‘So? I was down by the lake myself this morning. That trail must have been mine: I was right at the pumping-shed, then walked straight back here, to the back door in fact, about two hours ago. So that was my trail.’
‘Of course. I’m sure it is. But just possibly not. You see, with our own tracker dogs, we’d given them a scent start with one of this man’s socks. And this seemed to set them off. Took off at once, straight up here. Of course, it’s probably nothing. But we ought to make sure.’
‘You mean?’
‘Well, how long were you out of the house this morning?’
‘An hour. Not more.’
‘And your domestic staff? They were in the back of the house all the time. In the kitchen?’
‘No. Not this morning, now I come to think of it. My housekeeper went to Stow. And her husband’s away. And Mary, the daily help, she leaves before midday.’
‘And your gardeners? They were in the yard?’
‘No. They were thinning wood on the other side of the park.’
‘So there was no one in the house, or the yard, for more than an hour this morning?’
‘No. I suppose not.’
‘Well, I think we ought to make sure then, Miss Troy.’
‘You mean he could have come in here?’
‘You didn’t have your alarm on, did you?’
‘No. I don’t bother. Not during the day.’
‘It’s just a chance, then. You don’t mind us looking round the house? It’s a big place. He could have come up to steal something, and then hidden somewhere. It’s better to be sure. He’s dangerous, Miss Troy. Especially if you’re here on your own.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard. And what happened to his poor child, by the way?’
‘Oh, the little girl is quite safe. Being looked after, in the Banbury hospital for the moment.’
‘Well, of course, if you think it necessary, take a look round. But are you sure?’
‘I’m sure we should take every precaution, Miss Troy, every nook and cranny …’
The Superintendent’s voice faded as they walked out of the conservatory, back into the library, and by then I was out from my hiding-place and moving over towards the big glass doors that opened from the conservatory onto the garden terraces and the parkland to the east beyond. It was time to get back to the woods if I could, I thought. But in any case I had to get out of the house.
Luckily I never opened the door. As I touched the handle I saw two policemen in gumboots coming towards the Manor along the beech hedge which divided the terraced gardens from the yard area behind. I drew back quickly. I couldn’t leave the house by way of the library and the great hall, I could hear people moving out there already, and I didn’t dare stay cornered, with my back to a wall hidden behind the camellias.
I looked up at the Juliet balcony with its slim Gothic balustrades high above me. And then I saw, just to the side of this, a dozen cast-iron rungs that had been set into the wall of the house leading up to it — part of some old fire escape, I imagined. That was the only answer.
I climbed up fast, pulled myself over onto the balcony and opened a glass door that led onto the Minstrels’ Gallery that ran all round one side of the library and the hall, but which gave off immediately to my right into a long corridor I’d not seen before. And then I was running soundlessly, in the soft moccasins, down the carpeted landing of this unknown house, wondering where to hide in such a vast place — yet a place whose every nook and cranny was about to be exposed.
This first-floor bedroom corridor ran northwards, towards the back of the house, before turning left and giving onto a small half-landing, part of the back stairs which led up from the kitchen area. From a window here I saw the two policemen again, out in the yard. But this time they had a tracker Alsatian with them. If they brought the dog in I was done for. But in any case I would have to go upwards — to the second floor, the attics? Perhaps I could hide behind an old water-tank beneath the eaves — or better, get out onto one of the many haphazard roofs that, given the generally bizarre design of the house, could well hide me completely from the ground below. I heard the tramp of feet on the lower floor; doors opening, furniture being moved. There must have been half a dozen men combing the place beneath me. I ran on.
This servants’ staircase led up from the half-landing to the second floor into a narrow twisting badly-lit corridor. And here the elaborate restoration of the house had come to a full stop. The landing was in considerable disorder and there was a slightly musty smell in the air. The heavy varnish had been stripped from the panelling, and whole panels removed, leaving damp patches, old water-marks on the rough plaster behind. Repairs had been started here and then abandoned. And now the corridor had been turned into a long storeroom, it seemed. It was littered with expensive Victorian bric-à-brac of all kinds, like a room in Sothebys before some important sale of nineteenth-century effects. There were pictures stacked against the walls: lesser pre-Raphaelites, nude slave girls and piping Grecian dancers. There were great, elaborate cast-iron fireguards and fenders, magnificent brass telescopes on huge tripods; early, but essentially decorative, scientific equipment, wind gauges and strangle mechanical devices beneath great glass domes. And there were Victorian display-cases everywhere, of butterflies, moths and wild flowers; and larger boxes filled with stuffed fish and animals: a huge pike, two wildcats fighting, a golden eagle. It was more a museum than a corridor, where the objects had all been assembled but not yet put together.
I had to move carefully now, in this crowded gloom, clambering over half-opened packing cases, coming towards a sinister shape: it was a magic lantern, I found when I squeezed past it, set on a tall stand that looked at first like a man with one great Gorgon’s eye, wearing a stovepipe hat. And then straight in front of me — I couldn’t avoid stepping on it — was a crocodile, ten feet long, lying out along the floor, its snout raised, teeth bared below two beady eyes. My heart thumped like a drum as I veered sideways trying to avoid it. But I couldn’t, and as my foot touched it I waited for the searing pain as its teeth sank into me … Of course it didn’t move. It was dead, perfectly preserved, some Victorian memento from the Nile.
The landing got darker as I went further along it, pushing myself slowly and much more gingerly now through this strange debris. Without more light I couldn’t safely or soundlessly go much further. I opened a door to my left. It was a nursery. Or at least it was filled with a lot of old nursery toys: a wooden steam-engine big enough for a child to sit on, with two canary-coloured carriages linked behind; a rocking-horse, prancing wildly, front feet splayed out dramatically on the long runners. A collection of Victorian china dolls in lacy dresses and red ribbons stared at me with big blackberry eyes, sitting neatly, mutely, all tight together in a line along a miniature sofa, and there was a vast dolls’ house, sufficient almost for a child to live in, over by the window.
But it was the window that I really noticed. It gave out onto a lead guttering with an interior slated roof rising up to the left a few yards away. I opened the small sash. But just as I did so my heart bolted again: there was a sudden, terrifying, unearthly shriek from immediately outside. A great bird rose up right in front of my face, its wings brushing my hair: a huge, mythical thing, it seemed, a multi-coloured nightmare in shimmering blues and greens with a long tail. Peacock-blue. It was a peacock, I saw, as it flew off the ledge down towards the flat top of a great cedar tree in the garden below.
But at least from here, I saw now, I could get out and look around for some completely hidden part of the roof. Or perhaps I could even get down to the ground from the big tower which I could see now, too — Alice’s tower where she had her rooms — which rose above another taller roof near the centre of the house.