something; but I got no positive results, only problems with various bureaucrats, who took me for a madman, and with the police, because my behaviour, in those alarmist times, seemed very suspicious indeed; finally, I went to visit all the Santiestebans in the city, and there are quite a few. But those I spoke with told me there had never been anyone called Leandro in their family, while others refused to even talk to me. In short, it was all in vain and finally I had to abandon my search, with the disagreeable feeling of having wasted my time and made a complete fool of myself. Now, like everyone else who works at the Institute, I simply accept the ghost’s undeniable existence and pay him not the slightest heed, because I know there’s no point and that taking any interest at all brings only trouble and discontent. And so I’m very sorry, Mr Lilburn, but I can’t answer your questions. I would only advise you to ignore Señor de Santiesteban, like everyone else. Don’t worry, he’s not dangerous; he simply leaves a resignation letter each night and we remove it the following day.’
‘That’s precisely what I was going to ask you. Doesn’t the resignation letter explain something? What is he resigning from? And why, as you said earlier, were there three letters today?’
Mr Bayo bent towards the wastepaper basket beside him, removed a few crumpled sheets of paper and held them out to Lilburn, saying:
‘There were three of them today for the simple reason that today is Monday and, as usual, there was no one in the building over the weekend to take down the letters from Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You should have removed them from the bulletin board first thing this morning, but, as I said, that was my fault, not yours. Here.’
Lilburn took the sheets of very ordinary paper and read them carefully. They had been written with a fountain pen, and the words were the same on all three, without the slightest variation:
Dear Friend,
In view of the regrettable events of recent days, the nature of which run counter not only to my habits, but to my principles, I have no alternative, even though I am well aware of the grave difficulties my decision will cause you, of resigning forthwith from my post. And may I say too, that I strenuotisly disapprove of and condemn your attitude to the aforementioned events.
Leandro P. de Santiesteban
‘As you see,’ said Mr Bayo, ‘the letter reveals nothing, in fact, it only serves to make the whole business even more baffling, given that this building was a private residence and not an office or whatever, that is, not a place occupied by people with posts from which they could resign. We have to be satisfied with merely contemplating the enigma without trying to decipher it.’
The months of March and April came and went, and each Friday, young Lilburn, sitting in the library, would listen to Señor de Santiestebans unvarying footsteps on the floor above. He tried to follow the advice Mr Bayo had given him and to ignore those mysterious steps, but sometimes, unexpectedly, he would find himself pondering the ghost’s personality and history or mechanically counting the number of steps in each direction. In this respect, he had discovered that, as his superior had told him on one occasion, Señor de Santiesteban always took seven steps in one direction and then, after a pause, eight steps back, after which he closed the door. And it was during the Easter vacation, which he spent in Toledo, that a possible explanation for this occurred to him. He was extremely excited by this tiny discovery—which was, in fact, no more than mere conjecture whose truth he would be unable to verify—and he longed for the moment when he could return to Madrid and tell Mr Bayo.
And on the first day back after the holidays, instead of staying in the playground during break, exchanging complaints with Miss Ferris and Mr Bayo about the unsatisfactory behaviour of their students, young Lilburn asked
‘That’s precisely what I was going to ask you. Doesn’t the resignation letter explain something? What is he resigning from? And why, as you said earlier, were there three letters today?’
Mr Bayo bent towards the wastepaper basket beside him, removed a few crumpled sheets of paper and held them out to Lilburn, saying:
‘There were three of them today for the simple reason that today is Monday and, as usual, there was no one in the building over the weekend to take down the letters from Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You should have removed them from the bulletin board first thing this morning, but, as I said, that was my fault, not yours. Here.’
Lilburn took the sheets of very ordinary paper and read them carefully. They had been written with a fountain pen, and the words were the same on all three, without the slightest variation:
Dear Friend,
In view of the regrettable events of recent days, the nature of which run counter not only to my habits, but to my principles, I have no alternative, even though I am well aware of the grave difficulties my decision will cause you, of resigning forthwith from my post. And may I say too, that I strenuotisly disapprove of and condemn your attitude to the aforementioned events.
Leandro P. de Santiesteban
‘As you see,’ said Mr Bayo, ‘the letter reveals nothing, in fact, it only serves to make the whole business even more baffling, given that this building was a private residence and not an office or whatever, that is, not a place occupied by people with posts from which they could resign. We have to be satisfied with merely contemplating the enigma without trying to decipher it.’
The months of March and April came and went, and each Friday, young Lilburn, sitting in the library, would listen to Señor de Santiestebans unvarying footsteps on the floor above. He tried to follow the advice Mr Bayo had given him and to ignore those mysterious steps, but sometimes, unexpectedly, he would find himself pondering the ghost’s personality and history or mechanically counting the number of steps in each direction. In this respect, he had discovered that, as his superior had told him on one occasion, Señor de Santiesteban always took seven steps in one direction and then, after a pause, eight steps back, after which he closed the door. And it was during the Easter vacation, which he spent in Toledo, that a possible explanation for this occurred to him. He was extremely excited by this tiny discovery—which was, in fact, no more than mere conjecture whose truth he would be unable to verify—and he longed for the moment when he could return to Madrid and tell Mr Bayo.
And on the first day back after the holidays, instead of staying in the playground during break, exchanging complaints with Miss Ferris and Mr Bayo about the unsatisfactory behaviour of their students, young Lilburn asked
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