The Ghost

looked as though there was at least two days’ worth uncollected. The Emmetts were either away, or—what? Lying inside, dead? I was developing a morbid imagination. Some of the letters had been forwarded, with a sticker covering the original address. I scraped one of the labels back with my thumb. Emmett, I learned, was president emeritus of something called the Arcadia Institution, with an address in Washington, DC.
    Emmett…Emmett…For some reason that name was familiar to me. I stuffed the letters back in the box and returned to my car. I opened my suitcase, took out the package addressed to McAra, and ten minutes later I’d found what I had vaguely remembered: P. Emmett (St. John’s) was one of the cast of the Footlights revue, pictured with Lang. He was the oldest of the group, the one who I’d thought was a postgraduate. He had shorter hair than the others, looked more conventional: “square,” as the expression went at that time. Was this what had brought McAra all the way up here: yet more research about Cambridge? Emmett was mentioned in the memoirs, too, now I came to think about it. I picked up the manuscript and thumbed my way through the section on Lang’s university days, but his name didn’t appear there. Instead he was quoted at the start of the very last chapter:
    Professor Paul Emmett of Harvard University has written of the unique importance of the English-speaking peoples in the spread of democracy around the world: “As long as these nations stand together, freedom is safe; whenever they have faltered, tyranny has gathered strength.” I profoundly agree with this sentiment.
    The squirrel came back and regarded me malevolently from the roadside.
    Odd: that was my overwhelming feeling about everything at that moment. Odd.
    I don’t know exactly how long I sat there. I do remember that I was so bemused I forgot to turn on the Ford’s heater, and it was only when I heard the sound of another car approaching that I realized how cold and stiff I had become. I looked in the mirror and saw a pair of headlights, and then a small Japanese car drove past me. A middle-aged, dark-haired woman was at the wheel, and next to her was a man of about sixty, wearing glasses and a jacket and tie. He turned to stare at me, and I knew at once it was Emmett, not because I recognized him (I didn’t) but because I couldn’t imagine who else would be traveling down such a quiet road. The car pulled up outside the entrance to the drive, and I saw Emmett get out to empty his mailbox. Once again, he peered in my direction, and I thought he might be about to come down and challenge me. Instead, he returned to the car, which then moved on, out of my line of sight, presumably up to the house.
    I stuffed the photographs and the page from the memoirs into my shoulder bag, gave the Emmetts ten minutes to open the place up and settle themselves in, then turned on the engine and drove up to the gate. This time, when I pressed the buzzer, the answer came immediately.
    “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.
    “Is that Mrs. Emmett?”
    “Who is this?”
    “I wondered if I could have a word with Professor Emmett.”
    “He’s very tired.” She had a drawling voice, something between an English aristocrat and a southern belle, and the tinny quality of the intercom accentuated it: “S’vair tahd.”
    “I won’t keep him long.”
    “Do you have an appointment?”
    “It’s about Adam Lang. I’m assisting him with his memoirs.”
    “Just a moment please.”
    I knew they’d be studying me on the video camera. I tried to adopt a suitably respectable pose. When the intercom crackled again, it was an American male voice that spoke: resonant, fruity, actorish.
    “This is Paul Emmett. I believe you must have made a mistake.”
    “You were at Cambridge with Mr. Lang, I believe?”
    “We were contemporaries, yes, but I can’t claim to know him.”
    “I have a picture of the two of you together in a Footlights revue.”
    There was a long pause.
    “Come on up to the house.”
    There was a whine of an electric motor, and the gate slowly opened.
    As I followed the drive, the big three-story house gradually appeared through the trees: a central section built of gray stone flanked by wings made of wood and painted white. Most of the windows were arched, with small panes of rippled glass and big slatted shutters. It could have been any age, from six months to a century. Several steps led up to a pillared porch, where