“He was with me,” said Milly. “We went in his car to East Dryden. We went to the markets and did some other shopping at the stores.”
“And when you returned it was—all over?” Doctor Crawford looked gravely at her.
“Yes,” said Milly, “we were both away, and oh, I am so glad! I couldn’t have stood it!”
She broke down and sobbed in her husband’s arms, but Crawford went on asking questions.
“The autopsy will show,” he said, “but I will ask if any of you can show cause to suspect that a poison of any sort could have been administered to the victims of this disaster.”
“Not possibly,” said Professor Hardwick. “We were at tea, and had all been served from the same teapot and from the same plates of cakes. I can affirm this, for I’ve thought over every moment of the occasion. Mr. Bruce had taken part of his tea, and had eaten part of his cake,——”
“Are you sure of this?” the coroner interrupted.
“I am sure that he sat next to me, that he was talking to me, and that he received his tea at the same time I did. We sat stirring our cups, and nibbling our cake as we discussed a matter in which we were both interested. Less than a half minute before that man died, he was as well as he had ever been. The scene is perfectly before my eyes. He held his cup and saucer in one hand, his spoon in the other,—when I saw his eyes open queerly, his face change to a clayey gray, and his fingers relaxed, letting his cup fall to the floor. I set down my cup quickly and sprang toward him, but in an instant it was all over.”
A hush fell on the group as all remembered the details, so exactly as the Professor had related them.
“And the young lady,” said Crawford, at last, rousing himself from thought, “did she too drink tea?”
“No,” said Eve Carnforth, musingly. “I remember I was just fixing Vernie’s tea. She liked it sweet, and I was adding a lump of sugar when the commotion began.”
“I noticed Miss Reid first, I think,” offered Tracy; “at least, I happened to look toward her when Mr. Bruce fell forward in his chair. She made a slight sound, as of horror, and when I glanced her way, she looked so stunned I thought she was going to collapse, so I stepped across toward her. As I did so, she looked suddenly very strange, and I feared she was ill,—aside from her shock at sight of Mr. Bruce. I grasped her by the shoulders just as she was about to fall. She cried out as if in pain, and then Miss Carnforth came to my assistance, and we laid the child on that sofa. In an instant, she, too, was gone.”
“She had taken no tea?”
“No,” said Eve, positively. “Nor any cakes. As a rule, the elders were served first and Vernie last. So there is no chance of there having been poison in the tea or cakes,—nor could it be possible, anyway, as we all ate them,—didn’t we?”
Every one present affirmed that they had partaken of the tea and the cakes, and declared they were both harmless and just such as they had had served every afternoon since their arrival.
“That settles that point, at any rate,” and the coroner nodded his head. “There can be no question of poison after what you’ve told me. Unless, either or both of them took poison themselves or gave it to the other intentionally.”
In the kitchen the discussion was going on in less guarded terms.
“It’s murder,” Thorpe declared flatly. “No spooks ever killed off those two people in a minute, just like that!”
“Murder, your grandmother!” snorted Stebbins. “Who done it, and how? I ask you that! Those folks came up here to hunt ghosts, and I should say they found ’em, good and plenty! You know’s well’s I do, this house has always been ha’nted, ever since that woman killed her husband in that very room where the little girl’s lyin’ now. I wouldn’t go in that there room for a fortune, I wouldn’t!”
“Now Eli, don’t be foolish,” and Thorpe shook his head. “How could a spook kill two folks at onct,—right out in the open, as you may say?”
“For that matter, how could anybody murder two people at once? Nobody was around but their own crowd, and that lot of people ain’t for murderin’ each other! I know that!”
“It was spooks,” declared Hester, with an air of settling the matter; “I’ve smelled ’em of late. That smell of bitter almonds is been in the air a heap, and I ain’t had none for flavourin’ or anything. Land, I’d never flavour a cake with that! I put vanilla even in my ‘Angel Food.’”
“I’ve smelled it too,” spoke up Nannie, a helper of the older woman’s; “when I’ve been a-dustin’ round in that there ha’nted room, I’ve smelled it—not strong, you know, but jest a faint whiff, now’n then. I skittled out ’s fast’s I could, I kin tell you!”
“Nope, you’re all wrong,” insisted old Thorpe. “’Tain’t spooks, it’s murder. That’s what it is.”
“Who done it, then?” demanded his wife.
“That I dunno. But I have my s’picions. How,—I dunno, either. But that’s neither here nor there. Murder’s been done, but I’ll bet that mutton-headed Crawford ain’t got brains enough to see it.”
“He ain’t got brains enough to go in when it rains,” agreed Stebbins, “but you’re ’way off, Thorpe, a surmisin’ murder. Why, jest f’r instance, now, howcouldit ’a’ been done?”
“Now how can I tell that!” Thorpe spoke with fine scorn. “I don’t know all the goin’s on of them hifalutin folks, but if you’d heard ’em talkin’ ’s much as I have, you’d know that they’re up to lots of things such as us ignorant people don’t know nothin’ about.”
“They do talk awful hifalutin,” corroborated Hester. “I’ve heard ’em say things that hadn’t no meanin’ whatsoever to me, and yet they was plain English too.”
“Well, if you ask me,” and Thorpe looked important, “I’d jest say keep your eye on one of them women.”
“You mean that red-headed varmint, I know,” said his wife. “Well, she’s a handful, all right, but I don’t believe she’d go so far’s to kill anybody.”
“You don’t, don’t you? Well, she’d go just so far as there was any goin’ at all,—an’ then she’d go right on. Oh, I kin read character,” and Thorpe plumed himself so evidently on his mental powers that Stebbins snorted outright.
“You’re, a hummer, you are! I s’pose you’re clairvoyant, yourself! Well, let me advise you to keep your trap shut about Miss—that lady you referred to. This is my house, and those are my tenants, and I won’t stand any talk fromyouabout ’em.”
“That’s right, Thorpe,” admonished his wife. “Mr. Stebbins, he’s right. An’ he’s right about the ghosts, too. Why, I happen to know that the spooks warned that little Reid girl she’d die at four o’clock, and die she did, jest at four! Can you beat it? Spooks? Why, of course it was spooks! What else?”
“Yes, and the message was that two of ’em ’d die, and two of ’em did,” added Stebbins. “How could any mortal human bein’ bring that about? I ask you?”
“Land! I don’t know! I told you I didn’t. But,” and Thorpe wagged his head positively, “it wasn’t spooks.”
The same questions were being discussed in the hall by the ones more intimately interested.
Doctor Wayburn had arrived, and he and Crawford were shut in the drawing room endeavouring to wrest from the unknown, the secret of Gifford Bruce’s death.
The little group, still gathered in the hall, were talking earnestly of the immediate future.
“It’s so pathetic,” Norma was saying, “that there are so few to mourn for poor little Vernie. That child had actually no relatives but her uncle and Mr. Braye.”
“Wynne is a sort of a cousin, too,” put in Milly, “and indeed, Norma, I feel as sorry as if Vernie had been my own sister.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that,—of course, we all feel that way. But, she was so alone in the world. Mr. Braye is terribly broken up. He loved her——”
“Not only loved her,” said Eve, “but he was ambitious for her. He wanted her put in care of a capable woman this fall, and brought up properly. Mr. Bruce was no sort of a guardian for the child—I mean he was all right, of course, as a legal guardian, but he was no man to have charge of her social and home life.”
“He knew that,” said Landon, “he told me he meant to have Vernie properly chaperoned and all that, this winter. She was a dear kiddie.”
“Oh, she was,” and Norma wept afresh.
“I am a complete convert to spiritualism, now,” said the Professor, gravely. “I’ve thought over these things very deeply, I’ve considered every possible aspect of the case, and there is no explanation of those two mysterious deaths, except supernormal forces. It is no use to shirk the supposition of murder, indeed we must consider it very carefully, but it is out of the question. Nobody could have compassed those two deaths in an instant of time, however secret or subtle the methods. Do you all agree?”
“Of course,” said Eve, positively, and Tracy added, “That is undeniable, Professor, foul playwasimpossible. But, moreover, there was no one here present but our own party. I can’t let the implication pass that it could have been in the heart of any one of us——”
“Nonsense!” interrupted Hardwick, “that’s absurd, Mr. Tracy. When I speak of murder, it is in the abstract, and because it is right that we should consider the matter from every angle. We must even think of suicide, and of——”
“Suicide is as absurd as murder,” said Landon, indignantly. “But what other atrocity had you in mind?”
“Don’t lose your temper, please,” the Professor said, mildly. “I am obliged to preserve an impersonal attitude, or I can’t think at all! The other thought is, that one of the victims killed himselfandthe other one.”
“Please, Professor,” said Eve, “at least confine yourself to rational common sense. But since you raise this absurd theory, let’s settle it once and for all. Could Mr. Bruce have willingly killed himself and Vernie?” she asked of them all.
“No!” replied Landon. “Mr. Bruce was fond of life and he adored that child! Cut that out!”
“Then,” pursued Eve, “could Vernie have killed herself and her uncle?”
“Rubbish!” cried Landon, “don’t say such things, Eve. Professor, are you answered?”
“And remember,” put in Tracy, “the two were the width of this hall apart. What means could have been employed?”
“What means were employed, anyway?” said Norma. “Oh, what did kill those people?”
“The utter absence of any material means proves the fact that it was supernatural,” declared the Professor. “I only mentioned those other theories to prove their absurdity. Now, as I say, I am a convert to spiritualism in all its form and phases. How can one help being after this? And I, for one, desire to stay here for a time and I feel sure that the departed spirits of our friends will communicate with us.”
Milly shuddered at the idea, but Eve’s wonderful eyes glowed with a sudden anticipation.
“Oh, Professor Hardwick!” she exclaimed, “how splendid! Will you really stay here a while? Will you, Milly? I can’t stay unless you and Wynne do. Will you stay, Norma? and you, Mr. Tracy?”
“Oh, I can’t!” Milly moaned. “I needn’t, need I, Wynne?”
“No; darling, not if you don’t want to. I can’t see, Eve, why you wish to stay here. It gives me the horrors to think of it. And if you really expect spiritual communications from Vernie or Mr. Bruce, you can receive them just as well anywhere else.”
“Not just as well,” demurred the Professor. “The conditions here are ideal for investigations. We haven’t taken it up seriously, you know.”
“But, Miss Carnforth, can’t you ask some other friends to come, if the Landons prefer to return to New York? I don’t doubt you know the right ones, who could chaperon you, and also take an interest in our work.”
“Yes,” began Eve, thoughtfully, and then Stebbins came into the room.
“The doctors through yet?” he asked; “what they found out?”
“No, they’re not through yet,” answered Landon. “Sit down, Stebbins, and talk a little bit. I wish you’d tell us of anything you know of your own experience, not hearsay, mind you, that has happened in this house, that can truly be called supernatural.”
“Well, that ha’nted room,——”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Landon, “don’t tell us anything about that haunted room that you don’tknow, personally, to be a fact.”
“I know it’s ha’nted,” asserted Stebbins, doggedly. “I’ve slept there and I’ve seen ghosts spookin’ around in it.”
“Do you think there are really such things as ghosts?”
“I know it.”
“And do you think they could be responsible for the death of Mr. Bruce and Miss Reid?”
“I know it. That Thorpe he says it’s murder, but he can’t guess how it could be. That fool of a Crawford, he don’t know nothing, of any sort. Wayburn, now, he’s a fair doctor, but, good land! what can they learn from a post-mortem? Those people was warned, and them warnin’s was carried out. What more is there to learn?”
“Well and clearly put, Mr. Stebbins,” commented the Professor. “No elaboration of phrases could state that more succinctly. They were warned,—the warnings were carried out. That is the whole truth.”
“But granting that,” said Norma, “and I’m willing to grant it, why did the spirits want to kill Vernie? A lovely, innocent child couldn’t have incurred the wrath of the spirits to that extent.”
“They ain’t no tellin’, ma’am, what them ha’nts will do.” Stebbins spoke heavily, as if burdened with fear. “Now I leave it to you folks. Ain’t you smelled prussic acid around?”
“I have,” said Norma. “And I,” added the Professor. “I know it was not brought here by any of our party——”
“Nor not by the cook,” said Stebbins. “Hester, she’s leery of that bitter almond flavourin’ and she don’t never use it. Well, don’t that smell prove somethin’?”
“It isn’t actual proof,” and Tracy looked thoughtful. “But it is an inexplicable odour to hang round an old house.”
“’Tain’t inexplicable if it’s due to the ha’nt,” urged Stebbins. “And that’s what it is due to. Why, that smell’s been said to be round here ever since the time of the Montgomery murder.”
“What’s wrong between you and Doctor Crawford?” asked Eve, suddenly. “You say yourself you aren’t good friends.”
“No, ma’am, we ain’t. It’s a sort o’ feud of long standin’. They ain’t no special reason, jest a conglomeration of little things. But one thing is ’cause he makes fun of the spooks here. He don’t take no stock in such things, and nobody can make him. Thorpe, now, he don’t neither. He sticks to it Mr. Bruce and Miss Vernie was murdered.”
“By what means, does he think?” asked Eve, quickly.
“Well, that he don’t know. But murder he says it was, and that he sticks to, like a puppy to a root.”
“Get him in here,” said Landon, abruptly, and Thorpe was summoned.
“Yes, sir,” the butler averred, on being questioned. “I’m willin’ to go on record as a disbeliever in spooks. They ain’t no such things. I don’t deny I’ve been some scared up hearin’ you ladies and gentlemen talk about such matters. But I don’t believe in ’em and I never will. Them two pore critters was done to death, but I’m free to confess I can’t see how.”
Professor Hardwick looked at the speaker. “As Mr. Dooley observed,” he said, “your remarks is inthrestin’ but not convincin’. My man, if there is no possible way that murder could have been done,—and we in here are agreed on that point,—what is left but the inevitability of supernormal agents?”
“Your long words gets me, sir, but it don’t make no difference. It wa’n’t spooks.”
“He’s hopeless,” said Tracy. “Let’s ask him other things. Thorpe, my man, have you never seen any circumstance or occurrence in this house, that you couldn’t explain by natural means?”
“I ain’t never been in this house, sir, except as I came here to buttle for you folks. Mr. Stebbins, he give the job to me and my wife, ’cause we’re honest, hard-working people, and he knew he could trust us not to tattle or tell no tales of your goin’s on. He says, ‘Thorpe,’ says he, ‘they’re a queer lot what’s comin’ up here, but they’re my tenants, and I don’t want ’em bothered none by gossip and tale-bearin’ to the village.’ Ain’t that right, Mr. Stebbins?”
“Just so,” said Stebbins, calmly. “Them’s just about my very words. You told me, Mr. Landon, that you were a crowd of spook-hunters, and so it was up to me to spare you all the annoyance I could. An’ well I know how the villagers gossip about this here house, if they get a chance. So, with the Thorpes at the head of things and a couple of good close-mouthed girls for helpers, I ’llowed you’d not be troubled. And you ain’t been,—up to now. But this thing can’t be kept quiet no longer. Of course, a thing like this is more or less public property, and I can tell you, there’ll be plenty of curious villagers up here to the inquest and all that.”
“Inquest!” cried Eve, “what do you mean?”
“Jest that, ma’am. That dunder-headed coroner, or county physician as he really is, he’s set on havin’ an inquest,—says he’s got to. Well, I don’t know much about law, but if they can ketch and hang a ha’nt, let ’em do it, say I!”
The arrival on the scene of the two doctors cut short further discussion. “There is a strange condition of things,” Crawford began, addressing himself to Wynne Landon. “We find decisive, though very slight evidence that Mr. Bruce died from poison.”
A hush followed, as his stunned hearers thought over the grave significance of this statement.
“Poison?” repeated Landon, dazedly. “What sort of poison? Who administered it?”
“As I said,” resumed the coroner, “it’s a strange case. The poison found is the minutest quantity of a very powerful drug, known among the profession as strychnine hydrochlorate. This is so deadly that a half grain will kill a man instantly, or in a few seconds. But my colleague and I have agreed that since it is impossible for this to have been administered at the moment of Mr. Bruce’s death, it must be that he had taken it in cumulative doses, and the result culminated in his sudden death.”
“Why would he take it?” cried Milly.
“Where could he get it?” asked the Professor. “Such a drug is not available to the general public, is it?”
“It is not, sir, but whoever gave it to him, must have procured it somehow. Those questions are for the future. We are just learning the facts. The results of our tests prove positively the presence of that particular poison. There is no doubt of that.”
“But wait,” and Eve fixed her compelling eyes on the coroner’s face. “Remember, Doctor Crawford, though you may not believe in the occult, other and wiser minds do. I wish to remind you, therefore, that we who believe these deaths were caused by supernatural agency, believe also that the powers that compassed the deaths are able to make the deaths seem attributable to natural causes, whether poison or anything else.”
“Eve!” exclaimed Milly, “that is going too far!”
“Not at all!” said the Professor. “Miss Carnforth is quite right; and indeed, logic must prove that if a phantasm can take away a human life it can also produce effects that resemble conditions brought about by human means.”
“I repeat,” the coroner interrupted, “these things are beside the question. We are conducting an autopsy, not an inquest, at present. I am giving you my report as a medical man, not as a member of the police force. Those other matters will be considered later. We have completed our examinations in the one case, we will now proceed to the case of the other victim.”
“They killed each other,” Thorpe broke in, nodding his head in the positive manner he affected. “Leastwise, one of ’em killed both; and of course, Miss Vernie, she wasn’t no murderer!”
“Wait till you are called upon to testify, my man,” and Crawford glowered at the forwardness of the old butler.
“There’ll be testifyin’ on both sides,” volunteered Stebbins, speaking a little belligerently.
Crawford turned on him, and it was easily seen that enmity existed between these two. “You, ’Lijah Stebbins, keep quiet,” he admonished, “there’s them that says you know too much about these doings, anyhow.”
“What do you mean by that?” Stebbins’ eyes glowed with anger.
“Nothing now, and maybe nothing at any time. But you’d better lie low. You might be unduly suspected of ha’nting your own house!”
To the surprise of all present, Stebbins turned a chalky white, and whimpered a little, as he said, “I don’t know what you mean,—I ain’t done anything.”
“See’s you don’t!” advised Crawford, enigmatically, and then the two doctors started to go on their second gruesome errand.
“This door’s locked,” announced Doctor Wayburn, trying to gain entrance to the Room with the Tassels.
“I have the key,” said Eve Carnforth, slowly, and, with a white face, she offered it to the men.
“What areyoudoing with it?” asked Landon, in amazement.
“I d-don’t know,” and Eve showed great nervousness. “I think I feared some one would go in there.”
The others looked at her curiously, for the white face was pallid and the scarlet line of her lips was thin and straight.
An exclamation from Doctor Wayburn claimed their attention, and speaking from the doorway of the Room with the Tassels, he said:
“There is no body here.”
“What!” cried several at once, and crowded to the door.
“Absolutely none,” repeated the doctor, and Professor Hardwick pushed his way past the two medical men and entered the room.
“It’s gone!” he said, reappearing, “Vernie’s body is gone!”
“Impossible!” cried Landon, “what do you mean? Why, we’ve all been right here all the morning! How could it be gone?”
“See for yourself,” and Hardwick stepped aside.
There was no denying the fact. Scrutiny of the whole room showed no presence of the cold, still form that had been reverently laid on that bed. Everybody entered and peered around, fruitlessly. They shook the heavy hangings and looked behind them, but to no avail.
Vernie’s body had utterly disappeared!
Late that afternoon Braye returned from New York. He looked weary and exhausted, as if under hard and continuous strain.
Norma and Eve had both been watching for him from different windows and met on the stairs in their sudden rush to meet him in the hall.
It was easily apparent that both girls desired to see him first and tell him the further awful development of the disappearance of Vernie’s body.
“What!” he exclaimed, “more horrors! Wait a minute, till I get off this dust coat.”
Before Eve or Norma could say more, the others, hearing Braye, came trooping to the hall, and all began to talk at once.
“I can’t understand——” and Braye wearily passed his hand across his brow,—“tell me all that happened after I left last evening.”
“Nothing especial,” said Tracy, quietly. “We all went to bed early, at least, we went to our rooms. Professor Hardwick and I sat up half the night, talking. But we left Thorpe on guard in the hall here, and of course, it never occurred to any of us there was need of further precaution.”
“Nor was there,” said Eve, fixing her great eyes on Braye. “Nobody could possibly come in from outside and take that child away. The house is too securely locked for that, as we all know.”
“Why should any one want to?” queried Braye, his face blank with amazement.
“No one did want to,—no one did do it,” returned Eve. “You must admit, Rudolph, that the whole thing is supernatural,—that——”
“No, Eve, I can’t do that.” Braye spoke positively. “When I’m up here with you psychists, and in this atmosphere of mystery,—and Lord knows ‘Black Aspens’ is mysterious!—I get swayed over toward spiritualism, but when I go down to the city and talk with rational, hard-headed men, I realize there’s nothing in this poppycock!”
“Oh, you do!” and Eve’s penetrating glance seemed to bore into his very soul, “then, pray, how do you explain the fact that Vernie—isn’t there?”
“I don’t know, Eve,—I don’t know. But some fiend in human shape must have managed to get into the house——”
“And get out again?” said Tracy, “and carry the body with him,—when Thorpe sat right here in the hall——”
“Where was Thorpe?” asked Braye, suddenly.
“In a chair there, by that table,” and Eve indicated a position well back in the great hall.
“Then he couldn’t see the doors of both rooms——” began Braye, but Professor Hardwick interrupted: “Nonsense, man, both doors were open, if any move had been made, Thorpe must have heard it.”
“Both doors open,” said Braye, “Norma, you said they were closed when you came down to breakfast.”
“I asked Thorpe about that,” said Tracy. “He told me that at daybreak, or soon after, he closed the doors, without looking in the rooms. He was scared, I think, though he won’t admit that. He says, he thought the ladies would be coming down and the doors better be closed.”
“That’s all right, but it’s strange that he didn’t glance into the rooms.”
“I don’t think so,” said Landon. “Thorpe was in charge, but he had no reason to think there had been any disturbance, and he is pretty well scared up over the whole matter. And I don’t wonder.”
“Nor I,” said Braye. “It’s all inexplicable. What’s Crawford going to do next?”
“I’m not sure,” said Tracy, “but I think he’ll hold an inquest. Of course,hethinks it’s a case of murder——”
“How absurd!” cried Eve. “What more does the man want in confirmation of the supernatural? First, those two deaths, impossible of human achievement, and now, the taking away of poor little Vernie, in circumstances that deny any mortal hand in the matter!”
“If that’s true, Eve,” Braye spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, “it will do no harm to let the coroner proceed along his own lines. He can’t convict a murderer if there isn’t one,—and if there is one, we all want him convicted, don’t we?”
“Of course,” said Landon, “but suppose they pitch on an innocent man?”
“It’sallsupposition,” declared Braye. “I never heard of such a moil! I can’t see how itcanbe murder, or body-snatching, yet I can’t stand for ghost-work, either. Say it’s murder,—where’s a motive, for anybody?”
“I think you ought to know, Rudolph,” Eve said, slowly, “that that Crawford person asked who would inherit Mr. Bruce’s money, and——”
“And we owned up that you were the next of kin, old chap,” put in Landon, smiling grimly. “Any remarks?”
“Don’t be flippant, Wynne,” said Braye, seriously, “of course, I’ve thought of that. I can’t very well be charged with the murder, as I wasn’t here at the time, but I do feel deeply embarrassed at the thought that I am, without a doubt, the next heir. That can, I suppose, draw suspicion on me, as I may be said to have motive. But I am not afraid of that, for there’s no possible way I could have turned the trick. But, if itwasmurder, if there’s the slightest indication of foul play, I’m ready to devote all of Uncle Gifford’s money, if need be, in bringing the criminal to justice.”
“Of course, there’s no sense in tacking the crime on you, Braye,” and Landon sighed. “If it was a crime, and if anybody here committed it, they’ll more likely suspect me, for I’m the next heir after you, and if I could despatch two intervening heirs, I could also bump you off, I suppose.”
“Don’t talk like that, Wynne,” implored Milly. “It’s not like you, and I——”
“I’m only preparing you, Milly, dear, for what may come. That mutton-headed coroner can’t rest till he fastens murder on somebody,—and it might as well be me.”
“I want to go home, Wynne,—I want to go back to New York,” and Milly began to cry.
“You may, dear, just as soon as you like. But I must stay and see what happens up here. For me to run away would be, to say the least, suspicious.”
“Talk sense, Wynne,” broke in Braye; “I wasn’t here, you know, when those two people died. Tell me again, just where were you all?”
“Mr. Bruce and Professor Hardwick sat in those two chairs, confabbing,” Wynne explained; “I was passing things round, so was Mr. Tracy. Eve was running the tea things, Vernie was jumping about here and there, and Norma,—where were you, Norma?”
“I was near Mr. Bruce and the Professor, listening to their talk,” she returned. “I was greatly interested. Mr. Landon had just given me a cup of tea, and I was sipping it as I listened. There was nothing wrong about the tea, of that I’m certain.”
“Of course there wasn’t,” agreed Braye, who had heard the scene rehearsed many times. “There’s nothing wrong anywhere, that I can see, except that a dreadful thing has happened, and we must find out all we can about it. I’ve been to see Uncle Gif’s business friends, he has a few in New York, and they’re flabbergasted, of course. One of them, a Mr. Jennings, is sure it’s a desperate murder, cleverly contrived by some people in Chicago, who are enemies of Uncle’s, and who, he says, are diabolically ingenious enough to have brought it about. He holds that Vernie’s death was accidental,—I mean that they only intended to kill Uncle Gifford. I can’t believe in this talk, for how could it have been brought about? But Jennings thinks it was through the servants,—and that they’re really enemies in disguise.”
“Why, they’re all natives of this section,” exclaimed the Professor, “how could they be implicated?”
“I told Jennings that, but he thinks they’ve been bought over, or—oh, Lord, I don’t knowwhathe thinks! I don’t know what to think myself! There’snosolution!”
“Don’t think now, Rudolph,” and Eve came over to his side, and took his hand in hers. “You’re all tired out, and I don’t wonder. Let’s have tea,—we mustn’t dread tea because of its associations,—if we do that, we’ll all collapse.”
With a determined air, Eve went away to order tea served as usual, though Milly had declared she never wanted to have it in that hall again.
But Eve’s idea found favour with the rest, and they gratefully accepted the refreshment, which, until that awful afternoon, had been such a pleasant function.
“We must settle some things,” Braye said, looking at Landon. “I arranged to send the bodies to Chicago,—of course, I didn’t know——”
“Isn’t it terrible!” exclaimed Norma. “What shall you do now?”
“I think I’ll send Uncle Gif’s body, at once, and hope to find Vernie’s later. Itmustbe found——” Braye looked about wildly. “I wish I had been here last night! Oh, forgive me, I’m not casting any hint of blame on you others, but,—well, you know I wasn’t here when—when it happened, either, and I can’t sense it all as you do. Professor Hardwick, what do you think about it all?”
“I’m an old man, Braye, and I’ve had wide experience, also, I’m a hard one to convince without strong and definite proof, but I’ll state now, once for all, that I’m a complete convert to spiritism and I believe,—I know,—these deaths of our friends were the acts of an inimical spirit, a phantasm, incensed at our curiosity concerning the occult, and our frivolous attitude toward the whole subject.”
“You really believe that, Professor?”
“I really do, Braye, and moreover I am convinced that the disappearance of—of little Vernie, is the work of the evil spirit. What else can explain it?”
“Nothing that I know of, but I can’t swallow the idea of a disembodied spirit making off with a real, material body! IwishI’d been here! Didn’tanybodysee or hearanything?”
“No,” declared Landon, but Norma gave a quick glance at Eve, who returned it with a defiant toss of her Titian-coloured head.
“Why do you look at me like that, Norma?” she asked, shortly.
“Why do I?” Norma repeated in a soft significant tone. “I think you know, Eve.”
“Well, I for one, shall stay up here for a time, and see how matters go on,” said Braye, with sudden determination. “Who else wants to stay?”
“I do,” said Professor Hardwick, “I think we’ve by no means seen the last of the manifestations, and though I feel there is a danger, I am ready to brave it for the sake of investigating further.”
“I don’t want to stay,” and Milly shook with nervous apprehension. “Can’t we go home, Wynne?”
“Very soon, darling. You can go at once, and I’ll follow as soon as things are adjusted up here. I think none of us ought to seem to run away.”
“Certainly not,” Tracy agreed, promptly. “The whole affair is so astounding, I can scarcely get my wits together, but I see clearly, no one must leave this house, until we are all exonerated from suspicion.”
“Not even me?” asked Milly, tearfully.
“That’s for you and Mr. Landon to decide,” returned Tracy, gently. “I’m not dictating, not even advising, but I have strong opinions on the subject. What say, Braye?”
“I quite agree with you, Tracy. But, I’m sure if Mrs. Landon prefers to go down to New York and stay at her mother’s no one could possibly object.”
“But I don’t!” Milly surprised them all by saying, “if you put it that way,—if it’s cowardly to go away, I don’t want to go. I want to stay, if Wynne does, and if Eve and Norma stay.”
“That’s my brave girl,” and Landon smiled at his wife; “I’ll guarantee that Milly won’t make any trouble, either. Once she’s awake to a duty, she’s bold as a lion. Now, see here, if Crawford stirs up suspicion of any of us, we’ll have to deal with him pretty roughly, I fear. He’s a pig-headed sort, and he will move heaven and earth to gain his point. Moreover, we can’t expect him to subscribe to spook theories, any more than those men Rudolph talked to in New York. One has to go through some such experiences as we have, to believe in them. You, Professor, would never have been convinced by hearsay evidence, would you?”
“No, sir, I would not! It took these otherwise inexplicable happenings to prove to me that there is but one way to look. Even a coroner can’t produce a human criminal who could kill those two people the way they were killed, and who could get into and out of this house and take a human body with him! The thing is preposterous!”
“You know the doors and windows were all locked?” asked Braye, thoughtfully.
“I looked after them, myself,” said Landon. “I always do. After the last one goes upstairs for the night, I invariably look after the locking up. And the house, properly locked, is impregnable. The servants’ quarters are shut off and locked; there is absolutely no way of getting in from outside.”
“Going back to Jennings’ theory,” mused Braye, “could we suspect old Thorpe?”
“Not for a minute,” declared Landon. “And, too, he wasn’t in the hall when they died. No, I’d trust Thorpe as far as I would any of ourselves. But, there’s Stebbins. I’ve never felt sure that he’s entirely trustworthy.”
“Even so,” said Braye, “he wasn’t here when—when they died.”
“No, he wasn’t. I can’t see any way he could have arranged things unless he poisoned the cake——”
“Rubbish, Wynne!” cried Eve, “you know we all ate that cake. Do be rational.”
“But Mr. Bruce was poisoned, Eve, we can’t get away from that.”
“Of course he was,” broke in Hardwick, “and doubtless Vernie was too, but it was not done by human agency.”
“Well, there we go, reasoning round in a circle,” murmured Norma; “I think our talk is useless, when we surmise and speculate about it all. Let us decide on our immediate plans. Shall you send Mr. Bruce’s body to Chicago, and stay here yourself, Rudolph?”
“Yes, as I look at it now. I can’t see anything else to do.”
Nor was there anything else to do.
For Doctor Crawford persisted in treating the case as a criminal one, and requested that all concerned remain at Black Aspens for the present, with a hint that unless they did so, the request might become a command.
“Then you think the two people were murdered?” asked Landon of the county physician.
“I don’t say that, for sure; but when a man drops dead, and a trace of poison is found in his stomach, it looks mighty like an intention of death on some one’s part,—maybe the man himself. There’s a show of suicide, you know.”
“But Gifford Bruce never would commit suicide!”
“If only those committed suicide who are expected to do so, there’d be mighty few of them. Now, I hold that poison was taken into Mr. Bruce’s stomach while he was eating that cake, or whatever he did eat.”
“We agree to that,” Landon spoke slowly, “but some of us think the poison was put in by supernatural means.”
“Now, ain’t that nonsense,—for reasonable, rational men!” and Crawford’s fine scorn nettled Landon.
“Professor Hardwick doesn’t think it nonsense,” he returned.
The two were alone, Crawford having asked an interview with the man who had rented the house.
“Professor!” and Crawford fairly snorted. “For fool theories, commend me to a college professor. They can’t see two inches either side of their noses!”
“We have had reason to believe in spiritual manifestations,” went on Braye.
“Yes, and who gave you those reasons? Who rented this house to you folks, for the sole purpose of supplying you with a ha’nted house! Who knew that ghosts must be forthcoming, if you folks was to be satisfied? Who performed ghost doings himself, in order that you might not be disappointed?”
“What are you implying? That Mr.—that the owner tricked us?”
“That’s for you to find out. You came up here to investigate, as I understand it. Well, whydon’tyou investigate? You swallow all them ghosts and ha’ntings, and never look around to see who’s fooling you!”