Tales of the Parodyverse

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champagne
Sat Jan 20, 2007 at 10:37:24 pm EST
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Champagne and the Marchebankes Ghost
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    Old Lady Marchebankes dropped her tea cup. It shattered on the floor. She staggered back, clutching her chest. The ghost of her late husband continued down the corridor and flickered through the library door.

    “Did you… see that?” Mr Parkhouse the lawyer asked in a sick tone, clutching his briefcase. “That… thing?”

    “That was no thing,” Lady Marchebankes said, staggering into one of the hall chairs. “That was Rupert. My Rupert. Just like before.”

    Other people started to appear, alerted by their mistress’ scream and the shattering china. A footman and a maid attended to the old woman. Her nephew Colin Fairfax and her niece Jane Wellington rushed to see what the fuss was about. The old butler Winston came with smelling salts.

    “Did you see it this time?” Colin said, triumphantly. “I wasn’t imagining it, was I?”

    “We both saw it,” Parkhouse admitted. “It… looked a little bit like Sir Rupert. It flitted down the hall and through the library door!”

    Colin punched the air. “It’s like I said, auntie. Uncle Rupert doesn’t want you to change your will. He’s warning you.”

    “That’s rubbish and you know it, Colin,” Jane said. “I don’t believe this ghost nonsense for a minute. It’s very convenient that you saw the ghost first when you’re so dead set against Auntie leaving her jewels and fortune to the dogs’ home instead of to us.”

    “But I saw the ghost as well,” Parkhouse declared.

    “It was a sign, like Colin said,” old Lady Marchebankes said, trembling. She turned to her other house guest. “What do you think, dear?”

    “I think it’s very interesting,” said Champagne.

    When the old lady had been taken to bed early, Champagne went and checked the hall. She’d posted a couple of servants there so nothing could be tampered with. Now she checked the route the ghost had moved along, tracing its path and checking the wood wall panelling and floorboards. In the modern day and age holograms could be very convincing, but there’d need to be a projector.

    She tried to work out all the ways it could have been done. No actor could have passed through the solid library door. There was no sign of electronic devices deployed round the hallway. Hypnosis? Hallucinogenic gas?

    A genuine ghost?

    Colin Fairfax had seen the ghost first, the night before. He’d gone into the library for a late-night book and had woken the house with his screaming. He claimed he’d seen Sir Rupert over by the desk, looking disapprovingly down at it. That desk contained the draft new will that would give the majority of the Marchebankes fortune, including its famous jewellery collection, to a home for stray dogs.

    Champagne checked the library. The lock on the desk was easy so she was able to look at the provisions of the will too. Lady Marchebankes was a lonely old lady who had taken great comfort in her spaniel. Now she wanted to provide for other animals that might be in peril.

    It was a simple enough will, although the asset transfers and list of properties and valuations of gemstones were quite weighty. Champagne had come to the house to help solve the gemstone dispute by making them disappear.

    But the ghost bothered her. Lady Marchebankes was a prickly old lady but she’d been genuinely upset by the thought of her husband’ restless spirit disapproving of her.

    “She’s a strange old stick,” Jane Wellington said when Champagne interviewed her. “Very superstitious and sentimental despite being a severe crusty matron. I can see why she’d suddenly decide to leave all her money to some strange charity.”

    “And you don’t mind losing that fortune? Even your half must be worth millions.”
    
    Jane shrugged. “Easy come, easy go. It’s her money.”

    Colin Fairfax wasn’t so sanguine. “She’s potty! She needs to be locked up. If it wasn’t that her lawyer Parkhouse was such a pit bull she would be. If it wasn’t for this ghost thing she’d have cut me out of her will by now, even though she knows I need that money because of my gambling debts.” He took a breath. “It isn’t really even her money, is it? It all came from Sir Rupert’s family’s South African diamond mines. It should stay in the family.”

    “And pass to you?”

    “Why not? Better me than some mangy mongrels.”

    The apparition also troubled Winston the butler. “I wonder what the master was trying to tell us by his appearance?” he worried. “Was he trying to prevent the will from being signed or approving it?”

    “You think it really was his ghost?” said Champagne.

    Winston considered this. “Sir Rupert was a very passionate man. He and Lady Marchebankes were very close once upon a time. If anyone could come back with a message from the grave it would be him.”

    Champagne went away wondering what was going on. Her last conversation was with Lady Marchebankes herself.

    “I’ve never seen a ghost before, of course,” the old lady said snappishly. “Do you imagine me some kind of fool? But this is a sign, like Colin and Parkhouse said. A sign not to sign.”

    “Parkhouse advises you against this revision of your will too?”

    “Parkhouse isn’t paid to have an opinion. I have no idea if he approves of the charity of my choice or thinks it’s another of Jane’ grubby little causes. He knows nothing. He hasn’t seen how those poor animals suffer before they’re brought there. But my mind is made up. Rupert has warned me. I was undecided before, but now I’m sure. I cannot sign.”

    “Sleep on it tonight,” Champagne advised. “Decide in the morning.”

    Champagne was late for dinner that night. When the gong sounded she watched Colin head down the stairs then picked the lock of his room.

    It wasn’t hard to find where the hologram projector was concealed. It was hidden under Colin’s bed. The box was no larger than a laptop and when Champagne switched it on it cast a very convincing 3-D picture of Sir Rupert on the ceiling.

    Champagne fired up her own laptop and checked a few things on the internet before calling Winston to officially search the bedroom with her then summoning everyone to the library.

    “Here’s the projector that made the ghost of Sir Rupert,” she told the people gathered together. “I found it under Colin’s bed.”

    “Colin!” Lady Marchebankes gasped, appalled. “Such deceit and treachery!”

    “You’d go to any lengths to secure your inheritance, wouldn’t you?” said Jane scornfully.

    “But I didn’t…” Colin said.
    
    Champagne held her hand up for silence. “I found this in Colin’s room,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s Colin’s. The lock had been picked, quite clumsily. There were scratches on the barrels. Amateur stuff.”

    “Someone planted it!” Colin said. “But who…?”

    “Not Winston,” said Champagne. “The butler already has keys to all the rooms. So a guest. But there’s more. This projector is quite big. It could easily have been hidden in the library for Colin to see Sir Rupert and removed later. But I searched the hall where the second sighting was. There was nothing.”

    “That’s true,” said Parkhouse. “You were very thorough.”

    “But not thorough enough. One thing was taken away before the search.” Champagne pointed at the lawyer. “You were clutching a briefcase all the time, were you not?”

    Parkhouse stood up angrily. “But I have nothing to gain from…”

    “You’re a trustee of the dogs’ home. The dogs’ home that Jane here introduced Lady Marchebankes to. The dogs’ home that could syphon her millions off into the pockets of those running it.” Champagne pointed at Jane. “You only got half the money in the current will. This way you could get a much bigger slice, even once Parkhouse was paid off.”

    “I was undecided about the bequest,” Lady Marchebankes said. “I might have gone either way. Until the ghost of Rupert decided me against. But when I heard it was all Colin’s fraud I would have signed in an instant. That’s what they wanted!”

    There was a lot more shouting then until the police arrived.

    Later that night, when Jane and Parkhouse were gone and Colin was getting quietly drunk, Champagne slipped from her window and climbed into Lady Marchebanke’s room. She figured she was owed the famous jewellery collection for her efforts. Such beautiful things were wasted on the peppery old woman.

    Except…

    Lady Marchebankes was still awake, sitting at her dressing table. She was trying on her jewellery, piece by piece, looking at herself in the mirror. And as she wore the pieces her face shone as the memories came back to her. She’d not always been old and ugly. Once she’d been young and beautiful and loved, and the things she’d been given reminded her. She held the jewels to her neck and remembered the happy times.

    Champagne slipped back out of the window and left the old lady in peace.



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