Chapter 10

10

P eeking around the door into the dining room, I hum in satisfaction as I watch Ellis lead my great-great-nephew to a table. "Good, they're both in the dining room. This is the perfect opportunity for their first date."

"Bertie." Roger looks up from where he's crouched below me so he can also spy around the door. "Don't you think they should be aware it's a date for it to actually count as a date?"

"What does it matter as long as they're both in the same place getting to know each other? There's music and candles and dinner. What more do they want?"

"I think it's going to take a bit more than Frank Sinatra and stew and dumplings to make them fall in love," Roger replies. "I still think my idea was better."

I roll my eyes and sigh. "We are not locking them in a room and stealing their clothes."

"Spoilsport." Roger sulks.

"This requires romance. I know it's not something you're familiar with."

"I'll have you know I can be very romantic." Roger sniffs primly. "Why, when I was still alive, there wasn't a single man immune to my charms."

"I'm sure," I huff. "But we're not pimping the lad out. This isn't a bordello for heaven's sake. We need Morgan to form a bond with Ellis so he'll want to stay here and help us save the hotel. We're not just trying to get them into bed together."

I feel a tap on my shoulder and I look across to see Leona staring at me. She makes a complicated series of gestures with her hands and then points to Morgan and Ellis, who are now talking by one of the tables.

My gaze locks on Roger, but he simply shrugs, as bewildered as I am. We both turn back to Leona, who makes a throwing gesture followed by a reeling-something-back-in action and points once again to Morgan and Ellis.

"You want them to go… fishing?" Roger says slowly as he squints in her direction. "That's not very romantic, not to mention cold. We wouldn't want anything important freezing off."

"I have to say, Leona, Roger's right. The weather is a tad inclement."

Leona shakes her head and stamps her foot crossly before making a rather rude gesture.

"I say, that's not very ladylike," I gasp, and Roger cackles in delight. Turning my attention back to the dining room, I frown when I see Morgan seated alone at one of the tables and Ellis making his way towards the kitchen with several bottles of wine in his arms.

"Do you think he's developed a bit of a drinking problem?" Roger muses.

"Dash it all," I grumble. "Where's he off to? How can we get them to fall in love if they're not even in the same room?"

"Get whom to fall in love?" A posh but stern voice says from behind us.

We jolt and spin around. "Mr Fitzherald Longpossum," I greet him innocently. "What a lovely evening. How are you? Enjoying the house and grounds?"

He raises an eyebrow and leans past us to glance into the almost deserted dining room. His gaze lands on Morgan, who is staring out the window watching the snow drift down, and then across to Ellis, who has re-entered the dining room and is making his way towards Morgan with a laden tray.

"We weren't doing anything," I say hurriedly.

Roger, on the other hand, sashays over to the man and looks him up and down with a naughty smile. "You know, Stanley—may I call you Stanley?" he asks, but he doesn't pause for a response. "You're really quite sexy, in a buttoned-up penal kind of way."

Stanley stares at him for a long moment, still clutching his beloved clipboard to his chest. "Rule number seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-two, paragraph six B, subsection nineteen A, sub-subsection eighty-two F. Whilst under active investigation, all spirits must maintain a distance of twelve feet, nine point two five inches from the living at all times."

"That's oddly specific," I murmur to Leona, who has inched closer to me.

Stanley lifts the hand not clutching the clipboard and clenched in it is some kind of complicated mechanical contraption. He presses the button on its handle while still maintaining eye contact with Roger. A quiet whirring sound fills the air and a long measuring tape begins to unwind itself. Extending through the open door, it crosses the dining room floor. We all stand there for several long minutes, watching as it approaches the table where Morgan and Ellis are once again in conversation. Finally, it comes to a halt beside Morgan's foot.

Stanley glances down at the tape measure and his lips tighten. Resting his clipboard on the forearm of the hand holding the tape measure, he retrieves the pen attached to the top, clicks it open, and writes something on the page.

He looks at us and shakes his head slowly in admonishment before clicking the pen closed and reattaching it to the clipboard. We observe in painful silence as the whirring starts again and the tape measure is gradually retracted. I'm really not sure why we all stand in mute stupefaction as it slides across the floor, rolling itself back inside the contraption in Stanley's hand.

"My," Roger purrs as he runs a fingertip over Stanley's tape measure. "That's a very long apparatus you have."

"Mr Fitzgerald Longbottom!" a loud voice shouts. We turn to see Edwina and Rear Admiral Hilary rush towards us, looking a little harassed and out of breath. Skid comes sauntering up behind them, his hands tucked in his pockets as if he doesn't have a care in the world.

"Yes?" Stanley says. "How may I help you?" He looks down and checks his clipboard. "Rear Admiral Ashton-Drake."

"W…" He looks over Stanley's shoulder towards me, then his eyes flick to the doorway to the dining room. "Well." He clears his throat and smooths down his uniform. "I, uh… you must come quickly," he says. His gaze deviates towards Edwina as if he's looking for some kind of excuse to draw Stanley's attention away from us. "I uh… someone has broken rule three thousand three hundred and …er nineteen, paragraph fouuur…"

"A," Edwina mouths at him.

"Subsection Q twenty-one?" he finishes hesitantly.

Stanley draws in a sharp breath, his eyes widening. "Leaving ectoplasmic deposits in a public area?"

"Uh, y—" He looks once again to Edwina, who's nodding. "Yes, that's right," the admiral says with a bit more conviction. "Some complete cad has left an epto-clasmic deposit in the back gallery."

Skid snorts loudly.

"Good lord, this place is a zoo," Stanley mutters and dematerialises along with the others.

I let out a deep breath in relief. "Thank god, that should keep him busy for a bit. Leona, keep an eye out in case he comes back."

"Why, what are we doing?" Roger asks gleefully.

"What do you think?" I reply. "We're going to make sure Morgan and Ellis have their first date."