Was There Anyone There? Pt. 2 ( VILLAGE TALES Ep. 4 )

An antiques expert discovers something peculiar which raises questions about a death.

 Was it an accident or was a ghost involved? More to the point, was it murder?

 A retired inspector admits there’s no proof. In the end it’s not needed.

You may recall I was telling you about Lucy Musgrave and her husband Mark that had not long been living in the Old Mill before Lucy, who had become a friend, was found at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken. She had been confiding in me, and the rest of the village, that her husband was being haunted by the ghost his deceased wife, Diana, who begrudged his marrying again. The Old Mill had a reputation for being haunted so to some this was no surprise. Lucy had described how he was being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and how he had been led half asleep to the top of the stairs several times from where eventually the ghost of Diana had pushed him down. An ambulance took him to hospital but he was released the same day having suffered no more than some bruising. After this they had tried various remedies culminating in a seance at the mill during which Diana had indicated her presence by knocking on the middle of the table. Lucy insisted that it really was Diana as the knocking was unmistakable and there could be no other explanation.

Lucy had been a wealthy woman and Mark was the only beneficiary which raised some eyebrows but Mark seemed genuinely affected by the accident so it was no surprise that Mark decided to sell the Old Mill and move away, probably abroad. He would have no need of most of the house’s contents and none of the furniture so he had sold it to a dealer friend of mine who I had recommended.

The dealer had contacted me to come and look at something he had found attached beneath a small table. In the centre was a box concealing a muffled door knocker. It had been made to appear part of the table’s construction and normally would have gone unnoticed.

The shock of what it might mean had made me feel quite ill. Lucy’s description of the seance, and Diana’s ghostly knocking kept repeating like a stuck record. The idea that Mark had been faking the haunting with the intention of killing Lucy was unbelievable, such premeditation within our own village, and a neighbour, it was difficult to accept. Perhaps it was why the Old Mill, with its reputation for being haunted, had been chosen in the first place.

The dealer explained that he’d noticed a length of wire running down the inside of one of the fluted legs and painted over so as to conceal it. It ended by the foot where something had been cut off.

‘A switch,’ I suggested,

‘Happen,’ he said, then pointing to several screw holes, ‘maybe this is where a battery were fixed and here something that could make the door knocker hit the underside of the table.’

He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already guessed.

‘I reckon’, he said, ‘it were one ‘at tables those mediums use who do seances and things, you know.’

I did, but this one had a much darker purpose.’

I asked him if I could borrow the table to show a friend who is interested in such things and fascinated by the methods used by tricksters and charlatans. I didn’t tell him he was also a retired inspector who I got to know visiting my shop on the look-out for stolen goods. Incidentally he never found any, but I would say that wouldn’t I.

Retired inspector Trevor Mears arrived at my cottage with some of his home made cider. As we both sat glass in hand by the log-burner, I told him what Lucy had told me, and then of her accident.

After some thought Trevor pointed out that stairs are one of the most common causes of domestic accidents, whether the house is haunted or not. 

I then pointed out that one of the most common causes of murder must be a sizeable legacy.

‘Love, lust, loathing, or loot’, was his reply without putting them in any order of popularity.

I suggested he look closely at the table that was by his side. Not being familiar with antiques he looked everywhere but underneath, until I suggested he do so. He then noticed the arrangements that my dealer friend had pointed out and I proposed what I thought might have been Mark’s plan all along. Find a place with an appropriate reputation, fake the haunting knowing that Lucy would spread the word, demonstrate the power of the ghost on yourself, then on your wife.

‘Mmmm,’ Trevor began, ‘unless there is evidence that Lucy struggled, or had suffered an injury before she fell down the stairs there would be no reason to think that it was nothing more than an accident.’

‘What about the table?’ I asked.

‘It’s hardly a murder weapon,’ he said, ‘but I take your point. If the death was suspicious then the mechanism may add to the circumstantial evidence. But on its own it could be no more than a practical joke, and there is no proof that it wasn’t always there, or that Mark fitted it. It could indeed be a table once used by a charlatan to fool people.’

‘In which case,’ I said, ‘the value has just trebled.’

Eventually the inspector and I had to agree there would be little that could be considered ‘a smoking gun’.

It was a constant irritation the feeling that Mark had got away with it but maybe it was my fondness for Lucy that was clouding my objectivity. Nearing the end of October village life had returned to normal, it was about then I heard that the Old Mill had been sold.

A few days later when the ‘trick or treaters’ had been packed of to bed and Halloween revellers had staggered home I was again woken by the sound of an ambulance, a rare occurrence in our village, or at least it used to be. In the morning I found an excuse to visit the local shop to discover what the commotion was all about.

Shopkeeper Paul told me that Mark Musgrave had returned to the mill to have a final look round and check that everything was as it should be. Well, thats what Milton Peacock, the retired solicitor who lives opposite thought when he noticed several lights on at about 10.00. An hour later his dog started barking and would not stop for some time. In the morning the lights were still on so Milton went to investigate. He found the front door ajar and called out for Mark, presuming it was him that had returned. He wandered through to the rear calling Mark’s name. At the top of the stone steps leading down to the cellar, he saw Mark’s body lying at the bottom on the flagstone floor. He checked to see if there was any sign of life before returning home and phoning the services. 

As there were no suspicious circumstances it was judged to be just a tragic accident. As I have pointed out before there is no such thing as coincidence, only fate, you may disagree. More importantly to the village is the debate, as to whether Mark set up the whole ghost thing just to kill his wife for her fortune, or whether Lucy’s death was purely an accident. They can’t decide if Mark’s death was also an accident, or if Diana did eventually get him, or if he did kill Lucy whether Lucy had returned to do the job herself. My favourite is they both did it, Diana and Lucy, well you know what women can do when they co-operate, and it was Halloween.

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the Honkeymoon Cafe on Spotify, Anchor FM, Apple Podcasts,

 RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Breaker and other platforms.

 Written and read by Barkley Johnson.