“Oh! Oh!” she screamed. “It’s terrible! Down there—in the cellar—a dead man!”
“A dead man!” repeated Arden, her mind now working fast. She wanted to be sure of her ground. “Are you sure, Betty?” she asked.
“Yes! Oh, yes! I saw him—as plain as anything!”
Betty rushed toward Arden, all but falling upon her, the flashlight still glowing. At the same moment Arden became aware of the approach of an old woman from around the corner of the house, at the rear.
Arden Blake, for a moment, did not know which to attend to first, the strange old woman or the nervous and excited Betty Howe with her gasping declaration of a dead man in the cellar.
Then, in a flash, Arden decided if there was a dead man there he must be the missing Jim. And if he were dead he would remain there. Also Arden knew Betty, but she did not know this strange woman who had so suddenly, and seemingly mysteriously, appeared on the scene.
“Don’t be afraid, Betty!” Arden told the trembling girl. “We are here with you—the other girls are around in front, and so is the contractor and his men. But who is this—lady?”
The strange woman was regarding Arden with malevolent eyes, and her mouth seemed to be muttering words. Betty, who, up to this moment, did not appear to have been aware of the other’s presence, now turned and looked. She showed no surprise.
“Oh,” she said in a low voice to Arden, “that is Granny’s cousin, Viney Tucker. She lives with us. I guess Granny didn’t mention her before, because, well—she is a little——”
Betty did not need to add the word “queer,” Arden could see that for herself. But there was nothing abnormal about Viney Tucker. She had once been a handsome woman, Arden reasoned, perhaps even more so than Granny Howe.
“Cousin Viney helps Granny with the work, as she used to do when we all lived in the Hall,” Betty hurried to say. “But don’t bother about her. She goes and comes as and when she pleases. But the man in the cellar—the dead man. Oh, I was so frightened! What shall we do?”
“This probably explains the whole mystery,” said Arden.
“What mystery?”
“About the missing workman, Jim Danton. Didn’t you hear all the excitement about him, Betty?”
“No, I only just got here a few minutes ago. What do you mean about a missing man?”
“First tell me,” suggested Arden, “what you were doing in the cellar.”
“I was there looking for some old books that were stored down there when we moved out and over to the cottage. I happened to mention them to our librarian the other day, and he suggested that I bring some in for him to examine. He said there might be some valuable volumes among them. So I took a little time off from my work, and I came directly here—with a flashlight.” This was all said in breathless haste.
“Yes,” said Arden, “I see you have a flashlight.”
“It’s the only way to find things in the cellar—it’s so dark down there with all the lights off now. And if it hadn’t been for my light I wouldn’t have seen the dead man.” She actually leaned against Arden and was trembling still.
“Let’s hope he isn’t dead,” suggested Arden. “Come! We must tell the others quickly.”
Up to this time Viney Tucker had neither moved nor spoken since her arrival on the scene. She stood at the corner of the house and fairly glared at the girls. Now she exclaimed:
“Ha! So there’s a dead man, is there? I knew murder would be done before they finished tearing down our house! I knew it!”
“It isn’t murder, Cousin Viney,” said Betty.
“Well, there will be murder before this business is finished,” sniffed the old woman. “And I don’t like murder being done in our old house.”
“And it isn’t our house any more, Cousin Viney,” said Betty. “That’s just the trouble—we can’t prove it is ours.”
“If we could only find the papers! If we could only find the papers!” muttered Viney Tucker as she hurried away in the direction of the cottage. Evidently the excited woman was suffering from the wrongs she, as well as her family, felt had been done them about the Hall.
“Now we must hurry!” cried Arden. “This man you think is dead—I’m sure he’s the missing Jim, and he may not be dead at all; he must be looked after. If he’s injured, he’ll need a doctor. Come and tell the others all about it! They’re right out here.”
“But I don’tknowanything about him,” Betty objected as Arden fairly dragged her around to the front of the house.
“You found him—that’s enough!”
The conference between the contractor and his men was still on, but Sim and the others seemed on the point of leaving. They had just become aware of the fact that Arden was not in sight when she came into view with Betty.
“We’ve found the missing man. Or, rather, Betty did when she went in the cellar after books!” cried Arden all in a breath. Quickly she introduced Betty to her chums.
“You mean Jim?” shouted Mr. Callahan.
“I think so,” Arden answered.
“Come on, men!” cried the contractor leading a rush around to the side cellar door. “But it’ll be dark down there. We’ll need some lanterns. Get one, some of you.”
“Take my flashlight,” offered Betty.
Mr. Callahan did, fairly snatching it away but begging her pardon a moment later.
“You can’t know how upset I am,” he explained. “So many things have happened today and other days. Poor Jim! How in the world did he get down in the cellar? Is he badly hurt, do you think?”
“He seemed to be unconscious,” Betty answered. “But I didn’t give more than a look, and I thought he was dead, so I screamed and rushed out.”
“And I met her as I was wandering around that way trying to think up some reason for all this,” Arden explained.
“Well, we must get help to him quickly if he’s alive!” decided the contractor, and he led his hurrying men while the girls followed.
“How long were you in the cellar, Betty?” asked Arden.
“Only a few minutes. I couldn’t find the box of books at first. It must have been moved. And then I saw—him!”
“And you didn’t hear anything of the search we have been conducting for the last half hour?” asked Sim.
“Not the least sound. But then I was away down cellar, and the floors are very heavy.”
“And we were searching the upper floors,” said Terry. “Of course you couldn’t hear, Betty.”
Up out of the cellar, sliding and slipping on the crumbling stone steps, came the men carrying an apparently lifeless form. They had found it by means of Betty’s electric torch.
“Is it the missing man?” called Arden.
“Yes, it’s Jim Danton,” someone answered.
“Is he—dead?”
“We don’t know yet,” said Mr. Callahan. “We’ve got to get him to a doctor pretty quick.”
“Well, at any rate,” said Dorothy, “the mystery of the poor man’s disappearance is solved, and I hope he isn’t seriously injured.”
One of the men who was standing near the girls turned to answer Dorothy.
“That doesn’t explain it,” he said. “Jim was working on the third floor, buthowdid he get down in that cellar?”
Having carried the unconscious man out of the cellar, the men stood at the top of the steps leading down into the darkness, awkwardly holding their burden. The girls had a momentary glimpse of Jim Danton’s face. There was blood on it. With a little shudder and murmur of horror Dorothy turned away.
“Poor fellow!” murmured Sim.
“Can’t we do something to help?” asked Terry.
“You ought to put him down—lay him down flat!” commanded Arden. “There may be broken bones! It isn’t doing him any good to hold him all crumpled that way.”
“He ought to have a doctor!” declared the contractor. “I wonder if it’s best to try to get him home and have the doctor there or get a doctor here? Where’s a telephone?”
“There isn’t one anywhere near here,” Betty volunteered.
“Then we’d best take him home,” decided Mr. Callahan. “But how to do it? I let my partner take my car after he dropped me off here, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“I have a car!” Sim quickly interposed. “If one of you men will sit in the rumble seat and hold this man, I’ll drive him home—if it isn’t too far.”
“Oh, he lives right here in Jockey Hollow,” said the tall thin worker. “About two miles from here, down by Primrose Brook.”
“I’ll take him in my car, then,” decided Sim. “One of you girls had better ride with me,” she added in a lower voice.
“I will,” Arden offered. “And I know a little about first aid, so maybe we can be of some help when we get this man home—before the doctor comes.” The unfortunate man hadn’t moved, nor did he seem even to breathe.
“That’s right,” agreed Sim. “But about a doctor?” she asked, turning to the contractor and the men gathered about him. “How are you going to get a doctor?”
“I’ll run to the nearest telephone, miss, as soon as you start with Jim,” the tall thin man offered. “I know the location of Jim’s house. I can direct the doctor there.”
“All right,” Sim assented. “Take him to my car. Come on, Arden. We certainly have run into something all right—whether or not it’s a mystery will develop later. But about you girls?” she asked, looking at Dot and Terry and, incidentally, at Betty.
“We’ll wait here until you two come back,” Terry suggested.
“Please come with me and have some tea at our cottage,” invited Betty. “You can wait there.”
“That will be better,” Arden accepted. As the men started to carry Jim to Sim’s car, she inquired, of no one in particular: “Where did you find him, and is there any explanation of how he got into the cellar?”
“He was at the bottom of an old ash-chute,” said Mr. Callahan. “It opens into the cellar and connects with that big fireplace on the third floor, in the room next to the one with the closet in—the closet they say Jim disappeared from, only he couldn’t. It’s a very big ash-chute—big enough for a man to slide down. They must have burned whole trees in the old days, in that fireplace. And when the fire was out, instead of carting the ashes downstairs in a hod, they just opened a sort of trapdoor on the bottom of the hearth and dumped the ashes down. Only the trapdoor is rusted away now, and, somehow, Jim must have got into the ash-chute and he slid down to the cellar, bumping his head, cutting himself and knocking himself out on the way. That’s all there is to the mystery. And I’m glad of it.”
His men looked relieved. One of them said:
“Then I guess Jim couldn’t have gone into that closet like Nate thought he did. Though he may have gone in there, and have come out without Nate seeing him. Next he went into the fireplace room and, somehow or other, he slipped down the ash-chute.”
“That’s the way of it,” said Mr. Callahan. “It explains everything, boys, and tomorrow we’ll get on this job and clean it up. The mystery is all solved.”
“In my eye!” someone muttered.
“What makes you say that, Nate Waldon?” asked the contractor.
“Because Jim did disappear right out of the closet. I know it. I didn’t see him disappear, of course, but he didn’t come out and go in the fireplace room.”
“This is worse and more of it!” sighed the contractor. He looked at the men carefully getting Jim into the rumble seat of Sim’s car and asked: “Well, what doyousay happened, Nate?”
“All I know is I saw Jim go in that closet. I heard a noise. I heard him yell, and when I ran to the closet he wasn’t to be seen. He didn’t slip out into the other room. I was close enough to have seen him if he’d done that. And we didn’t find any holes in the closet. The next we know we find Jim in the cellar. Talk about mysteries being cleared up—this one isn’t; not at all!”
“Oh, well, don’t let’s talk about it!” begged Mr. Callahan. “All of you report for work tomorrow. We’ll knock off now. And I’m a thousand times obliged to you young ladies for all you’ve done—and are doing,” he added as he saw Arden and Sim getting into the car, while in the rumble seat a man was carefully holding the still unconscious Jim, supporting his head very gently as the car started.
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Sim called to Terry and Dot as they walked, with Betty, toward the little cottage.
“Don’t hurry,” was the answer. “We’ll be all right. And do all you can for the poor man.”
“This will be a surprise for Granny,” said Betty as she led the way to the cottage.
“It must have been a surprise for you,” suggested Terry, “coming upon what you thought was a dead man in the cellar.”
“Oh, I was scared stiff!” admitted Betty. “And I was so glad when I ran up and saw Arden. I suppose it seems presuming on such a short acquaintance to call you girls by your first names,” she added with a little smile, “but, somehow, I feel as if I had known you a long time.”
“Of course,” Terry agreed, “we feel that way about you, too.”
“Excitement makes time pass rapidly,” declaimed Dot. “And there certainly has been a lot of excitement since I arrived here.”
“Indeed there has been,” Terry agreed.
At the cottage Granny welcomed them with her usual happy smile but asked at once:
“What has happened?”
“How did you know anything had happened?” asked Betty.
“I can tell by your faces.”
“Well, I believe we do show something of it,” her granddaughter admitted. “But nothing a cup of your nice tea will not help to straighten out, Granny. You know Terry and Dot?”
“Oh, yes. And we shall have tea at once. Now tell me.”
They told her. Granny listened with an enigmatic look on her face, now and then her eyes showing flecks of pity as the wounded man was spoken of.
“Very strange!” she said at the end. “I can’t understand it. There must be secrets about the Hall I never dreamed of. Perhaps when it is all torn down some of the secrets will come to light.”
“There is some as will never see the light!” suddenly exclaimed a sharp voice from somewhere back of the hall. A woman, hard featured as to face and with straggling gray hair, suddenly poked her head out. She quite startled the girls, but Betty smiled reassuringly.
“Oh, Cousin Viney!” murmured Betty, “why do you say such things?” as if dismissing this woman.
“Did you want anything, my dear?” asked Granny kindly.
“I only want to tell you that you’re having too many visitors, Hannah Howe!” was the answer. “Too many altogether! You know tea costs money, and so does cream and sugar, though I never use either.”
“Won’t you sit down with my company, Viney, and have a cup of tea—clear, as you always like it?” invited Granny sincerely.
“No. I’ve got other things to do. There’s lots of work in this cottage. Not as much as there was in the Hall—but enough!”
At that she flounced herself out, slamming the door.
Granny and Betty exchanged glances. So did Dot and Terry: it was their introduction to Viney Tucker. Arden had already met her, as Betty announced. She added:
“Don’t mind her. She’s Granny’s cousin—just a little odd—though I don’t need to tell you that. But she’s kind and good,” she explained as Mrs. Howe went out to get more hot water. “She thinks the world and all of Granny and of Dick and me. But there is no use denying she is a bit trying at times, and she often embarrasses us when we have company—which isn’t as often as I’d like,” and Betty smiled at her two new friends to make them sure of their welcome.
“I believe,” she continued, “that Cousin Viney feels and resents, as one has a right in the circumstances, our loss of Sycamore Hall, more than even Granny does. She is a creature always given to solitude and—well, you know how lonely women can be,” she finished.
“It does seem too bad to have such a wonderful and historic piece of property pass out of the family,” Terry said. “One can hardly blame Miss Viney.”
“And just to make a national park,” added Dot. “Doesn’t seem altogether right.”
“Oh, we’re all glad to have Jockey Hollow Park here in Pentville,” Betty was quick to say. “It will put us on the map,” and she laughed prettily. “And of course, if they decide to take in this cottage, which isn’t quite sure, Granny will get something from the state for that. But she would get a lot more money, and so would Cousin Viney and Dick and I, if we could find the papers that prove we are the rightful heirs to the old Hall. As it is, it has reverted to the state. But I believe there is something about holding the estimated value of the place in court for a certain number of years to give us a chance to prove ownership. Only I’m afraid we never can.”
“No,” chimed in Granny entering the room just then with fresh tea, “I’m afraid we never can. There was a time when I had hope, and I did all I could to hold this man Callahan—who isn’t a bad sort—from proceeding with the demolishing of the Hall. But now I have about given up. Only I don’t dare tell Cousin Viney that,” she added with a little laugh. “She is a die-hard and last-ditcher.”
The girls enjoyed their visit, though they were a little anxious about the return of Sim and Arden. After a while they decided they would walk around and wait rather than stay indoors, for the air outside was bracing.
“Are you going back to look for those books, Betty?” asked Terry as she and Dot took their leave.
“Not alone!” was the answer, given with a little shrug of her shoulders. Then, pleasantly thanking her, they left.
Dot and Terry walked on, back toward the Hall. The afternoon was waning. It would soon be dusk. They hoped Arden and Sim would not be too late.
“What do you think of it all, Dot?” Terry asked.
“You mean about the queer old lady? Potty, if you ask me.”
“Oh, yes, a bit eccentric. But I mean about things that have happened here in Jockey Hollow.”
Dot did not answer for several seconds. Then she said:
“Terry, I believe there is something mysterious here, but it isn’t ghosts, though that’s what you can call them.”
Terry wondered what Dot meant.
Sim drove along as fast as she dared, with Arden sitting beside her, both girls wondering, conjecturing, and trying in vain to guess what the answer to the riddle of Jockey Hollow might be.
Now and then one of the girls, to make sure all was well, would turn to the man in the rumble seat holding his wounded friend in a slanting position against his own dust-begrimed body; and Jim was begrimed, also.
“Does he seem any better?” Arden asked once.
“No, miss. Not yet.”
“He is still alive, isn’t he?” asked Sim, wondering what they should do if the answer were in the negative.
“Oh, yes, miss, he’s alive. I can feel his heart beating.”
“That’s good. Is it much farther?”
“Not much. Take the next left turn, please.”
Sim did this. Down a country road, lined on each side with bare trees, they saw a small house.
“There’s the place, miss! That’s where Jim lives,” eagerly called the helping man, who had said his name was Nate Waldon. “I’ll be glad when we get him home. I hope the doctor will come soon.”
“So do I,” murmured Arden.
“We certainly do manage to get into the most curious mix-ups,” suggested Sim as she ran the car around the bend and up as close as she could get to the house, which had a drive on one side. There was a barn in the rear, but no evidence that it was used as a garage.
It was a small house; not unlike, Arden reflected, a picture of the huts used by the soldiers of Washington’s army when it was encamped in Jockey Hollow so many years ago.
At the sound of the stopping car, evidently something unusual in front of that little house, a young woman, followed by a small girl about five years old, quickly opened the door and looked out. Then, as she evidently caught sight of her husband held in the arms of Nate, she ran out, crying:
“Oh, Jim! What has happened! Are you hurt? Oh, Jim!”
Sim and Arden quickly alighted and helped Nate lift the still unconscious Jim out of the rumble seat. It wasn’t easy, for the limp form was heavy.
“He’s coming to, I think,” said Arden in a low voice to Sim. “I saw his eyelids flutter.”
“Oh, Jim! Jim!” sobbed his wife. The little girl was also sobbing now. Sim, realizing that Arden knew more about first aid than she did, took charge of the child.
“He isn’t hurt bad, Mrs. Danton, I’m sure he isn’t,” said Nate with the ready sympathy of one worker for another’s mate. “He just had a sort of a fall and he got bruised a bit and cut up and a hit on the head. But he’ll come around. Mr. Callahan had one of the men telephone for a doctor. Is he here yet?”
“Not yet. Oh, Jim! Poor Jim!” wailed the excited woman.
“Now, he’s all right, didn’t I tell you that, Mrs. Danton? Here, pull yourself together. You’ve got to help this young lady and me carry him in and put him to bed and then get ready for the doctor. Now don’t be fainting on us.” Nate took charge promptly.
“No! No. I won’t faint. But what happened?” Mrs. Danton asked.
“He just fell down an old ash-chute,” Arden said as she and Nate, with the help of the man’s wife, carried him into the little cottage where Sim, comforting the child, had already preceded them.
Just how they managed, Sim and Arden never had any clear recollection afterward. But they succeeded in getting poor Jim upon a bed in a room downstairs opening out of a small but very neat little kitchen. Then, when his wife was undressing him, with the help of Nate, while Sim, in the neat kitchen, was telling the little girl a fairy story, Dr. Ramsdell arrived.
“What’s going on here?” he asked in a bluff hearty voice. He did not know, and had probably not seen before, any of those whom he addressed. But he seemed, as Arden said afterward, “like one of the family.”
“Oh, doctor, it’s my husband!” faltered Mrs. Danton, again on the verge of tears.
“Tut! Tut! None of that!” warned Dr. Ramsdell. “We’ll soon be having your husband on his feet again. A little accident, I was told,” he remarked, and his eyes swept in turn Arden and Nate.
“He had a fall—at the—the ghost house,” Nate answered.
“Ghost house! What joke is that?” chuckled the physician, quickly taking off his coat and gloves and picking up the black bag he had set down on a chair.
Out in the kitchen Sim was intoning to the little girl:
“And when the Prince came riding by in his automobile——”
“Didn’t he have a horse?” questioned the child, smiling now.
“No, he was a new sort of Prince—he had a car.”
“Oh, how queer! A fairy story with an auto. But I like it. Go on, please.”
Dr. Ramsdell bent over the man on the bed. He felt his pulse, put his hand on the heart, and pulled back the closed eyelids.
“Why, he’s not badly hurt!” he announced. “My goodness, this is no accident at all! Just a little shock. Here, my man! How are you? Drink this!” He had quickly mixed something in a glass of water that Arden, with ready foresight, had in waiting for him. “That’s better. Now tell me the joke about the ghost house.”
“It’s Sycamore Hall in Jockey Hollow, where he was working,” Arden supplied.
“Oh, there. Yes, I know Sycamore Hall. Old Mrs. Howe claims she ought to have it, but the Park Commission thinks differently. But this is the first I’ve heard about ghosts. Never mind them. That’s the joke. Now, let me look you over.”
It did not take Dr. Ramsdell long to ascertain that Jim Danton was not seriously hurt. He was cut and bruised, he had a very slight concussion of the brain, but no fracture of the skull, and a week’s rest would make him well again, the physician announced.
“Keep him quiet,” the doctor ordered as he left. But Jim was roused now. He seemed to want to talk. “Let him tell what’s on his mind if he cares to,” the physician suggested as he left, having set out some medicine from his bag and given orders as to its administration.
And when the doctor had gone Jim falteringly told his story.
“How did it happen?” asked his wife, having heard Nate’s version.
“I don’t know, Minnie. I was up in the room with another man—I sort of forget his name—and we were sizing it up—getting ready to rip it apart——”
“Why, I was there with you,” interrupted Nate.
“Oh, that’s right—you were.” Jim had to talk very slowly. “Well, I went in the closet to get a crowbar I’d left there.”
“I saw you go in,” Nate contributed. “But you didn’t come out.”
“No,” said Jim in a curiously dull voice. “I didn’t come out. All I know is that I reached for my crowbar that was leaning against the closet wall and then, all of a sudden, it felt as though somebody hit me on the head. I fell down, and that’s all I know—until just now.” He sighed gratefully and pressed his wife’s nervous hand.
“But what really happened to him? Who hit him?” demanded Mrs. Danton.
“That’s what nobody knows,” said Nate. “After Jim disappeared, we started looking for him. All but gave up when one of these young ladies found him in the cellar—unconscious.”
“Neither of us found him,” Arden said. “It was the granddaughter of the woman who claims to own Sycamore Hall—Betty Howe.”
“Oh, that terrible ghost house!” moaned Jim’s wife. “We heard stories about it before Jim went to work there—stories floating around Jockey Hollow—told by the Negro and Italian workmen. A lot of them quit. Then Mr. Callahan—Jim’s worked for him before—sent out word for better men. Jim has been sick, but he decided to go.
“We needed the money so much. We are so poor—so much in debt.” She had come out of the sick-room and closed the door. Her husband appeared to be sleeping. “And there was a bonus of a hundred dollars for any man who would work a full week, ghost or no ghost. Jim said he would. He tried, but—the ghost got him!”
She hid her face in her folded arms on the table and sobbed. The little girl looked frightened.
“Stop!” commanded Arden. “You mustn’t give way like this. Everything is going to be all right. Your husband isn’t badly hurt. He will get well!”
“But how can we live, meanwhile?” She raised her tear-stained face.
“I will see Mr. Callahan about that,” said Sim determinedly. “He must carry workmen’s compensation insurance. My father does in his stores. You will be looked after. Now, don’t cry. See, you are frightening Suzanne.” The little girl had told her name.
“Yes, I must be brave. But, oh, that terrible ghost house. It should be burned down! It almost killed—Jim,” Mrs. Danton sobbed.
“It will soon be torn down now,” Arden said. “And, really, I don’t believe it’s a ghost house at all. Those are only silly stories. Your husband’s accident is explainable on perfectly natural grounds, I’m sure we’ll find out. Now we must go. But you will need help. Can’t we get some neighbor in?”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson—she lives in the next house down the road—she will come in, I think.”
“I’ll get her,” offered Sim. “You wait here, Arden.”
Sim soon returned with the kind neighbor, and as the girls had done all they could do, they said good-bye, promising to come again.
“And tell me another fairy story!” stipulated Suzanne.
“I will, my dear. You can tell your father the one I told you when he gets better, as he soon will.”
“I’ll do that—yes.” Suzanne was cute and had fascinating dimples.
Sim and Arden drove away as the sun was beginning to set. They must pick up Terry and Dot.
“Well,” remarked Sim as she speeded the little roadster along, “we’ve got something to think of now.”
“I think,” said Arden seriously as she recalled the pathetic scene back at Jim Danton’s house, “that we have a stronger motive than ever in finding out about this ghost business—I mean a stronger motive than just trying to help Granny Howe prove her right to the place.”
“There is something queer under all this, Sim. Men shouldn’t be hurt like this just because, possibly, somebody is playing jokes. I’m going to find out the secret of Jockey Hollow!” she declared now.
“And we’re all going to help you!” Sim added. “This isn’t a ghost story, it’s a detective story now.”
Thinking over what had taken place that afternoon, and reviewing their own parts in the strange mystery, kept Sim and Arden rather silent on the drive back from Jim Danton’s home. Then, as they were almost back at the Hall, where Terry and Dot were waiting, Sim remarked seriously:
“I don’t believe it’s anyone playing jokes.”
“What do you mean—jokes?” asked Arden, her attention, which had wandered far afield, snapping back to the girl beside her in the roadster.
“You said,” Sim replied, “that possibly somebody was playing a joke to cause these manifestations. It’s a pretty serious joke, if you ask me.”
“I agree with you,” Arden answered. “But there are persons with a very strange sense of humor.”
“I wish some of them had to fall down the ash-chute as Jim did!” Sim exclaimed snappishly. “It would jar some of the humor out of them.”
“I don’t really believe I meant that, about it being a joke,” went on Arden. “But I’m determined to find out what’s at the bottom of it all. It must be real and it must have humans in it.”
“And I’m with you!” declared Sim. “But I have a new thought, Arden!”
“What, Mistress Sim?” asked Arden. “I declare I’m reverting to Colonial talk, thinking so much about this ancient place,” and she laughed. “But let me have your thought.”
“Could it be labor troubles?” asked Sim. “I mean, could some other contractor, who resented Mr. Callahan having the job of tearing down this old mansion, be trying to scare his men off so Mr. Callahan would give up the contract? Isn’t that possible?”
“Yes, possible.”
“You know,” went on Sim, “while there may not be very much money for a contractor in just pulling down an old mansion, this one is of Revolutionary importance, and there may be what the boys would call ‘pickings,’ that would sell for a good sum.”
“You mean like those hand-forged hooks in the closet where Jim disappeared from?”
“Yes. So it may be that some rival contractor is trying to force Mr. Callahan to give up by frightening his men away.”
“It’s an idea,” admitted Arden, after thinking it over. “But why haven’t some of these alleged jokers been caught?”
“Because they have been working on the fears of ignorant men.”
“You can’t exactly call Jim and his workers ignorant,” Arden objected.
“No. But this is the first time anything happened to them. And it was all so mixed up, no proper search was made at the moment of the scare. If it had been, something might have been found out.”
“Well, I hopewecan find out something,” Arden suggested. “It’s sad to think of a poor man hurt on the first work he gets after months of idleness. And that little family was in a sad state.”
“Yes. We must make sure that Mr. Callahan does something for them—workmen’s compensation relief or something like that.”
Arden nodded. She was very thoughtful, and Sim, noticing that her chum’s thoughts had evidently taken a new turn, asked:
“Have you any other theory as to how this happened to Jim?”
“I was just wondering if anyone could have slipped into that closet, stolen up behind Jim, hit him on the head, and then put his unconscious body down the ash-chute?”
“I don’t see how they could, with another man in the same room.”
“No, I suppose not. Well, it’s baffling, certainly.”
As they made a turn in the road which would put them on the main highway leading back to the Hall and Jockey Hollow, they saw a horseman leading a riderless mount coming out of the woods.
“It’s Dick Howe!” exclaimed Arden.
“Yes,” Sim agreed.
The young groom saw them at the same moment and held back his horses until they could ride past, which they did, coming to a stop a little way beyond him.
“Hello, Dick!” Arden greeted.
“Afternoon, ladies—or I might almost say evening,” Dick answered. The slanting rays of the fast-setting sun shone on his face, and the girls were surprised to see that it was bleeding. He noticed their quick attention drawn to him and, putting up a hand to wipe away some trickling blood, remarked. “Yes, my horse got a bit skittish and ran me under a low branch. I hope it doesn’t leave a scar,” and he laughed lightly.
“Is it deep?” asked Sim anxiously.
“Not at all—just a scratch. I’ve been taking an old gentleman out for a canter—had to deliver a horse to him and lead it back—lead it both ways, in fact. And Highboy,” he patted his own mount, “is always troublesome with a led critter near him. He tried to bolt with me more than once. You girls going riding again soon?”
“I hope so,” Sim said. “But you know, with Christmas just around the corner, we won’t have much time until after that and then we’ll have to go back to school.”
“That’s so,” Dick agreed. “Well, turn all the business my way that you can, or, rather, Ellery’s way. We need it! And if I don’t see you again, why, Merry Christmas!”
“The same to you,” they answered.
Arden waved to Dick as Sim stepped on the accelerator, and the car shot away, leaving the young groom and his two horses bathed in the red sunset light, the crimson rays matching the blood on his cheek.
“Rather queer,” remarked Sim as they made the last turn before reaching the road that ran past the Hall.
“What?” asked Arden.
“Dick getting hurt that way. I mean he’s such a good rider, you would think he might have ducked the branch that hit him.”
“You can’t tell what a horse will do,” declared Arden. “What, just, did you mean?”
“Well,” Sim went on, slowing down to avoid some ruts, “I was thinking it would be queer if Dick had been around the old Hall when Jim was hurt and maybe he got hurt the same way—or something like it.”
“But Dick wasn’t there. He was off with an old gentleman going for a ride.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, it was only a notion. But there are enough queer things happening—this would only be one of them. Betty was there at the house, you know.”
“But I’m sure Dick wasn’t. Look, there are Terry and Dot waiting for us.”
They saw the two girls walking up and down in front of the Hall. The afternoon was fast passing. They had spent more time than they realized.
“So you finished your visit with Granny?” asked Sim.
“Yes, we had tea again. Betty is very nice. So is Granny. But the cousin—she’s queer,” related Terry.
“Oh, so you met Viney Tucker?” asked Arden.
“She poked herself in at us,” said Dot. “But what happened to you?”
Arden and Sim told, and said something about the strange closet.
“Let’s go in now and have a look at it while none of the workmen is around,” suggested Arden enthusiastically.
“No, it’s too dark!” objected Terry. “I don’t believe in ghosts any more than you do, but going in that queer old house when it’s as dark as it’s going to be soon, doesn’t appeal to me.”
“Nor me!” said Dot.
She and Terry climbed into the rumble seat, and they were all soon back at Sim’s house. The way seemed short, for they had plenty to talk about.
It was quite dark when they arrived. Moselle opened the door for them and exclaimed:
“I sure am glad you-all have come back!” There was a tone of relieved anxiety in her voice.
“Why?” drawled Sim. “Have you been seeing ghosts, too, Moselle?”
“No. But a gentleman named Harry Pangborn has been telephonin’ an’ telephonin’ all the afternoon, wantin’ to know when you-all would be back. He seemed quite set up about it. I couldn’t give him any satisfaction. But he——”
The telephone jingled smartly.
“That must be him again!” exclaimed Moselle scurrying in.
“Harry Pangborn!” cried Terry.
“What a delightful surprise!” voiced Sim.
“I wonder what he wants?” murmured Arden.