I moved toward the furniture, the beam of light creating a tunnel in primeval darkness. With only that narrow light and all the things in the room, it could’ve taken forever to find what I wanted, had it been hidden. Instead it was laid out directly in front of me on a leather-­covered settee.

There was a dark blue coat with shoulder braid, lighter blue trousers, a gray flannel shirt and a black slouch hat. On the floor beneath, black boots with spurs.

The cloth was old, there was no doubt of that. What I had taken for mud was grayish mold. There were holes in the coat lapels, and the edge of the collar crumpled as I touched it. The gold buttons and the braid were tarnished and so were the crossed sabers on the hat. Wherever the uniform had come from, it had not been made recently by any costume house.

It had obviously been intended that I see it. There had been no attempt to conceal it, and the key had been left in plain sight in Duff’s room. Why? Why, after several seeming attempts to make me believe in the supernatural, was this evidence of a natural explanation laid before me?

Was the intention now to convince me that Duff was the General when he really wasn’t? There was one way to find out. Gingerly I picked up the uniform coat and rolled it up. If it hadn’t been taken from a grave, stripped from the bones of a man who died a hundred years ago, then it had been in some similar place of decay for a long time.

Before leaving the room I aimed the light at several other cluttered areas, but I couldn’t see a coffin or anything else that looked as though it might have been taken from a coffin. Then I hurried downstairs with my dank bundle, closed and locked the door in the storeroom and returned the key to Duff’s bureau. I took the glasses out of my pocket and put them on the bureau too. Finally I went to my bedroom and put the uniform coat under my mattress.

Now let’s see if General Caine shows up tonight without his coat, I thought. What I would have done if he had—or if he had appeared wearing another coat—I don’t know. The fact is I didn’t see him again for several nights and I didn’t dream about him either.

16

Chapter Sixteen

As the end of the week approached I was beginning to hope that the whole nasty business was over. Maybe revealing the uniform to me marked the end of it, I told myself. Maybe they were giving up—Mrs. Reddy, her daughter and whoever else was involved. Maybe the death of Stephanie had frightened them into quitting.