“I’m so sorry, Mr. Van de Berg, I didn’t see you there,” she said, attempting to squirm out of Sam’s grasp and failing.

“Please don’t think anything of it,” Henry said, looking distinctly smug, as though he had somehow brought about this favorable result all on his own. Sam would remember to take him down a peg or two later. “It’s very dark in here; I’m sure you’re hardly able to see me. But on that point, if I might ask, who does that hand belong to?”

Sam and Alva both followed Henry’s gaze. A hand barely fell into the circle of light emanating from the lantern, and when Sam squinted he could make out the body attached. In his concern for Alva, he hadn’t even noticed. “What the—”

“Oh,” Alva said, and pushed away from Sam so she might look properly. “It’s Alfred Webster. He followed me here to renew his blackmail demands and, when I refused, became rather rough with me.”

“He did what?” Sam said slowly, standing up and walking over to the unconscious man.

“He attacked me, and I hit him on the head with my lantern,” Alva said, as calmly as though she were relating the events of a rather dull tennis match. “Then he chased me down the stairs, and I think he grabbed me, but I fell into the haunting. He must have, too.”

Sam reached down and unceremoniously dragged the man into the circle of light. His head hit the floor a little roughly, and his eyes blinked open.

“Not again,” he said, staring at the three people standing above him and curling in on himself. “Not again, please, no more, I can’t take any more.”

He burst into tears, and Sam looked at Alva, bemused.

“Rose drew people into their own fears,” she said, staring down at the writhing man with a blank expression on her face. “Mine were bad enough. Imagine how full of fear a man like Alfred must be.”

They continued to look down at him as he sobbed, screaming for invisible people to stop whatever it was they were doing to him.

“He doesn’t seem quite right,” Henry said.

“He never was,” Alva said. “But somehow I don’t think he’ll be a problem ever again.”

“I imagine Rose didn’t like bullies very much,” Sam said, glancing at Alva for confirmation.

“No,” she said, slowly. “I don’t think she did.”

“Well, I can’t very well beat him bloody in the condition he’s in,” Sam said, coming to a quick conclusion. “But just in case—Henry, this man was blackmailing Alva with a pack of dirty inferences and lies he was threatening to take to the press. Pressure him, please.”