‘Well,’ said Meredith, ‘there’s the reincarnation theory. Is it possible that in a previous life Ann Parish was Mary Elizabeth Rolfe?’

‘But where does she get those memories?’ Pollard asked. ‘Presumably they can’t be stored in her brain.’

‘Almost certainly not,’ Meredith agreed. ‘The reincarnation hypothesis implies that “somewhere else”, whatever that means, the memories of past lives are stored – and can be tapped. Or is it that she never was Mary Rolfe but has the ability when hypnotized to plug in to the record of the life of Mary Rolfe? If so, why the life of Mary Rolfe? What particularly attracts Ann to the life of this chambermaid who lived in the last half of the nineteenth century? Or does Ann become possessed temporarily by the spirit of Mary Rolfe? Or is she practising clairvoyance or some form of psychometry? Or is there anything in the idea of genetic inheritance of memory from an ancestor?’

He shrugged.

‘There are so many possibilities and all of them intriguing.’

Pollard tossed his cigarette into the fire.

‘But what do you think of what we got tonight? William Metcalfe was the manservant here. And he was one of the three men who were sought by the police and did a bunk. Do you think he really drowned Mary Rolfe?’

‘Who knows?’ Meredith removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

‘And what about Mary’s unhappiness? I got the impression she had changed between the date of the acquittal and the day of her death.’ Pollard frowned. ‘Of course, as you told us, there had been changes in the household. The children had gone. And the governess. Howard had lost most of his respectable friends. It was probably a pretty grim household by then.’

‘Well, perhaps we will learn more tomorrow,’ said Meredith. Paul, listening to them, found his gaze wandering round the big dilapidated old lounge. These faded walls had seen much of the drama enacted at Ardvreck House. Was it really the case that houses stored up the scenes they had witnessed as a magnetic tape records song and speech? And if the right instrument is brought – a sensitive human being? – can those bygone people be made to walk and talk again just as the golden voice of Caruso may still thrill a generation half a century after the lungs and larynx that produced it became dead flesh?

He did not know. But what he did know was that he found it difficult not to accept at face value the person claiming to be Mary Rolfe, difficult not to become involved in her troubles, difficult not to want to learn more, if possible, of the events leading to her death by drowning in the year eighteen-ninety-two.

10

10 Lost One

By the time they had had coffee and cleared away it was eleven-thirty. Paul and Carol wished the others good-night and left the lounge. As they climbed the stairs, their oil-lamps lighting the darkness, Carol said: