Dial a Ghost

‘No, no. When the time’s right we’ll go away and leave him quite alone. I tell you, Frieda, our troubles are over. Helton is as good as ours!’

Chapter Seven

Three days later Fulton walked into the Dial A Ghost agency. He had put on a blond wig and gave his name as Mr Boyd because he didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing to Oliver.

Mrs Mannering smiled at him. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Boyd?’ she asked.

‘Actually, it’s more what I can do for you,’ he said. ‘Which is to offer a home to some ghosts. But not any ghosts. I want fearful ghosts; frightful and dangerous ghosts. Ghosts that can turn people’s limbs to jelly.’

Mrs Mannering leant forward eagerly. Was it possible that she could get rid of the Shriekers at last?

‘You see, I think that people nowadays want a bit of danger,’ Fulton said. ‘They want a thrill. They don’t want things to be boring and tame.’

‘No, no, of course not. You are so right!’ cried Mrs Mannering. ‘If only more people thought like you!’

‘Now, I’m the manager of this big house in the north of England. It’s been empty for a long time and now the owners want to open it to the public. They want to charge money for letting people go round the place.’

‘Yes, I see. It’s sad the way these stately home owners have fallen on hard times.’

‘Only of course there’s a lot of competition in this business. At Lingley they’ve got lions and at Abbey-ford they’ve got a funfair and at Tavenham they’ve got a boating lake. Well, there’s nothing like that at the place I’m talking about. So I thought if we got some proper ghosts we could advertise it as The Most Haunted House In Britain or Spook Abbey or some such thing. That should pull in the crowds.’

‘It should indeed,’ agreed Mrs Mannering. ‘Only I have to ask... what would you offer the ghosts – and what would you expect from them?’

‘What would we offer them? My dear Mrs Mannering, we’d offer them accommodation like no ghosts in Britain could boast of. Thirteen bedrooms with wall hangings. Corridors with howling draughts and hidden doors. Suits of armour to swoop out of... and a master bedroom with a coffin chest which they could have entirely to themselves. As for what we’d expect – well, some really high-class haunting. Something that would make people faint and scream and come back for more.’

Mrs Mannering was getting more and more excited. ‘My dear Mr Boyd, I have exactly the ghosts for you! Sir Pelham and Lady Sabrina de Bone. They come of a very good family as you can gather and would be absolutely at home in such a setting.’

‘They’re the real thing, are they? You know... icy hands, strangling people, rappings, smotherings?’

‘Yes indeed. All that and more. Pythons, bloodstains, nose stumps . . . I promise you won’t be disappointed. There’s a servant too who I believe is very fiendish, but he’s in cold storage at the moment so I haven’t seen him. There’s only one thing – the de Bones really hate children. Especially children asleep in their beds. Of course if the house is empty at night that wouldn’t be a problem. But I would be worried about any children going round the house with their parents.’

‘We would certainly have to be careful about that,’ said Fulton smarmily. ‘I tell you what, we could put up a notice saying ‘‘This guided tour is not suitable for children under twelve’’. Like in the cinema. We might even build a playground so that the children are kept out of the way.’

‘That sounds fine,’ said Mrs Mannering. ‘Quite excellent. Now tell me, how soon would you like them to come?’

Fulton was silent, thinking. Oliver was already going under, but he needed a bit longer to get properly softened up. ‘How about Friday the 13th,’ he said. His lips parted over his yellow teeth and Mrs Mannering realized he was smiling. ‘But I have to make it quite clear that I won’t take anything nambypamby. You know, spooks wringing their hands and feeling guilty because they stole tuppence from the Poor Box or were nasty to their mummy. I need ghosts with gumption; I need evil and darkness and sin.’

‘You will get them, Mr Boyd, I promise you,’ said Mrs Mannering.

As soon as her visitor had gone, Mrs Mannering hurried across the corridor and hugged her friend. ‘You were right, Nellie, our luck has turned! I’ve found a place for the Shriekers!’

‘Oh my dear, what wonderful news! When are they leaving?’

‘Friday the 13th – the same day as the Wilkinsons!’

The following morning they each wrote out the adoption papers, and made careful maps for both sets of ghosts and instructions about what to do when they got there. They put the Wilkinsons’ maps into a green folder and the Shriekers’ maps into a red folder and placed them in the filing cabinet, ready for the day when the ghosts should leave.

‘Now be sure and look after these very carefully,’ they told Ted the office boy.

And Ted said he would. He was a nice boy and a hard worker, but he had not told the ladies that he was colour-blind.