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  HAUNTING INVESTIGATION

  a Chesterton Holte Mystery

  ALSO BY CHELSEA YARBRO QUINN

  Saint-Germain, Olivia and Madelaine Series

  Hotel Transylvania

  The Palace

  Blood Games

  Path of the Eclipse

  Tempting Fate

  A Flame in Byzantium

  Crusader’s Torch

  A Candle for d’Artagnan

  Out of the House of Life

  Darker Jewels

  Better in the Dark

  Mansions of Darkness

  Blood Roses

  Communion Blood

  Come Twilight

  In the Face of Death

  A Feast in Exile

  Night Blooming

  Midnight Harvest

  Dark of the Sun

  States of Grace

  Roman Dusk

  Borne in Blood

  A Dangerous Climate

  Burning Shadows

  An Embarrassment of Riches

  Commedia della Morte

  Night Pilgrims

  Sustenance

  Fantasy

  Ariosto

  A Baroque Fable

  The Vildecaz Talents

  To the High Redoubt

  Horror

  Beastnights

  Firecode

  The Godforsaken

  A Mortal Glamour

  Sins of Omission

  Taji’s Syndrome

  Trouble in the Forest: A Cold Summer Night

  Trouble in the Forest: A Bright Winter Sun

  Mysteries

  Napoleon Must Die (with Bill Fawcett)

  Death Wears a Crown (with Bill Fawcett)

  Against the Brotherhood (with Bill Fawcett)

  Embassy Row (with Bill Fawcett)

  The Flying Scotsman (with Bill Fawcett)

  The Scottish Ploy (with Bill Fawcett)

  Alas, Poor Yorick

  Science Fiction

  Apprehensions and Other Delusions

  False Dawn

  Hyacinths

  Magnificat

  Time of the Fourth Horseman

  Western

  The Law in Charity

  Young Adult

  Arcane Wisdome

  Four Horses for Tishtry

  Nonfiction

  Fine-Tuning Fiction

  More Messages from Michael

  HAUNTING INVESTIGATION

  a Chesterton Holte Mystery

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  SMOKE & SHADOW BOOKS

  This book is a work of fiction. References to historical, world-wide events have been used as context, however the characters, businesses, corporations, and incidents in this work are the product of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected].

  Smoke & Shadow Books

  Cleveland Writers Press Inc.

  31501 Roberta Dr.

  Bay Village, OH 44140

  www.clevelandwriterspress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition: December 2015

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Smoke & Shadow Books is an imprint and trademark

  of Cleveland Writers Press Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites

  (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher.

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-943052-01-1

  Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-943052-00-4

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-943052-04-2

  Cover Design by Patricia Saxton

  Cover Photo by Dave Ward

  Edited by Patrick J. LoBrutto

  For the memory of my Aunt Norma’s friend

  M. J., whose reminiscences of her work

  reporting the news in Milwaukee, St. Louis,

  Tulsa, Detroit, and Chicago from 1921-1956

  provided a jumping-off point for this book.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  IT REALLY WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY, THOUGHT CHESTERTON HOLTE, AS HE LOOKED up into the endless blue of the spring sky. The little Belgian inn was worthy of a postcard, the trees were leafing out, and the Great War seemed much farther away than eighteen miles; even the four German soldiers facing him looked to be more likely to burst into song than to shoot him, their rifles like props for one of Franz Lehar’s operettas rather than deadly weapons. Holte glanced at the crumpled form of the American journalist left beside the midden, and felt a stab of regret — it was unfortunate that he had become a casualty in a conflict that America was not part of, but war was like that — and was sorry that journalist had been mistaken by the soldiers for the spy they had been sent to get rid of. But weighing this one death against the nine hundred soldiers his dispatch would protect, he could not fault his decision to allow the Germans’ their error: the soldiers had been looking for someone speaking English, and could not tell the slight difference between an American and a Canadian accent. “Poor fellow,” Holte said as a kind of benediction for the dead man, and turned to face his executioners. He had been able to deliver his coded pages to the young man on the red bicycle, and they were now on their way to the coast; his mission was over, at the cost of only two men.

  A blow struck his chest, vast and wet and too enormous to be pain. Holte felt his legs give way, and then his face struck the earth, where he saw a small insect crawling up a stalk of grass. And then he no longer saw anything as he drifted away from his body, his world, into dim mists and nothingness.

  ONE

  “DAMN!” POPPY THORNTON SWORE AS THE KEYS ON HER SMITH TYPEWRITER jammed again. After she pulled the two strikers back, she wiped her fingers on the damp sponge she kept in a small glass dish next to her reading lamp, cleaning off the ink from the typewriter ribbon that transferred to the letters on the strikers and from them to her fingers. Suppressing a yawn, she resumed working on the story she would have to deliver to Cornelius Lowenthal at the Philadelphia Clarion by eight in the morning.

  A gentle cough came from the area
by the curtained windows.

  “Duchess?” Poppy called out softly, wondering how her aunt’s aging spaniel had got into the library without her noticing. At least the cat was in the kitchen, as he usually was at night; Maestro had an unnerving habit of wanting to sit on her pages as she stacked them up beside her typewriter. “Duchess, come here, girl.” She whistled soft encouragement, but there was no response.

  The clock on the library wall chimed one, and Poppy almost swore again. Her exasperation was growing with every word she put on the page. It was galling to have to report on the Fine Books Society when what she wanted to cover was crime, or at the very least, the police blotter. But that was not allowed for women from good families who had concerned relatives with political and business connections throughout the city. She reminded herself, an assignment was an assignment, as trivial as it might seem to her — and her colleagues, for that matter — and she had yet to prove herself to Lowenthal: the one crime story she had reported — a matter of high school students defacing old buildings with colored chalk — was hardly enough to ensure her preferential assignments, no matter how well she had done her job, and how clearly she had described the vandalism of the eight young men responsible. She pounded the stiff keys, taking out her irritation on them, and hitting the carriage return with more force than necessary.

  The sound came again, but there was no sign of the taffy-colored dog. The hood-shaded library lamp on her desk flickered.

  Poppy stopped typing and swung the shade of her work lamp up to better illuminate the long, narrow room, the walls lined with bookcases filled to overflowing. “Duchess. Come here.” She was brusque now, no longer cajoling. “Duchess!”

  “I’m afraid I’m not Duchess,” said a male voice about ten feet from Poppy’s left shoulder, in the window embrasure that looked out on the small stretch of garden which ran along the side of the house.

  Poppy was too startled to be scared. She blinked twice and slid open the drawer on her right which contained three pairs of scissors. Locking her grip around the largest of them, she called out, “Who’s there?”

  “You don’t have to shout.” By the tone, he intended to reassure her. “I can hear you.”

  This served only to make Poppy more apprehensive. “Who are you?” she demanded in her best professional woman voice.

  “Chesterton Holte,” said the voice; his accent was somewhat British, educated but not snooty, and he pronounced his rs. “Gentleman haunt, at your service.” The manner was cordial enough, no sign of menace beyond being a bodiless and unfamiliar presence in a dark house at night.

  “Very funny,” said Poppy with more moxie than she actually possessed; a strange voice in this room at so late an hour was deeply unnerving. Her hands were starting to shake, so she clasped them together tightly so that neither she nor her illusion — for surely that was what it had to be — could see them. “Chesterton Holte. Chesterton Holte, gentleman haunt. Ye gods! Where did you come up with that?”

  “It’s my name,” the voice insisted. “Chesterton Holte. I’d write it down for you, but I’m afraid that I can’t.”

  “You’re armed?” Poppy’s alarm escalated. Grasping the scissors as tightly as possible, she rose from her chair and glared at the section of curtain from which the voice came.

  “It isn’t possible. And even if I had a gun, it would be as ghostly as I am, and could do less damage than a gnat,” he answered, a bit sadly. “Sometimes I can make electric lights flicker, or a ‘phone line crackle, but that’s about all.”

  “Oh, so you’re saying that was you,” said Poppy. “Why would you bother with the lights in here?” She wanted to keep him talking, to find out what he wanted. If he were talking, she told herself, he might not attack, and she might be able to pry some useful information out of him. “How did you get in here?”

  “You have nothing to fear from me,” the voice went on. “I couldn’t do anything to you even if I wanted to. Noncorporeal, you know — ghosts are.”

  “Noncorporeal. As in, no body?” She glanced at the narrow opening in the curtains, trying to figure out how he had managed to get there. She had been working at the typewriter for more than two hours, so it struck her as odd that he should have waited so long to reveal himself — assuming he was real. “Ghost?”

  “That’s what happens to ghosts,” he said. “We lose our bodies.”

  “I’m sure.” Her sarcasm gave her a boost in confidence.

  “I wish there were some way to prove it to you,” he said, sounding genuinely rueful. “But I can’t think how.”

  She summoned up her courage and said, “Show yourself,” at the same time hoping that nothing would happen.

  There was a kind of shadow that moved out of the curtains, roughly the size and shape of a grown man; he seemed fairly tall and slim, but there was little more to see of him. “This is the best I can do just now,” he said apologetically.

  “And why would that be?” Poppy asked as she watched in fascination as the shape drifted nearer her desk.

  “Because you don’t believe in ghosts. Your dubiety is robbing me of my full definition.” He seemed to be cocking his head, watching her.

  “How very inconvenient for you,” said Poppy. “But you can’t blame me: this is 1924. No one believes in ghosts any more.”

  “I’m aware of that,” he said. “And right now, you’re trying to decide how we come to be having this conversation.”

  She admitted to herself that he was right, but would not say so aloud. “I must have fallen asleep over my work and I’m in one of those very realistic dreams. But any moment now, a purple-spotted camel will drift through the room, and I’ll know I’m asleep.” She still held the scissors, but she sat down again.

  “It isn’t a dream. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am haunting you.”

  Poppy tried to swallow, but her throat was suddenly dry. “And why are you doing that — granting for the moment that what you say is true?” She waited for his answer.

  “It seems I owe a kind of debt to you and your family.” He coughed again. “I’m afraid I was the man who got your father killed in Belgium. The Huns thought your father was my contact, and, to buy a little time, I let them think it. That’s why he was shot. They shot me, as well, a bit later, if that’s any consolation.”

  Poppy’s eyes filled with tears; she found it difficult to think of her father even now, when he had been dead for almost eight years. “That’s a wretched thing to say.”

  “I know,” said the filmy shape. “I’m sorry it happened at all.”

  “My father was identified as press; he was covering the British troops. America wasn’t even in the Great War yet. He should never have been harmed,” said Poppy, a sinking feeling in her chest, as if someone had struck her.

  “No, he shouldn’t have been,” the form agreed. “It was my risk, not his. He shouldn’t have got caught up in my activities.”

  “And why have you taken so long in getting here?” Poppy challenged him. “My father died in 1916. I presume you did, too, from what you said.”

  “Yes, About two hours after he did.” The form shifted, as if wincing.

  She shook her head. “This dream is turning nasty,” she told the air. “I should consult Doctor Freud, perhaps.”

  “And what does a young woman like you know of Doctor Freud?” the shape asked.

  “Don’t be daft. I’m a reporter; I’m almost twenty-five, and a college graduate. I’ve read far more scandalous things than Freud, I promise you.” She tried to pinch herself so she would wake up, but it didn’t work. “This is ridiculous.”

  “You’re following in your father’s footsteps, reporting,” said the figure. He was a little clearer now, a tallish man in his mid-to late-thirties with light-brown hair falling over his brow and hazel-green eyes. His face was long and pale, with strong cheek bones and a straight, aristocratic nose; his mouth was harder to see, which puzzled her. Why would that part of his features be unclear? She could not see h
is lips move when he spoke, which perplexed her. His clothes were less defined, but seemed to be a high-necked sweater under a tweed jacket, and dark tan slacks. She could not make out his shoes, or even his feet.

  “It’s a good job and I want to do it,” she said, a bit defensively. “It’s what I trained to do, in college.”

  “And it honors your father,” said Chesterton Holte.

  “My father got me interested in the work,” Poppy allowed.

  “But did he encourage you to go into it? That’s the question, isn’t it? Journalism isn’t women’s work, is it?”

  “Almost nothing interesting is,” she told him, completely serious now. She watched the filmy shape drift nearer her place at the desk, and tightened her hold on the scissors.

  “Why P. M. Thornton? To disguise your sex? Since you know Freud, you won’t mind my direct language,” said Holte.

  After a minuscule hesitation, Poppy explained. “P. stands for Poppea, and M. stands for Millicent. I’m named for my grandmothers; the family calls me Poppy because my brother couldn’t — or wouldn’t — say Poppea when I was young, and came up with Poppy instead — you know how brothers are. Ye gods, wouldn’t you use initials with names like that?”

  “They are a little cumbersome,” said Holte, coming around the Mayes Brothers sofa. “And initials are becoming fashionable again, even for women.”

  “It isn’t for fashion,” Poppy insisted, not wanting to admit what a disadvantage a female name could be in the newspaper world.

  Holte made a sound that might have been half a chuckle. “You know your own mind on this. And you intend your initials to be taken seriously.”

  “At the least,” said Poppy. “Starting with my male colleagues.” She was about to ask Holte why he had picked on her of all her family to haunt, when a flurry of black fur entered the room, body and tail abristle, hissing in fury, headed directly for the tenuous shape of Chesterton Holte: Maestro, the big, long-haired, soot-colored cat, had arrived.

  TWO

  “YE GODS! MAESTRO!” POPPY EXCLAIMED, AS THE FURIOUS ANIMAL HURTLED himself at Holte, springing towards him, claws extended for a lethal swipe at the intruder. When he encountered nothing but a glancing impact on the modesty panel of the desk, he looked about in baffled wrath, and whipped around, attempting to resume his attack, tail lashing, and growling musically.