The Haunted Lady by Bill Kitson

receiver. ‘That was DS Holmes. There was a burglary at Elmfield Grange yesterday. David and Valerie Kershaw had gone to Thorsby Agricultural Show with their two boys. They dropped Chloe off at the vicarage en route, so the house was empty.’
    ‘Was anything stolen?’
    ‘Not that they’re aware of, but the house was ransacked, so it might be a few days before they can be absolutely sure.’ I paused long enough for Eve to guess I had more to tell.
    ‘What else did Holmes say?’
    ‘Apparently the thief or thieves even went through the unoccupied part of the house and the servants’ quarters, up in the attics. I suppose they were disappointed they hadn’t found anything of immense value. Thieves must regard places like that as prime targets because most country houses are antiquated, without good burglar alarms.’
    I certainly didn’t consider the burglary as relevant to other things that had been happening that concerned the Kershaw family. However, the following morning brought a sense of déjà vu, when Eve answered the telephone. ‘That was DS Holmes again,’ she reported.
    ‘Doesn’t that man have any other friends? What did he want this time?’
    ‘There was an attempted break-in at Dinsdale Museum last night.’
    ‘What is this, National Burglary Week?’
    Eve smiled politely, but continued, ‘Given what happened there recently, the police had extra patrols in the area. One of them disturbed the intruder.’
    ‘Did they arrest him?’
    ‘No, he got away, having put one of the officers in hospital with a minor head injury. The intruder hit him with a wooden sculpture entitled Vision of Peace , which seems less than appropriate.’
    ‘Was anything stolen?’
    ‘No, they must have scared the thief off. What Holmes found puzzling was that the burglar ignored several extremely valuable items that were on display and was trying to force the lock on the door leading to the storage area.’
    I mulled over what Eve had said. If the motive had been theft pure and simple, why not take the more readily available items? Presumably he could have got away with them before being disturbed. If he was after something specific that he knew to be in the storeroom, what was it, and even more intriguing, how did he know it was there? As with the Elmfield Grange break-in, taken as a single incident there seemed to be little sinister about the museum burglary. There was, however, one similarity that I found curious. In both instances, the intruder had got into, or tried to enter areas that were not generally accessible. Could that be significant, always assuming that the intruder was the same person? Despite thinking it over for some while, the only result was a mild headache.
    We’d forgotten about the burglaries, and that evening when we decided to visit the local pub, the main problem we had been focussed on, the subject of Chloe’s true identity, was still uppermost in our minds. Our reason for going was not only that the landlord served good beer, but also that his wife was a highly talented chef.
    The Admiral Nelson was one of the focal points of village activity, and it was between the walls of the bar that much local gossip was disseminated, exaggerated and in some cases even given birth to. We had no ulterior motive in mind when we entered the pub that night, but after dining, when we returned to the lounge bar, we struck up conversation with an old acquaintance, Ezekiel Calvert, gamekeeper to the Rowandale estate.
    He began by asking about our honeymoon, which although several months ago was still a pleasant memory. To my surprise, when I told him that for part of our tour we’d been to Cyprus, Calvert replied that he’d also been there many years ago. ‘I were sent there when I were doing me National Service,’ he explained. ‘I even went to Athens a couple o’ times on leave. In a reet state it were, ruins all over t’ shop.’
    I was about to interrupt, to explain the significance of the Parthenon,