Moselle called from the telephone in the back hall:
“Oh, Miss Sim! It’s the gentleman again—Mr. Pangborn!”
Sim hurried to the instrument while the other girls looked at one another, laughter in their eyes and with hearts beating faster.
“Our old friend of the orchard masquerade,” said Arden.
“Do you suppose he’s going to vanish again—take another name and get into some other mystery?” asked Terry.
“I hope he’s coming here to spend Christmas!” Dot was very frank in her desires. “It would be a change from ghosts and musty old houses.”
“Hush!” warned Arden. “The phone is open—he’ll hear us.”
They were chattering loudly near where Sim was speaking and listening over the telephone. They heard her say:
“Oh, but how nice! Of course!—Come right over. We’ll have dinner in a little while, and there’ll be a place for you.—Oh, yes, we have been very busy.—What?—I’ll tell you when you come over. But what are you doing in this part of the country?—We thought you were enjoying your millions.—Oh, getting even with me, I see—you’ll tell us when you get here.—Yes, this place is easy to find. All the taxi men know it. See you later!”
Sim danced back through the hall to where her friends waited with anxiety to hear the other half of the conversation.
“Was it really Harry Pangborn?” demanded Arden.
“Of course it was and is! He’s coming over!” Sim laughed merrily.
“But why?”
“How?”
“What for?”
“Wait! Wait!” begged Sim, holding her hands up to ward off her importunate chums. “He’s going to explain it all when he comes over. It seems he just arrived in Pentville this afternoon. He was nice enough to say he remembered that we all lived here, and he’s lonesome, so he’s been keeping our line busy. He almost gave up finding us in.”
“But what’s he out here for?” asked Terry.
“Came especially to see you, my dear,” laughed Sim.
“Oh, be serious!” begged Arden.
“Well, I can safely wager he didn’t come to see me,” Dot put in. “I really hardly met him. You three monopolized him at Cedar Ridge and then got his thousand dollars’ reward.”
“Wedidn’t get the thousand dollars,” Sim said. “It was really the college swimming pool.”
“And Arden solved that mystery,” added Terry, referring to one told of inThe Orchard Secret.
“If I can only solve this one of Jockey Hollow I’ll go in for mystery solving as a profession,” Arden laughed. “I might major in it at Cedar Ridge.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Dot, “now that Harry Pangborn is here, he can help you.”
Arden looked at the visitor. Was there anything sarcastic in the remark? Hardly, for Dot smiled brightly.
“I still can’t guess why he has come here,” said Terry.
“You shall know very soon, child,” mocked Sim. “Now we must get busy and wash our faces. And, oh, I wonder what sort of a dinner Moselle can give us? I must have a talk with her. Run along, girls, get painted and powdered, and I’ll follow as soon as I can.”
Shortly after this, Harry Pangborn drove up to the Westover home in a “small but expensive car,” as Dot remarked, catching a glimpse of its gleaming lamps out on the drive. The young man came in, bronzed as to complexion, smiling charmingly, and showing his white even teeth, and greeted the girls with the comradeship of a co-ed.
“So glad to see you again,” he told them. “And now, as I heard Sim say she wondered why I was here, I’ll tell you. I’m here in this particular place because I am lonesome for such company as yours.” (That was being gallant.) “And I’m in Pentville because I have a mission to perform in Jockey Hollow.”
“Jockey Hollow!” cried the four girls together.
“Do you mean you are going to try to rid Sycamore Hall of its ghosts?” asked Arden a moment later.
“Ghosts!” exclaimed young Mr. Pangborn. “I don’t know anything about ghosts and less about Sycamore Hall. What’s the joke?”
“Ever since they got me here,” supplied Dot, who seemed rather “taken” by the young fellow, “these girls have done nothing but discover ghosts—ghostly noises, dead women on a bed, a man mysteriously missing and found in a cellar—and it all happened at Sycamore Hall, an old Revolutionary mansion in Jockey Hollow that is going to be torn down to make room for a new road.”
“This is news to me,” said Harry Pangborn. “I didn’t count on this when I was asked to come to Jockey Hollow. But it’s—grand!”
“Just why were you asked?” Sim wanted to know.
“Well, you are familiar with the fact that I fell heir to my grandfather’s estate on Long Island,” was the answer. “On it is a big wooded park, and as I happen to be a nature lover, and a wild bird enthusiast in a small way, I carried out some ideas started by my late grandfather and have built up quite a bird sanctuary, as they are called—a place for the conservation of all wild life; you know, of course. I put some new ideas into my experiments. Word of it got around, and I was asked by Dr. Max Thandu, the State Park Commissioner here in your part of the country, to make a sort of survey of Jockey Hollow and lay out a bird sanctuary there. I agreed, for I thoroughly believe in this sort of thing.”
“You mean you are going to work around here?” Dorothy asked.
“Work,” echoed Arden. “What Harry does is never just—work.” She had called him “Harry,” and a self-conscious flush made her look even prettier.
“I understand Jockey Hollow, with its Revolutionary associations, is to be made a state or national park,” Harry went on, smiling kindly at Arden. “The bird sanctuary will only be incidental to its historic value. But I am glad to do my little part there. So, having some leisure time, and the Christmas season being rather a hectic time down our way, and being fond of the woods in winter and solitude—in a way—I decided to use my Christmas vacation by coming to Jockey Hollow and getting some first-hand information.”
“What could be nicer for us?” Sim complimented.
“Are you going to stay until after Christmas?” Arden inquired.
“I hope to. I understand Jockey Hollow is rather a big place, and it will take me several days to survey it, locate proper places for feeding stations, and arrange for a water supply for the birds. When I told Dr. Thandu I would come here, I suddenly happened to remember that you Cedar Ridge girls lived out this way, and so I’m afraid I kept the operator rather busy this afternoon giving her your number, Sim.”
“Oh, that, too, would have been kind of you. Central isn’t ever very busy here. I’m sure she rather enjoyed it. The girls listen in, you know.”
“She hasn’t anything on me!” he laughed. “Well, now you know why I’m here.” They had all settled down comfortably, and it seemed, with Harry there, their party was complete.
“But I thought you said,” remarked Dot, “that you wanted solitude for Christmas,” her eyes were mischievous.
“Oh, well, there is solitude—andsolitude!” he countered, his gaze sweeping them all in turn, but lingering upon Arden. “But tell me about the ghosts. Are they just too—too divine?”
They told him at dinner, which was a success in every way, Moselle and her daughter doing themselves proud in the viands and the serving thereof. Moselle simply loved company, especially young men company.
“Now, what do you think of it all?” Arden asked when the various phases of the happenings at the Hall had been recounted.
Harry Pangborn was silent for a moment as he crushed the ashes of his cigarette on the plate.
The girls waited, not a little anxiously, for his opinion. It was good to have a man around—especially such a delightful young man as Harry Pangborn—one whom they knew and could trust.
“Well?” asked Sim, at length.
“Well,” he blew out a cloud of smoke, “it sounds to me like either one of two things,” came the answer, slowly given. “It’s either a trick of some mischievous person or persons, as you have hinted, perhaps engineered by a rival contractor. Or—” again a pause—“there may be something in it.”
“Do you really mean—ghosts?” gasped Terry.
“Well, perhaps what some persons call ghosts,” the young man answered. “Let us say natural manifestations that take on a weird meaning or significance because they are not understood. I now have a double duty here. I’m going to lay out the Jockey Hollow bird sanctuary and——”
He lighted a fresh cigarette.
“If you’ll leave this to me,” he continued as he inhaled the aromatic smoke, “I’ll do some real investigating, if you want me to.”
“It really ought to be done,” said Arden gladly. “We want to help Granny Howe if we can, to put her in a position where she can claim this property; though it seems hopeless after all these years. And we also want to help this Jim Danton. We’ll be so grateful for your help, Harry, and we are so relieved to have you here—just now.”
“Such as it is, you shall have it!” promised Mr. Pangborn.
Arden Blake fairly jumped into her bedside slippers, drew on a dressing gown, and in an instant was at the window.
“What’s the matter?” sleepily inquired Terry, who was in the other twin bed. “Has anything happened?”
“It’s snowing again,” Arden answered. “I awoke a little while ago and I heard tiny tappings against the window. I wondered what it was and I waited a decent time, so I shouldn’t awaken you, to find out.”
“Nothing to do with the mystery, has it?” yawned Terry.
“No, silly! It’s just snowing. It’s going to be a glorious storm, much better than the other little fairy we had, I believe, and oh, don’t you just love snow for Christmas?”
“That’s so, Christmas is coming,” Terry admitted as she sat up in her bed and watched Arden, still at the window. “What time is it?”
“Nearly eight. Too sleepy still to see the faithful clock right before you,” teased Arden.
“Sim and Dot up yet?”
“I haven’t heard them moving.” Arden inclined an ear toward the room across the hall where their hostess and the other girl slept.
“Well, then, come on back to bed,” urged Terry. “No use getting up until Sim does. And we stayed up so late last night, talking to Harry Pangborn, that I’m sleepy yet.”
“I’m not, and I’m going to dress. I have something to do,” declared Arden with a purposeful look on her face.
“What? Going to see Harry? I think he’s awfully nice.”
“He is, but I’m not going to see him. I’m going to the woods to get some holly branches. I noticed a lovely lot of bushes some distance back of the old Hall when I was wandering around by the cellar door that time Betty Howe popped up out of it.”
“With horror on her face, as they say in books,” drawled Terry.
“Yes, she was terrified all right,” admitted Arden. “Who wouldn’t be, coming upon what looked like a dead man? And that’s another thing we must do.”
“My, aren’t we the busy girls!” laughed Terry. “What else, for goodness’ sakes? I might as well get up and dress, I suppose. There’ll be no sleep for me now with you barging around.”
“Another thing we must do,” said Arden as she began to dress, “is to see to it that Jim Danton’s poor little family gets some relief from Mr. Callahan or somebody. He was hurt while working for the contractor, and the contractor should pay. That’s the law.”
“It wasn’t exactly his fault, though,” Terry argued. “Mr. Callahan might claim, as they say they do in some insurance policies, that it was an act of God, an unforeseen calamity, and so get out of it—I mean he might say it was the ghost of Jockey Hollow.”
“I hardly believe he would do that,” remarked Arden, brushing her hair vigorously. “But it surely is puzzling. Well, we’ll see what Harry Pangborn can figure out of it, though I think, since we sort of promised, in a way we should try and do something for the Danton family. There is no social service agency around here.”
“Yes, somebody must help them, and they seem nice folks, too. But about this holly, what are you going to do with it specially?”
“Decorate this place for Christmas, of course. Coming with me?”
“I suppose so. Dot and Sim will, I imagine.”
“Yes, we’ll make a little party of it. Oh, I do love to walk in the snow, and it’s coming down beautifully!” raved Arden. “Do come and look, Terry!”
“Wait until I get this shoe on. Though if we’re going to tramp in the snow I suppose I’d better wear heavier ones.”
“You won’t need them with arctics. But isn’t it a glorious storm!”
Terry agreed that it was. The two chums finished dressing and went out in the hall to go down for breakfast, which was evidently being prepared by Moselle and her dark daughter, as testified to by the rattling of dishes and the aroma of bacon and coffee floating up.
As Terry and Arden were walking toward the stairs, they heard the door of Sim’s room open, and Dot came out, wearing a robe. She held her finger on her lips as a signal for silence.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Arden.
“She has a bad headache,” Dot replied. “She was awake a good part of the night, and she’s just fallen asleep. I thought I’d slip down and tell Moselle not to make any more noise than she can help. Sim needs quiet.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” murmured Terry. “I wonder if there’s anything we can do?”
“No, I gave her some aspirin. She’ll be all right. If you’re going down, would you mind having that little slave bring me up some coffee? That’s all I want. I’ll be waiting out in the hall so I won’t disturb Sim by opening the door too often.”
“It’s too bad,” murmured Terry again. “Can’t you come down and have some breakfast with us?”
“No, coffee is all I’ll take. Some storm, isn’t it?”
“Terry and I were going out for a walk in it,” whispered Arden, “and to gather some holly branches to decorate the place here for Christmas. We hoped you and Sim would come, but if she has a headache I guess we’ll postpone the trip.”
“No reason why you should,” Dorothy argued, walking to the head of the stairs with the others to avoid whispering so much outside Sim’s door. “I’ll stay here with her. I don’t feel much like walking in the snow, though I love fresh-grown holly. Get all you can, and by the time you come back I’ll be ready to help decorate, and perhaps Sim’s head will be better.”
“All right,” agreed Arden. “I have my mind set on it, and I don’t like to change. You’ll come, Terry?”
“Oh, yes.”
Dot had her coffee, the other girls making a more substantial breakfast, and then, leaving Sim still asleep and Dot on guard, Terry and Arden set out into the storm. The flakes were coming down rapidly now, dry, small flakes that seemed to presage a heavy fall. It was not yet deep, but would be, as none was melting.
“Oh, it’s so lovely!” murmured Arden raising her face to let the snowflakes melt on it.
“You seem to have quite a yen on for storms,” remarked Terry, laughing.
“I always have had. Now we must step out. It’s quite a distance to the old Hall, and it’s slow walking in the snow.”
“I’m equal to it,” declared Terry, bracing up and dashing forward.
They trudged along, laughing and talking—talking principally of the advent of Harry Pangborn and his declaration that he would do some real investigating of the mysterious happenings in Jockey Hollow.
“I wonder if he’ll really discover anything,” said Terry as they neared the place.
“He might,” was Arden’s opinion. “He has a good head, I believe.”
“He has nice teeth, anyhow.”
“To bite ghosts with, I suppose!” laughed Arden.
“Yep! Well, I can see the place now,” remarked Terry as they topped a little rise. “There doesn’t seem to be any men working there, though—no plaster dust floating out of the windows as usual when men are tearing down an old building.”
“It is quiet,” Arden admitted as they walked in front of the Hall. “I suppose Mr. Callahan is wondering what sort of workmen to get next, since his white-collar class has left, apparently.”
“Look!” Terry suddenly exclaimed, pointing. “Footprints in the snow. At least one man has gone in there!”
“That is very evident, Robinson Crusoe,” laughed Arden. “As your man Friday, I agree with you. Someone has gone in, and one man only, judging by the footprints. And as these are plain footprints and not little scratchy marks in the snow I think we may safely argue that it is no ghost.”
“Who said it was?” countered Terry. “But what can one workman do in tearing down such a big house?”
At that moment a head was thrust out of an upper and partly demolished window and a voice cheerily called:
“Good-morning, girls!”
“Oh, it’s Harry Pangborn!” exclaimed Arden.
“Hello, Harry!” greeted Terry. Since the episode at Cedar Ridge, the friends had begun to call one another by their first names.
“What are you doing in there?” Arden called back.
“Investigating ghosts, as I promised. Want to help me?”
“We’re after holly,” said Terry, “in the back woods.”
“Well, you have time for both ghosts and holly too, perhaps.”
“No, thank you,” Arden decided, shaking some of the snow off her hat. “I think you can do your investigating alone. I mean, you come to it with an open mind. Terry or I might suggest something to you, in our eagerness, and that would throw you off the track.” They were so near the Hall they could talk easily to the young man at the window above.
“There is something in what you say,” admitted Harry with an assumed judicial air. “I shall take it under consideration. Well, then, I’ll go on investigating by myself, reserving the right to call at Sim’s house to see you all, later, and report.”
“Yes, do!” invited Terry.
“Have you found anything yet?” Arden wanted to know.
“I only arrived a few minutes ago. Well, on with the ghost hunt! Stop in if you come past this way, and I’ll help you carry the holly branches home.”
“Oh, that will be fine!” called Terry. “I was wondering how we could carry enough to make really satisfactory decorations.”
“But I draw the line at a Yule Log!” stipulated the young millionaire, whose car, the girls now noticed, was parked near a big clump of lilac bushes that nearly concealed it. He had driven in from a direction opposite that which they had traversed and so they had not seen the tire marks.
“Did you come here this morning just to investigate?” pressed Arden as young Pangborn started away from the window and she and Terry were about to walk on.
“Well, I came to look into the matter of bird-feeding stations for the sanctuary Dr. Thandu wants to establish here, and so I decided I might also take in the Hall. It’s quite a place.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” quoted Terry tritely.
“Exactly! See you later!”
He waved a hand to them and disappeared back into the strange old house.
It was a little farther to the small grove, where the holly trees and bushes grew, than Arden realized and it was perhaps ten minutes after their good-bye to the ghost-hunter that the two girls found a thicket sufficiently large to ensure a good supply of branches with their lovely red berries and dark, prickly, glossy leaves. Holly is always just holly; hard, sharp, but magnificent on its trees.
They had good pocket knives and soon cut off a quantity—more, Arden suggested, than they could carry even with the help of Mr. Pangborn, when Terry, glancing off toward a little clearing, suddenly cried:
“Look!”
There was something in the tone of her voice that startled Arden. But she managed to ask, as she whirled quickly around:
“What is it?”
“A figure in red!” whispered Terry, pointing. “There—through the trees—someone in red—moving. Oh, perhaps it’s the ghost of Patience Howe! She is always seen wearing a red cloak, you know!”
Arden dropped the holly branches from her hand as she looked toward where Terry pointed.
Something was moving! Red, in all that deep, dark clump of evergreens!
Terry and Arden drew closer together, instinctively, for mutual protection. It was uncanny to see this strange, scarlet figure capering about in the little clearing, seen through a screen of fir trees and against a background of gleaming white snow.
“The ghost of Patience Howe,” murmured Arden, recalling the story Granny had told—recalling what the men had said about seeing an apparently dead woman, in a red cloak, on a bed in the old Hall. And that figure had mysteriously vanished.
Now it was in sight again—at least, some figure was there. There was no mistaking it, for it was too plain to be anything else but a moving elfin thing.
“Oh,” whispered Terry, “do you think, Arden, that Harry could have disturbed it?”
“Disturbed what?”
“This ghost—I mean, perhaps he came upon the place where it hides in the house and it ran out—no, ghosts don’t run, they sort of float, like smoke, don’t they? Oh, Arden, I’m frightened!”
Then, fascinated, they watched and saw the red-clad figure seemingly capering about, doing a strange dance in the snow. And suddenly it started toward where they were half hidden by bushes and trees. Coming toward them!
“Oh!” screamed Terry. “Come on, Arden!” She turned to run, uttered a sudden cry of pain as she clutched her right ankle and sank down helplessly in the snow.
“Terry! What is it?” begged Arden, dropping to her side.
“My ankle! I twisted it when I turned to run! Oh, how it hurts! I hope I haven’t broken it!”
“I don’t believe you did, my dear! Ankles don’t break as easily as that. Oh, I’m so sorry!” She took some snow up in her hand and pressed it on Terry’s forehead, now wrinkled with pain. It flashed into Arden’s mind that she was going to have trouble getting Terry back to Sim’s house—walking with even a slightly sprained ankle was out of the question. Then, with a feeling of relief, she thought of Harry in the ghost house. She would have to leave Terry there in the snow, however, to go get him to come to the rescue.
“I’m so sorry,” Arden murmured. “Poor Terry!”
“It was silly of me—making so much trouble. But, oh, Arden—the red ghost! Look, it’s coming right for us!” She was facing in the direction of the strange red figure; Arden had her back toward it. But at Terry’s cry Arden looked around, and then she had to laugh, even with all the trouble they seemed to be in. And a moment later Terry also laughed, in spite of her pain.
For it was no red-cloaked ghost of Patience Howe that was bouncing over the snow toward the two girls. It was—Santa Claus!
A rotund figure of a jolly little man with a real beard of lovely white hair—no cotton whiskers on this St. Nicholas—came prancing through the underbrush, scattering snow. He was no ghost, the girls were assured of that in a moment, for he addressed them in very human accents. But even with all this reality it was a puzzle.
“Well, well, young ladies! I thought I heard somebody scream!” began the little man. “I was over in that clearing, practising, and I saw you behind the trees, and I sort of thought you’d think it queer, and I turned to come and explain. Then I heard a scream and——”
“My friend turned suddenly and sprained her ankle,” Arden interposed. “It is very painful—I’m afraid she can’t walk.”
“Luckily I can take care of that,” said Santa Claus. “It was partly my fault, I reckon. Gave her a start, naturally—seeing me in this rig. That’s why I came out here to try it on. I knew it would look sort of silly to anybody who didn’t understand. I’m terrible sorry.”
“But why are you dressed up this way?” asked Arden. Terry was just about able to stand and, resting with her head on her chum’s shoulder, her face showed she was suffering. Really the ankle was very painful.
“It’s easy explained,” said the little man, pulling at his luxuriant beard, a thing he never would have dared to do had he been wearing a masquerade whiskers. “My name is Janson Henshot, I live over at Bayley Corners, and I’m superintendent of the Sunday-school there. Up to this year we always had, for the Sunday-school children, the little ones, you know, a Santa Claus with a false beard. The part was played, off and on, by Jake Heller or Sam Bendon.
“But last year one of the little boys gave the beard of Santa Claus a pull when he was handing out the presents, and the beard came off, and it sort of spoiled things. So, when Christmas was talked of this year, somebody said I’d do fine for Santa Claus, as my beard’s real and it’ll stand a lot of pulling and won’t come off!” He demonstrated, laughing.
Even Terry smiled now, for she was listening and had opened her eyes. This, truly, was a comical experience, to find a real Santa Claus in a real wood.
“So I said I’d be Santa Claus,” went on Mr. Henshot. “All I needed was the uniform, and my wife made this one. Not bad,” and he looked proudly at his red coat and trousers, trimmed with real white rabbit fur, and at his glossy black boots.
“It’s perfect!” declared Arden.
“Glad you like it! Well, after I got the uniform and I didn’t have to raise any beard, I decided I needed some practice to act right as Santa Claus, me never having played the part before, though I’ve watched the others. So I put the uniform in my old flivver and came out here in the woods to rehearse, as you might say. This is the second time I’ve done it. I act like I think the old fellow would act with a lot of happy children around him—sort of skipping and prancing. Am I keeping you too long? I wanted to get it down right before I went out into that Sunday-school crowd. And that’s what I was doing—rehearsing—when you saw me. Guess you must have thought it sort of odd.”
“We—we thought you were a ghost!” murmured Terry.
“Ghost! My stars!”
“The ghost of Patience Howe, on account of the red,” explained Arden.
“Oh—Patience Howe—I see—her as is supposed to have been around Sycamore Hall in the Revolution and hid her horse from the soldiers. Yes, that’s a story around here, but I don’t know—ghosts—no such animals if you ask me!” He laughed heartily.
“I suppose you have heard,” suggested Arden, “that the ghost of Patience, in her red cloak, is said to wander around the old Hall at times.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that story, but nobody I know ever saw any ghost like that. Though, now you speak of it, I did hear that the contractor who’s tearing down the Hall has been having trouble with his men on account of queer happenings. But I don’t take any stock in ’em. Just rantings of the Negro and Italian laborers, I reckon.”
“Some queer things have happened there,” said Arden. “But now what are we going to do? I must get Terry home as soon as possible—a doctor must look at her ankle at once!”
“I know—sprained ankles can kick up quite a fuss. But as I’m sort of to blame for this, I’ll do my best to remedy the trouble. I shouldn’t have kept you here so long talking, by golly! I’ve got my flivver parked over near where I was rehearsing. I can run it here—no trouble at all—my flivver’ll go up the side of a barn. And we’ll put your friend in and I’ll run her home in a jiffy, if you want me to.”
“I think that will be the best thing to do,” said Arden. “We have a friend in Sycamore Hall——”
“You have!” cried Mr. Henshot. “Why, I was told Granny Howe couldn’t prove title to the place and she had to get out and it’s being torn down.”
“That’s right,” Arden assented. “But the friend I speak of is just in there temporarily, looking for ghosts.”
“My stars!” exclaimed Santa Claus. “Well, I’ll go get my flivver. Be back right quick. Don’t let her step on her ankle. I’m mighty, mighty sorry this happened!”
He ran away with surprising speed for such an elderly man, his white beard flying in the wind, and almost before Arden could shift Terry to a little easier position on her shoulder Mr. Henshot was back with his creaking roadster.
To Arden’s surprise he still wore his Santa Claus suit.
“Aren’t you going to take that off?” she asked, for she knew he had it on over his other clothes.
“Got no time!” he said briskly. “We got to get this young lady to a doctor right away. I’ll drive you just as I am. I don’t mind,” he said quickly. “It’s in Pentville, and nobody’ll know me there. I wouldn’t want to drive through Bayley Corners like this, for it would sort of spoil things for the youngsters if they see me ahead of time. But it’s all right in Pentville. Drive you just the way I am!”
Terry was feeling too miserable to object, and Arden realized it would be useless. Besides, she knew Terry must have her injured ankle looked to as soon as possible. After all, perhaps no one the girls knew would see them.
Terry managed to hobble on one foot and, assisted by Arden and Santa Claus, was placed on the rear seat of the car with her chum to hold her against the rough riding. For it would be rough getting out of the stretch of woods and clearing.
“Might as well take this holly you picked,” said Mr. Henshot. “It’ll look right pretty in the car with me dressed like Santa Claus and all this snow coming down. A regular white Christmas!” he chuckled. “Right pretty!” He piled the branches in with the girls, putting some in the empty seat beside him, and slid under the wheel.
Then he started the car, driving carefully, after Terry gave a little moan of pain at a sudden jolt.
“I’ll have to take a short cut,” he explained, “so we can’t go past the Hall and pick up your ghost-hunting friend. Sorry, but I can’t go that way.”
“It’s all right,” said Arden. “He has a car.”
She wondered what those who saw the strange outfit would say, but this held only a moment’s interest. Terry’s injury might mean a curtailment of some of the Christmas festivities, besides all poor Terry’s suffering.
They were out of the woods at last and on a smoother road, not having passed either Granny’s cottage or the Hall. In a short time they were on the outskirts of Pentville and entered the town by a back road. So not many saw them, and those who did, while they smiled and laughed and pointed, put it down to an advertising stunt. Arden saw no one she knew, Terry saw nothing but Arden’s kind shoulder which she leaned against.
But when the auto of the modern Santa Claus drew up at Sim’s house and Moselle answered Mr. Henshot’s ring at the door, she jumped back with fright.
“Mercy sakes alive! Whatever is this? A real live——” Moselle was most eloquent when silence seized her.
Moselle’s involuntary shout of surprise and alarm brought Dorothy on a run to the front door. She gave one look at Terry and Arden seated in the flivver, surrounded by holly branches, another look at Santa Claus, and then laughingly demanded:
“Where do you play the next performance?”
“It isn’t any play, Dot!” called Arden. “Terry’s hurt!”
“Hurt!” She was serious in a moment.
“It’s only a sprained ankle,” said Terry, trying to speak with vigor. “All my own fault.”
“No, it’s my fault,” insisted Santa Claus.
Moselle, her eyes almost popping from her head, had retired to the back hall, but was still peeking and listening.
“This is Christmas and then some,” said Dorothy. “But whatever happened?”
Explanations were quickly made, amid contrite apologies from Mr. Henshot for his part in Terry’s accident. She was helped into the house and a doctor summoned. Then, having asked several times if he could be of any further service, aside from carrying in the holly branches, which he did, and having been thanked for what he had done, further help being graciously declined, the little man took himself away.
“But first,” he said, with a jolly laugh, “I’ll take off my disguise—all but my whiskers. I need them. And without my red suit there will be no chance for the children of Bayley Corners to recognize me.
“If you folks haven’t anything else to do,” he said to Arden and Dorothy when Terry had been put to bed, with Sim (whose headache was better) to sit beside her, “why, we’d be glad to have you over at the Bayley Corners Sunday-school entertainment—me playing the part of Santa Claus after my rehearsals,” he chuckled.
“Thank you,” murmured Arden, trying to be cheerful about it.
Dr. Ramsdell gave it as his opinion that Terry’s ankle wasn’t as bad as she feared. It was strained, not sprained, and bound to be painful, but a day or two of rest would make it all right, the physician said, and she could get around, though she might want to use a cane for a while.
“You can still go ghost-hunting,” said Arden, when they were all gathered in Terry’s room to commiserate with her.
“I’m getting sort of fed up with it,” Terry said. “I believe it will all turn out as this ghost of Patience Howe did—in a Santa Claus outfit.”
“Well, if we could play Santa Claus to Granny Howe,” suggested Arden, “and find some way to do something so she could get the money for this property that has been taken by the state for Jockey Hollow Park, it would be the best Christmas gift we could give her, I’m sure of that.”
“And it would help Dick to his college education and Betty to realize her ambition to become an interior decorator,” added Sim.
“But I suppose it is too much to hope for,” sighed Arden. “I imagine we shall have to be content if we can find the troublesome old ghost.”
“Or even if Harry Pangborn finds it,” said Terry.
“Oh, yes, we saw him in the Hall,” Arden exclaimed. “We forgot to tell you. There are no workmen tearing the place down now and Harry had it to himself.”
“I wonder if he heard anything or saw anything,” spoke Dorothy reflectively.
The doorbell rang. It gave them a sudden start.
“Wouldn’t it be sort of—psychic if this was Harry now,” exclaimed Sim.
“You should more properly say, ‘if this were he, my dear young lady,’” corrected Arden, imitating one of their teachers at Cedar Ridge.
“School is out!” declared Sim. “Yes, Moselle?” she inquired.
“Mr. Pangborn,” Moselle announced with dignity.
The girls looked at one another but didn’t dare laugh. The sounds might carry downstairs.
“Oh, I wish he might come up here and let me hear what happened!” begged Terry as she saw her three friends rise as if to leave the room.
“I don’t see why he can’t,” spoke Dorothy quickly. “You are quite ‘decent,’ as mother’s theatrical friends say when they mean they are dressed enough to have gentlemen friends in their room—with plenty of chaperons,” and she laughed gayly.
“Ask him to come up, Moselle!” Sim ordered with sudden decision.
Harry was not at all abashed by coming into a girl’s room while she was reclining and with three other pretty girls seated around her. Young Mr. Pangborn was not easily flustered. But he did look surprised.
“Well, what happened?” he inquired anxiously as he bowed to each one in turn and went over to Terry in the bed. “Did the bad old ghost get you?”
“Almost,” she smiled as he took her hand. “Only it turned out to be a Santa Claus ghost; the real thing, too.”
“Tell me,” he begged.
They did.
Harry laughed. He absent-mindedly took out his cigarette case and then quickly put it back in his pocket, and almost as quickly took it out when Sim said: “You may.”
“Well, I’m one up on you,” he said to Terry and Arden.
“What do you mean?” Arden asked as he blew out a cloud of smoke.
“My ghost got away from me.”
“No!”
“Really?”
“Did you see anything?”
This in turn from Arden, Sim, and Terry. Dorothy was getting him an ash tray.
“Oh, tell us!”
This came in a most proper Greek chorus.
“Well,” he began, adjusting himself comfortably in the chair that gave him a view of all the girls, “I began my investigation at the ghost house this morning. Two of you were witnesses to that.” He indicated Terry and Arden. They bowed in answer.
“I went all over the old place,” the young millionaire resumed, “from cellar to what was left of the fourth floor. And I found nothing except the old furniture, the beds, a picture of a pretty girl in a green riding habit, and some old chests that were locked so I didn’t open them. I understand they belong to Mrs. Howe.”
“Yes,” Arden said. “But didn’t you find any secret passage, anything to explain how Jim Danton disappeared out of that closet and was found in the cellar? Didn’t you discover the remains of the ghost of the old soldier, Nathaniel Greene—didn’t you find any traces of Patience Howe?” breathlessly Arden demanded to know.
“Not a trace,” and Harry shook his head. “I tried to find some secret passage out of that closet, but I couldn’t. My only explanation is that Jim got mixed up and really fell down the big ash-chute. No, I really didn’t find a thing.”