Maisey was close to tears. I remembered the face in the locket. That must have been Anna, a keepsake given to her friend. I wondered what it felt like to have a friend like that, a girl who was like a sister. It must be wonderful. And what would I do if I had such a friend and she disappeared? The answer was obvious. “So you applied for a job at Portis House,” I said, “to find her.”
Maisey nodded. “Matron took me on. I resigned my position in London, and Papa sent for my things. I told Papa the war was over, the men were coming home, and someone had to help the shell-shocked ones.”
“He didn’t want you looking into Anna’s disappearance,” Jack said.
“No. We fought over it. He said it was over, the Gersbachs had left somehow, Anna had forgotten about me, and that was all. She was just a girl, and girls forget. He thinks girls forget their best friends.” I’d never had a friend like Anna, but even I knew that was wrong. “So I pretended I’d let it go for a while, and then I told him I wanted to work at Portis House. He never suspected. He was just happy I wanted to work somewhere close to home.”
I leaned forward on the bench. “Maisey, have you heard anything about ghosts at Portis House? Anything at all?”
Her eyes widened. “Never,” she said. “Not until I started working there. I had spent many nights at Portis House, you understand. It wasn’t haunted. We never even joked about it. But after I came back . . .” She looked down at her lap, where she twisted her gloved hands together. “The staff talks, you know,” she said. “And the house had changed. They’d closed off the west wing. Mr. Gersbach’s library was an isolation cell. The gardens were overgrown. The entire house is—it’s rotting in some weird way. It was never like that before. It was a new house. There was never as much as a scratch in the paint when I stayed there. Now the plaster is falling from the ceiling in the west wing. And the feeling is different. As if there’s something wrong. I asked about the Gersbachs—I tried to be subtle—but no one knew anything. And then Matron put me on night shift . . .”
“What did you see?” I asked.
“There were sounds in the lav,” Maisey answered. “There was something awful about it; I didn’t even want to go in. I started thinking about Anna, wondering how she would feel if she saw her home like this, if she were here to see it being used as a madhouse, falling apart, a place of so much misery and suffering. And I started imagining that Anna really still was there, in the house somewhere, watching me.”
She stopped and dashed at the tears that had started in her eyes, then continued. “It started to feel real, as if she was trying to tell me something. I thought if she was haunting the place, it meant something terrible had happened to her, something unthinkable, and now she couldn’t rest. Then Mr. Childress had that awful nightmare, he started screaming, and—” She pressed her hand to her mouth again. “I know he didn’t mean it, but it was so terrifying. And on top of everything else I was thinking, I didn’t know what to do. So I lost my nerve. I packed a bag and got on my bicycle and went home.”
I leaned back on my bench, my shoulders sagging. She hadn’t actually seen the ghosts, then. “That was two weeks ago,” I said.
“Yes.” She sighed. “I’ve recovered now, and I’ve had time to think about it. I realize my imagination got away from me, and I’m no further along than when I started. But when you wrote me, I thought . . .”
“You thought Kitty could continue the investigation,” Jack said.
Maisey blinked. She seemed surprised he’d spoken, but then I realized she’d noticed the use of my first name. “I don’t know. I just know that nothing has been answered, and now I’ve gone, and perhaps—perhaps if you heard anything, if you found any answers, you could tell me. Perhaps they got sick? All of them?” She looked at me with pathetic hope in her eyes. “It could have happened. But then, who buried them? If Anna is dead, I want to pay my respects to her grave.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I heard that Mr. Gersbach dismissed all the servants.”
“What?” Maisey shook her head. “I didn’t know that. Would he have done that if the family was ill?”
“He told the servants they were moving.”
“Then why didn’t Anna tell me?” She looked helpless. “When I came home I heard that Mikael died in the war, that he was shot in some horrible way. Sweet, kind Mikael. Then I heard another rumor that he came home after all. I don’t know which one is true. Anna never wrote to me about it. If Mikael had died, it would have devastated her.”
“I promise, if I find out anything, I’ll let you know.”
“If we find out anything,” Jack said. He was still sitting in the grass, listening, looking at me.
“Jack,” I said, “it’s too risky. You said it yourself.”
“And you talked me out of it, remember?” He turned to Maisey, who sat tongue-tied. “Nurse Ravell, if I gave you some letters, would you take them to the village and post them for me?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Maisey said, “Yes, sir.”
“And if the replies were sent to you, could you keep them hidden and bring them here to me somehow?”
“No,” I said.
Jack turned to me. “Mikael Gersbach,” he said. “If there’s a record, no matter how secret, I can find it.” His blue eyes sparked. “England’s fallen hero is owed a few favors.”
“I could bring the replies here,” said Maisey. “To this spot. I could come early in the morning and leave them tucked under this bench here, where no one will see them.”
Jack stood, brushed the grass from his clothes. “I’ll check the spot on my morning run. I’ll put my letters out tomorrow morning. If you bring me a reply, wait two days and come again in case I have another.”
She sat up straight, her tears drying. “Yes, sir.”
“I hope it isn’t too much trouble, on that bicycle of yours.” He turned to me with half a grin on his face. He knew exactly what I’d been thinking.
“This is a terrible idea,” I protested.
“That’s too bad, because it’s yours.” He looked down at me, the sun changing the shade of his dark hair, the wind tousling it against his temples. “Besides, it’s no worse than what you’re planning.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” How did he know everything?
“Yes, you do. And if you’re going to do it, you’ll need my help. Don’t try it without me. And now,” he said with perfect solemnity, “exercise is over. Paulus said there’d be fresh pears at tea this afternoon, and I want to know if he was lying. Nurse Ravell—” He nodded good day to her stunned expression, and jogged back off through the trees.
“He seems . . . rather well,” Maisey said. “I don’t think he was like that when I was here.”
“Oh, God,” I replied. I’d just given a mental patient access to a bicycle, an accomplice, and private mail. Just because a man has lost his sanity does not mean he is incapable of subterfuge. In fact, they have no moral qualms at all. “What have I done?” I said to her. “I’ve enlisted a madman to help me. Now what should I do?”