Allegra Fairweather_ Paranormal Investigator - Janni Nell [40]
I suppressed a shudder at the thought of her sleeping beside Sir Alastair.
Avoiding the rooms of our hosts, we crept further down the hall and entered another bedroom. I swept the beam of my flashlight over the empty fireplace and stripped bed. No surprises here. It was just like all the other rooms. I went through the motions of checking the drawers but, as I had expected, didn’t find anything.
Four bedrooms and five doors later, I found the stairs that led to the attic.
It was dusty and cluttered with the cast-offs of the Maitland clan. As my flashlight raked the piles of junk my big toe began to itch.
I wriggled it but the itching got worse so I rubbed it up and down on the back of my leg as though I was shining my shoe.
“What’s wrong?” asked Casper.
“Just a cramp.” Even Casper doesn’t know about my itching toe. I don’t know why I haven’t told him. I guess it’s because an itching toe is such a silly thing. It isn’t glamorous like being surrounded by a golden glow or sexy like getting a tingle down my spine. It’s just odd.
Leaving Casper to sit on a packing case—he was there to protect, not help—I began sorting through the piles of junk.
I soon realized that not all of it was junk. There were several oil paintings, ancestral portraits, that looked as though they might have been valuable. What they were doing gathering dust in an attic was anyone’s guess. My guess was that Sir Alastair had too much money. He should share some of it. Preferably with me. Paranormal investigating isn’t that well paid. Most of the time.
I picked up a wooden music box, turned the key and opened the lid. It played an old fashioned waltz. Something by Strauss, I think. A battered ballerina twirled before a little mirror.
Like most music boxes it doubled as a jewelry box. Inside there was some costume jewelry, long beads like they wore in the 1920s, but nothing that appeared valuable. I stared at the ballerina until the tinkly tune slowed then stopped altogether. Gently I closed the music box and left it exactly where I’d found it.
I sorted my way through old bikes and a tricycle, creepy dolls with China heads, and some furniture. There was a wooden cradle and a cot that both looked old enough to have been Sir Alastair’s. I wondered whether he’d had any kids. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Lady Justina was his last chance to produce an heir.
Casper interrupted my thoughts. “We’ve been up here a long time. If you want to get some sleep maybe we should call it a night.”
I checked my watch. The hands were closing on two o’clock.
“I’m not going to bed,” I told Casper, “until I finish up here.”
I forced myself to wade through more junk wasting my time on wooden chests that contained school books and memorabilia, photographs of weddings and graduations, and yellowed greeting cards. Other chests contained clothes that were long out of date.
One even contained a collection of furs. I picked up an ugly fox stole—the kind where the mouth fastens onto the tail. Yuck. Underneath it was a long soft coat that might have been mink. Beneath the mink was a smooth dark pelt that I couldn’t identify. It hadn’t been made into a coat or stole. Probably someone had intended to have it made up then changed their mind. I bet it had cost a fortune.
As I replaced the coats in the chest, Casper asked, “Have you finished?”
I sighed. “There’s nothing here.”
So why was my toe still itching? Maybe I was tired. Or maybe there was a ghost living in the attic. A ghost would certainly explain the sensations in my toe.
Right about then I realized I was standing near the music box. Once again I picked it up. I ran my hand over the smooth lacquered wood. Had the itch in my toe gotten worse? No, I must be imagining it. I was certain—well, almost certain—that there was nothing paranormal about the music box.
I turned to Casper. “We’d better get back to our rooms.”
“Good idea,” he said.
We retraced our steps, tiptoeing past the rooms of our hosts. When we reached my room, I said, “Maybe I’ve got it wrong, Casper. Maybe these people have nothing to do with