“Like what?”
He had no answer.
“We've planned this well,” she said. “Gwyn's not going to stumble across anything, because we've not left any loose ends lying around.”
“She's heading for the steps,” he said.
Elaine looked out in time to see Gwyn started down for the beach, soon out of sight.
Will turned away from the window, a scowl on his face that made him look ten years older than he was. He walked swiftly toward the front door and pulled it open.
“Wait!”
He looked back at her.
She said, “Where are you going?”
“To follow her.”
“Is that wise?”
“I want to know what she's up to,” he said.
“She's just going for a walk on the beach.”
“That's what she told you, but she may have been lying,” he said.
“Will, she doesn't suspect that we're involved in this, that it's all a put-up job. She thinks that she's losing her sanity. You've talked to her; you know. She hasn't any reason to be suspicious of us, of anyone in the manor.”
He hesitated.
She said, “Let her go. She'll be back soon enough, all worn out and even more of a candidate for the sleep treatment.”
“What if she meets that Younger kid again?” he asked.
“So what if she does?”
“I don't like her talking with him.”
“What could happen?”
“She might tell him about the ghost.”
“And he'd think she was crazy. That couldn't hurt our plans any.”
He wiped a hand across his face, as if sloughing off his weariness, and he said, “Just the same, there's a chance, no matter how slight, that Younger will believe her, or part of what she says. Or perhaps he'll be able to convince her of the truth about Lamplight Cove. And, remember, she doesn't know what's happened at Jenkins' Niche just this morning. Any fragment of the truth might shatter the whole illusion.”
“Will, she simply won't take the word of someone like Younger — not against your word. Can't you see how much it means to her to have a family life again? She will swallow whatever you tell her.”
He frowned and said, “I wouldn't trust to that. After all, she's Younger's type, not mine, with a gutter heritage not unlike his. She and I are from different worlds; she and Younger are brother and sister below the surface, products of the same kind of parents. No, we have got to keep her away from everyone else, make sure her only contact is with the people in this house — until we've got her in the state we want.”
“Suppose she sees you following her.”
“She won't.”
“But suppose she does. Won't that do more to shatter the illusion of the loving uncle than anything Younger might be able to persuade her of?”
He hesitated.
“If you want to know what she's doing down there,” Elaine said, “you can use the binoculars from the edge of the cliff. That's safer; you won't be seen.”
“I don't know…” But he had already begun to close the door.
“Come on, then,” she said.
He closed the front door and followed her along the corridor that led to the rear of the house and the kitchen. But halfway there, he had already decided that his wife was correct, that nothing was to be gained by watching Gwyn on the beach. Even if she met Younger, her confidence in him would be unswayed, no matter what the boy said. “Forget it, Elaine,” he told her, stopping her before she reached the kitchen door. “She's not going to find anything on the beach.”
“Of course she isn't.”
“This is still a minor crisis,” he said. “But I think it's one we can deal with well enough.”
“What have you in mind?”
“I want to talk to Ben and Penny.”
“About another little performance?” Elaine smiled and touched his arm with one hand.
“You don't think that would be overdoing it, do you?” he asked, taking her hand in his and holding it tightly.
“Penny's a great actress.”
“But we don't want the girl getting too familiar with the — ghost,” he said. “That would take a lot of fire out of the big finale — and we've put too much thought into the last act to ruin it now.”
“Penny can handle it,” Elaine assured him.
He thought a moment and said, “We ought to have something prepared for her as soon as she gets back, to wipe out any gains in self-confidence that she might have gotten from the walk.”
“We'd better see Penny right away,” Elaine said, leading the way back toward the main Starr-case, her flowing brown hair like a cape from a nun's bonnet. “Gwyn might come back at any moment.”
Together, they went upstairs. '
At Ben Groves' door, at the far end of the main corridor from Gwyn's room, Elaine knocked three times, rapidly, waited for an answer. When Groves didn't respond, she knocked again, more insistently this time.
He opened the door, looking worried, smiled when he saw them and sighed. “It's only you,” he said, stepping back out of the way. “I thought it might be the kid.”
“The kid is why we're here,” Will said. He followed Elaine into the room while Groves closed and locked the door behind them. He did not sit down, for his nerves were too keen to allow him relaxation. Instead, he paced to the windows and back again, rubbing his hands together as if they were covered with something sticky.
“What's wrong?” Groves asked.
“She's gone out for a walk,” Barnaby said.
“The kid?”
“That's right — and to the beach.”
“She's supposed to be knocked out,” Groves protested.
“Well, she isn't,” Elaine said, somewhat crossly.
“And we've got to schedule a new performance,” Barnaby added.
“See if you can contact the spirit world now,” Elaine told Groves.
“What?” he asked, bewildered.
“The ghost,” Elaine said. “See if you can scare us up the ghost.”
Groves grinned, now. “Oh. Yeah, just a minute.”
He went to the closet door, opened it, pushed some clothes out of the way and looked up a dark flight of attic steps. “Penny, we're having a conference. You want to come down?”
A moment later, he stepped back to allow a blue-eyed blonde into the room. At her appearance, both Elaine and Will smiled, reassured that their plan was foolproof. Penny was almost an exact double for Gwyn Keller, as much like Gwyn as Ginny had been, at least in appearance.
“I guess it's time for me to start earning my money again,” Penny said, sitting on the edge of Groves' bed.
“That's right,” Elaine said. “And you're worth every penny of it.” She smiled as she offered around a pack of cigarettes.
FIFTEEN
She stood halfway between the surf and the cliff, at the turning in the beach where the dead girl had disappeared two days ago, when Gwyn had been chasing her. This had not been her original destination — at least not consciously. When she'd first left the house, against Elaine's wishes, she'd started walking northward, along the unexplored arm of the beach, with the excuse that the scenery would thus be new and more enjoyable than a walk into familiar places. In fifteen minutes, however, she understood that she was only trying to avoid a confrontation with the landmarks of past terrors. She was running, again. Resolute, then, she had turned and started back to the south, passed the stone steps and went on for another half an hour until she came, at a leisurely pace, to the bend in the beach. She half expected that here she would find something important, something she had overlooked and which would settle this whole thing — though she had no idea what this might be…
The sun was low in the sky, though it continued to make the beach as hot as an oven. And she was weak, still, and tired. She would not, however, give up the last shred of her hope. For the most part, she was convinced the ghost had never existed, that she'd never seen anything more than an hallucination, that the footprints were illusions, as were the broom marks that had followed them. But a glimmer of doubt still existed, deep inside of her, a minim of hope that it would all prove to be something else quite different. This glimmer kept her here, searching the clean sand with an intent gaze.