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to hang in some great reception room in some big London flat or mansion somewhere around the Kensington area, real posh place by all accounts. Belonged to some single, really wealthy woman so the story goes. According to the antique’s dealer my Race bought it from, she made all her money dabbling in investments, but then it all went wrong and she lost everything and she was so desperate that she apparently committed suicide.’
    Sarah Dunhill stopped brushing her pastry with egg mixture to stare at her employer’s wife. ‘She what?’
    ‘Committed suicide. So the dealer said.’
    Quickly she related the tale as told to Race by the dealer, of a lover much younger than the woman who left her after she’d lost all her wealth in the Wall Street Crash in 1929, leaving her broke and devastated at his going.
    ‘The dealer said she was in ’er thirties but very striking and beautiful and dressed like someone in ’er twenties, and she was proper deep in love with this man, much younger than she was, and who made the most of it while she ’ad money. I suppose she was what they call a cradle snatcher.’
    ‘I know what that is,’ Sarah said, all ears now, pastry brush poised idly.
    ‘So in love, so the dealer said, that when she was left with no lover an’ no money, she must have gone funny and hung herself.’
    Again she related what Race had told her about the suicide, or the woman’s attempt of it which ended up with her being killed. Seeing her cook listening intently, she even began to embroider it a little.
    ‘The man told my Race that the chandelier itself could be haunted. I mean to say, something like that ’appening, it could very well be.’
    ‘How do you mean?’ asked Sarah, her eyes now wide in something near to horror, she having something of a superstitious nature.
    ‘Well, she could of thought that by committing suicide she’d make the man what left her feel guilty. Maybe she intended only to pretend to do it, or if she did, to come back and haunt him, or anyone else she fancied, to warn off being sucked into believing people were loyal when they’re not, you know …’ Millie broke off, aware of the other woman’s horrified expression. She gave a laugh. ‘Fer goodness sake, love, it’s only a tale the dealer told my husband and he’d swallow anything. But it got him to buy it, him being ’appy wiv a bit of drama to pass on to his posh friends about the thing.’
    ‘So it’s not true.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure it is. My husband said the dealer was really upset when he was telling him and he was sure it was genuine. He said he had tears in his eyes and the way he spoke really shook him. He said the dealer was a foreign bloke, and of course they’re really religious and believe in … what’s it called? Things like purgatory, something about suicides made to go there forever and never being let into paradise and instead doomed to wander the world or something. I’m not religious but who knows, maybe it’s true, who’s to say. I don’t know. I suppose that’s why I don’t like the thing much, even though I’ve never really been a superstitious person.’
    But Sarah Dunhill was. At home that day after work she told her daughter the story and then her neighbour and some of those at the WI she attended at the village hall. Soon it began to go round the village, a juicy tale like this, that the big room where the chandelier hung was possibly haunted.
    Sarah Dunhill even contemplated giving in her notice, but the money was a great boost to her pension and she couldn’t afford to and the work was easy enough. Anywhere else she might be asked to slave, and so she stayed on but kept well out of the room her employer loved to call his chandelier ballroom.
    The buffet looked sumptuous, though the party wasn’t as large as he had hoped for. Of all those he had invited, only thirty-five or so turned up, the rest apparently feeling the need to be with family on this busy night.
    It didn’t seem to