“What was he wearing?” I asked.

She frowned. “Shrouds,” she said. “Grey, gauzy shrouds. He had grave-mold all over his face-oh, Mother, I’m so sorry, but he did.”

“And you’re sure it was your father?”

Elizabet shook her head. “It was him,” she said. “His ghost, I’m sure of it.”

“And you’ve seen him since.”

She counted on her fingers. “Three times,” she said.

“When?” I asked. “I need dates. If you can’t recall the exact day, that’s fine, but the nearer you can narrow it down, the better I can help your mother.”

She struggled, came up with four dates, one of which was a maybe, but close-within a couple of days.

“All right,” I said. “One more thing. You know the revenant stories, that they come back to take vengeance on their killers. Tell me, then-why is Ebed Merlat coming back here?”

At that, Elizabet shrugged. “They’re only silly old wives’ tales,” she said. “Surely you don’t believe such nonsense.”

“I don’t believe-or disbelieve-in anything yet,” I said. “I’m only asking you a question-why do you think your father would come back?”

She looked away. “I’m sure I have no idea,” she said. “That’s your job, isn’t it? To find that out?”

I shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, Miss Merlat, that’s what I’ll do.”

She drained her wineglass, and I’d moved on to question Othur and Abad.

Neither was helpful. Othur spent so much time “away”, as he called it, that he had neither seen nor heard anything. And Abad grudgingly admitted that he’d been home on two of the occasions the apparition was seen, though he wouldn’t claim it had been his father. He gave me dates for both days, said he didn’t know what might drive his father out of his grave and retired early, Othur at his heels.

Elizabet soon took her leave as well. “Good night,” she’d said to me, more in promise than farewell. Then she’d sauntered away, sure I was watching her go every languid step of the way.

Jefrey came banging back in. He held a covered plate in his hand, which he took to the widow. “I see you didn’t touch a bite,” he said, plunking the plate down and removing the cloth. “You got to eat, Lady Merlat.”

On the plate was a grilled cheese sandwich and a thick dark slice of chocolate cake.

The widow sighed. “Thank you, Jefrey,” she said. Jefrey stood there and watched until she picked up the grilled cheese and took a bite. Then he left, collecting a few wineglasses and pausing to look at me with a “Well, what?” expression.

I shrugged in return. I’d gotten nothing, except the firm conviction that everyone but Othur was lying.

Elizabet’s revenant wore shrouds. The widow’s wore a burial suit. Abad’s ghost had mad red eyes and a bloody white shirt, and it screamed out the widow’s name.

Othur wasn’t lying only because he probably saw legions of revenants every night, and forgot them all with his first puff of weed in the morning. We could parade dancing Trolls past his bed, and get nothing out of him the next day but pouts and slurred insults.

I looked up at Lord Merlat’s blood-and-thunder portrait and propped my chin on my hands. What about it, Old Bones? I thought. What are you up to, and why?

The widow put down her fork, tinkle of silver on china. “Well?” she said.

I sighed. Lord Merlat’s eyes, mere dabs of paint and shadow, bore into mine.

“About what I expected,” I said. “They’re claiming to have seen something they haven’t, unless your visitor has a more extensive wardrobe than the spooks in the stories usually have.” I lifted a hand when the widow puffed up.

“Ignore me, Lady,” I said. “I do have a few questions for you, though.”

“Ask.”

I rose, stretched, pushed back my chair. “I’m going to take two angles on this, Lady,” I said. “First, I’m going to assume that someone is dressing up in grave-clothes and taking strolls in your yard.”

“Nonsense,” said the Lady.

“Maybe,” I replied. “I’ll also entertain the notion that your husband really has returned. I’m just telling you it’s a distant second.”

“It is the truth.”

I prowled about the ornate display cases, which seemed to favor china plates and silver teapots.

“Either way,” I said, “I’ve got to work backward from your visitor in the night to the root of the problem.” I turned to face the widow. “Why would someone want to frighten you, Lady?”

“I am not frightened,” she snapped.

“Why would someone want to make you think your husband needs vengeance before he can rest?” I said. The widow’s eyes went narrow and cold. A pair of blue veins popped out on her powdered forehead.

“I do not know,” she said, snapping out each word as though she could make it hurt me.

I met her eyes, held it. She blinked first, and looked away.

I sighed. “All right,” I said. “You’ve got trouble, never mind what kind. The best kind of trouble never comes cheap. So tell me this, Lady Merlat. Are you having money problems?”

She met my eyes, glared.

“House Merlat is hardly reduced to paupery,” she said.

I shrugged. “Fine,” I said. “Wonderful. Are you causing anyone money problems?”

She swallowed, closed her eyes briefly, spoke.

“My husband invested well,” she said. “Aside from our banked assets, we receive a quarterly sum from various investing firms.” She swallowed again. “The funds are generated by careful, discrete investing. We engage in nothing rapacious. I tell you, goodman, money is not the issue here.”

“What about your will, Lady?” I asked. “How do the kids figure into that?”

Pay dirt. I saw it on her face. Her face went red, her knuckles white, before she dropped her hands into her lap.

“You said I’d get answers,” I reminded her. “I need this one, too.”

“The children will be provided for,” she whispered, after sending a furtive glance around the room. I noticed she let her gaze linger at the bottom of both doors, just to see if feet might be lurking quietly beyond. “They will not have full access to the Merlat fortune. But they will not starve.”

I considered my words. “Do they know this?”

“They do not,” she whispered. “I will present the official revision at court next week.”

“Next week.”

“Surely you do not think-”

“I don’t think anything yet,” I said, cutting her off when her voice threatened to rise above a whisper. “But I need to know these things, Lady. It may be relevant, it may not. But I still need to know.” I paused. Jefrey’s footfalls passed by the door, continued down the hall and were swallowed up by the dark empty House.

“You’re sure the kids don’t know?” I asked again. She flushed further, glared.

“I am not a fool,” she said. “Nor am I so blind that I cannot see what they have become. They will be able keep up a pretense of wealth after I am gone-but they shall have no access to the bulk of my husband’s fortune, nor the house, nor the investments. I will not see them loot what it took us a lifetime to amass.”

“And Jefrey?” I asked. “What does he get?”

The widow swallowed. “Half a million crowns,” she said. “A year.”

I whistled.

“He is impertinent, rude and uncultured,” said the Lady. “But he has remained. Through it all. I cannot say that for anyone else.”

I nodded. I tried to picture Jefrey in the role of scheming frightener of old women and failed. Thufe would smell it in his heart and bite his head off.

What I could see, though, was that secrets rarely stay secret. The widow might not tell-but someone drew up the new will, someone else witnessed it and someone else filed the appeal for revision with the Court in an act that would need to be witnessed by another half-dozen Court functionaries. A dozen people probably knew. It would only take one of them to talk.

How that would bring about a charade involving revenants, I couldn’t say. But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, either. That much money, a gambler, a weed-addict-I didn’t need Mama’s cards to see something nasty was inevitable.