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“If I hadn’t been here before,” remarked Rob, “I should think that Sitting Bull had been reincarnated and was reviving the warrior war whoops.”
We paused on the threshold. A human windmill of whirling legs and arms––Polydore legs and arms––flashed before our eyes.
“Stop!” I thundered.
The flying wheel of arms and legs slacked, ran a few times, then slowly stopped, and the Polydore quintette assumed normal positions.
“Halloa, stepdaddy!”
A landslide composed of Emerald, Pythagoras, and Demetrius started toward me. I side-stepped and let Rob receive the charge.
“Line them up now, for attention,” I directed Ptolemy. “I have something to say to you all.”
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Ptolemy knocked the three terrors up against the wall, and I picked up Diogenes, who had a bump as big as an egg on his head.
“I told you,” said Ptolemy to Pythagoras, “that if you brought Di down here they’d get on our trail. He wanted to see Di,” he explained, “so he sneaked over there and got him.”
“We were wise before today,” I informed him. “I saw you all day before yesterday.”
“And I discovered you yesterday,” added Rob.
Ptolemy looked rather crestfallen, and then, seeming to consider that my discovery had been succeeded by inaction, which must mean non-interference, he heartened up.
“Now,” I demanded, “I want you to begin at the time you left the hotel and tell me everything and why you did it.”
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“I wasn’t having any fun after you two went off camping,” he began lugubriously. “I couldn’t hang around women folks all the time. I wanted boys to play with.”
I saw a gleam of sympathy and understanding come into Rob’s eyes.
“A harem of hens,” he muttered.
“I knew we could all have a grand time here and not be a bother to mudder, or Huldah or anyone, and it seemed too bad for this nice house to be empty, and no one anywhere else wanting us.”
I felt my first gleam of pity for a Polydore and wiped Diogenes’ dirty, moist face carefully with my handkerchief.
“So I went home and told Huldah I had come after the boys to take them back with me.”
“And told her we had sent for them?” I asked sharply.
He flushed slightly at my tone.
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“No; I didn’t tell her so. She got that idea herself, and I didn’t tell her different.”
“When did you come?”
“I came the same night that you telephoned, and took the train you and mudder came on. We got to Windy Creek in the morning. We fetched all our stuff here from home. I bought it.”
“Right here,” I said, “tell me where you got the money to buy your stuff and to pay your fare here.”
“I cashed father’s check.”
“I didn’t know he left you one.”
“He didn’t, except the one he gave me to give you for our board. You told mudder you wouldn’t touch it, and it seemed a pity not to have it working.”
Visions of a future Polydore doing the chain and ball step flashed before my vision.
“And they cashed it for you at the bank?”
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“Sure. Father always has me cash his checks for him.”
“What amount did you fill in?” I asked enviously.
“One hundred dollars. There’s a lot more in the bank, too.”
“How did you get your truck here from Windy Creek?” asked Rob.
“We divided it up and each took a bunch and started on foot, and some people in an automobile, going to the town past here, took us in and brought us as far as the lane. We’ve been having a fine time.”
“What doing?” asked Rob interestedly.
“Fishing, sailing on a raft, playing in the woods all day and––”
“Playing ghost at night,” said Pythagoras with a grin.
“Who made that ghost in the window?” I demanded.
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“I did. I rigged up an arm and put it out the window the afternoon I left, hoping Beth would come down and see it, but we’ve got a jim dandy one now.”
“That was quite a shapely arm,” said Rob. “Where did you learn sculpturing?”
“Oh, I rigged it up,” he said casually.
“What did you bring in the way of supplies?”
“Bacon, crackers, beans, candy, popcorn, gum, peanuts, pickles, candles, matches, and butter,” was the glib inventory.
“You may stay here,” I said, “until we go home, but you are not to stir away from the woods about here and not on any account to come near the hotel, or let it be known that you are here. And you are to end this ghost business right off. Now, Di, we’ll go home to mudder.”
“No!” bawled Di. “Stay with boys. Mudder come here.”
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At least this was Ptolemy’s interpretation of his protest.
I threatened, Rob coaxed, and Ptolemy cuffed, but every time I started to leave and jerk him after me, he uttered such demoniac yells I was forced to stop.
“Wish it was night,” said Emerald regretfully. “Wouldn’t he scare folks though! How does he get his voice up so high?”
“Poor little Di!” said a voice commiseratingly from the doorway. “Was Ocean plaguing him?”
Beth gathered the child in her arms, and his howls changed to sobs. Rob stood petrified with amazement at her appearance.
“Don’t want to go,” said Diogenes between gulps.
“Needn’t go!” promised Beth. “Stay here with me, and we’ll have dinner with148the boys and then we’ll go home and get some ice cream.”
“All yite,” agreed the appeased Polydore.
“May Lucien and I stay to dinner, too?” asked Rob humbly.
“No,” she replied icily.
“But, Beth,” I remonstrated. “Silvia will be worrying about Di. How can we explain?”
“Silvia has gone to Windy Creek for the day. You see, I met that woman you sent to the hotel, and she told me she saw Di going over the hill with a boy, and I suddenly seemed to smell one of your mice, so I sent the woman on her way, and told Silvia you and Rob had found Diogenes. Just then some people she knew came along in a car and asked her to go to Windy Creek. I made her go and told her I’d look after Di.”
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“You’re a brick, Beth!” applauded Ptolemy.
“If you boys will be very careful and not let anyone besides us know you are here, so mudder will not hear of it, for though she’d like to see you”––this without a flicker or flinch––“we want her to have a nice rest. I’ll come over every day except tomorrow and bring things from the hotel store, and bake up cookies and cake for you.”
A yell of approval went up.
“Why can’t you come tomorrow?” asked the greedy Demetrius.
“Because I’ve promised to go to the other end of the lake on a picnic. All the people at the hotel are going.”
“I’ll come tomorrow and spend the whole day with you,” promised Rob. “We’ll have a ride in the sailboat and do all sorts of things.”
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“Why, aren’t you going on that infernal picnic?” I asked.
“No; I’ll have all the picnic I want over here. Like Ptolemy I feel that I want to play with some of my own kind.”
Beth looked at him approvingly; then she said a little sarcastically:
“Maybe you’ll change your mind––about going on the picnic, I mean––when you see the new girl who just came to the hotel on the morning stage. She’s a blonde, and not peroxided, either.”
“That would certainly drive him down here, or anywhere,” I laughed.
“Oh, don’t you like blondes?” she asked innocently.
“He doesn’t like––” I began, but Ptolemy rudely interrupted with an elaborate description of a new kind of fishing tackle he had bought.
Then Beth bade Pythagoras build a fire151in the cook-stove while she set the room to rights.
“We’ll eat out of doors,” she said, “I think it would be more appetizing.”
“How did you get here?” Rob asked her as we were leaving.
“I rowed over.”
“May I come over and row you back?” he asked pleadingly.
She hesitated, and then, realizing that she could scarcely manage a boat and Diogenes at the same time, assented, bidding him not come, however, until five o’clock.
“She’ll have enough of the Polydores by that time,” I said to Rob on our way home.
“Do you know,” he said reflectively, “I like Ptolemy. There’s the making of a man in him, if he has only half a chance. I didn’t suppose your sister understood152children so well or was so fond of them. She looked quite the little housewife, too.”
“You’d discover a lot of things you don’t know, if you’d cultivate the society of women,” I informed him.
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Chapter XIA Bad Means to a Good End
When we were setting out on the proposed picnic the next day, Rob made himself extremely unpopular by announcing his intention to spend the day otherwise. The new blonde girl gave him fetching glances of entreaty which he never even saw. He made another sensation by proposing to keep Diogenes with him. To Silvia’s surprise, Diogenes voiced his delight and chattered away, I suppose, about playing with the boys, but fortunately no one understood him.
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“Won’t you change your mind and come, too?” he asked Beth.
She seemed on the point of accepting and then firmly declined.
When we returned at six o’clock, Rob and Diogenes were awaiting us. There was something in Rob’s eyes I had not seen there before. He had the look of one in love with life.
“Did you have a nice time playing solitaire?” asked Silvia.
“I had a very nice time,” he replied with a subtle smile, “but I didn’t play solitaire. You know I had Diogenes.”
“Diogenes apparently had a good time, too,” said Silvia, looking at the child, who was certainly a wreck in the way of garments. “What did you do all day, Rob?”
“We went out on the water, played games, and had a picnic dinner outdoors.”
“You had huckleberry pie for one thing,”155she observed, with a glance at Diogenes’ dress, “and jelly for another, and––”
“Chicken, baked potatoes, milk, cake, and ice cream,” he finished.
“Where did you get ice cream?” she asked.
“I went down to a dairy farm and got a gallon.”
“A gallon!” she exclaimed. “For you and Diogenes?”
“We didn’t eat it all,” he said guardedly. “I gave what we didn’t eat to some stray boys.”
“I hope Di won’t be ill.”
“He won’t,” asserted Rob. “I am sure he is made of cast iron.”
Throughout dinner Rob remained in high spirits. He kept eyeing Beth in a way that disconcerted her, and then suddenly he would smile with the expression of one who knows something funny, but intends to keep it a secret.
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Presently Silvia left us and went upstairs to give Diogenes a bath before she put him to bed.
“You’ve had two days’ freedom from the last of the Polydores,” I called after her. “Doesn’t it seem delightful?”
“Lucien,” she answered slowly, “I’ve really missed the care of him. I was lonesome for him all day.”
“He isn’t such a bad little kid when he is out from Polydore environment,” I admitted, regretting that he had been restored to it.
“Now tell us all about your day with the boys,” Beth asked Rob, when we were left alone. “It really does seem too bad to keep a secret from Silvia, and yet it is a case of where ignorance is bliss––”
“It would be folly to be otherwise,” finished Rob. “Well, Diogenes and I left here with a boat load of supplies in the157way of provender and things for the boys. I had to tie Diogenes in the boat, of course, so he would not try some aquatic feat. He objected and yelled like a fiend all the way. I was glad there was no one at the hotel to come out and arrest me for cruelty to children. Of course before we landed, his cries were heard by his brothers and they were all at the water’s edge. They made mulepacks of themselves and transferred the commissary supplies. The ice cream and bats and balls which I found at the store made quite a hit.
“We played baseball, fished, and had a spread on the shore. Then Ptolemy and I rowed out to where the sailboat was. I explained the mysteries of the jib and he caught on instantly. We took in the other Polydores and sailed for a couple of hours. Then we all went in swimming.”
“Not Diogenes!”
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“Certainly. I tucked him under my arm and he seemed perfectly at home, although greatly disappointed because we didn’t succeed in catching a snake.
“I finally landed them all safely under the roof of the Haunted House, and Ptolemy assured me it was the best day of his young life. In appreciation of the diversions I had afforded him, he made a confession which proved such good news to me that I was a lenient listener and exacted no penalty.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“He told me that on the day of Miss Wade’s and my arrival at your house, he had made a misstatement to each of us and had not repeated to us accurately what he had overheard you telling Silvia when he was on the porch roof. Miss Wade, what did he tell you about me?”
“He said that Lucien said that your only159failing was that you were daffy over women and made love to every one you saw.”
“Oh, Beth!” I cried, light bursting in, “and you believed that little wretch?”
“I did.”
“Then that is why you have been so––”
“Yes––so––” repeated Rob grimly.
“Well, I never did have any use for a man-flirt, and I was awfully disappointed, for I had thought from what Rob said that you were a man’s man.”
“And then, of course, when for the first time in my life I began being interested in a woman––in you––I played right into that little scamp’s hands.”
“He is a man’s man, Beth,” I said warmly. “What Ptolemy heard me say was that Rob was a woman-hater.”
“I am not!” declared Rob indignantly––“just a woman-shyer, but I haven’t finished with Ptolemy’s confession. I160wonder, now, if either of you can guess what he told me was Miss Wade’s characteristic.”
“I don’t dare guess,” laughed Beth.
“What I did say about Beth was that she was a born flirt.”
“I am not!” protested my sister, in resentment.
“I should prefer that appellation to the one he gave you. He said you were strong-minded and a man-hater.”
Even Beth saw the irony of this.
“I asked him,” continued Rob, “what his motive was, and he said ‘Stepdaddy didn’t want Beth to know about the man-hater business,’ so he took that means of throwing you off the track.
“I took the occasion to talk to him like a Dutch uncle, though I don’t know exactly what that is. I think it was the first time anything but brute force had161been tried on him. I must have touched some little flicker of the right thing in him, for he was really contrite and seemed to sense a different angle of vision when I explained to him what havoc could be worked by the misinformation of meddlers. He promised me he’d try to overcome his tendency to start things going wrong.”
I made no comment, but it occurred to me that Ptolemy was a shrewd little fellow, and that there had been wisdom back of his strategic speeches to Beth and Rob, for he had taken the one sure course to make them both “take notice.”
“So, Beth,” said Rob, and her name seemed to come quite handily to him, “can’t we cut out the past ten days and begin our acquaintance right?”
“I think we can,” she answered.
“I had better go upstairs,” I suggested, “and tell Silvia that Diogenes doesn’t162need a bath, seeing he has been in swimming.”
Neither of them urged me to remain, so I went up to our room and found Silvia tucking Diogenes under cover.
“What did you come up for?” she asked. “I was just coming down to join you.”
“Beth is treating Rob so––differently, that I thought it well to retreat.”
“I am so glad! Whatever came over the spirit of her dreams?”
“They’ve just discovered in the course of conversation that Ptolemy as usual crossed the wires and told Beth Rob was a flirt, and then informed Rob that Beth was strong-minded and a man-hater.”
“Oh, the little imp!” she exclaimed indignantly.
“I don’t know. It worked, anyway, so Ptolemy was the bad means to a good end.”
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“How did they ever happen to discover what he had done?”
“They caught on from something Rob said,” I told her, feeling again guilty at keeping my first secret from her.
“It will be a fine match for Beth,” said Silvia. “Rob is such a splendid man, and then he has plenty of money. He can give her anything she wants.”
I winced. I think Silvia must have been conscious of it, even though the room was dark, for she came to me quickly.
“I wish I could give you––everything––anything––you want, Silvia.”
“You have, Lucien. The things that no money could buy––love and protection.”
Well, maybe I had. I had surely given her protection from the Polydores, though she didn’t know to what extent.
“I am going to give you more material164things, though, Silvia. When we go home, I shall start to work in earnest and see if I can’t get enough ahead to make a good investment I know of.”
“I’d rather do without the necessities even, Lucien, than to have you work any harder than you have been doing. We must let well enough alone.”
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Chapter XII“Too Much Polydores”
The next morning at breakfast, Beth announced that she and Rob were going to spend the day camping in the woods.
Silvia and I tried not to look significantly at each other, but Beth was very keen.
“We will take Diogenes with us,” she instantly added.
“Oh, no!” protested Silvia. “He’ll be such a bother. And then he can’t walk very far, you know.”
“He’ll be no bother,” persisted Beth.166“And we’ll borrow the little cart to draw him in.”
“Yes,” acquiesced Rob. “We sure want Diogenes with us.”
“I’ll have them put up a lunch for you,” proposed Silvia.
“No,” Rob objected. “We are going to forage and cook over a fire in the woods.”
“Then,” I proposed to Silvia with alacrity, “we’ll have our first day alone together––the first we have had since the Polydores came into our lives. I’ll rent the ‘autoo’ again, and we will go through the country and dine at some little wayside inn.”
“Get the ‘autoo’, now, Lucien,” advised Beth privately, “and make an early start, so Rob and I can take supplies from the store without arousing Silvia’s suspicions.”
“I don’t believe,” said Silvia disappointedly, when we were “autooing” on our way, “that they are in love after all,167or that he has proposed, or that he is going to.”
“Where did you draw all those pessimistic inferences from?” I asked.
“From their both being so keen to take Diogenes with them.”
“Diogenes would be no barrier to their love-making,” I told her. “He couldn’t repeat what they said; at least, not so anyone could understand him.”
Many miles away we came upon a picturesque little old-time tavern where we had an appetizing dinner, and then continued on our aimless way. It was nearly ten o’clock when we returned to the hotel, where the owner of the “autoo” was waiting.
Rob came down the roadway.
“Where’s Beth?” asked Silvia.
“She has gone to bed. The day in the open made her sleepy.”
When Silvia had left us, the old farmer168said with a chuckle: “I can’t offer you another swig of stone fence.”
“It’s probably just as well you can’t,” I replied.
“I’d like to be introduced to one,” said Rob, who appeared to be somewhat downcast. “I sure need a bracer.”
“What’s the matter, Rob?” I asked when we were lighting our pipes. “A strenuous day? Two in rapid ‘concussion’ with the Polydores must be nerve-racking.”
“Yes; I admit there seemed to be ‘too much Polydores.’ We all had a happy reunion, and I devoted the forenoon to the entertainment of the famous family so I could be entitled to the afternoon off to spend with Beth. At noon we built a fire and cooked a sumptuous dinner. Beth baked up some things to keep them supplied a couple of days longer. After dinner I asked her to go for a row. She insisted169on taking Diogenes along, and the others all followed us on a raft. So I decided to cut the water sports short, and Beth and I started for a walk in the woods. Three or more were constantly right on our trail. I begged and bribed, but to no avail. They were sticktights all right, and,” he added morosely, “she seemed covertly to aid and abet them. When we started for home, I found that the young fiends had broken the cart, so I had to carry Diogenes most of the way, and of course he bellowed as usual at being parted from the whelps.”
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“They aren’t such ‘fine little chaps’ after all,” I couldn’t resist commenting. “Familiarity breeds contempt, you see. I am sorry Diogenes had so much of their society. He’ll be unendurable tomorrow. Well, you had some day!”
“So did the Polydores. Demetrius and Diogenes fell in the fire twice. Emerald threw a finger out of joint, but Ptolemy quickly jerked it into place. Pythagoras was kicked off the raft twice, following a mutiny. Demetrius threw a lighted match into the vines and set fire to the house. They said it was a ‘beaut of a day’, though, and urged us to come tomorrow and repeat the program. By the way, they went171across the lake on their raft yesterday and bought a tent of some campers. They have pitched it in the woods beyond the house.”
When I went upstairs Silvia met me disconsolately.
“He didn’t propose,” she said disappointedly. “She wouldn’t let him.”
“Did you wake her up to find out?” I asked.
“She hadn’t gone to bed and she wasn’t sleepy. She was trimming a hat.”
“Why wouldn’t she let him propose, if she cares for him?” I asked perplexedly.
“Well, you see,” explained Silvia, “that when a girl––a coquette girl like Beth––is as sure of a man as she is of Rob, she gets a touch of contrariness or offishness or something. She said it would have been too prosaic and cut and dried if they had gone away for a day in the woods and come back engaged. She wants the unexpected.”
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“Do you think she loves him?” I asked interestedly.
“She doesn’t say so. You can’t tell from what she says anyway. Still, I think she is hovering around the danger point.”
“She’d better watch out. Rob isn’t the kind of a man who will stand for too much thwarting,” I replied.
“If he’d only play up a little bit to some one else, it would bring things to a climax,” said my wife sagely.
“There’s no one else to play up to. The blonde left today because it was so slow here.”
“Maybe some new girl will come tomorrow,” said Silvia, “or there’s that trim little waitress who is waiting her way through college. He gave her a good big tip yesterday. I think I will give him a hint.”
“It wouldn’t help any. He wouldn’t know how to play such a game if you could173persuade him to try. He’d probably tell the girl his motive in being attentive to her and then she’d back out. Maybe, after all, Beth doesn’t love him.”
“I think she does,” replied my wife, “because she is getting absent-minded. She let Diogenes go too near the fire. His shoes are burned, his hair singed, and his dress scorched. He woke up when I came in and he was so cross. He acted just the way he does when he is with his brothers.”
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Chapter XIIIRob’s Friend the Reporter
Silvia’s vague prophecy was fulfilled. When the event of the day, the arrival of the stage, occurred, a solitary passenger alighted, a slim, alert, city-cut young woman.
She looked us all over––not boldly, but with a business-like directness as if she were taking inventory of stock, or acting as judge at a competition. When her blue eyes lighted on Rob, they darkened with pleasure.
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“Oh, Mr. Rossiter!” she exclaimed, “this is better than I hoped for.”
They shook hands with the air of being old acquaintances, and he introduced her to us as “Miss Frayne, from my home town.”
She went into the office, registered, and sent her bag to her room. Then she asked Rob if she might have a talk with him.
They walked away together down to the shore and she was talking to him quite excitedly. Rob suddenly stopped, threw back his head and laughed in the way that it is good to hear a man laugh.
“Miss Frayne must be a wit,” observed Beth dryly.
I looked at her keenly. Something in her eyes as she gazed after the retreating couple told me that Silvia’s surmise was right, and that Miss Frayne might be just the little punch needed to send Beth over the danger point.
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“I rather incline to the belief that Ptolemy told the truth in the first place,” she continued, and then looked disappointed because I did not contradict her.
I decided not to reveal, for the present anyway, what I knew of Miss Frayne, of whom I had often heard Rob speak.
“She can’t be going to stay long,” said Silvia hopefully. “She didn’t bring a trunk.”
“She doesn’t need one,” replied Beth. “She is probably one of those mannish girls who believe in a skirt and a few waists for a wardrobe.”
When Rob and the newcomer returned, he seemed to be monopolizing the conversation in a very emphatic and earnest manner. As they came up the steps to the veranda, we heard her say:
“Very well, Mr. Rossiter, I will do just as you say. I have perfect confidence in your judgment.”
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They passed on into the hotel and Beth jumped up and went down toward the lake.
“Did you ever hear Rob speak of this Miss Frayne?” asked Silvia.
“Often. She is engaged to his cousin, and is a reporter on a big newspaper.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Oh, Lucien,” she continued before I could speak, “were you really shrewd enough to see which way the wind was blowing?”
“Sure. After you set my sails for me last night.”
Just then Rob came out of the hotel.
“Say, Lucien, I want to see you a minute. Come on down the road.”
“We’ve got some work ahead,” he said when we were out of Silvia’s hearing.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Miss Frayne is up––and doing. What do you suppose her paper sent her here for?”
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“For a rest, or to write up the mosquitoes of H. H.”
“H. H. is all right, only it happens they stand for Haunted House.”
“Not really?”
“Yes, really. The rumors of the house and the ghost, greatly elaborated, of course, reached the Sunday editor of the paper Miss Frayne is on, and he sent her up here to revive the story of the murder, translate the ghost, and get snapshots of the house. She was quite keen to have me take her there at once, so she could commence her article, but I headed her off, so she wouldn’t discover the summer boarders at the hotel annex. I assured her that daytime was not the time to gather material and the only way she could get a proper focus on the ghost and acquire the thrills necessary for an inspiration was to see the place first by night.”
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“If she would view Fair Melrose aright,” I quoted, “she must visit it in the pale moonlight, but you were very clever to delay her visit long enough for us to get over there and warn the enemy. If she had gone down there and caught the Polydores unawares, she would have come back here and revealed our secret, and there would be the end of Silvia’s vacation.”
“To tell the truth, Lucien, I wasn’t thinking so much of that as I was of Miss Frayne’s interests. You see she has come a long ways for a story and if it collapsed from her ghostly expectations to a showdown of four healthy boys, the blow might mean a good deal to her in a business way. I think we had better let Ptolemy plant a ghost just once more for her. You know you made him take a reef in the flapping of ghostly garments. Can’t we resurrect the180specter and restore the wails just for tonight, and bring her over here at the witching hour?”
“Sure we will,” I agreed heartily. “She shall have her ghost and all the trappings. It will give the Polydores the time of their lives.”
“Let’s go over there now and put Ptolemy next so he can get busy on his spirits.” We went down to the shore and pulled off. Midway across the lake, Rob suddenly rested on his oars and asked:
“Where did Beth go?”
“Back to first principles,” I replied. “She thinks, judging from your excited, earnest manner in addressing Miss Frayne and your rushing frantically away for a walk with her before she had removed the travel dust, that Ptolemy was quite correct, after all, in declaring you to be a ‘ladies’ man.’”
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“Didn’t you explain to her who Miss Frayne was?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “I am on my vacation and I am not doing any explaining, professionally or otherwise.”
He swung the boat around.
“Starboard!” I cried. “Don’t you know a trump card when you see it?”
Again he rested on his oars and stared at me.
“What do you mean, Lucien? If you have a grain of hope for me, please let me in.”
I repeated Silvia’s theories.
“I am not going to win her that way,” he said slowly, “not by playing a part.”
“Well,” I declared, “if you go back to the hotel now, you can’t explain Miss Frayne to Beth, because she went for a walk with old Professor Treadtop.”
He turned the boat again.
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“Silvia won’t come to the Haunted House, will she?” he asked.
“No, indeed. Nothing would induce her to.”
“Then you bring Miss Frayne here tonight and I’ll bring Beth. And I’ll be sure that there are no double boats lying around loose. I’ll have two at the dock, see?”
“I see your system,” I replied, “but I am not sure how I can explain Miss Frayne to Silvia. Silvia is not in the least narrow-minded, but still to leave the hotel at midnight with a perfectly strange young woman––”
“You can tell her I want a clear field for Beth. She will see it is in a good cause.”
The Polydores greeted us rapturously and roughly. When I had restored order, and they were once more right side up, I addressed the chief of the bandits.
“Ptolemy,” I began, “a young lady,183who is a reporter for a big newspaper, has come from many miles away to write up the haunted house and the ghost, and they will be pictured out in the Sunday edition.”
Ptolemy’s eyes glistened, and “Them Three” were instantly “at attention.”
“Oh, say, stepdaddy,” begged the young chief, “let me play ghost right for her, just once, will you?”
“You may for tonight,” I said, “but you will have to be very careful and not overdo the matter, for she isn’t the kind that is easily fooled. She’s had to keep her eyes and wits sharpened, else she wouldn’t be on a newspaper, so I want you to be very careful and not bungle. Make a neat job of it.”
“I’ll do it up brown, you bet!” he cried gleefully.
“Naw, do it up white,” drawled Pythagoras.
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“Show me your ghost stuff by daylight,” I demanded, “and let me see how you are going to rig him up.”
He brought forth a head and shoulders and arms that were ghastly even in sunlight, and proceeded to explain them.
“I got this skull out of father’s study, and the arms came off a skeleton mother had in her antiquities. I dressed them up in a pillow case and the white cotton gloves are Huldah’s. I can get some phosphorus in the woods and put it in the eyes. And Demetrius bought two electric flashlights yesterday, and Pythagoras can snap them once in a while from the lower windows.”
“You are some little property man,” said Rob in admiration. “But tell me who produces those heart-rending shrieks?”
“That was Pythagoras who did the high185ones. And Em came in with low groans. Show ’em, boys.”
Pythagoras uttered high-trebled, thin-toned whines and ever and anon Emerald added abasso profundoaccompaniment, making a combination that was most trying to the ears at close range.
“I don’t know,” said Rob, “as I want Beth subjected to such a realistic performance. We will loiter in the distance.”
“Your rehearsal,” I assured Ptolemy, “is very good, but you must remember that Miss Frayne is used to encountering things far more terrible than ghosts. She may insist on coming right in here to investigate. Of course, if she does, I can’t refuse or she’ll think I am afraid, or else that I put up a fake ghost here, myself.”
“We’ll lock the door with a chair,” suggested Emerald.
“She’ll be quite capable of breaking into186a little house like this, but I’ll keep her back until you have time to haul in your ghost and make a quick and quiet getaway by a back window. Then another thing, she’ll be over here tomorrow morning to take some pictures of the house, so by sunrise I want you all to take up your abode in the tent you have in the woods and stay there until I come and tell you the coast is clear.”
“We’re dead on,” assured Ptolemy. “I’m glad there’s going to be something doing. We’re getting tired of being here alone. I had to tie Demetrius up this morning. He was bound to go over to the hotel and see mudder.”
“Don’t one of you dare to make such an attempt,” I said peremptorily. “You keep right on here for a few days. Some of us, either Rob, or Beth and I will drop over every day. If you play your ghost just187as I tell you and keep out of sight, I’ll bring you over some ice cream tomorrow.”
“Bring me a bigger bat.”
“Bring me a mitt.”
“Bring me a boat,” came in chorus from Ptolemy, Emerald, and Demetrius.
“What’ll you give me to stay here?” asked Pythagoras, who was a born bargain-driver.
“I’ll give you a licking if you don’t stay,” was the only offer he gleaned from me.
“Be good boys,” adjured the softhearted Rob, “and I’ll bring you everything I can find at the hotel.”
It was long past the luncheon hour when we returned. We found Miss Frayne wondering at Rob’s sudden disappearance and Beth was accordingly mystified.
I planted myself directly in front of Miss Frayne.
“May I take you to the haunted house188tonight at the yawning churchyard hour?” I asked. “I am most eminently fitted to be your guide, for I was the first one of this assembly to see the ghostin toto.”
“He saw it over a stone fence,” remarked Rob.
“Indeed you may, thank you very much,” she said enthusiastically.
Silvia’s face was a study.
“And will you come with me, Beth?” asked Rob. “Of course, the ghost is an old story to us, but we really should hover in Lucien’s wake out of regard to the conventions.”
“Is Miss Frayne interested in ghosts?” asked Beth.
Miss Frayne turned and answered the question.
“Not personally,” she admitted frankly, “but the newspaper I am on is, and they sent me up here to get a story.”