Horror at the Haunted House (12 page)

As it turned out, she didn’t have a chance to tell Agnes anything before the haunted house opened. Agnes dashed in at one minute to seven, quickly tied Ellen to the stake, started the special effects and left again.

While she pretended to be Saint Joan, Ellen thought back over everything that had happened so far. Lydia seemed to want
to show her something about the Fairylustre bowl but for the life of her, Ellen couldn’t figure out what. It had not been the fact that the bowl was missing. Apparently, it was not the poor repair job, either. What, then? What did Lydia see that Ellen did not?

At ten, when the haunted house closed, Agnes failed to come and untie Ellen. She tried to wriggle loose but the rope was too tight. Fortunately, she spied Corey and Mighty Mike as they passed the doorway on their way out.

“Corey!” she called. “Agnes forgot to untie me.”

Mighty Mike quickly loosened the knots and the rope fell to the ground. “Thanks,” Ellen said. She bent down to put on her shoes and socks.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” Corey said. “I want to walk with Mighty Mike.”

“I’ll be a couple of minutes,” Ellen said. “I have to talk to Agnes.” She had decided the best approach would be to tell Agnes privately about the mistake. That way, Agnes could correct it without embarrassment.

Ellen went through the doorway at the far end of the dining room and crossed the kitchen to the pantry which had been converted to an office for Mrs. Whittacker and Agnes. As she approached, she heard Agnes’s voice. Ellen realized she was talking to someone.

The office door was partway open. Ellen peered in. Agnes sat behind the desk, smoking a cigarette, with her back to the door. “This is my last night,” Agnes said. “No more Clayton House.”

Ellen stopped. What did she mean? Was Agnes quitting?

“I had a bit of a scare last night,” Agnes said. “Mrs. Whittacker noticed that one of the bowls was missing. I had taken it
home with me on Saturday, after everyone left, because I couldn’t tell from my photograph if I had done one of the fairies exactly right. Then I got sick and couldn’t work on the bowl and couldn’t return the original, either. Just my luck, she noticed it was missing and called me. I made up a story about repairing a chip and she bought it with no question. I never did get to compare the original bowl to mine.”

Ellen’s heart began to thud against her ribs. She couldn’t see who Agnes was talking to.

“I’ve switched all but two pieces,” Agnes continued, “and I’ll do those two tonight, as soon as everyone’s cleared out of here.”

Agnes started to swivel around on the chair. Ellen flattened herself against the wall, behind the door, where Agnes couldn’t see her.

Agnes kept talking. “Some of mine have been on the shelves for two weeks now and nobody can tell the difference. I told you I was good, Harry, and this proves it.”

Ellen sidled away from the office door. She tiptoed back through the kitchen and into the dining room. She ducked under the rope and went straight toward the octagonal bowl. She picked it up and rubbed it carefully across her sleeve, to remove any dust. Then she looked at it closely.

It wasn’t the lighting that made it seem duller tonight. It
was
duller. It was duller and the fairy’s shoes were wrong and Ellen knew it was neither old nor valuable. She was not holding a piece of Wedgwood Fairylustre.

She was holding a fake.

A
t last, Ellen knew what Lydia wanted her to see.

Why didn’t I notice sooner? she wondered. How could I have been so dense?

She put the bowl back on the shelf and walked slowly past the other pieces. One of the Fairylustre vases didn’t seem quite right to her, but she wasn’t sure exactly why. She could not tell if the blue and white pieces were authentic or not. She couldn’t tell the creamware, either, or any of the other pieces.

She stared for a long moment at the big black urn. Was it the same urn she had looked at that first day? Or was it a reproduction?

Even though she had studied the Wedgwood frequently in the last week, she could not tell which pieces were original and which were copies. Except for the Fairylustre bowl. That was a reproduction, for sure.

Agnes said she switched all but two pieces. If all of these
are imitations, Ellen thought, where are the originals? What has happened to the Wedgwood collection? Where are Josiah Clayton’s remains?

Probably Lydia kept urging Ellen to look at the Fairylustre because that’s what Ellen most admired. If she was going to realize a copy had been substituted for the real piece, it would most likely happen when she was looking at the Fairylustre.

Ellen felt stunned, short of breath, the way she had once when she was playing basketball and got the wind knocked out of her. She also felt angry. What right did Agnes have to steal these treasures? Ellen supposed Agnes planned to sell the real pieces. Maybe she already had. They might be gone, welcomed into private collections, anywhere in the world. They might never be recovered, might never again stand on the shelves of Clayton House.

Ellen thought of Mr. Clayton, lying in his bed at Sheltering Arms, giving his home and his treasured works of art to the city so that people like Ellen could enjoy them. How was he going to feel when he learned that the curator of the museum had stolen his beloved Wedgwood?

Well, she isn’t going to get away with it, Ellen thought. Maybe the real pieces haven’t been sold yet. Maybe there’s still time to get them back.

She turned and ran across the dining room and down the stairs. She would tell her parents everything and they would call Mrs. Whittacker. Better yet, they could call the police. Maybe the police would come to Clayton House and catch Agnes yet tonight. She said she still had two pieces to switch.

Ellen rushed across the great hall. Corey was not standing by the door, where they usually met. No doubt he got tired of
waiting for her and was already out in the car with whichever of their parents had come to pick them up, babbling about how good he had screamed tonight or telling yet another Mighty Mike tale.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled. Nothing happened. She pulled again. With a sinking feeling, Ellen realized the door was already locked. Mrs. Whittacker must have thought all the volunteers had left; she had gone out and locked the door behind her.

Ellen knew it took a key to unlock it, even from the inside. She did not like the idea of going back to the office and admitting to Agnes that she was locked in. She didn’t particularly want to talk to Agnes at all—not until she’d been to the police with her discovery.

Before long, her parents would try to get in and would realize what had happened. But it might take a long time before they could reach Mrs. Whittacker or someone else who had a key.

Ellen would have to go and find Agnes, in order to get out. She went back upstairs and down the hall toward the dining room. Agnes was probably still in her office, talking to her friend.

As she walked, Ellen made up a story to explain why she had stayed in the mansion. She would tell Agnes that she thought Corey was still inside and she had gone to look for him. By the time she realized he had left without her, the door was locked. Unlike her brother, she was not used to making up stories but she certainly could not tell Agnes the real reason why she lingered so long after closing.

Her mind was on what she would say to Agnes as she entered the dining room and headed for the door to the kitchen.
She didn’t see Agnes crouched beside the bottom shelf of Wedgwood.

Ellen was nearly to the kitchen door when she was hit by an icy blast of air so strong that she was forced to stop walking.

“Not now, Lydia,” she said.

The moment she spoke, she heard a gasp behind her. Whirling around, she saw Agnes, still crouched beside the collection. On the floor beside her was a cardboard box. A piece of Fairylustre was in her hand. She stood up, quickly putting the Fairylustre on a shelf.

“Why are you still here?” Agnes said.

“I got locked in.”

“What were you doing for so long?”

Ellen opened her mouth to give the story she had made up but before she could begin, Agnes said, “You were in here again, weren’t you? You’re the one who rearranged all the Wedgwood.”

“No.”

“I suppose you thought it was funny to put the newer pieces down at that end, where the dates are in the eighteen hundreds and put the old creamware up here.”

“I didn’t do that,” Ellen said.

“I was in here personally while the public was here, to be sure that nobody got too close. The collection was in the proper sequence then. Someone rearranged it after the haunted house closed.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“None of the other volunteers has shown any interest in the Wedgwood. Only you.”

“I didn’t move them around.” She had to clamp her teeth tight together to keep from saying that Agnes was the one who
had been messing with the Wedgwood, so why was she accusing Ellen?

“It won’t do you any good to deny it,” Agnes said. “I’ve already talked to Mrs. Whittacker about you. I caught her before she left and warned her that you can’t be trusted to leave the collection alone and that she should watch you carefully until the haunted house closes, to be sure you stay away from it.”

Ellen’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. Then her eyes narrowed as she realized what Agnes had done. She wanted to be sure that nobody discovered that the real Wedgwood was missing. She wanted as much time as possible to get away, and she knew Ellen had examined the pieces thoroughly and might just notice that something wasn’t right, so she made up a story about Ellen rearranging the Wedgwood, to be sure Mrs. Whittacker didn’t allow Ellen to get too close to it.

Fury crackled through Ellen’s veins. She was so angry, she wished she could point at Agnes and have bolts of lightning come out the ends of her fingers. She didn’t even want Agnes to unlock the door for her. She just wanted to get away from that horrible woman.

“I’m going to call Mrs. Whittacker,” she said, “and ask her to come and let me out.” She turned and strode toward the kitchen door.

“Stay away from my office!” There was an undercurrent of panic in Agnes’s voice.

Ellen kept walking.

Agnes started after her, tripped on the cardboard box, and fell against the shelves. Two vases toppled at the impact and smashed to the floor.

“Oh!” Ellen cried, as she looked at the shattered fragments. “Were they the real ones?” As soon as the words were out of her
mouth, she realized what she had said. Her voice seemed to echo in the huge dining room. The real ones, the real ones.

“The real ones?” Agnes repeated. There was such animosity in her eyes that Ellen recoiled. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Harry!” Agnes shouted.

The kitchen door opened and a man wearing a blue ski parka ran into the dining room. He stopped when he saw Ellen. “Who’s she?” he asked.

“She knows,” Agnes said.

“What? You told this kid?”

“Of course not, you idiot. I don’t know how she found out.”

Ellen stepped backward, toward the dining-room entry.

“Now what do we do?” the man said.

“We’ll have to take her with us.”

“Oh, no. I’m not taking some kid across the state line.”

Ellen tried to swallow but her throat was so tight, nothing moved.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Agnes asked.

“We’ll lock her in your office.”

“With the telephone.” Agnes looked disgusted.

“We can tie her up. Nobody will be back here until tomorrow afternoon. That’s enough time for us.”

“They’ll come looking for her long before tomorrow afternoon,” Agnes said. “They’re probably trying to locate a key right now. We have to get moving, Harry. We’re out of time. I’ll get the last box; you get her in the car.”

Ellen whirled and ran toward the door. The man’s footsteps thumped on the floor behind her.

She ran into the hallway. He drew closer.

“There’s no place to run,” he called. “You’re locked in here with us.”

Straight ahead was the Joan of Arc room. Ellen knew there was no exit from that. To her right, the stairway led to the great hall and the front door; since it was locked, there was no point going that way. She ran to her left, toward the bedrooms. Bedroom doors sometimes lock from the inside.

She ran past the conservatory, where Corey and Mighty Mike did their scene every night, and past the library where the Julius Caesar scene took place. She saw a door ahead, a door that Mrs. Whittacker had not opened that first night, when she took them on a tour of the mansion.

She reached the door, turned the knob, and flung it open. It was not a bedroom. It was a linen closet. She whirled around and saw the man approaching, just a few yards away.

Ellen’s mind raced, trying to decide what to do. She could try to run past him; maybe if she ducked, just as she got to him, she could elude his grasp. Or she could kick him. She could kick him in the groin and then run.

Ellen was not a fighter. She avoided conflict if she could and the thought of purposely kicking another person, with the intent of hurting him, was abhorrent to her. But it would be even worse to be forced into the car and be taken hostage by this man and Agnes.

There was no time to debate her options. The man lunged toward her. Ellen swung her foot toward him as hard as she could but he was too quick. It was as if he had anticipated what she would do and was ready for it.

As her foot lifted toward his groin, he clasped his hands together into a single fist and brought it down, hard, on Ellen’s shin. The blow forced her foot away from him and, instead of
kicking the man, she kicked the wall. Ellen yelped as streamers of pain flew up her leg. She dropped to her knees.

The man unclasped his hands and reached for Ellen’s shoulders.

Before he could grab her, the lights went out. The entire mansion was plunged into darkness. In front of her, Ellen heard the man curse.

Quickly, she rolled to her left and then crept away, moving forward, groping along the wall with her hand. She remembered that all the lights were on a timer. No doubt Agnes would have to go to some central control in order to turn them on again. That would take at least a couple of minutes—long enough for Ellen to hide, if she could just get away from the man now.