Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

small square space in which we stood, and a long spur running behind usparallel to the stairs. It had a polished wooden floor. There were five doors leading off: one on our right, one straight ahead and three at intervals along the spur. All the doors were closed. Lockwood and I stood silently, using our eyes and ears.
    ‘Nothing,’ I said at last. ‘As soon as I got to the top, the knocking noises stopped.’
    Lockwood took a while to speak. ‘No death-glows,’ he said. From the heaviness in his voice I knew that he too felt malaise – that strange sluggishness, that dead weight in the muscles that comes when a Visitor is near. He sighed faintly. ‘Well, ladies first, Lucy. Pick a door.’
    ‘Not me. I picked a door in that orphanage case and you know what happened then.’
    ‘That all turned out fine, didn’t it?’
    ‘Only because I ducked. All right, let’s take this one, but you’re going in first.’
    I’d chosen the nearest, the one on the right. It turned out to lead to a recently fitted bathroom. Modern tiling gleamed eagerly as the torch swept by. There was a big white bath, a sink and toilet, and also a distant smell of jasmine soap. Neither of us found anything noticeable here, though the temperature was the same as the landing.
    Lockwood tried the next door. It opened into a large back bedroom, which had been converted into possibly the messiest study in London. Torchlight showed a heavywooden desk set beneath a curtained window. The desk was almost invisible under stacks of papers, and further teetering piles were placed, higgledy-piggledy, all across the room. A row of dark bookshelves, chaotically filled, ran down three-quarters of the far side-wall. There were cupboards, an old leather chair beside the desk, and a faintly masculine smell about the room. I tasted aftershave, whisky, even tobacco.
    It was bitterly cold now. The dial at my belt showed two degrees.
    I stepped carefully round the paper stacks and pulled apart the curtains, disturbing enough dust to set me coughing. Dim white light from the houses across the garden drifted into the room.
    Lockwood was looking at an ancient frayed rug upon the wooden floor, nudging it to and fro with the toe of his shoe. ‘Old pressure marks,’ he said. ‘Used to be a bed here before Mr Hope took over . . .’ He shrugged, surveyed the room. ‘Maybe he’s come back to sort out his paperwork.’
    ‘This is it,’ I said. ‘This is where the Source is. Look at the temperature. And don’t you feel heavy, almost numb?’
    Lockwood nodded. ‘Plus this is where Mrs Hope saw her legendary “moving shape”.’
    A door slammed, loudly, somewhere below us in the house. Both of us jumped. ‘I think you’re right,’ Lockwood said. ‘This is the place. We should rig up a circle here.’
    ‘Filings or chains?’
    ‘Oh, filings. Filings will be fine.’
    ‘Are you sure? It’s not even nine o’clock, and its power’s already strong.’
    ‘Not that strong. Besides, whatever Mr Hope wants, I can’t believe he’s suddenly turned malevolent. Filings will be more than adequate.’ He hesitated. ‘Also . . .’
    I looked at him. ‘Also what?’
    ‘I forgot to bring the chains. Don’t stare at me like that. You do weird things with your eyes.’
    ‘ You forgot to bring the chains? Lockwood—’
    ‘George took them out to oil them and I didn’t check he’d put them back. So it’s George’s fault, really. Listen, it doesn’t matter. We don’t need them for a job like this, do we? Get the iron set up while I scan the other rooms. Then we focus here.’
    I had a lot more to say, but now wasn’t the time. I took a deep breath. ‘Well, don’t get into trouble,’ I said. ‘Last time you went wandering off during a case, you got yourself locked in the toilet.’
    ‘A ghost shut me in, I keep telling you.’
    ‘So you claim, but there was not a shred of evidence that—’
    But he was already gone.
    It didn’t take me long to carry out my task. I hauled several stacks of dusty yellowed paper over to the edges of theroom to make space in the centre of the floor. Then I pulled the rug aside, and scattered the filings in a circle, giving it a fairly small radius, so as not to waste the iron. This would be our primary refuge, where we could retreat if necessary, but we might need other circles too, depending on what we found.
    I went out onto the landing. ‘I’m just going down to get more iron.’
    Lockwood’s voice echoed from a