Priory of Death: 8

The strange figure left through an open door. Scruff turned to me and sighed.
"He doesn't have his skin hanging off or anything like that!" she said, disappointed. I could only laugh again.
"Scruff! You're wonderful. Emily?"
"Yes?" two red eyes appeared the other side of the kitchen.
"We just saw a ghost."
"Really?"
"I don't know. It wasn't transparent, and it didn't walk through walls."
"So not like me?"
"You do keyholes, not walls."
"True... Hey! I could pretend to be the ghost..."
"Not yet. If that was a fake, why was he walking around in a black habit at midnight, when there was no-one supposed to be about?"
"Maybe he's looking for the treasure?" Scruff suggested. "And the habit's just in case he's spotted."
"Or maybe he has a really weird dressing-gown?" Emily added her suggestion, which amused all of us.
"Scruff, go back to your room and see if you can get my laptop connected to the internet. Emily, come with me."
Scruff hurried off, bare feet silent on the floors. Emily drew her crossbow. I decided not to ask her why she'd brought her crossbow downstairs when she was raiding the fridge. It would only lead to complications, after all.
We stepped into a dark corridor. The only light came from Emily's eyes. I thought about using her to scare Victoria, but I decided that would be cruel. And difficult to explain once we'd caught the real 'monk', whom I was sure was up to no good.
I pushed open the door at the end of the passage to find myself in one of the Priory's grand rooms. But there was no sign of the black-clad figure. He could have escaped any one of a dozen ways, I thought. It was no good going after him now.
"Jane?" Emily asked.
"We lost him. Now we have to find out who he is, and what he's doing. Not to mention if 'he' is male or female. Under that habit he could have been anyone!"
What was more, his motion had been slow and steady. 'He' might have been wearing stilts under there.
Oh well, time would tell. With my laptop connected to the internet I'd be able to find out a great deal.
You may be wondering how a remote Scottish mansion could be a wi-fi hotspot. And I could say that Victoria and her husband had it installed. Only they didn't. But I have a friend who makes a lot of my gadgets, and she supplied me with a link-up to a satellite network she owns, so I can access the internet from anywhere in the world.
Well, that's the idea, it doesn't always work. Britain's a pretty safe bet, however, and when we got into Scruff's room we found her lying on the bed with the computer already running.
"We're online," she announced. I lay down beside her.
"Great. I need all the information you can gt about this house, Scruff, and don't tell anyone else what you find. Me or Emily. Something's not right, and I'm afraid it involves crime. If you can get into our database in London, check our guests, criminal connections, debts, suspicious payments into their accounts, anything you can pull up."
"Right-ho, Sis. What will you be doing?"
"Sleeping. It's not yet a Girl in Grey matter."
And I went off to do just that.