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“Good morning, sir.”

“Mr. Judge, I thought we’d come and have a look at your progress. How’s the job going? Did you have any luck with that door frame?”

“Yes, we did—took two men to pull it out, but we’ve solved the problem, and now we’re going great guns.”

James turned to Maisie. “Mind where you step now.”

The foreman led the way across the entrance hall and Maisie looked up at the sweeping staircase which led to the first floor. Scaffolding had been erected to enable men to reach the high ceilings and windows; it seemed the mansion was receiving complete refurbishment.

“When do you think the job will be finished?” James asked the foreman.

“You should be able to move in by Christmas, all being well.”

“Well done. Tell your men there will be a bonus for them if the work is completed by December twenty-third.”

“I’ll do that, sir, and I hope I’m not jeopardizing that bonus when I tell you the men are pretty determined to get the job done anyway.”

Maisie and James exchanged glances, and James smiled. “What do you mean, Mr. Judge? Is everything all right?”

The man shrugged and reddened. “It’s not the sort of thing that would bother me, but some of the lads are a bit uneasy, what with the fact that you’ve got some haunting going on here.”

James laughed, yet Maisie moved closer to the foreman. “What makes you think this house is haunted?”

“The noises. Creaking floorboards and all that. And things have gone missing. Ronnie said he could’ve sworn he had his sandwich box with him when he came in the other morning. He went back out to the van, came back in again, and what do you know—gone!”

James stepped forward. “Oh, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. I lived in this house almost all my life, and I assure you, if a ghost had crossed paths with my mother, I know who would have been given a fright—and it wouldn’t have been Lady Rowan Compton!”

“Tell me, Mr. Judge, have you been up to the old servants’ quarters yet?” asked Maisie. “The attic rooms? There’s a back staircase leading up there and a disguised door on every landing.”

“No, we won’t get to that part of the house for at least another couple of weeks, and no one’s been up there.”

At once Maisie was stepping quickly across the dust sheets, and then along the hallway until she reached a place where she pulled back another dust sheet and opened the door that many a visitor would not have noticed was there.

“Maisie, where are you going? Maisie! Maisie, have you lost your senses?”

She could hear James’ footsteps behind her, but now she was on the back stairs. Oh, how often she had gone up and down these stairs as a girl, a coal scuttle in hand, stopping on each floor to light the fires in the family’s reception rooms. As she made her way up, it was as if she were on a stairway to the past, but now she had only one thing in mind. She was in pursuit of a ghost.

Almost out of breath by the time she reached the attic floors, she stopped at the room she had once shared with a girl named Enid. She stood outside the door, caught her breath, and knocked with a light hand. She stepped with care across the threshold. To the right was a dressing table, on top of which was the typewriter that had once been placed in the library for the use of guests visiting the mansion—of course, that’s why the typeface on her letter from Sandra had seemed so familiar. She moved into the room and sat on the first of two cast-iron beds, reaching out to touch the young woman curled on her side with her eyes open, her cheeks red with the feverishness of so many shed tears.

“It’s all right, Sandra. I’ve got you, you poor love. I’ve got you.” Maisie leaned over and put her arms around the bony frame of Sandra Tapley. “I should have known you would come here. This was your home when you met Eric; it was where you fell in love. I should have known.” She waited a while as the sobs ebbed, rubbing Sandra’s back as if she were settling a baby for the night. “It’s over, Sandra. The police have got him—the man responsible