Read Hell to Pay for Free Online

carpeting was Persian. All the closed doors looked very solid. I wondered if the Griffins locked their doors at night. I would, in a place like this. And with a family like this. Hobbes closed the elevator doors with a flourish and came forward to stand uncomfortably close beside me. Invading someone’s personal space is a standard intimidation tactic, but in my time I’d faced down Beings on the Street of the Gods and made them cry like babies. It would take more than one severely up-himself butler to put me off my game.
    “This is the top floor, sir. All the family bedrooms are here. Though of course not every member of the family is always in residence at the same time. Master William and Miss Eleanor have their own domiciles, in town. Master Paul and Miss Melissa do not. Mr. Griffin requires that they live here.”
    I frowned. “He doesn’t let the children live with their own parents?”
    “Again, a security measure, sir.”
    “Show me Melissa’s room,” I said, to remind him who was in charge here.
    He led the way down the corridor. It was a long corridor, with a lot of doors.
    “Guest rooms?” I said, gesturing.
    “Oh no, sir. Guests are never permitted to stay over, sir. Only the family sleep under this roof. Security, again. All these rooms are family bedrooms. So that every member can move back and forth, as the fancy takes them, when they get bored with the trappings of a particular room. I am given to understand that boredom can be a very real problem with immortals, sir.”
    We walked on some more. “So,” I said. “What do you think happened to Melissa, Hobbes?”
    He didn’t even look at me. “I really couldn’t say, sir.”
    “But you must have an opinion?”
    “I try very hard not to, sir. Opinions only get in the way of providing a proper service to the family.”
    “What did you do before you came here, Hobbes?”
    “Oh, I’ve always been in service, sir.”
    I could believe that. No-one gets that supercilious without years of on-the-job training. “How about the rest of the staff? Did none of them see or hear anything suspicious, or out of the ordinary, before or after Melissa disappeared?”
    “I did question every member of the staff most thoroughly, sir. They would have told me if they’d known anything. Anything at all.”
    “On the evening Melissa vanished, did you admit any unusual or unexpected visitors to the Hall?”
    “People are always coming and going, sir.”
    I gave him one of my hard looks. “Are you always this evasive, Hobbes?”
    “I do my best, sir. This is Miss Melissa’s room.”
    We stopped before a door that looked no different from any of the others. Solid wood, sensibly closed. No obvious signs of attack or forced entry. I tried the brass handle, and it turned easily in my grasp. I pushed the door open and looked in. The room before me was completely empty. No boy band posters on the walls, no fluffy animals, no furniture. Just four bare walls, a bare bed, and an even barer wooden floor. Nothing to show a teenage girl had ever occupied this room. I glared at Hobbes.
    “Tell me her room didn’t always look like this.”
    “It didn’t always look like this, sir.”
    “Did the Griffin order this room emptied?”
    “No, sir. This is exactly how I found it.”
    “Explain,” I said, just a little dangerously.
    “Yes, sir. Miss Melissa was supposed to join the rest of the family for the evening meal. The Master and Mistress have always been very firm that all members of the family should dine together, when in residence. Master William and Miss Eleanor were present, and her son Master Paul, but Miss Melissa was late, which was most unlike her. When she didn’t appear, I was sent to summon her. When I got here, the door was ajar. I knocked, but received no reply. When I ventured to look inside, in case she was feeling unwell, I found the room as you see it now. Miss Melissa never was much of a one for comforts or trinkets, but even so, this seemed