Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

was listening to another sound – far off, but swiftly drawing near.
    The locket was blisteringly cold; so cold it burned my skin. ‘Here you are,’ I said. ‘All yours.’
    With that I held my arm outstretched, and turned my head aside.
    Up on the wall, the photo of young Fairfax, legs valiantly akimbo, thoughtfully considered the mouldering skull. Here in the library, the old, decrepit Fairfax stared in sudden consternation at the necklace in my hand.
    Air struck the side of my face. My hair stretched out behind me; chair-legs scraped on carpets, tables shifted. I heard a great collective thump as all the books in the room slammed against the back wall of the shelves. Percy Grebe,who had been doing something with his gun, was blown back off his feet; he hit a bookshelf hard and collapsed onto the floor. Lockwood’s chair spun into George’s. Both were pressed back in their seats by the wave of force erupting from my hand.
    All the light bulbs in the library blew.
    But it wasn’t dark; to me the room grew brighter, because the girl was there. She wore her pretty summer dress with orange flowers. She stood between me and Fairfax, and now the other-light radiated from her like water: it poured in torrents, gushing over chairs and rugs, and spilling around the reading desks in a bright and freezing tide.
    ‘ I’m cold ,’ a voice said. ‘ So very cold .’
    Into my head came the little hollow knocking sound I’d heard at Sheen Road the night it all began, like a fingernail on plaster or a nail being hammered into wood. It was rhythmic now, like the beating of a heart. Otherwise it was all dead quiet. For an instant the ghost-girl’s eyes met mine; then she turned to face the old man in the chair.
    Fairfax sensed but could not see her clearly. He was looking wildly all around. Suddenly his fingers scrabbled on the table. He found the goggles, pressed them to his eyes. He looked, he frowned: at once his face went slack, his body very still.
    The ghost-girl drifted towards him, light streaming from her hair.
    The goggles drooped in Fairfax’s hand, hung at an acute diagonal across his nose. They fell away. His eyes were rapt with wonder and an awful fear. As a gentleman does when a lady enters the room, he got slowly, shakily to his feet. He stood there, waiting.
    The girl opened her arms out wide.
    Perhaps Fairfax tried to move. Perhaps he tried to defend himself. But ghost-lock had him in its grip. His sword-arm twitched slightly, his hand hung helpless above his belt.
    Off to the side, Lockwood fought free of the baleful influence; he tugged at George’s arm, pulled him back behind the chairs and safely out of range.
    Coils of other-light, like giant fingers, closed in on Fairfax from all sides. And now the girl had reached him. Plasm touched the iron armour; it hissed and bubbled. The girl’s form wavered, but held firm. She looked into the old man’s eyes. He opened his mouth; he seemed about to speak . . . She clasped him to her, drew him downwards in a cold embrace.
    Fairfax gave a single hollow cry.
    And the other-light went out.
    The room was dark. I tilted my hand; the locket fell and broke into pieces on the floor.
    ‘Quickly! George – get Grebe!’ That was Lockwood shouting. The chauffeur’s form could just be seen, blundering away across the room, knocking against furniture, making forthe lobby. Lockwood grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and followed. George leaped in pursuit too, skimming a cushion past Grebe’s head. Grebe ducked; his silhouette was outlined hazily against the lobby arch. He turned: a flash, a crack, a bullet whipped between us into the dark.
    Lockwood and George reached the arch, paused a moment, and passed through. Then at once there came a shouting and a crashing, and the sounds of voices raised, and despite the pain in my injured hand, I too was stumbling to the lobby – where to my astonishment I found the chauffeur sprawling on the ground with Lockwood’s poker at his throat, the main entrance doors wide open, and Inspector Barnes and a crowd of grim-faced agents clustering into the Hall.

V
    And After

25

    Whatever it was that Lockwood had scribbled in his note to Inspector Barnes, it certainly had the desired effect. The taxi driver had delivered the message to Scotland Yard late the previous evening; by midnight Barnes had gathered two van-loads of DEPRAC officers and agency personnel, and was on his way to Berkshire. They reached the village of Combe