The Phantom Portrait Read online

  “Clever old Max,” Sylvia said. “You can untangle them for us while we get on with the sewing. The ball is tomorrow night and we both need gorgeous costumes and masks.”

  For the next few hours, Agnes and Sylvia sat curled up on their beds sewing jewels on to their dresses. Maximilian had disentangled all the moons from the chains and ribbons that were twisted round them and Sylvia arranged them prettily at the shoulder of her ice-blue gown. She was going as a flash of moonlight to honour Lady Celine, and the moons were set into a swirl of sparkling crescents on a frill that cascaded from one shoulder down to the neckline of her silver dress, ending in a huge full moon-shaped crystal.

  As the clock neared midnight, there was a knocking at the door.

  Agnes swung herself off the bed and opened it. The corridor outside was completely empty.

  “That’s odd,” she said, shutting it again. “I must be hearing things.”

  The door had barely closed when the knocking began again, louder this time. Agnes yanked it open but there was no one there.

  At the end of the corridor there was a flicker of candlelight. Maximilian’s tail twitched and he slipped past Agnes out into the corridor. The candlelight flickered again and moved away, towards the stairs.

  Maximilian followed the candlelight through the house. At the last turn of the stairs he came to the gallery above the Great Hall. At the end of the gallery a lantern hung in mid-air. From the shadows a figure emerged, a woman in a long blue gown. Her face was a mask of white with hollowed pits of dark where her eyes should be. She put a finger to her lips and then pointed towards the portrait, her mouth opening in a silent, horrible scream.

  Maximilian felt his fur stand on end. He heard a shriek behind him and he realised that Sylvia must have followed him. The lantern flickered, illuminating the terrible face still more brightly, then in an instant it was extinguished and the woman in the blue dress vanished.

  Maximilian darted down the corridor. As he did so he could hear, once more, the footsteps he had heard on the first night. They seemed to be coming towards him, but, squinting hard into the shadows at the end of the corridor, he could see no one ahead. The footsteps grew closer. They were almost on top of him, then they started to fade away. Maximilian felt a chill run through him and he was aware that his paws were shaking. He took several deep breaths, his eyes darting round. The moon broke through the clouds outside, illuminating some of the portraits hanging round the hall. Eyes loomed out of the dark paintwork. The teeth of a horse leered at him out of a painting at the end of the hall. Maximilian shuddered. How he wished that Oscar were here, being sensible and telling him stories that did not involve ghosts and creeping things in the night.

  “Puss, let’s get out of here,” Sylvia whispered, her voice breaking a little. Maximilian turned to go back to her, when suddenly Sylvia let out an ear-splitting scream that echoed off the walls and marble floors of the castle. She lifted a shaking hand and pointed towards the end of the hall.

  “Look!”

  Maximilian looked where Sylvia was pointing, to the great portrait of Lady Celine that hung over the hall. The moonlight lit up the gilding on the frame, picking out the crescent moons etched into its woodwork. But Lady Celine’s face did not shine out of the dark paintwork as the other portraits had done. The frame was empty except for the dappled blue and grey background of the painting.

  Lady Celine had disappeared from her own portrait.

  Sylvia’s screams soon woke the house. Maids and footmen came running from the narrow staircases that led to the upper floors. Mrs Garland came dashing down the stairs behind Sylvia, wrapped in a dressing gown and with a poker in her hand. From the other side of the gallery Lord Fawley pushed his way past gawping housemaids and demanded to know what was going on.

  Sylvia was tearfully trying to explain when there was another scream, this time from Arabella, who had just arrived on the gallery and seen the portrait. All colour drained from her face and she fainted into the arms of a convenient footman. The gallery exploded with noise. One of the younger footmen burst into tears; a housemaid began to loudly tell the story of Lady Celine to a group of wide-eyed kitchen maids. It seemed that everyone had a tale to tell about how they “once saw her drifting across the lawns, though of course it might have been a badger”. In the midst of all the fuss the butler huffed down the staircase and rattled the dinner gong until there was silence.

  “Thank you, Briggs,” said Lord Fawley. He looked round the assembled company, looking far from his usual genial self. “I don’t know what has happened this evening, or who is behind this tomfoolery, but I tell you all this. There is no such thing as ghosts. This is all just a foolish and rather cruel prank. However, that portrait is a valuable artwork and a piece of considerable sentimental value to the family. I do not wish to ruin Arabella’s birthday so I will give whoever is responsible until her party to return it before I ring the police. Now, go to bed, all of you!”

  His face softened as he turned to Arabella, who was reviving a little, and motioned for footmen to carry the girl back to her room.

  “Back to bed, you two,” said Mrs Garland, putting a hand on Sylvia’s arm and leading her and Agnes towards their room. Maximilian hung back, his mind racing. It had been only this morning that he had heard Lord Rorston and Antonio talking about something to scare everyone at midnight. Was this it? He wracked his brain but could not remember seeing Lord Rorston appear with everyone after Sylvia’s screams. The man could have played the part of the Viscountess. But how had he made the portrait disappear?

  Maximilian decided to investigate. He took a flying leap on to the sideboard that stood underneath the portrait. Balancing very carefully on his back toes, he was able to reach up to the frame and take a closer look at it.

  It was very poorly executed, the paint slapped on in great daubs. It looked as though it had been painted very hastily indeed and there was frayed canvas peeping out from the edge of the frame. Maximilian reached out a paw and patted the painting, and when he drew his paw away it was smeared with oil paint, the dark grey of the background staining his beautiful fur.

  This isn’t the portrait at all! thought Maximilian. Someone has cut the painting out of the frame and replaced it with this mess. It must have been done after everyone went to sleep, and whoever did it has stolen the real painting.

  Maximilian looked around the empty hall. If someone had dressed up as the Viscountess, then they must have been hiding somewhere while everyone was dashing around the gallery. He leapt to the floor and padded over to the corner where he had last seen the figure. There were drops of candle wax on the floor. Maximilian patted one with his paw. It was cool, but still soft, and the pads of his paw left little prints on the droplet.

  He peered around. Lord Fawley’s maids were most particular about dusting, which was wonderful for those cats who were fastidious about their tails, but unfortunately meant that there were no useful footprints for him to follow. He nosed around in the corner and peeked behind one of the tapestries that hung from the wall, but there were no clues there either.

  Maximilian turned his attention to the beautiful wood panelling that lined the walls of the gallery. It was polished to perfection, the glossy surface gleaming in the moonlight. An intricately carved border with Lord Fawley’s family crest of ivy leaves and crescent moons ran round the ceiling and floor. Maximilian lifted himself up on to his hind legs and closely inspected the join between two panels, hoping that there might be a secret door to be found, but after picking away at the join with one of his claws he gave a little miaow of defeat.

  He was pondering where to investigate next when his eye caught something on one of the panels. The crescent moons on the crests along the border all faced to the left, but one moon, in the middle of one of the panels, faced to the right. Maximilian’s tail began to tingle and he pressed his face up to the crest to examine it more closely. Was he mistaken, or was the wood a little more clearly etched out, almost as if the moon was a
button? With a paw that trembled a little, Maximilian reached out and pressed the crescent moon. There was a faint click and the panel swung open a few centimetres. Maximilian pulled the panel towards him and squinted into the dark.

  He had found the ghost’s hiding place.

  It was a narrow space, just wide enough for one human to squeeze through, and was riddled with cobwebs and dust that made Maximilian shudder. There was no light except for tiny shafts that filtered through from cracks in the panelling. As Maximilian crept down the passage he could feel his paws becoming smothered with grimy dust. His beautiful tail grew heavy with cobwebs and his ears prickled with spiders tickling behind them as he dislodged their homes.

  He pressed on, trying to ignore how disgusting his fur felt. It was almost impossible to see at all, but he strained his eyes looking for clues and swept the floor with his paws, in case the ghost had dropped anything. After a few minutes one of his claws snagged on something and Maximilian stumbled around in the dark, trying to snatch hold of it. It was a small piece of cloth. Shuddering at how dirty it must be, Maximilian picked it up with his teeth and grimaced at the taste of dust.

  He was so engrossed in resisting the urge to spit it out, and trying not to think about whether he had just swallowed a spider, that he missed his footing and was sent tumbling downwards. The passageway had opened on to a set of stone steps and as Maximilian bounced down them he let out a miaow of alarm. His claws scrabbled against the stonework, but he kept falling till he landed with a bump on a flagstone floor and the scrap of cloth floated down to land on his nose.

  Maximilian put out a paw to feel for his surroundings. The narrow walls were still on either side and, to his alarm, there was stone in front of him too. He steeled himself not to panic and sniffed the air. A breath of fresh, cold air coursed over his face and gave him hope that somewhere there was a way out. He placed his shoulder against the cool stone in front of him and felt his way along it, pushing gently. There was the click of a latch and a creak as the stone swung away from him, and Maximilian bounded out into the night air, taking down great gulps of it to try to rid himself of the taste of the dust and cobwebs. Behind him, the stone door swung shut again, sealing itself neatly into the walls of the castle.

  Maximilian looked around. He was outside the castle, near the rose gardens. The ornamental hedges loomed above him, great shadows in the night, but there was no sign of the ghostly figure from the gallery. The night hung around him, silent and still, and the feel of the soft grass beneath his paws was a welcome change from the dirty floor of the passageway.

  He dropped the scrap of cloth to the floor and spread it out. It was a square piece of fine silk, carefully edged with dark thread. In one corner was a crest with a leaping pike and a sycamore leaf. It’s a handkerchief, thought Maximilian. But this is not Lord Fawley’s crest. He peered at something stitched on the edge of the cloth.

  In the corner of the handkerchief was an embroidered monogram in florid script. It was the letter “R”.

  “So it is Lord Rorston!” Oscar said.

  It was the next day and they were sitting by the ornamental lake, watching as the final touches were made to the decorations for Arabella’s Halloween party that evening. Every pathway was lined with pumpkin lanterns and the ornamental gardens had black cat statues set to look as though they were strolling through the flowerbeds or leaping from the trees. In the middle of the garden a huge topiary cat had been cut from the middle of the yew hedge.

  Maximilian nodded. “Yes! He must have painted over the portrait, then dressed up as the Viscountess and knocked on Agnes and Sylvia’s door to make sure that someone saw him. Then he slipped away down the passageway while everyone was fussing around in the gallery.”

  “But why?” asked Oscar. “Why go to all this trouble?”

  Maximilian thought about this.

  “That is what I can’t work out,” he said. “We know that Lord Rorston has plans to scare everyone, and that he and Antonio were measuring something in the upstairs gallery. And now we know that Lord Rorston has been dressing up as the Viscountess.”

  Something twitched at the back of his mind, a memory of Agnes staring at Lady Celine’s portrait in horror, of Bunty telling them what would cause the Viscountess to start her hauntings. Maximilian gasped as it fell into place!

  “The legend says that the Viscountess will only start to haunt the castle when the theatre is opened!” he cried. “Lord Rorston must be pretending to be her to make us think that she is angry with us for opening it! But why?”

  “It sounds almost as though he wants to keep you all away from the building,” Oscar said.

  Maximilian thought of the ransacked dressing rooms and the appearance of that ghastly face on the roof of the theatre. Had these been staged to frighten the company?

  “That must be it!” he said. “What if he wants us to believe in the theatre ghost, so that the company stop working in the theatre? What if it was him who ransacked the dressing rooms? He must have been looking for something in there. Something he doesn’t want anyone to find before he does!”

  Oscar nodded appreciatively. “It all fits. Do we search the theatre?”

  Maximilian shook his head. “First we search Lord Rorston’s room!”

  A few minutes later Oscar and Maximilian were creeping along the corridor towards Lord Rorston’s room on the second floor of the castle. The maids were busy making the rooms ready for the party guests arriving that afternoon, and there was bustle and hurry everywhere. Every bedroom on the second floor was wide open and in the middle of the corridor stood a gleaming trolley full of pressed and starched linen and antique coverlets all ready to be whisked on to beds full of plumped-up pillows.

  Maximilian peeked in at each door, looking for a sign that it was Lord Rorston’s room. As they were rounding the corner at the end of one corridor they spotted the man himself in discussion with Bunty. Her head was hanging low and she looked most upset.

  “There’s no use in sulking,” Lord Rorston was saying, his face firm. “Hand it over and we’ll say no more about it.”

  Bunty shifted her feet and dug a hand into her cardigan pocket, drawing out the book that Maximilian and Oscar had seen her reading the day before. She hid it behind her back, her thumb holding it open at one page, and looked up at her father pleadingly.

  “Please can I keep it just a little longer?” she said, but Lord Rorston shook his head.

  “These are private papers, Bunty. I should never have let you read it in the first place. Now, hand it over, please.”

  Behind her back, Bunty carefully tore a page out of the book and crumpled it up into her hand, then handed the book over to her father.

  “Good girl,” he muttered. “Now, off to Arabella with you. She’ll be wanting help with some nonsensical costume.”

  Lord Rorston opened the door of the room behind him while Bunty strode off down the corridor. As she passed Maximilian and Oscar she moved to slip the crumpled paper into her pocket, but it missed and fell to the floor. Bunty went on her way without noticing.

  Maximilian snatched up the paper and sped off after her, weaving round her ankles, but she merely nudged him aside with her foot.

  “Not now, cat. Find someone else to bother.” And she was gone.

  “So what now?” Oscar asked as Maximilian rejoined him.

  “I suppose we wait,” Maximilian said, and wait they did. They waited till the lunch bell went, when Lord Rorston left his room and Maximilian’s tummy had begun to rumble. Then they waited for a further half-hour till one of the maids threw the door open to change the bedding. They slipped in behind her and hid under the bed until the coast was clear.

  “Your stomach will give us away one of these days,” Oscar said as they crept out from their hiding place. Maximilian pouted and pulled his tummy in. It gave another loud roar of complaint. Breakfast seemed a long time ago.

  Lord Rorston’s room was very tidy, and indeed a little sparse for a lord. His dres
sing table held only a hairbrush, a small pot of pomade and a curling iron for his moustaches. A single briefcase sat on a writing desk. Maximilian leapt on to the chair and pushed at the clasp. He half expected it to be locked, but it sprang open and a pile of papers spilled out and fluttered to the floor.

  “They must be some of the papers that he has been looking at for Lord Fawley,” Maximilian said. “The ones he was reading in the library that night when everyone was telling ghost stories.”

  He squinted at the pages more closely. They were full of diagrams that felt very familiar. They looked a little like the plans of the Theatre Royal that Monsieur Lavroche had on the wall in his office. There were stalls and boxes carefully drawn in black ink as rows of tiny chairs. The stage formed a curve across the page, with the plan of the dressing rooms and fly gallery sketched out to the side.

  “These are theatre plans!” he said. “They must be of Lord Fawley’s theatre.”

  “More proof that Lord Rorston is looking for something in there?” suggested Oscar.

  “That’s not all,” said Maximilian, pointing a paw at a square drawn in the middle of one of the plans. “I’ve seen this before. There are plans of the Theatre Royal in Monsieur Lavroche’s office and there is a symbol like this in the middle of the stage where the trapdoor is.”

  Oscar peered at the paper. “But this looks as though it is on the roof,” he said.

  Maximilian nodded. “Do you remember that night of the storm?” he asked. “How we couldn’t work out how the Viscountess disappeared from the theatre roof? There must be a trapdoor.”

  “An escape route. How ingenious,” murmured Oscar.

  Pleased to have solved one mystery, Maximilian nudged the plans aside and rifled through the other papers. What a nuisance it was to not be able to read. There were more loose papers and some very old pictures, and at the bottom of the case was Bunty’s book. Maximilian pulled it out with his paw and tried to nudge it on to the desk, but it slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor, the clasp springing open and loose leaves spilling out.