much if you returned the money.”
“I will try the Lancaster camera for a couple of weeks,” John said. “If I like it enough, I might go to Scarborough and buy the same model there.”
“I could tell that you had taken a shine to that thing ,” David teased. “Early tomorrow morning, we need to clean out the studio. After that, you can try out the Lancaster while I develop the plate for Mrs Jenkins, together with that of Jack and the exposures I took inside the castle. By then, it will be time to go to your favourite place—”
“Lythe Castle,” interrupted John before placing his hands theatrically over his eyes.
“Can you think of anything else that needs to be done that I’ve left out?”
“We need to give Hood a copy of the photograph of Jack when we go to the castle.”
“Is there anything else?”
“I’d like to talk to Laura. I wonder how she is after the trouble in The Queen’s Head.”
David cringed inwardly but said nothing. Inside, he wanted to scream, fearing that John was smitten with Laura in the same way he had once been with Harriett. David wasn’t sure if he could endure the endless monologues from John about his affairs of the heart in the weeks ahead.
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Chapter 12
Monday 27 th August 1894
L UCY RESTED HER HAND ON THE JOURNAL that she’d been keeping since arriving at The Whitby Herald twelve months ago. She looked at the details she had entered for Monday. All she had was a few scribbles and a sketch of a man. She didn’t realise it at first, but it looked a lot like the photographer at the castle she’d met a few days earlier.
She remembered going with her father to London over a year ago to see a performance by Zentar the Great. His female assistant floated from the stage floor to the ceiling of the theatre. Lucy couldn’t see any wires, but she was sure they were used to achieve the illusion. The only way the “ghost” could have floated in the air at Lythe Castle was by using a wire support.
The photographic plate and the print were on her desk in a folder next to her draft article. The photograph had been developed in the newspaper’s darkroom. She’d looked through the folder twice already but decided to take one more glance.
The print looked like a dark sky with a few vague white dots. Hood probably thought it would shock and titillate the readers of the newspaper, but she wasn’t going to use it, subject to the editor’s approval, of course.
She had ended the brief piece she had written by saying: “There were gasps of amazement by those present at Lythe Castle at the sight of a ghostly figure of a young woman rising from the floor and disappearing through the ceiling. Any competent stage illusionist using thin wires and a hoist can easily achieve this spectacle. In fact, there were suspicious, jerky movements as the woman neared the ceiling. ”
Gazing through the office window, Lucy saw Flora, their office cleaner, leaving and heading towards the train station carrying a large, tatty brown case. Flora looked up, and her sorrowful eyes met Lucy’s as she rested her heavy suitcase on the ground.
Flora had just handed in her resignation to the editor, Nimrod Sollett. Normally, she was a reliable worker, but in the last few weeks, she wasn’t able to do her duties properly. Her close friend had been Elizabeth Betts and Flora desperately wanted to return to her family home in Newcastle.
Lucy would have loved to have known what was going through Flora’s mind. What would be her fate in Newcastle? It would have made an excellent article—a woman in torment after the murder of her closest friend. There was still no news of the police getting any nearer to catching the killer.
“Lucy,” Sollett summoned from his office, but she maintained her stare out the window. Flora resumed her trek slowly down the
“I will try the Lancaster camera for a couple of weeks,” John said. “If I like it enough, I might go to Scarborough and buy the same model there.”
“I could tell that you had taken a shine to that thing ,” David teased. “Early tomorrow morning, we need to clean out the studio. After that, you can try out the Lancaster while I develop the plate for Mrs Jenkins, together with that of Jack and the exposures I took inside the castle. By then, it will be time to go to your favourite place—”
“Lythe Castle,” interrupted John before placing his hands theatrically over his eyes.
“Can you think of anything else that needs to be done that I’ve left out?”
“We need to give Hood a copy of the photograph of Jack when we go to the castle.”
“Is there anything else?”
“I’d like to talk to Laura. I wonder how she is after the trouble in The Queen’s Head.”
David cringed inwardly but said nothing. Inside, he wanted to scream, fearing that John was smitten with Laura in the same way he had once been with Harriett. David wasn’t sure if he could endure the endless monologues from John about his affairs of the heart in the weeks ahead.
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
Chapter 12
Monday 27 th August 1894
L UCY RESTED HER HAND ON THE JOURNAL that she’d been keeping since arriving at The Whitby Herald twelve months ago. She looked at the details she had entered for Monday. All she had was a few scribbles and a sketch of a man. She didn’t realise it at first, but it looked a lot like the photographer at the castle she’d met a few days earlier.
She remembered going with her father to London over a year ago to see a performance by Zentar the Great. His female assistant floated from the stage floor to the ceiling of the theatre. Lucy couldn’t see any wires, but she was sure they were used to achieve the illusion. The only way the “ghost” could have floated in the air at Lythe Castle was by using a wire support.
The photographic plate and the print were on her desk in a folder next to her draft article. The photograph had been developed in the newspaper’s darkroom. She’d looked through the folder twice already but decided to take one more glance.
The print looked like a dark sky with a few vague white dots. Hood probably thought it would shock and titillate the readers of the newspaper, but she wasn’t going to use it, subject to the editor’s approval, of course.
She had ended the brief piece she had written by saying: “There were gasps of amazement by those present at Lythe Castle at the sight of a ghostly figure of a young woman rising from the floor and disappearing through the ceiling. Any competent stage illusionist using thin wires and a hoist can easily achieve this spectacle. In fact, there were suspicious, jerky movements as the woman neared the ceiling. ”
Gazing through the office window, Lucy saw Flora, their office cleaner, leaving and heading towards the train station carrying a large, tatty brown case. Flora looked up, and her sorrowful eyes met Lucy’s as she rested her heavy suitcase on the ground.
Flora had just handed in her resignation to the editor, Nimrod Sollett. Normally, she was a reliable worker, but in the last few weeks, she wasn’t able to do her duties properly. Her close friend had been Elizabeth Betts and Flora desperately wanted to return to her family home in Newcastle.
Lucy would have loved to have known what was going through Flora’s mind. What would be her fate in Newcastle? It would have made an excellent article—a woman in torment after the murder of her closest friend. There was still no news of the police getting any nearer to catching the killer.
“Lucy,” Sollett summoned from his office, but she maintained her stare out the window. Flora resumed her trek slowly down the
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