‘The case is all locked up, is it?’

‘Oh yes, it’s always kept locked, and opened only when someone dies.’

‘A baby’s bootie, that’s sad.’

‘Not really, that was Great Uncle Fratz’s and he lived to be ninety-three. What’s sad though is that cloth cap there and that spinning top, that cigar clipper, all died very young, and the salt and pepper pots there, they are sad.’

‘Twins?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Typhus.’

‘What are those ones kept in this small mean chest beside the great one, a pillbox, a skipping rope, a glass vase, a glass eye – what’s that about?’

‘Those are the Iremonger suicides,’ I said.

‘Poor beggars. No, I prefer the bigger chest, thick glass isn’t it?’

‘As thick as the glass used in deep-sea helmets worn by men who venture underwater, there’s a marking on the bottom right corner – PREBBLE & SON GLASS MANUFACTURERS FOR THE DEEP. Well, that’s the Marble Hall and the Great Chest.’

‘Thank you. Very much.’

‘I’ve shown you several rooms now, haven’t I?’

‘Yes, you have.’

‘And now I’m going to ask something, and be very blunt about it.’

‘Do it then and all in a rush.’

‘I think you have my Aunt Rosamud’s door handle in your hair beneath your bonnet.’

‘I … how … well … I don’t say it isn’t so.’

‘I know you do, Lucy, and it isn’t right.’

‘How do you know? Maybe I haven’t.’

‘I can hear it.’

‘It’s a doorknob! You can’t hear …’

‘It’s very faint now … quite a whisper, I hear it talking, saying its name.’

‘All guff, isn’t it? Don’t you try to frighten me.’

‘It’s saying “Alice Higgs”, very weakly, it’s barely audible now.’

‘So you say. That doesn’t prove a thing.’

‘Then take off your bonnet.’

‘Shan’t!’

‘Please, please, Lucy. It isn’t safe, not any more.’

‘Finders keepers! I found it!’

‘And they’ll find you but I doubt they’ll keep you.’

‘I don’t have anything else! Nothing at all! Nothing in the whole world! Not a single thing, Clod, not one object! You wouldn’t take it from me, would you? It’s such a weight, a perfect little weight.’