“It must bring back the days when she was a girl,” suggested Arden. “I’ve heard my father, who was born on a farm, tell how they used to smoke hams and bacon in a little house like that one.” She looked back toward it. There was no sign of Viney Tucker. She had shut herself in the strange place. “Probably,” went on Arden, “Viney used to help smoke the hams out here. They must have had a delicious flavor.”
“Not like the chemically prepared hamswehave to eat,” Sim surmised. “Moselle was saying, only yesterday, that she wished she had a Smithfield razor-back ham to bake with cloves for Christmas.”
“Maybe Mrs. Tucker could supply one,” suggested Arden.
“I wouldn’t ask her.”
“No, I don’t believe it would be wise. But isn’t it queer of her to go off visiting, and then return and go sit out in an old smokehouse?”
“Very queer,” agreed Sim.
Carrying their “mistletoe,” the girls went back to their parked car. As they were passing the Hall, they noticed the front door was closed as they had left it. There were no footprints in the snow other than those they themselves had made.
“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Arden as they were at the edge of the sagging old front porch.
“What?” asked Sim.
“Didn’t you hear a noise?”
“Where?”
They stood still and listened.
There was no doubt of it. Echoing footsteps were coming from the old mansion. Faint but unmistakable. They floated out of one of the upper windows, the frame of which had been torn away by the wreckers.
“Someone is in there!” whispered Sim.
“Well, they can stay there for all I’ll ever do to get them out!” gasped Arden. “Come on!”
They ran back to the car, not pausing to listen any further.
Tossing their branches into the rumble seat, the two girls climbed into the roadster. Sim’s trembling foot pressed the starter switch.
“Oh, I’m so glad it went off with a bang like that,” she murmured as the motor chugged into service. Steering rather wildly, Sim shot up the hill and out upon the main road and away from Jockey Hollow.
“What do you think it was?” asked Arden when they had their hearts and breaths under control.
“Haven’t the least idea.”
“We must tell Harry.”
“Of course. He may be able to figure out how noises can come from an old house when there isn’t a single mark in the snow to show that anyone has entered.”
“The scream happened that same way; no one went in, but the scream came out, he said.”
“Oh, it’s all so mysterious!” sighed Sim. “Shall we ever be able to solve it? Seems to me it gets worse.”
“I hope we can solve it,” said her companion solemnly.
They created quite a sensation when they reached Sim’s house, not only with the “mistletoe,” over which Dot went into wild raptures, but with their story of Viney Tucker and the strange noises.
“What a queer old woman,” said Dorothy. “I wouldn’t want to meet her alone in the dark.”
“Oh, I guess she’s just a poor old crank whose troubles have gotten the best of her,” said Arden. “I feel sorry for her.”
“She must be a trial to Granny Howe,” suggested Terry, who seemed much improved.
“Granny isn’t the sort that gives way to trials,” said Sim. “Oh, it will be so wonderful if we can help her!”
“Leave it to Harry,” said Arden. “And, by the way, don’t you think we had better tell him the latest happening?”
“Of course,” said Dorothy quickly. “Shall I telephone him?”
“Why—er—yes,” said Sim slowly, with a quick look at Arden and Terry.
“I’ll tell him to come over to dinner, shall I?” Her eyes were shining.
“Yes,” said Sim, smiling a little. “Harry is always welcome.”
“And if he can make anything out of this latest development,” said Arden, “he’s a wonder.”
“I think he’s quite wonderful anyway,” said Terry, snuggling a little deeper down in the bed. “Wasn’t he grand when he let us give him up and collect the reward?”
“Them was the happy days!” laughed Arden.
“I’m going to phone,” called Dot from the hall.
Harry Pangborn came over to dinner and to spend the evening. It was a most delightful meal, for Moselle and Althea had done their best, which was very good indeed. But it was the talk, the banter and laughter that lent spice to the food. Young folks are inimitable at that sort of thing.
“It certainly is mystifying,” Harry had to admit when he was told, more in detail, what Dot had sketched to him over the telephone about the “mistletoe” experience of Sim and Arden. “Very strange. You say there was no more sign of other footprints than your own?”
“Not a sign,” declared Sim.
“Could you gather why Viney Tucker was in the old smokehouse?”
“Only that it was a queer whim,” said Arden, “and she is queer.”
“Yes, such a character as hers would be whimmy.” He lighted a cigarette. Dinner was almost over.
“Is this mistletoe?” asked Dot, bringing out a branch from those her chums had gathered. “You might know, being a bird man.”
“I should think one would need to be a ladies’ man to judge mistletoe,” said Mr. Pangborn, with a laugh and a glance at each of the girls in turn. Terry was downstairs for the first time since her accident.
“Not bad! Not half bad!” laughed Arden. “But do you confirm Viney’s denial? Is it or is it not—mistletoe?”
“No, it isn’t mistletoe,” he said after an examination. “But I suppose it will answer the same purpose. Where are you going to hang it? I should like to know in advance.”
“Wouldn’tyou like to know?” mocked Dorothy.
“I must take a piece with me and put it in Granny Howe’s hair the night of the Christmas party,” said Harry, handing back to Dot the plant she had given him. “I shall claim the privilege on the eve of the holiday.”
“Like this?” Dot challenged with mischief in her eyes as she thrust the clump of white berries into her own blonde hair and then ran laughing from the room.
It was a merry little group. Mr. Pangborn said everything was in readiness to announce to Granny, with the sanction of the head of the State Park Commission, that at least she would have a new chance to prove her claim.
“And about the party,” suggested Arden. “Just what are we going to do at it?”
“We shall need some refreshments, I suppose,” said Sim. “I can get Moselle to arrange about that. We can pack them into my car and take them to the Hall. Only we’ll be a bit crowded in the roadster.”
“I’ll bring my car,” Harry said. “But, as there are quite a few things to do, wouldn’t it be wise to take Dick and Betty into our confidence?”
“And let them help,” spoke Terry.
“Yes. Dick and I can get in the wood and put the chairs and other furniture in place. I saw a table there for the food,” said Harry.
“Oh, it’s going to be just—grand!” murmured Sim dramatically.
“But tell Betty and Dick not to let Granny know about it,” warned Arden. “That would spoil the surprise.”
“I’ll caution them,” Harry promised. “I’ll go see Dick at the livery stable in the morning and also stop at the library and tell Betty. I’ve been in there for books before.”
“What about Viney?” asked Sim. “Should she be told?”
“I’ll leave that to Dick and Betty,” said Harry. “They can use their best judgment. I only hope she doesn’t break up the little affair. She’s very queer, you say?”
“More than queer—vindictive,” declared Arden.
“But when she hears the big state news, things are going to ease up a little, I think,” said Sim.
They talked over the plan, made some changes, and when Harry left that evening all details were practically settled.
He telephoned the next day, about noon, to say that he had seen Betty and Dick and that they were delighted with the matter. They both said, Harry reported, that Viney must be told or she might break out into a sudden tantrum at the last moment when she learned about it.
“She probably won’t come to the party,” Harry said. Betty had informed him, but that would be all right, he added. The two grandchildren would escort Mrs. Howe to the old mansion the evening of the affair, at a predetermined hour, on pretense that it would probably be the last Christmas she would ever see with the old house standing.
It was the day before Christmas. Dick and Harry, with the help of a stable boy, had brought much dry wood into the old Hall. The girls had, each one, bought some little token for Granny and something for Viney, “in case,” Arden said, “she shows up at the last moment and starts a fuss. We’ll have to treat her like a child.”
Betty and Dick entered into the spirit of the affair and could not say enough in praise of the girls who had thought of it.
“Granny is going to be very happy about it all,” said Betty gratefully.
“I hope so,” said Arden. “By the way, Betty, did you ever get those old books you were looking for in the cellar?”
“I never did. But I’m going in when the house is razed. It will be light down there then. There may be some valuable volumes, the librarian says.”
In the days that passed between the one before Christmas and the episode of the “mistletoe,” nothing had happened at Sycamore Hall, as far as Arden and her chums could learn. There were no more strange manifestations. But then no workmen were engaged in tearing the place apart.
Dick and Betty decided not to say anything to Viney Tucker until the afternoon of the party. Otherwise she might have too long a time to brood over it and get some obstreperous notions busy in her old bonnet.
All the preparations were finished. Moselle had made up a delightful picnic lunch for an evening supper, with thermos bottles of coffee and chocolate. The things were taken to the Hall by Harry in his car, and a hearth fire was lighted early in the afternoon to drive the chill off the big old room.
Evening came, and after an early meal the girls and Harry went, in two carloads, to the old Hall. Candles had been brought for illumination, and there was quite a collection of flashlights for emergencies.
Then Arden, her chums, and Harry trooped into the place. More wood was piled on the fire. The hour approached when Dick and Betty were to bring in Granny Howe.
Footsteps were heard on the porch—voices—laughter.
“What in the world are you tykes up to?” Granny could be heard asking of Betty and Dick. Her voice was jovial.
They brought in the dear old lady—into the candlelighted room, where the roaring fire flickered on branches of holly that the girls, with a last moment thought, had hung around the walls.
“Oh—what—what is all this?” faltered Granny as she saw the little throng of happy, smiling faces. “What does it mean?”
“Merry Christmas, Granny! Merry Christmas!” cried the girls.
And Granny, trembling a little, took the old squat rocker before the hearth fire while the merry throng cheered around her.
This was indeed a Christmas party!
Several rather tense seconds passed after the jolly holiday greetings before Granny Howe recovered her usual poise. The smile that had been on her cheery face when Dick and Betty led her into the fire-warmed and candlelighted room of the old mansion, and she had seen the merry young people, faded as she sank into the rocker. There was a puzzled expression in her eyes.
“Well, Granny,” asked Betty, “don’t you like it?”
“Pretty fine, if you ask me,” said Dick.
“Oh, but what does it all mean?” murmured the old lady. “I can’t understand. They told me,” she went on, looking from Betty to Dick, “that someone here wanted to see me. They suggested it might be the last time I could view this dear old room, as the contractor would probably rush the work of tearing the house down after Christmas. So I came. Here I am. But what does it mean?” She was bewildered.
“We are the ones who wanted to see you, Granny Howe,” said Sim.
“We thought you would like a last little party in your old home,” said Terry, who managed to get along with only a slight limp now. “And here it is!” She pulled aside a cloth that had been put over the food piled on an old table.
“How kind of you,” Granny said. There was a suspicious brightness in her eyes.
“But it is going to be more than just a little party,” spoke Arden. “We have some good news for you.”
“News,” supplemented Dorothy, “which we hope will make your Christmas very happy.” Doubtless Dorothy felt that, like some, of her actress mother’s experiences, this was a sort of play and all the actors must contribute a line.
“What news?” faltered Granny Howe.
“Mr. Pangborn will tell you!” said Arden, pushing Harry forward, for he had shifted about until he was behind Dorothy. “It was his idea, and he must have the credit for it.”
“Oh, nonsense! I don’t want any credit. And you girls are as much in it as I am!” Harry protested. “You tell her, Arden!”
“No. It requires a man’s legal mind to go into the details. Go on, Harry. Can’t you see she is on the verge of a breakdown if you keep her in suspense much longer?” she whispered. Indeed, the old lady was trembling more than a little. Dick, too, seemed a little uncertain of what the next move was to be. But Betty’s eyes were very bright. Sim, Terry, and Dorothy were smiling happily.
“It will not take long to explain,” said Harry. Then, as simply as he could, he related the offer of the Park Commission. In effect it meant a much better chance than Granny Howe had ever had to prove her claim, assisted by the best legal minds that could be engaged.
“Isn’t that a wonderful Christmas present, Granny!” cried Betty. “Now perhaps we shall get something from the estate and I can finish my studies instead of slaving in that musty library. And Dick, too! He can go to college now!”
“Does it really mean,” asked Dick, “that we will get some of the money the state has set aside for the purchase of the old Howe property in Jockey Hollow?”
“I think you are pretty certain to get something,” said Harry. “It may take considerable time—it’s a complicated legal matter—but at least you are going to have your day in court, which you never had before.”
There was silence a moment, and Granny, looking from one to another, said gently:
“It is kind of you—more kind than I can appreciate now. I’m all in a flutter!” She laughed a little. “But I have for so long a time given up hope that now I don’t just know how to get hopeful again. I don’t want to discourage any of you, especially Mr. Pangborn, for I realize all he has done in getting this concession from the Park Commission. But doesn’t it all hinge on the fact that papers—deeds, wills, or something—are necessary for me to prove my claim?”
“Yes, I suppose it would be much easier if you had the missing papers,” said Harry. “But I understand they cannot be found, so we must do the best we can without them.”
“They have been lost for many years,” sighed Granny. “With them to prove my claim and the claims of my grandchildren, everything would be easy. Years ago I used to hunt day and night in this old house for those papers, for I always felt they must be hidden here. But I have given up that hope—long ago.”
Suddenly a change came over Granny Howe. She arose from the rocker and with a bright smile exclaimed:
“Now, enough of this! I am going to get back my hope! I thank you all from the bottom of my heart—you have been wonderful! I must not be gloomy and doubtful! Wasn’t something said about a party?” she went on with a bright glance at Arden. “And all the parties I ever attended were jolly affairs. This must be the same!”
“Hurrah for Granny!” cried Sim. “Now, on with the food!”
Then the party really did begin, and in the intervals of eating, talking, and piling more wood on the blaze, Harry sketched what he thought the probable legal action would be. He offered to take charge for Granny, and his offer was accepted with grateful thanks.
“I suppose,” he suggested to the old lady, “that you can’t throw any light on the so-called ghostly happenings here?”
“Not the least in the world,” laughed Granny. “None of them ever happened in my sight or hearing. I just don’t believe them. Though, I suppose, there must be something queer, for there are many stories dating back a long time. And surely those workmen wouldn’t act as they did unless something happened. And that one poor man wouldn’t purposely slide down an ash-chute, I think. But it’s all a mystery to me.”
“Do you know any more stories about the place you haven’t told us?” asked Arden. “I mean a sort of ghost story that isn’t about Patience Howe or Nathaniel Greene?”
“I might manage to remember one,” smiled Granny.
“Oh, do tell us!” begged Terry and Sim.
Dorothy was on the outer edge of the little circle about Granny, who sat near the crackling fire. Harry had wandered to a distant window, and Dorothy followed him.
“Are you game?” she whispered to him.
“For what?”
“To go and look for a ghost instead of sitting here listening to stories about one. Come on! I dare you!” she challenged, her eyes sparkling in the hearth glow. “We each can take a flashlight. Let’s slip away while the others are listening to Granny tell that story, and see if there isn’t a real ghost on some of the upper floors. Night and Christmas Eve ought to be a proper time for a ghost, hadn’t it? Will you come with me?”
“I will!” said Harry without a moment of hesitation.
They slipped out of the room, attracting no attention, and, flashing the beams of their electric torches ahead of them, walked softly up the broad stairs. It was cold and gloomy away from the gay Christmas room, but they did not mind. The spirit of the quest was upon them.
They walked the length of the long upper halls. In a far corner of the second one, where the work of demolition had not started, half hidden by old boards and trash, stood a cedar chest.
“Perhaps,” said Dorothy with a nervous little laugh, “the ghost lies in there. If it were a closet we might look for the skeleton. But let’s have a look, anyhow.”
Harry raised the lid, which was covered with dust and white plaster dust. Dorothy flashed her light within. Then she uttered a suppressed scream. For the first glance seemed to show in the chest the body of a woman clad in a red cloak resting beside the form of a Continental soldier with high black boots.
“The ghosts!” murmured Dorothy.
“No, only their garments!” said Harry, laughing. “But I think, Dot, that at last we are on the trail of the mystery!”
Harry tilted the lid of the chest back against the wall, and with both hands now free was thus able to flash the beams of his torch into the box, which was what Dorothy also was doing. The double illumination revealed other garments in the long narrow box. Henry lifted out the old Continental soldier uniform—coat, trousers, a hat, and the heavy boots.
“They have been worn recently,” he said. “Not much dust on them.”
“And the cloak?” asked Dorothy in a tense voice.
“That, also, has very little dust on it,” he said, lifting it out.
Then a daring project came into Dorothy’s mind.
“I dare you,” she said, “to dress up as the old soldier—just the coat, hat, and boots—and walk with me, in masquerade, into the room where Granny is telling a ghost story. I’ll put on the red cloak—and this!”
She reached in and lifted from the chest a white kerchief and a sort of tam-o’-shanter cap.
“Let’s be two live ghosts,” she proposed. “It will be a fitting end to the Christmas party, and then—well, you said you thought we were near the end of the ghost trail.”
“I really believe we are. Somebody has been using these garments to create all this ghost atmosphere in the old Hall. Dorothy, I’ll take your dare, and after we have had our fun we will start a new investigation and try to find out who has been responsible for all this.”
“This is going to be good!” murmured the girl, a natural actress, as she threw the red cloak about her shoulders after adjusting the kerchief as it might have been worn in Colonial days, crossed on her breast. With the cap jauntily askew on her head, she looked very like the reputed ghost of Patience Howe.
Harry slipped off his shoes, put on the heavy boots, donned the coat and hat, and they were ready. With flashlights held out in front of them to illuminate the dark hall, they started for the lower room whence faintly floated up the laughter following Granny Howe’s story.
“It’s time we started back,” whispered Dorothy. “They will miss us in another moment.”
They were near the head of the stairs when, suddenly, the door of a room opened slightly and a light gleamed through the crack. It was the room containing the mysterious closet from which Jim Danton had so strangely vanished, to be found in the cellar.
The door opened wider. Then an old woman, an old woman with a wrinkled face and straggling gray hair, looked out. In one hand she held a small flashlight.
She glared at Harry and Dorothy in their masquerade costumes, and then a look of deadly fear came over her face. She uttered several wild and piercing screams and turned back into the room, still gibbering and gasping.
A second later there was the sound of something wooden moving inside the room—a sound followed by a resounding blow, as though the heavy lid of a chest had fallen.
Another wild scream and then silence.
“Oh!” gasped Dorothy. “What is it? Who is she?”
“Must be that Viney Tucker, cousin of Granny’s,” exclaimed Harry. “But what was she doing up here? We must have frightened the wits out of her. And I’m afraid something has happened.”
He hurried into the room, followed by Dorothy. The closet door was open and their lights, flashing within it, revealed a square hole in the floor—a square hole opening into a smooth wooden chute that curved downward and into the darkness. And from that darkness now came up faint moans.
“This is awful!” cried Dorothy. “What have we done?”
“We haven’t done anything, but I think we have made a big discovery!” said Harry. “This trapdoor explains how Jim got into the cellar and I think that’s where we’ll now find Mrs. Tucker. She has been caught in her own trap!”
By this time the Christmas guests in the room below had come running out with their flashlights, calling up to know what was going on.
Harry hurried down the stairs, followed by Dorothy.
“The ghosts!” screamed Terry, pointing a trembling finger at them.
“No!” Harry shouted for he wanted to prevent any more hysterical outbursts. “It’s just a little joke Dorothy and I started, but I’m afraid it is far from a joke now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Granny Howe in a strained voice. “And where did you get those clothes?”
“We’ll explain it all in a moment,” answered Harry. “But just now I think we had better see about your cousin, Mrs. Howe.”
“You mean Viney Tucker? What’s the matter with her? Who did that awful screaming just now?”
“Mrs. Tucker; and I am afraid she has fallen down a secret passage into the cellar.”
“Oh, how terrible!” gasped Arden.
“But what does it all mean?” Sim exclaimed.
“I think,” said Harry, “it means the end of the ghosts in the old Hall. Come along, any of you who wish to—if you aren’t afraid—but perhaps Dick and I——”
“We’ll all come!” declared Granny bravely. “Poor Viney! She wouldn’t attend the Christmas party with me. She must have taken a sudden notion and come over by herself—but a secret passage to the cellar—I don’t understand!”
“We’ll have it all cleared up soon, I think,” Harry said. “There must be an inside way into the cellar, isn’t there?”
“I’ll show you,” offered Granny. “It’s at the back of the hall, and there’s also one leading out of the old kitchen. The hall way is nearer.”
They found Viney Tucker lying in about the same place where Betty had discovered Jim Danton. The grim old lady in the black cloak was faintly moaning. Harry bent over her and made a hasty examination.
“Not badly hurt, I should say,” was his verdict. “Just stunned—and very badly frightened.”
“What frightened her?” asked Arden.
“I’m afraid we did,” Dorothy confessed.
“What in the world possessed you two to sneak off and put on a masquerading act like this?” asked Sim.
“We’ll explain everything in a few minutes,” answered Harry. “Just now we must get Mrs. Tucker upstairs. Here, Dick, you take this awkward long-tailed coat,” and he slipped off the one that had formerly covered a soldier. “I’ll carry Mrs. Tucker.”
Picking up the old lady in his arms (and now she appeared to be reviving), Harry Pangborn, preceded by Sim and Betty with flashlights gleaming to show the way, started for the stairs. The others followed, Arden and Sim bringing up the rear.
Suddenly from behind them sounded a grating, rumbling noise. They turned in surprise and some fear, just in time to see several stones fall out of the old chimney that was part of the fireplace above. The chimney had its foundation on the bottom of the cellar.
Out toppled the loose stones, falling with a crash that brought nervous screams from Terry and Dorothy.
“What happened?” Harry called back, pausing with his burden.
“Looks as if the old place were falling apart,” Dick answered. “The chimney is crumbling. Perhaps we had too hot a fire on the hearth. I guess we’d better get out of here.”
“That chimney will never fall!” declared Granny Howe. “It was built to last forever, and will, unless it’s torn down. There is no danger.”
Arden paused to flash her light within an opening revealed by the falling stones. It was a smooth recess in the great stone chimney, not a rough aperture such as might happen by accident if some of the stones had merely crumbled away. It was only the few small outer stones, what, virtually, constituted a door to the hidden chamber, that had toppled away revealing a secret place.
And a hiding place it was, as Arden discovered a moment later when her light flashed and gleamed upon a small metal box within.
“Oh, look! Look what I’ve found!” she cried. “It’s a metal chest hidden away.”
“Bring it upstairs and we’ll have a look!” called Harry.
Arden put her hand in and grasped the box. But it resisted her first effort to wrench it out.
“I’ll help you,” offered Dick.
Together they pulled, and the box came forth. It was about a foot long, eight inches in width and about six in depth. It was closed by a heavy brass padlock.
Their first care, on reaching the warm and light room where the Christmas party had come to such a strange end, was to put Viney down on an improvised couch and give her some hot coffee. She had regained her senses, but a great fear and wonder seemed to be upon her.
“Have they—have they gone?” she faltered.
“Who?” asked Granny.
“Those real ghosts—the ghosts I used to be myself.”
“Viney, have you been up to ghost tricks here in Sycamore Hall?” Granny’s voice was stern.
Viney Tucker looked up, more defiant now. She was rapidly recovering from her fall, which was not so much of a fall as a slide down a smooth wooden chute. It wasn’t the ash-chute, but one forming part of a secret passage, as they learned later.
“Yes,” Viney confessed, “I was the ghosts. But I’ll never be one again. I did it to save the Hall for you, Hannah. I remembered the old stories of Nathaniel Greene and Patience Howe. And when I found you were going to be cheated out of the money you should have had for the sale of this property I decided to stop it from being demolished if I could. So I secretly made a red cloak, and from a masquerade costumer in a distant city I got the Continental soldier’s uniform. I hid them away here in the chest. At times I would slip in here and scare the workmen, by pretending to be either dead Patience on the bed or the tramping soldier, with a red rag around my head and my hat pulled down over my face. It worked, too!” she said, not a little proudly.
“Yes, it worked,” admitted Harry. “Especially the screams coming up out of the fireplace. You are a good screamer, Mrs. Tucker.”
“I always was,” she admitted with a grim smile. “Though I didn’t know it was you in the house that day. I thought it was one of the workmen. But I meant no harm. I just wanted to delay the tearing down of this place. I was always hoping the missing papers would be found.”
“Well, I think they have been,” Arden said. “Let’s open the box that I found when the stones fell. I wonder what caused them to fall out and open the hiding place?”
“It might have been the heat, as Dick suggested. We had a pretty hot fire,” said Harry. “Though the concussion of Mrs. Tucker’s slide down the chute and the vibration caused by something slamming up in the closet may have done the work. At any rate, let’s see what the box holds.”
A heavy poker served to break the lock, though Betty said it was a shame to destroy such an antique. But they could not wait to get a locksmith. And when the lid was raised, there, covered with much dust, were a number of legal-appearing documents. Harry glanced hastily through them.
“Well, I think this settles everything,” he said. “You won’t need the advantage of any long court delay, Mrs. Howe. These deeds, copies of wills, and other papers, will easily prove, I think, your title to this place, and the money paid for it by the Park Commission can now be released to you and your relatives.”
“Viney shall have her share!” exclaimed the happy old lady.
“I don’t want any, Hannah! I only played ghost for you. I didn’t want anything myself.”
“You shall have your share, Viney, and so shall Dick and Betty.”
“Oh, how wonderful it all is!” Betty murmured.
“Like a story book!” added Dick.
“And to think,” said Arden, “that if it hadn’t been for the little prank of Dot and Harry all this would never have been discovered.”
“My part as a ghost wouldn’t have,” said Viney grimly, “for I was planning to keep on scaring those men away if I could. I wasn’t going to give up until the Hall was so torn apart I couldn’t work my tricks any more. But I didn’t know anything about those hidden papers.”
“I guess no one did except the foolish man, now long dead, who hid them there,” said Granny. “Oh, why didn’t he have sense enough to put them in a bank or give them to a lawyer and then we wouldn’t have had all this trouble!”
“It wasn’t really trouble, Granny!” laughed Sim.
“No, we’ve had a wonderful time!” agreed Terry.
“I suppose you did play tricks in this ghost masquerade, Mrs. Tucker,” Harry said. “But how did you manage to get in and out of the house without being seen—especially when there was snow on the ground.”
“I went in and out through a secret tunnel that ends here in an old wine bin and outside in the smokehouse,” Mrs. Tucker said with a smile at the girls, who had once surprised her in the place where hams and bacon were cured.
“Oh, so you found the old secret passage, did you, Viney?” asked her cousin. “I never could.”
“Well, I did!” Once more Viney smiled. “And I kept it secret. There are two passages,” she went on. “One the tunnel and the other the chute I fell down just now.”
“That’s a part of the mystery I don’t yet understand,” said Arden. “Why did you come over here tonight? Was it to play a ghost when you knew we were giving Granny a Christmas party?”
“Oh, no, my dear! I’d never do a thing like that, cross and cranky as I know I am. Forgive me—but I’ve been so worried about Hannah going to lose the inheritance she should have had. I came over here tonight, secretly, as I always come, to save any of you from harm.”
“Save us from harm?”
“Yes. I thought some of you might take a notion to roam and wander around the old house. I was afraid you would go in that closet through which a person who knows the trick can slide down the smooth wooden chute to the cellar. I was afraid lest someone might by accident work the spring of the trapdoor and fall. But I was the one who fell.
“You see it’s this way. In the old days I suppose it was often necessary for those who were enemies of the British king to escape in a hurry. So Sycamore Hall, like many another old Colonial mansion, contained secret passages. The one from the wine bin to the smokehouse is quite simple. The other is more complicated. The closet has a false bottom. In it is a trapdoor so well fitted into the floor that one not in the secret would have difficulty in finding it. By pressing on a certain place in the wall, the trapdoor opens, a person can jump or slide down the chute, which is curved in such a way that no harm results from its use. Then the trapdoor closes.”
“It didn’t close after you slid down tonight,” Harry said.
“I realized something was wrong as soon as I pushed the spring,” admitted Viney. “Before I had hardly time to get into the chute, the trapdoor closed and struck me a light blow on the head. But it must have sprung open immediately afterward.”
“That’s probably what happened to Jim Danton,” said Arden. “Only he got a severe blow, and the secret trapdoor remained closed.”
“Probably did,” admitted Viney. “I wasn’t there to see, but very likely that man accidentally touched the spring and shot down the chute, getting heavily struck by the trapdoor as he slid down. The wooden chute really merges into the ash-chute at the lower end, so that’s why they thought this Jim fell down the ash-chute. But he didn’t—he went down the secret passage out of the closet.”
“No wonder it seemed like a real mystical disappearance,” said Arden.
“Tonight,” went on Viney Tucker, “when I feared some of you would roam about the place, I slipped over here through the tunnel to lock that closet door so you couldn’t get in. I heard footsteps up here. I looked out in the hall and saw the two ghosts—ghosts whose parts I had often played myself. I was so frightened that I screamed and ran back in here to hide. I couldn’t understand it. Then in my fright I touched the hidden spring and fell down the chute. But the trapdoor, through some defect, closed down on me and then sprang open again. And that ends the mystery. I suppose the tearing down of the Hall can now go on, and the chute and trapdoor will be destroyed with all the other things. Well, I don’t care, now that Hannah will get her money.”
“There is no further need for ghosts,” said Arden.
“Viney, I don’t know what to say to you!” exclaimed Granny. Her face was serious but not for long. She laughed and added: “What will people think when all this comes out?”
“There is no need for it to come out,” said Harry. “There is no need for anyone except ourselves knowing that Mrs. Tucker was the ghost. As for the old stories, they will always be told, I suppose—stories of Nathaniel Greene and Patience Howe. But they will gradually die down when the Hall is gone. So there is no reason why Mrs. Tucker need be exposed. We can keep the secret among ourselves.”
“I think that would be best,” Granny said. “Oh, what a wonderful Christmas this has been!” and again her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Just wonderful! Thank you all, my dear friends. For it was you who brought all this about. Thank you, so much!”
The fire was dying. The simple little gifts had been presented. The candles were spluttering down into the sockets. It was growing cold. The party was over.
Granny gave the precious papers to Harry Pangborn to keep for her. Then, when Granny and her cousin, with Betty and Dick, had departed for the little cottage, over the moonlit snow, just an hour before it would be Christmas, Arden Blake and her friends left the old Hall.
“There’s only one thing I’m still puzzled over,” Arden said as they gathered in Sim’s house to quiet down a bit. “Of course, I suppose we all, at different times, suspected different persons of playing the ghost—for we knew that’s what the mystery was—some tricky human. But at one time I heard some talk as I was passing some men in the street, which made me think Mr. Ellery might be the guilty one. Mention was made of a man named Nick.”
“I think I can explain that,” said Harry. “I talked to Dick about it. It seems that there were some rather valuable fittings, like hand-made locks, closet hooks and other things, in the Hall that a contractor would, very likely, save out to sell. Ellery was trying, as the boys say, to double-cross Mr. Callahan and get some of these antiques. Nick was in with him and once or twice tried his game with some cronies. But the ghost scared them away as it did the contractor’s honest workmen. So I think it’s all cleared up now.”
“Another mystery ended,” sighed Arden Blake. “I wonder if it will be the last in our lives?”
“I hope not,” said Sim.
And Sim’s wish came true, as is evidenced in the succeeding volume of this series to be called:Missing at Marshlands. That will be another Arden Blake mystery story.