The Attic Has Requested a Tenant

How it begins

The attic paid its rent in exact change.

Dorothy found the envelope beneath the breakfast room door.

Four shillings.

No note.

The attic had been sealed for eleven years.

She asked the guests whether anyone had made a mistake.

They all looked at their plates, which was not the same as saying no.

At ten, Henry Moss arrived to inspect the chimney.

He had retired from fire investigations but continued to accept small jobs whenever his daughter used the word rest.

Dorothy showed him the envelope.

"The signature's familiar."

"There isn't a signature."

He turned it over.

On the back, in pencil, someone had written a name she did not recognize.

Henry did.

She watched his thumb stop moving against the paper.

"Who is he?"

"Was."

"That isn't helpful."

"He rebuilt the stairs."

"What stairs?"

Henry looked toward the ceiling.

The boarding house contained three floors, two staircases and an attic nobody mentioned in advertisements.

He asked for the original plans.

Dorothy fetched them from the desk her husband had left locked.

She had opened it after the funeral because grief did not pay tradesmen.

The plans showed a narrow staircase rising from the breakfast room.

Its entrance stood exactly where the sideboard now rested.

Behind them, from inside the wall, came a polite knock.

One guest dropped his cup.

Henry did not turn around.

"How long has that been happening?"

Dorothy looked at the guests.

This time, one of them answered.

"Since the rent went up."

The room became very quiet.

Dorothy had inherited a business, a leaking roof and several stories she had been told were none of her concern.

She moved the sugar bowl aside.

Then the cups.

Then she asked Henry to help her shift the sideboard.

Above them, something heavy began moving carefully across the attic floor.