“Of course it wasn’t the done thing to intrude on private grief in those days,” Maud said, “but that’s all nonsense too. It’s common humanity to offer comfort, isn’t it? So I asked her if she was all right and offered her my rather sodden handkerchief. I didn’t notice to start with that she looked rather odd—the outfit, you know—but when she spoke I knew at once there was something strange about her. I thought she might be a foreigner.” She laughed. “Little did I know how foreign she was!”

“It said in the book,” Lucy said, “that Catherine identified herself by name and as the wife of the lord of the manor, and told you she was mourning her lost treasure and was riven with guilt and misery that she could never find it or return it to where it belonged.”

Maud tutted. “That book!” She gestured toward the table where Lucy saw a copy of Legends and Folklore of Berkshire open at the pages she had read. “It wasn’t even a secondhand version of the tale,” she said. “It was fourth hand! I tried to put them right, but the editor didn’t want to know. It was the same with the newspapers; they were only interested in sensationalism—and treasure.”

“Oh dear,” Lucy said. At the same time she was feeling a little bit excited. If the folklore was wrong, the right story might have something more useful to tell them.

“It’s true she did say that her name was Catherine,” Maud said thoughtfully, “but the rest was all wrong. I asked her what had upset her and she said that she had lost her most treasured possession and couldn’t rest until it was found again.” She sighed. “It was foolish of me, but when I got home I confided the tale in my family and one of my brothers mentioned it later when he was down at the pub. The next thing I knew, it was all over the newspapers. Really, as though we didn’t know that loose talk costs lives, after five years of war! I never told him a secret again. Would you be so kind as to refill my cup, dear?”

Lucy poured for her and Maud stirred in a little milk. “How did you feel about encountering a ghost?” Lucy asked. “I mean, it’s not entirely normal, is it?”

“Oh, I was accustomed to oddities,” Maud said vaguely. “I worked with Alan Turing, you know, and he believed in telepathy. And even Winston Churchill himself saw ghosts, so they say. I would never be too skeptical.” She tilted her head to one side. “And what about you, my dear? Have you also seen Catherine Catesby?”

Lucy jumped. “I don’t know how you would know that,” she said, “unless you are also telepathic.”

Maud laughed. “Oh I make no such claims,” she said, “but there is something about you, Lucy, that makes me feel she might be drawn to you. A sadness, perhaps, but a kindness too.”