The Devil's Serenade Read Online Free

someone had last been up there? Maybe months or years ago. No, sooner than that. Aunt Charlotte’s estate had been assessed for probate, so someone must have gone up there in the last few months. Or maybe today. My skin prickled.
    But I needed to be sure. This was my house. These rooms, stairs, hell, the bricks and mortar of the place were mine. I couldn’t be scared of my own home! Besides, much better to go up there in daylight with Charlie on the premises.
    I took a deep breath, gripped the umbrella tighter, grasped the banister and began my ascent.
    It smelled fusty up there. Unaired. I forced my trepidation down into the pit of my stomach and began opening doors which protested at the violation. I caught my breath at the sight behind one of them. Shrouds of white sheets greeted me. I tweaked the edge of one and it fell off in a cloud of dust, revealing an old grandfather clock with a cracked face, lying on its side. The wood looked worm-eaten and rotten. I couldn’t recall it from my childhood, so who knew how long it had been up here, forgotten and decaying?
    I threw the sheet back over it and sneezed. I would need to get a house clearance firm in to deal with this lot. More sheets shrouded old chairs with broken legs, worn coverings and further evidence of woodworm. Chipped mirrors, old bedroom furniture. This room had obviously been used as a general dumping ground for the broken and unloved detritus that any home will accumulate over time.
    The dust sheets revealed only a couple of familiar pieces. One was a stuffed eagle under a glass dome. I vaguely recalled it standing on the grand piano in the living room. The piano was still down there, but when the bird had fallen out of favor I had no idea. It stared at me through yellow glass eyes. Astonishingly realistic. I shuddered. There was something malevolent in that gaze. A crazy thought struck me for a second. Almost as if the bird were still alive.
    An old wind-up gramophone, in an oak cabinet, stood in a corner. The lid was up and a dusty 78 sat on the turntable. I moved closer and peered at the label, brushing it to make out the title. “Serenade in Blue”, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. A veil lifted in my head and a dim memory stirred. The opening strains of that old tune. For such a sweet love song, the first few bars held a darkness in them—almost ominous—before the familiar strains of the melody kicked in. An inexplicable feeling of despair sent my spirits plummeting as I stared at the old record. The familiar His Master’s Voice logo of the dog and the phonograph. I imagined it spinning on the record player and felt suddenly cold. I shivered, turned back to the bird and threw the sheet over it. Why should an old Glenn Miller hit have such an extreme effect on me? Crazy! Something stirred in the back of my mind. Tantalizingly close, but just out of reach. I shook myself and hurried out of the room.
    None of the other rooms on that floor contained anything more than the odd worn carpet. The remaining cupboards were bare and there were no beds for any intruder to hide under.
    Only the uppermost floor remained. At the top of the stairs, a gust of wind hit me and I nearly fell back down again.
    I shrieked, but Charlie wouldn’t hear me. Not this far away.
    Out of the corner of my eye, something moved. A door was open. Something fluttered. A curtain. I swallowed hard. My hands shook as I let go of the banister and stepped forward.
    I let out a sigh of relief. The window in the room was open. Thin cotton drapes ruffled in the breeze. I half ran and pulled the sash window closed. The breeze stopped. The drapes stilled.
    I closed the last door on the top floor and made my way back downstairs, with still no explanation for what I had heard down there earlier. Maybe that open window created some sort of draft which made a door bang, and I had assumed it was Charlie coming back.
    He was emerging from the cellar as I wandered into the kitchen.
    I smiled at