Chapter 9: A Helpful Cousin

Pippa offered my aunt a cellar before anyone had opened the door.

"It might be somewhere quieter," she said.

Elaine looked at the black gap beneath the stairs.

"For whom?"

My cousin heard herself then and went red.

She'd spent years trying to solve arguments by finding someone a better room.

The house had made that habit considerably more dangerous.

I took the lamp from the sitting room table.

As host, I could use the things that belonged to the house.

That didn't make me eager to carry them into the cellar.

The tapping had stopped.

I wanted to find the person asking for help without giving my family an opportunity to allocate another bedroom.

"Pippa, stay beside me," I said.

"Rupert and Elaine, wait where you can see the door."

My brother said we shouldn't split up.

"Then come and help," I told him.

He became interested in checking whether the sitting room fire needed attention.

The cellar stairs were stone, wide enough for us to stand side by side.

I held the lamp low and called down.

An old woman sat on the bottom step with a china cup in her hands.

Its handle was missing.

She held it so carefully that I understood why Rosamund's shelf remained full.

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