“Nothing. Just stood there, as if he was listening. Then I must have given a little gasp, because he turned and looked at me, then he opened the door and crept out, just like that. I came straight down to you, miss. I ain’t going back in there for nothing.” She had come over to the bed by now and was standing beside me, a rather terrifying figure in her own right in a voluminous flannel nightgown, her hair in curling papers. “You do believe me, don’t you, miss?”

“As a matter of fact I do,” I said. “I also had a man in my room last night.” And a man had just been killed tonight, I didn’t add. Was a stranger in the castle, attempting to hide out in the servants’ quarters, or was it the resident vampire, who drifted around as he pleased?

Suddenly I decided that I was angry. I was not going to be a timid little mouse any longer. My Rannoch ancestors wouldn’t have run away just because of a few vampires. They would have gone to find the nearest wooden stake, or at least a clove of garlic.

“Come on, Queenie,” I said. “We’re going back up to your room. We’re going to get to the bottom of this right now.”

With that I wrapped my fur stole around me and stepped out into the corridor.

“Lead on, Macduff,” I said.

Queenie looked confused. “My name’s ’eppelwhite, miss,” she said.

“It’s from the play we don’t name,” I said, quoting my mother, the actress. “Never mind. Come on. If we hurry we may catch him. Did you get a good look at him?”

“Sort of,” she said. “The shutter doesn’t close properly and the moon was actually shining in through my window. He was young, fair haired, thin.” She paused. “That’s about it, really. I couldn’t see his face. But there’s no point in going back up there now, is there? By the time I left my room he’d gone. And I didn’t spot no one on the way down ’ere.”

“We’ll check it out, just in case,” I said and strode down the hall so fast she had to run to keep up with me. Up a long and winding stair we went, round and round until we came out into what had to be one of the towers. Cold silvery moonlight filtered past the shutters, creating strange dark shadows. I have to confess that I was already feeling less brave than I had been in my room. When I saw the shadow of a man standing behind a pillar, my heart almost leaped into my mouth until Queenie said, “It’s another of those suits of armor, miss. It nearly scared the pants off me the first time too.”