Something in the Woodshed: Trussel and Gout: Paranormal Investigations No. 2 by M.A. Knights

Author:M.A. Knights [Knights, M.A.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Five

The wind had picked up since we’d entered the pub and it now tore at our clothes as we hurried back up the high street and then along the country lanes, following Klous, who would stop every few feet, sniff the air, then leap away again like a frog. The sound of the waves was our constant companion, the coast never far away. Mr Gout looked troubled.

‘Why would Mrs Winchester risk herself like this? Why did she not simply come to me?’

I was silent for a moment, then spoke. ‘She might have felt she couldn’t. She doesn’t seem happy with my presence here.’

The large man sighed, and his shoulders drooped. ‘Perhaps. I just don’t understand what she was thinking. I’ve told her a hundred times I have no intention of dismissing her from my service. I would never do such a thing!’

‘Maybe she’s scared of losing her home?’

Mr Gout looked shocked. ‘Why on earth should she be afraid of that?’

‘Well, if you were to dismiss her, she’d presumably have to leave Oystercatcher Cottage.’

Mr Gout looked more confused than ever at this. ‘Leave? What on earth for–’ Then I watched his round face change as a realisation dawned. ‘Ah. I fear I have been remiss in my explanations, Clementine, dear. You have things quite backwards. Oystercatcher Cottage belongs to Mrs Winchester. It is me, and you, of course, who are the guests.’

I was dumbfounded. ‘But…but then why–’ however, I was cut off by an urgent hiss from Klous.

‘We’re close!’

The Klabautermann slowed, no longer bouncing forward, but creeping carefully. I followed suit, as did Mr Gout, who sprang delicately from tip-toe to tip-toe and might have looked comical in different circumstances. Shelving his revelation for future examination, I realised with a jolt that we had arrived at the section of coast path I had previously visited with Mrs Winchester.

‘They’re heading for the bay.’

Mr Gout nodded agreement, his brow furrowed in confusion, which I shared. If the man was trying to make his escape, why had he not simply gone straight from the pub to the quay, mere feet away? There he might have found a boat of some kind, but the bay offered no means of escape.

The three of us must have made quite the sight, creeping along in the pale light of the moon. The bulbous form of Mr Gout, springing from foot to foot like a man of half his size, the tiny Klous, crawling now like a toad, and me, the thoroughly, boringly normal girl in the middle. Luckily, there was no one to see us, unless you counted the sheep, who watched warily from the fields that bordered the coast path.

We soon came out onto the cliffs and looked down into the bay below. At first I saw nothing but the sand and the rolling waves, which were growing more powerful by the minute. Wind buffeted tufts of grass that sprouted from snags in the rock this way and that, but otherwise the bay seemed still and empty.

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