She looked around. “Blimey. I see what you mean. This is a spooky old place, ain’t it? Gives me the willies. Reminds me of the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds. Except for the bloke on the wall. He’s a bit of all right, ain’t he?”

“I’m not sure I like him looking at me when I’m in bed,” I said, and as I said it I realized that the portrait was directly above the chest/coffin. “What’s your room like?”

“A bit like Holloway Prison, if you want my opinion. Plain and cold. And way up in one of the turrets. I don’t see myself getting much sleep up there. And you have to go round and round this windy staircase to reach it. I got lost several times on the way down. I’d have ended up down in the dungeons by now, if it hadn’t been for one of them blokes in the smashing uniform who rescued me and brought me here. I don’t know how I’m ever going to find my way back.” She stared at me. “Are you all right, miss? You look awful pale.”

I was about to tell her about the thing climbing up the castle wall but then I realized that I couldn’t. That Rannoch sense of duty kicked in and I was sure that Robert Bruce Rannoch or Murdoch McLachan Rannoch wouldn’t have been frightened by a figure climbing up a wall. I had to appear to be calm and in control.

“I’m absolutely splendid, thank you, Queenie,” I said. “Now, I wonder when my baggage will arrive.”

Almost on cue there was a tap on my door and the bags were brought in by more tall, dark-haired footmen, all seeming to look identical.

“You might as well put away my clothes and then help me get dressed for dinner,” I said. “I wonder where you’re supposed to find water for me to wash.”

We scouted out the hall and found a bathroom not too far away—a massive cavern of a room with great stone arches rising to a vaulted ceiling. The claw-footed tub in the middle was big enough to go swimming in. A geyser contraption over it presumably supplied hot water.

“I think I’ll have a bath before dinner,” I said. “Why don’t you start running me a bath and then see if you can locate my robe.”

I undressed while Queenie unpacked and hung up my things. That’s when we discovered that she hadn’t packed a robe for me. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll have to walk down the hall in my nightdress. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.”