Ghosts of Mayfield Court Read Online Free

sense to send a lad for me out at Thornton Heath, and when I came in the back way into your garden, I saw the skeleton too.’
    At last! I was to be vindicated. Whoever this Dr Tracy was, my heart warmed to him. He turned then to address me directly.
    â€˜There,’ he said, ‘your colour is returning. You will be quite all right, now. Mr Paget, ask someone to bring your niece a cup of well-sweetened tea.’
    Uncle Max made no move to accede to the doctor’s request. He seemed dazed, as though talk of the skeleton had robbed him of the will to act.
    â€˜This skeleton,’ he said at last, ‘what’s to be done?
Must
anything be done?’
    The doctor drew a watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it.
    â€˜Oh, yes, Mr Paget,’ he said, ‘something must certainly be done. It’s just after eleven o’clock. I have already sent a note to a neighbour of mine at Thornton Heath, and he should be here by twelve. He was working on his smallholding when I left, and I know he’ll call in to the Volunteer for a glass of gin before setting off for his work in Warwick. But when he gets my note, he’ll come here.’
    While the doctor was talking, Uncle Max had regained control of himself. I saw the beginnings of a sardonic smile hovering about his lips.
    â€˜And this gin-drinking smallholder,’ he enquired, ‘is he an authority on skeletons?’
    â€˜Well, yes, he is,’ said the doctor, smiling in his turn. ‘I’ll leave you, now. My neighbour will be here within the half-hour.’

2

Catherine’s Narrative: Laying the Ghost
    â€˜T here’s somebody making his way through that wilderness of a carriage drive,’ said Uncle Max. ‘Probably a fellow yokel come to call on the peasant woman.’
    It was just over half an hour after Dr Tracy had left. I joined my uncle at the window, and saw a heavy, thickset man approaching the front door of Mayfield Court. Despite the summer heat, he was clad in a buff overcoat which he wore open, so that it flapped about him as he walked. Beneath the overcoat he wore a dark moleskin suit, the trouser legs tied around his ankles with string.
    The man held a riding crop, which he used to beat a way through the tangled weeds growing over the path. As he neared the door, I could see that he had a clean-shaven face, which was flushed either with exertion, or with what Uncle would have called ‘ardent spirits’.
    There was a brisk knock on the door, and presently Mrs Doake came into the room. She gave a little bob of a curtsy in Uncle’s direction, and told us that Mr Bottomley had ridden over from Thornton Heath to see us. In a moment, the man called Bottomley came into the room.
    â€˜Mr Paget?’ he asked. His voice held the pleasant accents of a Warwickshire man. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Bottomley of theWarwickshire Constabulary.’ He fumbled in one of the pockets of his overcoat, and produced a rather grimy warrant-card. I noticed that there was soil beneath his fingernails.
    â€˜You’d better go out into the garden straight away,’ said Uncle Max. ‘I have no desire to see this skeleton myself, and it would not be fitting for my niece to do so a second time. The woman who looks after us here will show you the way.’
    Our rustic visitor treated Uncle Max to an amiable lopsided smile.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘I’ll be looking at the skeleton in a little while – but not just yet.’ His face became suddenly grave, and he turned to look at me from a pair of fine, shrewd grey eyes.
    â€˜I’m told by Mrs Doake that you are Miss Catherine Paget,’ he said, ‘and that you are the young lady who has been seeing ghosts.’ There was no mockery lurking behind his words, and when he asked me to give an account of what I had seen, I had no difficulty in confiding in him. Uncle, I noticed, had fallen silent. Leaving him to his