misses.”

The old priest took a final look at the painting, and then turned away to leave. “Well, I’ll pray for them both.”

“Thanks, Father,” Paul Quandt told him. “I’d really like to imagine that they’re at peace.”

“Well, good-bye again.”

The priest gave a wave.

“Bye, Father.”

As the red-haired Jesuit left the room, a large collie dog came bounding up to him, and then followed him toward the door.

“Hello, boy,” the priest greeted him.

“Oh, now, leave the good Father alone,” Christine Quandt called out. “Come on, Tommy! Come on back here, you nutcase!”

The priest, still walking, looked over his shoulder. “No no no, I like dogs!” he called back. Then he turned and looked down at the collie. “Come on, Tommy! Good boy!”

The dog barked and leaped up at him playfully, following.

“Yes, I had a good doggie like you when I was little,” said the priest. “Oh, yes, Tommy. Good boy. Good boy.”

They had reached the entry hall. The priest opened the door and they went out. Paul Quandt put his arm around his wife’s waist and together they looked up at the painting again. Riga Quandt had rugged, imperfect features that nevertheless were intensely sensual and gave an impression of beauty. Her star-crossed husband, Edward Quandt, had dark good looks, a chiseled face, and a vivid scar that jagged like lightning from his cheekbone down to the base of his jaw.

They were the faces of Morna and of Gabriel Case.

* * *

The two priests and the dog were approaching the dock where the motor launch would soon pick them up. They could see it starting toward them from the opposite shore. The older priest picked up a stick and threw it. “Go, Tommy! Go!” he commanded. “Fetch!”

The dog took off with a bark and a bound.

The freckled old Jesuit glanced at the sky.

“Clearing up. Looks as if it’s going to be a nice day.”

They walked onto the dock and to its end, their steps thudding hollow on the dry old planks.

“I’m so glad you were able to fill in,” said the older priest. “You’re at Fordham, you said?”

“Yes, at Fordham.”

“You know Father Bermingham there?”

The stolid priest shook his head.

“The directions were good, by the way? You found the village and the dock with no trouble?”

“No trouble. The launch was there waiting for me.”

“Good. And so what do you think, young Regis? Tell me. Do you think we accomplished something? You believe the house is haunted?”

The other shook his head. “Beats me.”

The old priest stared at him. “You look so young.”

“I know.”

The old man stared down at the sparkling waters where some blueness of the sky was beginning to reflect. “What a terrifying mystery the world presents to us, Regis. We know so little of the way things really are; of what we are, finally.”

“True.”

“A neutrino has no mass nor electrical charge and can pass through the planet in the twinkling of an eye. It’s a ghost. And yet it’s real, we know it’s there, it exists. Ghosts are everywhere, I think; they’re right beside us … lost souls … the unquiet dead. You know I wonder if …”

Turning to the Jesuit beside him, he broke off and looked puzzled, then taken aback. He looked around and behind him, frowning in bewilderment. He said, “Regis?”

There was nobody