“I wouldn’t say I ever heard them chatting, but at least he tolerated him. I understand he hired this man through an advertisement when he came here. Never had a manservant before, so I gather. I don’t know what he was before he inherited money, but I can tell you it wasn’t high-class. His manners were terrible. Do you know he blew his nose on the table napkin? And you should see how he used his knife and fork. Oh, I know they do it differently in America, but he used to cut up his pork chop and then stab it with his fork and cram it into his mouth. No wonder he had no guests. I can tell you I’m glad to be out of there. I’ll miss the money, of course, but I’m glad all the same. Between you and me there’s been a bad feeling about the place since he moved in. In fact I think it’s haunted.”

“Haunted?” Darcy said.

“I always heard that there was a ghost or two in the castle, so the servants used to tell me in the old days. I never paid much attention because my work was always down in the kitchen and high-born ghosts would never come down there. Did you ever see one yourself, Mr. Darcy?”

“I can’t say I did,” Darcy replied. “As children we used to sit up at night in the long gallery to see if we could spot a ghost, but none of us did. Although we used to scare each other silly in the process.” And he laughed, for a moment forgetting the weight that lay on him.

“Well, I think I’ve seen one recently,” she said. “Under the American gentleman I turned into a cook general—a general dogsbody if you ask me, doing a bit of cleaning and polishing as well as cooking. Not that it was exactly strenuous work. He didn’t use most of the rooms and kept them shut under dust sheets. Sent out all the laundry. Had the food delivered. And there wasn’t even much cooking to do. But a couple of times recently I thought I saw a light glowing or a shadow moving in a strange part of the castle that wasn’t currently occupied.”

“How recently was this?” I asked and saw Darcy turn to look at me. “Before Mr. Roach died?”

“Oh yes. Several times in the last weeks I could have sworn I saw a movement or a shadow. But then it might just be my imagination. And you know what us Irish people are like. We tend to take things like ghosts and omens very seriously, don’t we, Mr. Darcy?”

“Uh, yes. I’m sure we do,” Darcy replied and I could tell he’d been thinking about something else.