There was a bustle while refreshments were wheeled in, and Mrs. Kay made herself busy pouring tea while Sam enjoyed the crackle of the fire and four excellent butter cookies.

“Now,” she said, handing him a cup of tea and settling herself into her chair. “I’ll admit I was surprised to receive your letter. I haven’t thought about Liefdehuis … oh, in years, probably. It seems on the other side of the world from me, now.”

“You worked there in ’40, right?”

“Thirty-five years ago,” Mrs. Kay sighed. “From 1838 to 1840, that’s right. I was sixteen when I started, and eighteen when I went to visit my sister in the city and met Mr. Kay; just a dockworker then, he was, but he did well for himself later. He was a fine-looking young man, you understand, and my head was fairly turned, but in hindsight, never having to go back to that house was a powerful incentive for marriage, too.”

Sam wrote as she spoke. “That bad?”

“Mr. de Boer, that’s the younger one, his father having passed a couple years before I started, he was one of those types that has to be making someone else feel bad before he can feel good. I read he committed suicide, a few years after the crash, and though I can’t say I shed any tears, it made me wonder how bad it must have been for him, that he needed everyone around him to feel worse.” She sighed and shook her head, as if to dismiss such dark thoughts. “Is he who you’re researching? I admit I don’t quite see what interest a famous inventor could have in the de Boers.”

He hesitated, wondering how to lead into his subject. Henry would have finessed the conversation so it just sort of flowed in the right way, but Henry was boycotting this project. Maybe if he sidled up to it, delicate-like … “Actually, I’m researching the ghost,” he said.

“The ghost!” Mrs. Kay set her teacup down in its saucer with a decided clink. “I don’t think you’ll be finding any world-changing inventions there, young man.”

He laughed, too used to skepticism to mind her reaction. “I’m not looking for any,” he said. “Just interested in the story. Call it a hobby.”

“Hmm.” She looked over at him, her lips pursed but her eyes still merry. “Well, which story?”

“You heard more than one?”

“It was quite a topic of discussion in the servants’ hall, your ghost. A few of the maids swore up and down they’d seen it, that they knew the whole sad tale.” Mrs. Kay snorted. “Not that they could ever agree on what they’d seen, of course, and it was my suspicion half the stories were made up, for attention.”

“Only half?” Sam looked up from his notebook. “You mean you believed some of them?”