The Talking Board Read online

  The Talking Board

  The Investigations of Marianne Starr

  Book two

  Issy Brooke

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE TALKING BOARD

  First edition. October 7, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Issy Brooke.

  Written by Issy Brooke.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  THE END

  One

  Inspector Gladstone compulsively straightened everything on his desk as he spoke in measured tones, his working-class origins still shading his words with the grubbiness of the streets. But he was in charge of this London police station now, with an office of his own and everything a man of authority would need, on display all around him. Polished wood, and shiny brass, were the themes. He addressed the middle-aged constable, Bolton, but he was looking directly at Marianne while he spoke.

  “You must treat Miss Starr exactly as if she were a man, Bolton.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She smiled to herself.

  “I do mean what I say,” Inspector Gladstone insisted. “She is a professional, in her field. She has been educated. I have, insofar as is possible, set her expertise quite above yours. At least, in scientific matters. You can only overrule her in questions of policing. Do you see?”

  “Yes, sir. Happy to, sir.”

  Fat Constable Bolton seemed disinclined to argue. He smiled and nodded, and looked remarkably at ease. Inspector Gladstone seemed worried about that, and so was Marianne, now that she thought about it.

  “Well, then,” Inspector Gladstone said, nudging the stack of yellow paper one eighth of an inch to the left, and then nudging it back to its original position. “Well. Tonight, you shall have the full run of Rosedene and let us meet again tomorrow evening, where you can tell me all about the screaming.”

  The screaming, as it turned out, was not what she had expected.

  CONSTABLE BOLTON CONTINUED to be strangely affable as he walked with Marianne from the railway station to Rosedene. They were still technically in London, but it didn’t feel familiar. The area was old, with large rambling houses set in private grounds all walled and hedged about. Already, progress was nibbling at the edges of the suburb, as the city expanded and brought progress, development and demolition with it, flattening the old houses to put long terraces in their places. Rosedene itself was far enough away from that to be as yet untouched.

  “The Inspector is such a worrywart,” Bolton said in a chatty manner. He walked slowly so that Marianne could keep up, her skirts tangling her legs as she swished through fallen leaves on the pavement. “But me, see, I know how the world works.”

  So did Gladstone, Marianne thought. He was a rough young man, who had worked his way through the ranks, coming up from the streets like so many of the emerging influencers did. Such backgrounds made them effective – and something to be feared, too, by the upper classes, who did not understand why justice could not continue to be forced down on the masses from above.

  She didn’t say anything. Bolton prattled on. “I’m quite happy to let a woman be in charge. My mother was in charge. My wife is now in charge. My daughter, well, what she says, goes, in our house. Ha. Ha.” He laughed like a donkey and Marianne felt embarrassed in case someone heard him and looked their way. Maybe people would think she was being arrested, and that thought amused her, though it should not have done. “So you go ahead and be in charge, my lovely, and I shall do whatever you tell me! Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “Thank you,” she said politely. “I have no intention of becoming a drill sergeant and ordering you about. We are there to simply observe this reported strange phenomena. Have you a fear of ghosts at all, Constable Bolton?”

  “Don’t believe in them, miss. Not for one second. Life is odd enough without having things what are not alive running around as well.”

  “You are very sensible. Ah! The brass plate says Rosedene. We are here.”

  They both stood still for a moment and gazed through the twisted, rusty metal gates, which must stand permanently open. The path curved around, with lumpen cypresses along its edges, and the house itself was completely hidden from the road.

  “It is very much the place for a little Gothic adventure,” Marianne said. “I expect it to be all covered in ivy, with darkened windows and carved wood quite everywhere.”

  They crunched up the mossy gravel and came face to face with the house. Bolton laughed again. “You were right, miss. If I had to live here, I’d be screaming too. We shall find a hysterical kitchen maid at the root of all this, don’t you think?”

  “I quite agree.”

  They rang the bell.

  And waited for far too long before it was answered.

  IT WAS SEPTEMBER AND dusk fell early. The darkness came even earlier to Rosedene. In the true manner of Gothic houses, most of it was shut up, and only a few rooms were lived in by the odd bundle of occupants. The house was older than Marianne had first thought, with the huge central hall having an almost medieval feeling to it, due to its size and exposed timber beams. There was a wide cold fireplace with a pile of dry pinecones in the grate, and shadowy portraits leered at them from the dark walls. Mrs Peck, the housekeeper, left them by the fireplace and went off in search of Mrs Newman. “She’s not really American,” the housekeeper had said cryptically, in an apologetic tone before she left.

  Bolton and Marianne looked at one another in surprise. The policeman’s mouth twitched in a smile, and he said in a low voice, “That’s the one who’s called us here, this Mrs Newman.”

  “I glanced at the information the Inspector had put together. I know she’s a widow, just returned here – from America, obviously, but she’s actually English – and she thinks there is something strange going on.” Marianne looked around. “She’s probably just allergic to dust and darkness and spiders. I can’t blame her.”

  She was expecting a widow to match these dark surroundings, all shambling and cobwebbed, with a hint of opium in the air about her. She was disappointed. Mrs Newman walked stiffly into the hall, her boots clicking on the floor, with a determined and most proprietorial march. Oddly proprietorial, given that this was not her house. She was tall, willowy and elegant, with a restrained glamour in her choice of clothing. She had lost her husband over a year ago and so appeared to be somewhere between second mourning and ordinary mourning. Everything was black, of course, but she wasn’t totally submerged in crape and Marianne thought her dress had a shine to it, suggesting silk rather than light-absorbing bombazine. But then, who did follow the rules to the letter, these days? Her pale skin was heavily powdered and seemed almost floury around the edges. She smiled in a way that did not make lines on her face, and shook Marianne’s hand first, very firmly indeed, and then greeted Constable Bolton.

  When she spoke, she had a gravelly edge to her voice. Not quite American, but certainly not the pinched accent of the well-to-do English. “Thank you both so much for coming. I confe
ss, Miss Starr, I am baffled and intrigued as to the source of these night-time howlings, and I am dreadfully afraid of the effect it may be having on my good aunt. She is not a strong woman.”

  “Your aunt?” Marianne said, remembering the file of scant information she’d read. “Forgive me; I thought that...”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs Newman, waving her hand. A jet ring glittered. “Miss Dorothea Newman is my poor late husband’s aunt, not my own, but I must tell you, she is as dear to me as she ever was to him. She is confined to her room upstairs. We all call her Miss Dorothea; she is a most marvellous woman in spite of her infirmities. The Grand Bedroom is her whole world, these days.” She sighed heavily. “And that, I am afraid, is the scene of the mischief.”

  “Will you tell us what is going on?”

  “No,” she said, decisively.

  Marianne was startled by her bluntness. Bolton inhaled sharply, some mixture of shock or amusement.

  “You must approach the thing with open minds,” Mrs Newman continued. “I know that the mind is a pliable thing and I have no desire to plant anything which might be misleading. No, I shall install you both in the room next to the Grand Bedroom. There is a connecting door. Then, if this ... whatever it is ... manifests itself, you may experience it for yourselves.”

  “What do you think it is?” Marianne asked.

  “Again, I shall not let my judgements colour your thoughts. Let us discuss it over breakfast. Now, if you care to follow me, I shall lead you to the room and see that you are both made quite comfortable.”

  Marianne had expected to be grilled by Mrs Newman as to her qualifications and experience. Mrs Newman had approached the police, saying that there was foul play afoot in her house, and it was Inspector Gladstone who had suggested they call in “Miss Starr, the investigator of the paranormal.” The Inspector had told Marianne that Mrs Newman agreed immediately. She had seemed very pleased, in fact, that Marianne was to be brought in, and that in itself made Marianne wonder what was going on.

  They were led up the wide stairs that took them to the first floor of the west wing, the only inhabited part of the building. The corridors were wide and lined with tables and chairs, all covered in dust sheets. The Grand Bedroom was at the far end, but they were not taken in to meet the older Miss Newman, the elderly Aunt Dorothea. Instead, Mrs Newman took them both into the smaller room to the side of the Grand Bedroom. She gestured at the open door but dropped her voice. “My aunt sleeps for most of the time,” she said. “And she sleeps more in the daytime, for during the night she is disturbed by the noise.”

  “Why does she not move bedrooms?” Marianne asked.

  Mrs Newman flicked her eyes to the heavens for a moment, as if asking for strength. “Exactly,” she said in a tired voice. “Something that I myself have been urging her to consider. But you know how the older generation can be. There is a stubbornness born of such determination to simply survive. Now, I shall have Mrs Peck bring you food and drink. Is there anything more than you may need?”

  “This is sufficient,” Marianne said.

  Mrs Newman left. Marianne immediately crept to the second open door and peered into the spinster aunt’s bedroom.

  It was gloomy. There was no light getting past the heavy curtains at the windows, no hint of a streetlight or visible slither of moon. The only illumination came from a candle that was only an inch high, and would not last the night; it would barely last another hour. It threw great black monsters onto the wall, dancing shadows cast by the imposing four-poster bed set along the long edge of the massive room.

  The bed’s curtains were closed.

  Thoroughly unnerved, Marianne retreated back into the chamber and sat down on a wide, arm-less chair by a round table that wobbled on its thick central leg. Bolton was sitting in a more comfortable gentleman’s chair, and packing a pipe with tobacco.

  “Rats,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He grinned but didn’t look up. “This place has rats. I can smell them.”

  Marianne shivered. The unheated room was sparsely furnished and felt clammy and damp. Mrs Newman had left lamps scattered about for them, but they smoked and smelled. There didn’t even seem to be gas laid on to the house.

  “I think rats are the least of their problems,” she muttered, and drew her shawl tightly around her shoulders. Silently, they waited for the night to close around them.

  Two

  Bolton wasn’t some ardent supporter of New Women and their rights, Marianne decided very quickly. He was just incredibly lazy. He had settled himself quite comfortably in the chair, and Marianne got her notebook and a selection of pens out of her bag. She expected Bolton to start talking to her about the plan for the evening, but he seemed content to simply smoke his pipe. After a little while, Mrs Peck brought in some food on a tray, and put it on a side table. She returned with a large silver teapot and some gold-edged china, and left them to serve themselves.

  “Oh, you have first pick,” he said, waving his pipe amiably. “Throw whatever you don’t want onto a plate for me, miss.”

  He was the same with the tea. He didn’t tell her what to do. But instead he waited, expecting to be served anyway. Marianne rattled the cup against the saucer as she plonked it onto the table in front of him. He smiled and thanked her. He seemed disinclined to do any sort of investigation, or indeed physical movement, but Marianne could not settle. She roamed the room, poking and prodding at the hangings, peeping behind portraits, and looking out of the window to the blank and black night.

  The candle in the other room went out.

  “My daughter has been writing to a woman physician,” Bolton commented, quite out of the blue, as Marianne stood at the connecting door, peering into the gloom. “She has the idea she might train in medicine.” He laughed, but mercifully quietly. “I hope she notices men and thinks of marriage before that. I have nothing against it, of course. Makes sense to me, it does. You want a woman doctor dealing with ... women’s things. Obvious, that.”

  Marianne could not help herself. She turned and said, “Then why do you want her to notice men, and get married? She won’t be able to continue as a doctor if she does.”

  “Exactly. A wedding’s expensive but an education’s worse. And if she goes and gets herself trained, that’s one lot of money, followed by a wedding which is another lot of money, and all the training for nothing, as she will give up doctoring for being a proper wife and mother. Do you see? Practical man, me.”

  Marianne sighed. She began to muster her usual rebuttals, ordering her thoughts before she spoke. She had fought hard to finish her studies at Newnham and London, and hated the thought of others having to fight just as hard. She opened her mouth to begin a tirade that she already knew would be futile.

  And then they both heard it.

  At first, Marianne thought that it was the high-pitched voice of a child, somewhere in a far room, singing in an off-key falsetto. She strode to the closed door that led to the corridor and opened it, thrusting her head out. At the far end of the passage towards the central hall and stairs, a lamp flickered on a table. The noise was no louder out there than it was in the room, so she went back in and prowled around, her head on one side, trying to triangulate the position.

  “You hear it too, don’t you?” she hissed to Constable Bolton, who had remained seated.

  “Oh yes. But that’s no ghost,” he said, confidently.

  “You are right, of course. What is it, do you think?”

  “Phonograph, most likely. Or one of those ‘graphophone’ things. I saw one, once, at an exhibition my missus made us go to.”

  “Did it sound like this?”

  “No. Fancier. Chopin or some such. This is just noise. Does give you the willies, though, don’t it?”

  Almost as terrifying as female education, she thought. Marianne picked up a small lamp and went carefully to the dark bedroom. She inched her way in through the connecting door. The high voice was not singing;
it was more like a recital. There was a rasping edge to it, like whoever was producing the sound could not breathe properly. She held the lamp out and tried to take in the furniture of the room. A device like a phonograph would be easy to spot; they were not small items, with their large flared trumpets atop wooden boxes that housed the wax cylinders.

  The curtained bed dominated the room. There were other tables and chairs scattered around but they looked spindly and weak next to the squat, heavy bed. There were black, shadowy pictures on the walls, their moulded frames picking up the light from her lamp. A carved washstand with all the necessaries stood opposite the bed. There was a long, metal-banded chest against the wall, and a chest of drawers next to that.

  The noise was coming from the far end of the room, towards the door to the corridor. It was getting increasingly breathless and scratchy. Marianne glanced back at Bolton in the room behind her, but he was watching her with amusement. “You’re in charge,” he mouthed.

  Marianne stepped into the room.

  And the noise petered out.

  She stopped dead, and listened hard.

  A querulous voice came out from behind the curtains. “I know that you’re there.”

  It was an excruciatingly awkward situation for which Marianne was not prepared. She coughed, and said, “Good evening, madam, I...”

  The woman in the bed screamed. “Heavens! Oh Lord protect me! Who is there?”

  Marianne floundered in confusion. She could hardly march up and fling the drapery aside. She said, “I beg your pardon. Mrs Newman brought me in to investigate the strange noises at night. I thought that you were addressing me when you first spoke. I most humbly beg your forgiveness for disturbing you. I’ll go back to the other room. Can I fetch you anything? Be of any assistance?”

  “No. Thank you. Oh my! What a shock.”

  Marianne retreated to the antechamber but paused at the door. “Madam, you said that you knew I was here. To whom were you actually referring?”