Lockwood & Co. The Hollow Boy

At precisely ten o’clock the following morning, our client arrived. She was a Miss Fiona Wintergarden, a tall, willowy, somewhat desiccated lady in (I judged) her early fifties. Her hair, cut short and sensibly, was approaching rain-cloud gray. She wore a cream twinset and long black skirt, and a pair of small golden spectacles on the crest of her angular nose. She sat perched on the lip of the sofa with her knees tight together and thin hands folded in her lap. Her spine was ramrod straight, her bony shoulders forced back against the fabric of her cardigan like the stumps of dragon wings. If she’d had a bust, it would certainly have been thrust forward; as it was, the effect was aggressively demure.

The employees of Lockwood & Co. positioned themselves around her. Lockwood reclined in his usual chair. George took the seat to the right of the coffee table, and I the one opposite. Our newest member, Ms. Holly Munro, sat slightly back from the rest of us, legs neatly crossed and with a notebook and pen held ready on her knee. She would take notes on the meeting. Eighteen months before, when I’d just joined the company, I’d had a similar role. But I’d never thought to sit so close behind Lockwood that I could lean forward and speak quietly in his ear or, by virtue of my proximity to the leader, tacitly become the second-most important person in the room.

There were thick slabs of carrot cake on the table, beside the obligatory tea. This, I thought, was a miscalculation on George’s part. New company etiquette dictated that we couldn’t eat cake unless our client did, and Miss Wintergarden didn’t seem like a carrot cake type of person. And indeed she ignored the plate when it was offered to her and only sipped once at her cup before setting it aside.

The fire in the hearth leaped and sparked, casting angular red shadows along the side of our client’s face. “It is good of you to see me at such short notice, Mr. Lockwood,” she said. “I am at my wit’s end and simply don’t know what to do.”

Lockwood gave an easy smile. “By choosing us, madam, you are already halfway to a solution. Thank you for selecting Lockwood and Co.—we know there are many alternatives out there.”

“Indeed. I tried several others, but they are not taking on new customers at present,” Miss Wintergarden said. “Regrettably, there seems to be an ongoing kerfuffle in Chelsea that is being given priority by all the major agencies, and I was forced to cast my eyes a little lower than I would otherwise have done. Still, I understand you are considered reasonably competent, and also cheap.” She gazed at him over the rims of her spectacles.

Lockwood’s smile had become a trifle stiff. “Er, we endeavor to give satisfaction as far as we are able….May I ask the nature of your trouble?”

“I am being plagued by a supernatural phenomenon.”

“Naturally. Which is?”

The lady’s voice sank low; a thin wattle of loose skin, hanging beneath her jaw, wobbled briefly as she spoke. “Footprints. Bloody footprints.”

George looked up. “Well, I’m sorry you’re upset.”

Miss Wintergarden blinked. “No. I mean they’re bloody. Footprints made of blood.”

“How fascinating.” Lockwood sat forward in his chair. “This is in your house?”

“I fear so.”

“Have you seen the prints yourself?”

“Certainly not!” She sounded almost offended. “They were first reported by the youngest members of my staff—the boot boy, the cook’s lad, and others. None of the adults have witnessed them, but that hasn’t stopped a ridiculous panic from spreading through the house. We have had scenes, Mr. Lockwood. Scenes and resignations! I was very put out by it. I mean, they’re servants. Servants and children. I don’t pay them to indulge in squealing hysterics.”

She glared around, as if daring any of us to disagree. As I met her gaze, I took away the impression of a humorless, rather unintelligent person, for whom only prim correctness and snobbery kept the terrors of the world at bay. That’s what I picked up from a quick look in her eyes, anyhow. No doubt she thought I was great.

Lockwood wore his gentle, placatory face, which he often used on Whitechapel housewives. “I entirely understand,” he said. “Perhaps you had better tell us all about it from the beginning.” He lifted his hand as if to pat her reassuringly on the knee, but then thought better of it.

“Very well,” Miss Wintergarden said. “I live at Fifty-four Hanover Square in central London. My father, Sir Rhodes Wintergarden, bought the property sixty years ago. He was a financier; I expect you will have heard of him. As his only daughter, I inherited it on his death and have remained there ever since. In twenty-seven years, Mr. Lockwood, I have never once been troubled by ghosts. I do not have time for them! I do a great deal of work for charitable organizations, and host functions that are attended by many important people. The head of the Sunrise Corporation is a personal friend of mine! I cannot allow my house to gain a dubious reputation, which is why I have come here today.”

None of us said anything, but there was a perceptible quickening of interest in the room. Hanover Square was an expensive location; if Miss Wintergarden was truly wealthy and well connected, success with this case might give Lockwood & Co. the very push it needed. Lockwood in particular seemed newly alert.

“Can you describe your home?” he asked.

“It is a Regency town house,” our client said, “in one corner of the square. It has five stories—a basement level, containing the cellars and kitchens; the ground floor, which holds the reception rooms; an upper level with my personal chambers—a library, music room, and so forth; the third-floor bedrooms; and finally the attic level, where many of my staff—those who bother to remain!—have cots. The stories are connected by a curving staircase, a notable construction in mahogany and elm, designed by the architects Hobbes and Crutwell for the first owner of the house.”

I shuffled in my chair. Lockwood’s smile had faded, and George was staring longingly at the cake. We knew the signs; Miss Wintergarden, like so many of our clients, enjoyed the sound of her own voice. We would be here for a while.

“Yes, the staircase is easily the finest on the square,” she continued, “with the most elegant and deep stairwell. When I was a child, my father tied my pet mouse to a handkerchief and launched it from the top. It parachuted down—”

“Excuse me, Miss Wintergarden.” Holly Munro had glanced up from her notepad. “We need to hurry you a little. Mr. Lockwood is extremely busy, and we only have an hour scheduled for this meeting. Only relevant historical matters need be discussed here. Let’s keep to the essentials, please.” She gave a brisk smile, one that turned on and off as if a kid were fiddling with the switch, and bent her head to the pad.

There was a pause, during which Lockwood shifted around in his chair to stare at his assistant. We were all staring. George even had his mouth wide open, which made me relieved that he hadn’t yet had any cake. “Er, yes,” Lockwood said. “Well, I suppose we do need to muddle on. These footprints, Miss Wintergarden. Tell us about them.”

The lady had been gazing contemplatively at Holly Munro. She pursed her lips. “I was about to do so, and my speaking of the staircase was entirely relevant, for it is there that the bloody footprints are found.”

“Ah! Describe them.”

“They are the marks of bare feet ascending the stairs. They are spattered about with blood. They appear sometime after midnight, last several hours, and fade before dawn.”

“On which part of the staircase are they located?”

“They begin in the basement and stretch certainly as high as the third floor.” The lady frowned. “Perhaps higher.”

“What do you mean?”

“The prints apparently become less clear as they go up. Near the basement the full outline of the foot is visible, then the stains become smaller—it’s just the toes and balls of the feet you see.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Someone going on tiptoe?”

“Or running,” George suggested.

Miss Wintergarden gave a shrug, shoulder blades slicing against cardigan. “I am only reporting what the children said, and their accounts are incoherent. You would do better to look for yourselves.”

“We shall,” Lockwood said. “Are the prints found elsewhere in the building?”

“No.”

“What surface do the stairs have?”

“Wooden boards.”

“No carpet or rugs?”

“None.”

He tapped his fingers together. “Do you know of a possible cause for this haunting? Some tragedy or crime of passion that occurred in the house?”

The lady bristled. She could not have been more shocked if Lockwood had sprung up, vaulted over the coffee table, and punched her in the nose. “Certainly not! To my knowledge, my home has never been the site of any violent or passionate incident whatsoever.” She pushed out her meager chest defiantly.

“I can well believe it….” Lockwood was silent for a moment, staring across at the dwindling fire. “Miss Wintergarden, when you phoned yesterday you said this was a matter of life and death. The prints you describe are certainly disturbing, but I don’t think they can be the whole story. Is there something you’re not telling us?”

The cast of the woman’s face changed. Her haughtiness diminished; she looked both tired and wary. “Yes, there has been an…incident. You must understand that it was not my fault. The prints had never been a problem, no matter what the servants said.” She shook her head. “I acted entirely correctly. It was not my fault.”

“Hold on. So the footprints have been appearing for some time, then?” I said.

“Oh yes, for years.” She glared at me. Her voice carried a defensive ring. “Do not think I have been neglecting my duty, young madam! The prints, and their accompanying phenomena, have always been faint and insubstantial. And they came so very rarely. No one was ever harmed by them. Aside from the warblings of a few servants, no one even noticed they were there. In recent weeks, however, they began to be reported more frequently. Finally”—she looked away from us—“it was a nightly occurrence. So I hired three night-watch children to keep an eye on things.”

We glanced at one another. Night-watch kids have Talent, but they’re not as strong or sensitive as agents. And they aren’t half as well armed, either.

“You didn’t think of mentioning this to DEPRAC?” Holly Munro asked.

“The phenomena amounted to almost nothing!” Miss Wintergarden cried. “I did not see the need to bring in agents at that stage.” She plucked at the fabric of her pullover as if it were sticking to her shoulder. “There are major hauntings all over London! You cannot trouble the authorities over every Wisp or Glimmer, and I have a reputation to keep up. I certainly did not want dirty DEPRAC boots tramping around my house.”

Lockwood gazed at her. “So what happened?”

She tapped a small white fist irritably against her lap; her agitation remained, but she was mastering it once more. “Well, I ask you, what did I employ the watch-children for? It was their job to ensure that things did not get out of hand. I gave them the simple task of observing the stairs, of understanding the nature of the apparition. I was sleeping in the house. Many of the servants had left, but there were still some staff upstairs. It was important we were safe…” Her voice trailed away.

“Yes,” Lockwood said drily. “Your safety was of course paramount. Go on.”

“After the first night—this is three days ago, Mr. Lockwood—the children reported to me while I took my breakfast. They had waited in the basement, watching the stairs. At some point after midnight, they saw the footprints appear—just as I have described them to you. The prints formed, one after the other, curling up the staircase, as if someone were slowly climbing. As they went, the pace of the prints grew faster. The children followed, but only for a short distance—to my vexation, when they reached the ground floor, they stopped and did not go on. I ask you, what good was that?”

“Did they say why they hung back?” Lockwood asked.

“They said the visitation was moving too fast. Also that they were scared.” The lady glared around at us. “Scared! This was their job!”

“How old were these children, please?” I asked.

Miss Wintergarden’s mouth twisted. “I should think nine or ten. I have no experience with the species. Well, I made no secret of my wishes that they should watch more closely the next night, and to be fair to them, they did. The following morning they came before me, white and trembling, and said that they had climbed halfway between the second and third floors before being unable to continue. A sensation of appalling terror had gripped them, they said, which grew worse the higher they got; they felt as if something were waiting for them around the bend in the staircase. There were three children, don’t forget, and all with those iron sticks they wave about. It seemed a poor excuse to me.

“I requested they watch again the third night. One girl refused point-blank—I paid her off and sent her packing—but the other two thought they might try. You must understand that the footprints had never caused us any actual trouble. I did not for a moment dream that—”

She broke off, reaching toward the table. Her gaunt hand hovered above the carrot cake, then veered away to pick up her cup of tea.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she said.

Lockwood was regarding her closely. “What wasn’t your fault, Miss Wintergarden?”

She closed her eyes. “I sleep in a bedroom on the third floor. Yesterday morning I woke early, before any of my servants were about. I came out of my room and saw a watch-stick lying on the landing. It was wedged right through the balusters, its end hanging out over the stairwell. I called, but heard nothing. So I went over to the banister, and then I saw…” She took a shaky sip of tea. “I saw…”

George spoke feelingly to no one but himself. “I can sense this is going to make me need some cake.”

“I saw one of the night-watch children above me, huddled on the staircase, between the third and attic floors. She had her back to the wall, and her knees drawn up, and she was rocking to and fro. When I spoke to her, she did not answer. I could not see the other—it was a boy, I do not know his name—but I noticed that the girl’s watch-stick was there on the stairs next to her, and that made me suddenly look down.” She took a short, sharp breath, as if reliving the moment of shock. “I have told you about the stairwell—how it stretches from the attic level to the basement. And he was down there, lying in shadow on the basement floor. He had fallen, and he was dead.”

There was a long silence in the room. The veneer of superiority Miss Wintergarden had attempted to maintain throughout the interview hung from her at an angle, skewed, flapping, and distasteful, like a highly wrought gate blown off its hinges in a gale.

Still she clung to it. “It was their job,” she said. “I paid them for the risk.”

Lockwood had gone very still. His eyes glinted. “I hope you paid them well. Was he ghost-touched?”

“No.”

“Why had he fallen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where had he fallen from?”

A bony shrug. “I don’t know that, either.”

“Miss Wintergarden, surely the other child could—”

“She could say nothing, Mr. Lockwood. Nothing at all.”

“And why is that?”

“Because she had lost her mind!” The words came out almost as a shriek; we all jerked back. The woman rocked forward, arms rigid, white hands clasped in her lap. “She has lost her mind. She says nothing. She scarcely sleeps. She goggles at the empty air, as if it would itself attack her. She is at present in a secure unit in a psychiatric hospital in north London, being tended to by DEPRAC doctors. It is a post-traumatic catatonic state, they say. The outlook is not favorable.”

“Miss Wintergarden.” Holly Munro spoke in a brittle voice. “Those children should not have been used. It was very wrong of you. You should have called in an agency.”

There were two red points in the lady’s cheeks. I thought she was going to erupt with fury, but she said only, “I am doing so now.”

“From the outset.”

“Young lady, I do not intend—”

George stood decisively. “I was right, you know. After that story, we all need to revive ourselves. We need energy, we need nourishment. This is definitely a carrot cake moment. No—please, Miss Wintergarden, I insist.” He scooped up the cake and, like a croupier dealing cards, tipped a slice onto her plate. “There. It’ll make us all feel better.” Four others were doled out in the blink of an eye. Lockwood and I took ours. I offered a plate to Holly.

She held up a perfectly manicured hand. “No thanks, Lucy. You tuck in. I’m good.”

Of course she was. I sat back heavily with my plate.

The story of the night-watch kids had cast a pall over us. We ate, each after our own fashion. Our client, pale-faced, nibbled a corner of her slice with the fastidious motions of a field mouse. I gulped mine down like an antisocial seabird. Lockwood sat in silence, frowning into the fire. Accounts of deaths at the hand of ghosts always weighed on him.

George, unusually, had been slow to begin his cake. Something about our visitor had caught his attention. He gazed at a silvery object pinned to her pullover. It was just visible beneath her cardigan.

“That’s a nice brooch you have there, Miss Wintergarden,” he said.

She glanced down. “Thank you.” Her words were scarcely audible.

“It’s a harp symbol, isn’t it?”

“A lyre, an ancient Greek harp, yes.”

“Does it represent something? I’m sure I’ve seen it before.”

“It’s the symbol of the Orpheus Society, a club in London. I do charitable work for them….” She brushed cake crumbs off her fingers. “Now—Mr. Lockwood, how do you wish to proceed?”

“With extreme care.” Lockwood roused himself; his face was serious, unsmiling. “We shall accept the case, of course, Miss Wintergarden—but the stakes are high, and I will not take unnecessary risks. I assume the house will be left empty for us this evening? You and the servants will be elsewhere?”

“Most of them have given notice! Yes, you will have a free hand.”

“Very well. Now, one final question. Earlier on, you mentioned certain ‘accompanying phenomena’ that had been noticed alongside the bloody footprints. What were they?”

Miss Wintergarden frowned; the lines in the center of her brow corrugated. Going into detail was a matter of distaste for her. “I hardly remember. The footprints were the focus of the haunting.”

“It’s not just visual things that count,” I said. “Did the night-watch hear anything? Feel anything odd, perhaps?”

“There were sensations of panic, as I have told you; I think it was also very cold. Maybe one girl reported movement in the air—a feeling of something passing her.”

There was nothing here that we couldn’t have predicted. It told us little. Lockwood nodded. “I see.”

“Oh, and one child reported two rushing forms.”

We stared at her. “What?” I said. “When were you going to mention this?”

“I had forgotten. One of the night-watch said it; the boy, I think. It was a garbled account. I was unsure whether to take it seriously.”

“In my experience, Miss Wintergarden,” Lockwood said, “one should always take the accounts of dead night-watch children very seriously indeed. What did the boy see?”

Her lips pursed thin. “Two cloudy figures: one large, one small. According to him they raced, one after the other, up the stairs. Following the line of footprints. The big shape had its hand outstretched, as if to seize the smaller. The little shape—”

“Was running,” I finished. “Running for its life.”

“Don’t think it worked out for them, whoever it was.” George said. “Call me intuitive”—he pushed his glasses up his nose—“but I’d hazard a guess they didn’t make it.”