Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

nose at us. ‘And I have good reason to believe in the power of this room, as I shall tell you presently. Then there is the Screaming Staircase. To me, this is a more mysterious tale. The stairs wind from the Long Gallery, on the ground floor, up to the landing. They are made of stone and are very ancient. I myself have never experienced any ill sensation on these stairs, and I do not know of anyone who has. But it’s said that long ago they witnessed some great horror, and that the souls of those involved are trapped within. At certain times,perhaps when the power of these Visitors is at its height, perhaps when they sense the presence of a new victim, you can hear their frenzied howling. It emanates from the stairs themselves.’
    Lockwood spoke softly. ‘The actual staircase screams?’
    ‘Apparently. I have never heard it.’
    ‘About the Red Room . . .’ George was finishing his doughnut; he paused and swallowed. ‘You say it’s on the first floor? Would that be the same level as the window in this picture?’
    ‘Yes . . . I suppose it would be about there. Do you mind not spraying sugar on the photograph? I don’t have another copy.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘This is fascinating,’ Lockwood said. ‘From what you’re saying, there is more than one Visitor in the house. More than one Source. A cluster of ghosts, in other words. You believe that to be true?’
    ‘Certainly,’ Fairfax said. ‘I can feel them.’
    ‘Yes, but how did it begin? There must have been some key event, some central trauma that started it all . . . It begs the question – which Visitor was first?’ Lockwood tapped his fingertips together. ‘Is the house empty now?’
    ‘The West Wing is certainly unoccupied, for that is where the danger is concentrated. My man, Starkins, has been caretaker for many years. He lives in an adjacent building.’
    ‘And where do you stay, sir, when you visit the property?’
    ‘I have a suite in the East Wing, which is relatively modern. It has its own entrance, and is separated from the main section of the house by iron doors on every floor. I installed them myself, along with the best defences money can buy, and my sleep has not been disturbed.’ The old man regarded us all fixedly in turn. ‘I am by no means a coward, but I would not for any consideration spend the night alone in the old wing of Combe Carey Hall. However’ – he fingered the iron bulldog lovingly – ‘that is precisely what I am asking you to do.’
    My heart jumped. I made some small adjustment to my skirt, but was otherwise quite still. Lockwood’s eyes were shining. George’s were, as ever, expressionless; slowly he took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses on the front of his jumper. We waited.
    ‘You would not be the first to make this attempt,’ Fairfax went on. ‘The same questions Mr Lockwood has just articulated were on the mind of the previous owner too. Thirty years ago he decided to investigate, and hired a small team from the Fittes Agency – a youth, a girl and their adult supervisor – to conduct initial explorations. They agreed to spend the night in the house, focusing their attention on the so-called Red Room. Well, they followed standard procedures. The main door to the house was left unlocked, so they had a clear avenue of escape. They rigged up an internaltelephone in the Red Room itself; this was connected to the phone in Bert Starkins’s lodge, so that help – if necessary – might be summoned. They were all highly experienced operatives. The owner left them there at dusk. Some hours later, when he went to bed, Starkins noticed torchlight moving steadily in the windows of the upper floors. Around midnight the caretaker’s phone began to ring. He picked it up: it was the supervisor. He said that there had been some odd phenomena, and that he wished to check that the connection was working properly. Otherwise all was well. He was quite calm. He rang off, and Starkins went to bed. The phone did not ring again that night. In the morning, when Starkins and the owner met on the front steps, the Fittes group had not emerged. At seven-thirty they entered the Hall. The place was quiet; no one answered their calls. They knew where they had to go, of course; when they opened the door of the Red Room, they found the body of the supervisor lying face-down beside the telephone. He was ghost-touched and quite dead. The girl was on the far side of the room, crouched beside a window. I say crouched :