“It didn’t take long to decipher the name on the first page, and to my surprise it was Camille Blackwood. As for the rest of the writing, it was pretty near illegible but I could see that it was verse.

“A book of poems by Camille Blackwood! And it was Camille’s ghost that was always seen going up the attic stairs! I ran to tell all this to Jasmine, who was having a cigarette on the back steps. And again, there came the tirade.

“ ‘Tarquin, you leave that stuff alone! You put that book of poems in Miss Queen’s room until she comes home!’

“ ‘Now, listen, Jasmine, what do you think the ghost of Camille has been looking for? And you’ve seen her ghost same as I have. And why are you telling me to leave this book of poems alone? Don’t you see, she lost it, or it got put in the wrong place, and you’re acting like this isn’t momentous when it is.’

“ ‘And for who is this momentous!’ she fired back. ‘For you? Did you see Camille’s ghost on the stairs?’

“ ‘Twice I did and you know it,’ I answered.

“ ‘So how are you going to tell her you found the book, I’d like to know. You going to tell your Guardian Angel when you say your night prayers?’

“ ‘Not a half-bad idea,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen that ghost, you know you have.’

“ ‘Now you listen to me,’ she said, ‘I never saw that ghost, I just said I did. I said it for the tourists. I’ve never seen a ghost in my life.’

“ ‘I know that’s not true,’ I declared. ‘I think you’ve even seen Goblin. There are times when you just stare at him, and I know it. You know, Jasmine, you don’t fool me one bit.’

“ ‘You watch your tone with me, boy,’ she said, and I knew that there was nothing more to be got from her.

“She just told me again that I was to put the book away. But I had other plans for it. I knew that if I held up each page to a halogen light I could probably make out a little of the poem on it. But it was not enough. I didn’t have the patience or the stamina for that kind of detail.

“I put the book upstairs on my desk and went back down to sit on the front steps again, hoping some guest would drive up and something would change in the morbid miserable spell of the late afternoon. The panic was coming on strongly, and I said bitterly, ‘Dear God, I would do anything to prevent this! Anything.’ And I closed my eyes.