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might have a family lunatic incarcerated at my cottage?”
    “It would not surprise me in the least. I know Jennet went trotting over there at first light this morning.”
    “Really?”
    “I saw her leave the house.”
    “Perhaps she was going only to get the eggs at the castle.”
    “Then why was she carrying a tray? And besides, she did not go up the gravel road; she cut across the shore. Must have been going to the cottage.”
    “Good God! Let us get the keys from Muffet and go up to the attic.”
    Muffet’s key chain held many keys, none of which opened the attic door. Cressida went to the saloon and rang for her housekeeper to demand the key.
    Tory handed it over with no argument and no discernible sign of reluctance. “I didn’t think Old Muffet would want to be climbing all them stairs to the attics. There is nothing but lumber up there,” she said.
    “I thought I heard a wailing noise last night,” Beau said.
    “That would be the wind, soughing through the loose windows. It sounds like a banshee some nights.”
    “But there was no wind last night,” Cressida said.
    “There is always a wind here on the coast,” was Tory’s reply. “The house is not haunted, if that is what you are getting at. The cottage is haunted, of course. Folks have seen and heard goings-on there of a dark night.”
    “Indeed?” Cressida said. And Dauntry had denied the charge flatly!
    “Was there anything else I could do for you, milady?”
    “That will be all for now, thank you, Tory.”
    Cressida and Beau darted upstairs, to find an attic much like any ordinary attic. Rooms of discarded lumber, trunks, and racks of old clothing gave off the musty smell of a room long closed up. There was no dust on the floor to reveal footprints. The attic space was divided into two large rooms.
    “Obviously no one has been staying here,” Cressida said, looking all around and walking into the next room, which was much like the first.
    Beau followed her, wedging his way past trunks and broken chairs and summer furniture to the window. “These frames fit like a hand in a glove and are nailed shut for good measure,” he said. “I should like to know how they let in any wind. Have a look at this, Sid.”
    She joined him. He pointed to splatters of candle wax on the floor.
    “That might have been there a decade,” she said.
    Poking about the accumulation of objects near the window, he pulled a pillow and roll of blankets from behind a dresser. When he unrolled the blankets, the missing copy of The Lady’s Companion fell out at his feet. They exchanged an astonished look.
    “I shall speak to Tory about this,” Cressida said, and took the magazine down to the saloon to summon her housekeeper once more.
    “Are you done with the key, milady?” Tory asked.
    “I shall leave it with Muffet. Do you usually keep the door locked, Tory?”
    “I do, and I keep the key in my pocket.” So saying, she tapped her voluminous apron, producing the rattle of keys.
    “Then how did this get up there?” Cressida asked, pointing to the magazine that now rested on the sofa table.
    Tory’s nervous tongue flicked out. “Up there, was it?” she asked, stalling for time. “It’s Jennet,” she said, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “She is not quite right in the head. A regular knock-in-the-cradle. She slips away by herself when she is upset. But she’s a good worker, mind.”
    “How did she get the key without your knowing it?”
    “It would be when she washed my apron, along with the sheets for the spare bed, wouldn’t it? I must have left them in the pocket. I’ll speak to her. It won’t happen again, milady.”
    It was clear to the meanest intelligence that Tory was lying. That nervous tongue betrayed her, but as her lively imagination could always find a reply to any question, Cressida released her with a reminder to keep an eye on Jennet.
    “Lying in her teeth,” Beau said when they were alone. “She knows what is afoot, right enough.