Irene Brand_Yuletide_01 by Yuletide Peril Page A

Janice followed for the most part in silence, although Lance occasionally asked a question or made a comment.
    “Let’s take a look at the second floor,” Cecil said.
    “Wonder if that key will work in the door to the stairway,” Lance said. “The door was locked when we were here a few days ago.”
    Cecil handed the key to Lance, but as they approached the door, they saw that it stood ajar. Lance glanced quickly at Janice. “I know that door was locked. So that means somebody has been here since we were.”
    Smith cackled with laughter. “What kind of somebody? The kind that walks on two feet or the kind that floats around in the air?”
    Janice supposed that was Cecil’s idea of a joke, but she didn’t find it amusing. Hesitantly Lance pushed open the door and muttered, “What do you make of that?”
    Cecil and Janice peered over his shoulder. “There ain’t any steps!” Cecil said. “Maybe the second story never was finished.”
    Lance ran his hands over the walls. “There have been steps here, but they’ve been sawed away. Strange! Let’s bring the ladder so we can see what’s upstairs.”
    They carried the ladder through the hall and propped it against the floor of the upper story.
    “Are you going up?” Lance asked Janice.
    “I’d like to.”
    Lance looked at Cecil, who tested the ladder by placing both feet on the bottom rung. “It oughta be safe enough.”
    “I’ll go first, Cecil, and you hold the ladder while Janice climbs. You come up last, if that’s all right.”
    “Right as rain,” Cecil said.
    The ladder stood at a forty-five-degree angle, so the climb wasn’t too difficult, but Janice welcomed Lance’s extended hand supporting her last two steps. When Cecil joined them, they started a tour of the four upstairs rooms that were separated by a wide hallway. One room was empty, but the others were fully furnished.
    “So there were steps at one time,” Janice said and Lance nodded. She wondered at the concerned look on his face. “But what could have happened to the furniture in this room?”
    “When Mr. Reid got sick,” Lance said, “they probably took the furniture from this room to make a bedroom downstairs. Henrietta can tell you, and she’ll probably clear up the mystery of the missing steps.”
    The other three rooms had furnishings typical of the late nineteenth century. Each bed had a six-foot-high oak headboard with a footboard about two feet in height. Each room had a dresser and a table that matched the beds, and an armless high-backed wooden rocker. Small electric lamps stoodon the tables. Soiled, tattered paper covered the walls, and a few ragged rugs lay on the pine floors. Filthy bedspreads and quilts covered the beds. Every window was broken, and flimsy, dirty, torn curtains hung through the openings.
    Cecil pointed to the many wasp and yellow jackets’ nests near the ceilings. “You’ll have to get rid of those pests before you can live here,” he said.
    While Janice considered the value of the furniture, Cecil and Lance checked out the structure of the house.
    “I don’t see any sign of leaks except where the rain blew in through broken windows,” Cecil said, pointing to brownish spots on the floors. “That’s what made the stains. The roof must still be in good shape.”
    A massive cupboard almost covered the rear wall of the hallway. Lance peered inside. “It’s empty. Looks like this piece of furniture was built right here—it couldn’t have been brought up the stairs.” He pushed on the cupboard and couldn’t budge it. “Sure is heavy.”
    “Let’s go downstairs to talk over what you can do,” Cecil said.
    Lance went down the ladder first, because if Janice slipped, he wanted to be in a position to catch her. He’d learned that Janice resented help, so he couldn’t make an issue of assisting her.
    Janice and Lance sat side by side on the deacon’s bench. Cecil pulled a ladder-back chair with a woven seat from the living room. He