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character, an expert in erotica, and even today a few of his books were in the restricted stacks of libraries. He had been fascinated by the sexual customs of the East and had written of them with clinical precision. Many of his books had been privately printed, and although I had read none of them, I had read about all of them in a biography of Gordon Aunt Agatha had sent me years ago. The book had been written at the turn of the century, without the family’s authorization, and was delightfully florid in style. I remembered the account of the burning: Lady Arabella in white muslin dress and lavender shawl, face pale with horror as she threw page after page into the crackling orange flames. Judging from the books that had actually been published during his lifetime, those that had remained unpublished must really have been shockers, I thought. How exciting it would be if the manuscripts were still here in the house, turning to dust in some hidden nook or cranny. Very unlikely, I reasoned. Despite the evidence Craig Stanton had found, the manuscripts would surely have been discovered long before now, had they actually escaped the flames. Cold reason told one that.
    The merry warble of a robin broke my chain of thought, and I hurried back into my room. Opening my bags on the bed, I began to put my clothes in the chest drawers, taking the dresses over to the closet on wooden hangers. I had been wise to bring my own hangers, I saw, for there were none in the closet. As I intended to go directly on to Majorca, I had brought a variety of things, formal and informal, and I was glad now. I would have someone to wear the dresses for. I stroked the folds of the violet-blue silk cocktail dress, wondering what Craig Stanton’s reactions would be when he saw me in it. It was frightfully sexy, with no back at all, the swirling skirt several inches above my knees. I could visualize his expression, one dark brow arching in thoroughly male approval.…
    Stop it! I admonished myself. I had no intentions of wearing the dress for him. It didn’t matter what I wore around him. I had come to visit my aunt, not to try and captivate an arrogant young biographer who was far too sure of himself and far too cheeky for my taste.
    I was putting the empty suitcases on the closet shelf when I heard the footsteps on the back stairs across the hall. I couldn’t tell if they were coming up or going down, and I wondered who in the world it could be. Craig hadn’t had time to come back from Dower House yet, and he had told me this was the maid’s day off. Stepping out of the closet, I glanced toward the hall through the opened bedroom door. There was no one there, and the footsteps had been silenced, yet I had the peculiar sensation that someone had passed down the hall, pausing to glance into my room. I couldn’t have said why, yet the sensation was very strong. It was almost as though the air still bore the invisible impression of a presence there at the door. I went to the door and peered out. The hall was empty.
    Perhaps I had imagined the footsteps, I told myself. I had been making so much racket trying to heave the suitcases in place that I might easily have heard my own echoes. These old walls did strange things to noises, picking them up, magnifying them, throwing them back with unusual reverberations. I remembered how, on my earlier visit, I had lain awake for hours, listening to the night noises in the house and imagining all sorts of gruesome things. I had been a child then, with a child’s delight in ghost stories and tales of bloody horror, but I was a big girl now. I managed to laugh at my moment of uneasiness, stepping over to the great gilt mirror to brush my hair and apply a touch of pale pink lipstick.
    I left the room, closing the door behind me, and hoped I would be able to find my way down to the drawing room. The hall seemed inordinately long, and not nearly so well lighted as I would have preferred now