Excerpted: The Amethyst Cross, A Ghost Story for Christmas

At three-thirty on Wednesday, Dorothea duly arrived. There she was on the station, just as I knew she would be, in a new suit of Harris tweed, new brogues, a new felt hat set rakishly on her grey hair and trimmed with a black cock’s feather. In her luggage, no doubt, were the vacuum flasks, the plastic cups and saucers, the rubber cushion, for enjoying wild life on the moor; and strapped inside the raincoat and the woolly travelling rugs, I saw the inevitable ashplant. I took her back to the hotel to tea, and then we set out for St. Aubin.

The cottage delighted her; and I must admit that the sitting room, smartened up and polished, with its copper and brass gleaming and its freshly washed chintz curtains hung up, with a log fire blazing, and even the pictures restored to the walls, looked very attractive indeed. Yet still I did not like the place. But when I saw Aunt Dorothea’s transports, I really hadn’t the heart to mention to her about the murder and the supposed haunting. She would only laugh if I did. Let her find it out from Mrs Hawkins or one of the villagers, if she found it out at all.

Aunt Dorothea came downstairs. “It’s perfectly delightful!” she said, “and what a view! Why don’t you stay the night?”

I shuddered. “No, thanks. I must get back. I’ve got work to do. By the way, what did Mrs Hawkins say about a maid? I didn’t hear.” “Oh,” said Dorothea gaily, “she said she hadn’t been able to get anyone yet. She doesn’t think there’s any girl in the village who’d come as a maid; but she told me not to worry—she’d send up one of her own staff to clean up the place and cook me a meal, if all else failed. Well, dear, if you really must go…you’ll come to lunch on Sunday, of course?”

She followed me out into the stone-flagged entrance passage; and instantly her eye alighted hawkwise on the door opposite—the door of the room I had not examined, and which presumably was the best parlour. “What’s that room?” she said sharply, making a dive at the door and seizing the round brass knob. The knob was loose and rattled in her hand; but it did not turn, and the door did not open. “Funny!” said Dorothea.

“Oh yes!” I said nonchalantly, trying the handle myself. “It’s locked.”

“Well, that’s obvious!” snapped Dorothea. “Mrs Hawkins has forgotten to open it. I wonder where she has put the key?”

“Probably it’s the best parlour,” I said. “It may contain all sorts of treasures, I haven’t seen it myself.”

We walked out through the front door, and stepped back to look at the cottage from the outside. I noticed, now, that although Mrs Hawkins had hung up curtains in the right-hand window—that is, the sitting room—the window on the left hand, that of the presumed best parlour, was still blank and bare. “Funny!” said Dorothea again. She stepped up to the small window and tried to peer inside. But again she was baffled: a green canvas blind was pulled down, and no faintest peep of the room was visible.

“I’ll ask Mrs Hawkins to send the key up as I go past,” I said. An impulse of compunction came over me as I turned to say good-bye to Dorothea. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” I added. “Sure you wouldn’t rather come back to Broxeter for the night and start afresh tomorrow? Somehow I don’t quite like leaving you here alone.”

If I had been calculating how best to prevent Aunt Dorothea from weakening, I could not have found a surer way. A moment before, in spite of her six feet and her determined character so strongly impressed on her features, she had looked forlorn as she stood there; but at my words she pulled herself together. “Nonsense!” Out rapped the familiar word. “I shall be quite all right.” I said good-bye and turned to my car. “You will come to lunch on Sunday?” she called out, as I started up the engine. “I will!” I shouted back, and drove away.

I did not forget to call at The Three Grayling and enquire about the key of the locked room. “Well, miss,” said Mrs Hawkins—she had now finally dropped the more frigid “madam” reserved for hotel guests, and treated me as an old friend. “The fact is I can’t find the key anywhere. It worried me, as I wanted to get into the room to clean it up before your aunt came. But I’ve hunted high and low, and tried every bunch of keys in the hotel, and nothing works.” She drew closer. “You know, miss, it’s the room in which the poor old lady was found murdered—so they say. I’m thinking perhaps someone may have locked the door and thrown the key away. Still, I’ll have another look. It spoils the look of the cottage, one of the two front windows without curtains.”

I explained that Miss Hornwinder didn’t particularly want to use the room; but naturally she was curious to see the whole of the cottage she had rented. Mrs Hawkins replied that she’d do her best. “Oh, and by the way,” I said, “I do hope you’ll find someone to work for her; somebody to spend the night, if possible. I don’t quite like her being there alone. She’s used to it—she’s done it many times before. But this time somehow I’m not quite easy in my mind…” At this Mrs Hawkins looked more than doubtful; but again she said she’d do her best. I made my last request. “Don’t tell her about the murder,” I said. “It’ll serve no purpose. If she finds it out, it can’t be helped!” Mrs Hawkins promised and I drove away. I wouldn’t have changed places with Aunt Dorothea for fifty pounds.