“This is a morbid subject, isn’t it?” Mrs. Kay laughed. “Yes. Scarlet fever, I believe, or something similar; they would have had him confined to his bedchamber. Do you think he’s the ghost, then? Unpleasant in life and unpleasant in death, eh?”

“He might be,” Sam said, his voice neutral. “Can you think of anyone else connected to the property who died during, oh, say from ’30 to ’38?”

“There might have been some staff,” she said, her brow scrunching in concentration. “I think—the old housekeeper, the first one the house had, she might have died during that period. I tell you what, I’ll stop in to the butler I worked under, Mr. Hargedy. He’s old, but he’s still around. Lives with his son, just up the island. I’ll see if he has any helpful recollections; maybe he even has some journals.”

“We’d be grateful,” Sam said, jotting something down and tearing the paper off to hand to her. “That’s the hotel we’ll be at while we’re here. Just send us a note if you hear anything.”

After a bit of quaint chat about their journey and the weather, Alva and Sam followed the blushing maid back through the hallway and into the bright early afternoon. Alva pulled her scarf closer around her neck as the cold nipped straight into her skin, and descended the steps gingerly, watching for ice. She was conscious of a sense of disappointment, tinged with panic. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on an answer. Everything since she’d received Alfred’s horrible little present had been a blur of one thing after another, but in the background always was his threat, and the understanding that she needed to solve her ghost problem quickly. Somewhere inside, she’d thought this might be the day they did.

“She’s a delight,” she said, keeping the panic out of her voice. “But I admit I was hoping for some startling reveal.”

Sam laughed, the sound startling a pigeon hopping nearby. “Such is the nature of research,” he said. “Constant disappointment. Still, it wasn’t a total loss.”

“You don’t really think Edward is the ghost,” she said.

“Why are you so sure he’s not?”

Alva considered it as they started to walk, his easy manner calming her, allowing her to push Alfred away. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I feel like I have a sense of it, though. It was in my brain, after all, yours too. You can’t tell me it felt like the person Mrs. Kay and that book described.”

“It didn’t,” Sam agreed. “But are you sure that’s not the point? This ghost has done everything it can to throw us off the scent. Maybe this … conviction … we both have is part of that. For example, what gender would you say the ghost is?”