“But, Doctor Crawford, what you insinuate is not possible. All the strange things we have seen or heard have occurred at night, or,—yes,—occasionally in the daytime, but always when Mr. Stebbins was at his home in East Dryden.”
“How do you know he was?”
“Why, he has never been to the house at all, except two or three times on commonplace errands, since we’ve been here. The supernatural manifestations we have observed had no more to do with him than they had with you!”
“That’s as may be. Only I advise you to investigate with a little common sense and not too much blind faith in your spook visitors. Now, Mr. Landon, I take it you’re boss around here.”
“I’m responsible for the house rent, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, that’ll do. Now, sir, there’s got to be an inquest. I expected, of course, to hold it on the two bodies, but since one’s gone, we’ll have to do what we can without it. I don’t deny that this case is beyond all my experience. I’ve sent for a detective from New York, and I’ll get all the other help I need. But I’m all at sea, myself, and I make no secret of that.”
“I thought you suspected Eli Stebbins.”
“Not of murder! No, sir! Me’n Eli, we ain’t good friends, haven’t been for years, and I wouldn’t put it past him to play ghost to scare you city people, but murder! Land, no, I wouldn’t ever accuse Eli Stebbins of goin’ that far!”
“Have you any definite suspect?”
“I don’t say as I have, and I don’t say as I ain’t. Truth is, I’m all afloat. I don’t know which way to turn. Every thing’s so awful unbelievable,—as you might say. Now, there’s them two Thorpes. Good, steady-going New England people, they are, and yet, if I had any reason to suspect ’em, I can see myself doing so. But, land, there ain’t a shred of evidence that way. Why, they wasn’t even in the room when the two of ’em died!”
“Wait a minute, Doctor Crawford. Nobody was in the room at the time of those two deaths, but our own party. You don’t suspect one of us, do you?”
“No, Mr. Landon, I don’t. You ain’t a gay crowd, nor yet a fast or a common crowd. You’re all high-toned, quiet, law-abiding citizens,—as I size you up. To be sure, decent citizens have committed murder, but I can’t connect up any one of you with crime in this case. I know Mr. Braye will inherit the money that old Mr. Bruce left, and I know that you’re related there, too, but I haven’t seen one iota of reason to suspect any one of your crowd. If I do, I’ll let you know mighty quick! Nor can I hang it on the Thorpes; nor yet on those girls they have in to help. And that’s what the inquest’s for. To bring out, if possible, some evidence against somebody, so’s we can get a start.”
“I fear you can’t get that evidence, Doctor, for if there were any we would have found it ourselves. You have my good wishes, for if it is a case of murder, committed by a living, human villain, we most assuredly want him apprehended.”
“He will be, Mr. Landon, take it from me, he will be!”
The days that followed were like an awful nightmare to the people most interested. But at last the inquest was over, the body of Gifford Bruce had been sent to Chicago for burial, and a strange quiet had settled down upon the household at Black Aspens.
No new facts had transpired at the inquest. Though the police tried hard to fasten the crime on some individual, there was no definite evidence against any one. All those who had been present at the mysterious death hour, told their stories straightforwardly and unshakably. All agreed as to the circumstances, all remembered and related the story of the Ouija board, which foretold the death of two of the party at four o’clock.
“Who was pushing that board?” the coroner asked.
“Miss Reid and myself,” Tracy spoke up. “We had been playing with it for some time, and having had only uninteresting and trifling results we were about to lay the thing aside, when the message came that two of us would die the next day at four o’clock. Miss Reid seemed frightened, but I thought at the time she had spelled out the message, herself, to get up a little excitement. However, I took the board away from her at once, feeling that she was carrying a jest too far. I think now, that she was innocent in the matter——”
“Well, I don’t,” said the coroner. “If that girl made up that message, she had a reason. Probably she was responsible for both deaths.”
“Impossible!” cried Tracy, shocked at this theory. “Why, she was but a child, she had no thought of suicide or—or murder! If she faked the message, it was merely in fun, and because she had tried all evening to get some message of interest. It is quite possible she made up the message, but it is not possible that she did it otherwise than as a jest.”
“A gruesome jest!”
“As it turned out, yes, indeed. But either it was in jest,—or—the message was from a supernatural source.”
Tracy’s eyes were deeply sorrowful, and his face expressed a sort of awed wonder, that made many who were present, think that after all there might be something in these occult beliefs.
But not so the coroner. He refused to consider the Ouija message with any serious interest, and continued to ply his witnesses with questions both pertinent and wide of the mark.
Elijah Stebbins was put through a grilling inquiry. His manner was that of a guilty man, but no proof of crime could be found in connection with him. The day and hour of the two deaths, he was proved to have been at his home in East Dryden, beyond all doubt. Even granting that the Thorpes, one or both, were in his employ, there was no reason to suspect them. If they had put poison in the cakes or in the tea, it must have been done in the kitchen, and therefore would have affected the whole supply. Suspicion must fall, if anywhere, on the members of the house party who were present at the hour of four o’clock on the fatal day.
But these, as has been said, gave so clear a statement of the actual happenings at that hour, that there was no loophole for suspicion to enter. Moreover, the fact that the deaths occurred simultaneously, and just at the foretold hour, seemed to preclude all possibility of any human means being employed. It did look like a supernatural occurrence and many who would have scorned such a belief, were inevitably led to agree that no other theory could explain it.
Yet the coroner and his jury were unwilling to admit this, and the verdict was the one most frequently heard of, murder by a person or persons unknown.
Indeed, what else could it have been? A coroner’s jury can’t accuse a nameless ghost of two murders, by poison. They pinned their faith to that poison, discovered in the stomach of the body of Gifford Bruce. They assumed that Miss Reid died from the effects of the same poison, but how administered or by whom, or what had become of the body of Miss Reid, they had no idea. But of one thing they were sure, that all these things, and all parts of the complicated crime, were the work of human hands and human intelligence, and that for the reputation of their village and their county and their state, the murderer must be discovered and brought to justice.
But how? How find a criminal who gave no signs of existence, and who was, by those most closely concerned, denied actual existence?
The detective, one Dan Peterson, proceeded on the theory that a closed mouth implies great secret wisdom. He said little, save to ask questions of everybody with whom he came in contact, and as these questions merely carried him round in a circle back to his starting point, he made little progress.
There were also, of course, many reporters, from the city papers, and these wrote up the story as their natures or their chiefs dictated. Some played up the supernatural side for all it was worth, and more; others scorned such foolishness, and treated the affair as a desperate and unusually mysterious murder case. But all agreed that it was the most sensational and interesting affair of its sort that had happened in years, and the eager reporters hung around and nearly drove frantic the feminine members of the house party.
At last, Norma and Milly refused to see them, but Eve Carnforth continued to talk with them, and imbued many of them, more or less, with her occult views.
“There’s something in what that red-headed woman says,” one reporter opined to his fellow. “She puts it mighty convincing,—if you ask me.”
“Yes, and why?” jeered his friend, “because she’s the man behind the ghost!”
“What! Miss Carnforth! Guilty? Never!”
“I’m not so sure. You know as well as I do, that spook talk is all rubbish, but she’s so bent and determined to stuff it down everybody’s neck, I think she’s hiding her own hand in the matter.”
“You do! Well, you’d better think again, before you let out any such yarn as that! Why, she’s a queen, that woman is!”
“Oho! She’s subjugated you, has she? Well, look out that she doesn’t convert you to spookism,—you’d lose your job!”
Other curious people journeyed up to Black Aspens for the pleasure of looking at the house where the mystery was staged. If allowed to enter they walked about, open-mouthed in admiration or wonder.
“Stunning hall!” exclaimed one young man, a budding architect, who examined the old house with interest. “Look at those bronze columns! I never saw such a pair.”
“I’ve heard the first Montgomery brought those from Italy or somewhere, and put up a house behind ’em,” volunteered another sightseer. “Ain’t it queer, the way they’re half in and half out of the front wall? Land! You wouldn’t know whether you was going to school or coming home!” and the speaker laughed heartily at his own wit.
But at last, the sightseers were refused admittance to the house, and the remaining members of the party gathered in conclave to decide on future plans.
Professor Hardwick was the one who showed the calmest demeanour.
“If there was a chance of a human being having committed these crimes,” he said, “I’d be the first one to want to track him down, and send him straight to the chair. But nobody who has thought about the matter can present any theory that will account for the human element in the cause of the tragedy. Therefore, feeling certain, as I do, that our friends were killed by supernatural influences, I am ready to stay here a short time longer, in hopes of convincing the authorities up here that we are right. Moreover, I planned to stay here a month, and we’ve been here but little more than a fortnight.”
“I’m willing to stay for the same reason, Professor,” and Eve Carnforth’s strange eyes glowed deeply. “I too, know that no living beings brought about the deaths of Mr. Bruce and little Vernie, and I will stay the rest of our proposed month, if the others will.”
“I am ready to stay,” said Milly Landon, quietly. “I’ve gotten all over my hysterical, foolish fears, and Iwantto stay. I have a good reason, and if I hadn’t, I’d be willing to stay to keep house for the rest of you.”
“Let’s consider it settled, then,” said Landon, “that we stay a couple of weeks longer. The astute detective, Mr. Peterson, thinks he can round up the villains who did the awful things, and if he can, I’m ready to appear against them.”
“We’re all ready to do that,” agreed Mr. Tracy, “and I’ll stay a week or so, but I want to get away by the middle of August.”
“That’s nearly two weeks hence,” observed Norma, “I’d like to go home about that time, too. And all that’s to be discovered, which, I suppose, will be nothing, ought to be found out in that time.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me to have some further spiritual manifestations,” the Professor stated, with a deeply thoughtful air. “I don’t know why there wouldn’t be such.”
“Not with fatal results, I hope,” and Mr. Tracy shuddered.
“I hope not, too,” and the Professor looked grave. “But if we receive another warning, I shall go home at once.”
“I don’t think we will,” Eve said, “I think there was a reason for the wrath of the phantasms, and now that wrath is appeased. We must not provoke it further.”
“You know,” Norma added, “the two who—who died, were scoffers at the idea of spiritual visitations.”
“Uncle Gif was,” said Braye, “but little Vernie wasn’t.”
“Oh, yes, she was,” corrected Eve. “She made fun of our beliefs all along. And if she really made the Ouija write that message in a spirit of bravado, it’s small wonder that the vengeance reached her as well as Mr. Bruce, who openly jeered at it all.”
“I can’t think it,” mused Tracy, “that sweet, lovable child,—full of mischief, of course, but simple, harmless mischief,——”
“But, Mr. Tracy,” Norma looked and spoke positively, “it’s easier to think of a supernatural spirit wanting to harm the child, than a living person! What possible cause could a human being have to wish harm to little Vernie Reid?”
“That’s true, Miss Cameron. But it’s inexplicable, however you look at it.”
“At the same time,” Braye argued, “we must give both sides a chance. If there is any trick or scheme that a man might have used to bring about those deaths at that moment,—I can’t conceive of any, but if there should have been such,—we must, of course, give all possible assistance to Mr. Peterson in his search.”
“I’m more than willing,” said Tracy, “I’m anxious to help him for, as you say, Braye, if there’s a human mind capable of devising means to commit such a crime, it surely ought to be within the province of some other human mind to discover it.”
“Suppose we start out on that basis,” suggested Braye. “I mean, assume that a live person did the deed, and it’s up to us to find him. Then if we can’t do it, fall back on our occult theories.”
“I know where I’d look first,” said Landon, grimly.
“Where?”
“Toward Eli Stebbins. I’ve always thought he or the Thorpes, or all of them together, know more than we suspect they do. Why, think a minute. Do you remember the first queer, inexplicable thing that happened up here?”
“I do,” Eve spoke up. “It was the night we arrived. That battered old candlestick moved itself from Mr. Bruce’s room to Vernie’s.”
“Yes, Eve, that’s what I have in mind. Well, I thought then, and I think now, that Stebbins moved that thing himself.”
“Why?” asked several voices at once.
“I thought I saw him sneaking across the hall that night. And as you know, none of us would have done it, and I don’t think Mr. Bruce did. I thought that at first, but since Mr. Bruce’s death, I know he never played any tricks on us.”
“Oh, that doesn’t follow,” objected Hardwick. “I always suspected Bruce would trick us if he could, but when it came to his own death, I’ve no notion that he compassed that!”
“No,” agreed Braye, “whatever the truth may be, there was no suicide.”
And so they talked, discussed, surmised, argued and theorized, without getting any nearer a positive belief, or proof of any sort to uphold their opinions.
Each seemed to have marked out a certain line of thought and doggedly stuck to it.
Professor Hardwick was, perhaps, the one most positive regarding supernatural causes, though Eve and Norma were almost equally certain.
Braye and Landon were not entirely willing to accept these beliefs, but confessed they had no plausible substitutes to suggest. Tracy, as a clergyman, was loth to accept what seemed to him heathen ideas, but he was more or less influenced by the talk of the Professor and of Eve Carnforth, who was exceedingly persuasive in manner and argument.
Milly had little thought of her own about the matter, but was always ready to believe as her husband did, though, she, too, was swayed by the strong statements and declarations of Eve Carnforth.
But Dan Peterson paid no more heed to ghost lore of any sort or kind than as if the words had not been spoken. Miss Carnforth’s glib recital of wonders she knew to be true, Miss Cameron’s quiet statements that she vouched for as facts, the Professor’s irascible arguments, all were as nothing to the practical, hard-headed detective.
“No, ma’am,” he said to Eve; “it ain’t that I doubt your word, but those things don’t go down. I’ve seen criminals before, try to get out by blaming ghosts, but they couldn’t put it over.”
“Are you implying that one of us may be guilty!” cried Eve, really incensed at the thought.
“I’m not implying anything, ma’am. I’m investigating. When I find out anything, I’ll accuse, I won’t imply.”
The man’s personality was not unpleasant. Of a commonplace type, he went about his business cheerfully, and in a practical, common sense fashion.
He examined the great hall, where the deaths had occurred, for a possible secret entrance.
“Nothing doing,” was his sum-up of this investigation. “That mahogany wall of the vestibule is as solid as a rock, and nobody could get through those bronze doors when they’re locked and fastened with those bolts!”
“Are you assuming that some one entered and killed the victims, as we all sat round drinking tea?” exclaimed the Professor, irascibly.
“Not just that, sir,” returned Peterson, gravely. “But somebody might have entered in the night, say, and secreted himself,——”
“And then appeared to poison the cake when we weren’t looking!” jeered London.
“Well,” and the detective looked a little sheepish, “I got to consider all points, you know. And there don’t seem to be any clues—of any sort.”
“No,” said Braye, “no dropped handkerchief or broken cuff-link. Those would be a help, wouldn’t they?”
“And then,” Landon went on, “usually, there’s somebody who had a quarrel with the victim, and so, can be duly suspected. But there’s nothing of that sort in this case.”
“Nobody at odds with Mr. Bruce, wasn’t there?” asked the detective, hopefully.
“Nobody,” declared Landon. “Now you may as well know all there is to know, Peterson. Mr. Braye here, is the heir to Mr. Bruce’s large fortune. After him, I inherit. If these facts are of the nature of straws to show you which way the wind blows, make the most of them. But do it openly. If you suspect Mr. Braye or myself, even in the slightest degree, tell us so. Don’t work behind our backs. We’re ready and willing to help you. That’s so, Braye?”
“Rather, Wynne! Moreover, if there’s any way to use it, the fortune of Uncle Bruce is at the disposal of anybody who can bring the criminal to justice. I don’t want the money,—at least, I can’t enjoy it, and don’t want it, considering the way it has come to me. I shall endow a hospital or something with it. For, truly,—I may be foolish, but I can’t seem to see myself living luxuriously on money that has come to me as this has. I don’t wonder that to an outsider, it might look very much as if I had removed these two people in order that I might acquire riches, or, it would have looked so, if I had been here at the time. I doubt if the most fertile imagination can invent a way I could have been the criminal when I was in East Dryden shopping with Mrs. Landon.”
“Also, Mr. Peterson,” Landon resumed, “remember that I am the next to inherit, and if I could have compassed the taking off of these two, I could doubtless have later despatched Mr. Braye, and so have come into the fortune myself.”
“Wynne,” pleaded Milly, “don’tsay those things! They’re too absurd!”
“Not that, Milly dear. Mr. Peterson might easily take up some such line of deduction, and while I’m willing he should do so, and proceed in any way he chooses, I repeat that I want him to do it openly, and not try to convict Rudolph or myself, behind our backs. When I proffer him my help, it is in a real and sincere offer of assistance, and I want him to be equally frank and outspoken.”
“I guess you’re pretty safe in your attitude,” said Peterson, smiling. “Criminals don’t speak right out in meeting, like that. And I don’t suspect you gentlemen, if youareheirs to the property. I think there’s others to be suspected, and I promise you, sir, if I’m led toward any of your party here, I’ll tell you what I’m up to.”
“That’s enough, Peterson, I trust you to keep your word, and you may rely on us to help in any way we can.”
And so life at Black Aspens settled down to its former routine, at least in matters of daily household affairs. But the actuating principle of the psychic investigators had changed. Those who thoroughly believed in occultism, sought expectantly for further proofs. Those who were still uncertain, awaited developments. And those who had little or no belief in the supernatural sought some clues or hints that might point to a human criminal.
Dan Peterson was among these last. A good, able-minded detective, though not of the transcendental type found in story-books, he worked diligently at his problem, which seemed to him a harder one than he had ever before tackled.
His suspicions were all toward the servants of the house, and with these he included Elijah Stebbins.
Nor was he illogical in his thoughts. Stebbins was acting queerly. He was frightened at questions, and was difficult to get hold of for an interview. He answered at random, frequently contradicted himself, and showed a positive terror of his own house, since the tragedies there.
“If he killed those two people with his own hands, he couldn’t act any different,” Peterson said to Landon, whom he frequently consulted. “But I can’t imagine any way to connect him up with it. He was home in East Dryden when they died, and that’s certain. Now, if he could have made old Thorpe act as his tool—but, Lord, why would he do it, anyhow! It’s too absurd to think Stebbins would want to take those two lives! He wanted you people should be scared, that I’m sure of. He did all he could to scare you,—that I know. But as to killing any of you, I’m sure he didn’t. Howsumever, somebody committed those murders, and I’m going to find out who!”
But the days passed by, and Dan Peterson was unable to make good his word. Everybody, outside of the immediate household at Black Aspens believed the two mysterious deaths were the result of the murderous intent of one or more human beings, and refused absolutely to consider the spook nonsense offered in explanation by the friends and relatives of the victims.
Meanwhile there were a few further inexplicable happenings in the old house. Now and then, one or another would notice the odour of prussic acid, or would report a glimpse of a ghostly figure prowling round at night, or tell of hearing low moans at four o’clock in the morning.
But, usually, these were the experiences of only one, and lacking corroboration, could be set down to imagination, which was now especially vivid in all the party. Often Eve or Norma recounted some of these mysteries, but Landon laughed at them and said the girls had been dreaming.
Professor Hardwick experienced no similar illusions, though he longed to do so. Indeed, he really watched and listened, hoping for some message or manifestation from his friend, Gifford Bruce. But none was vouchsafed to him, and though interested in the experiences of the others, he still longed for a personal experience.
And finally one came to him.
At four o’clock one morning, he lay awake, as often, listening to the strokes of the hall clock, which none of them could ever hear without a thrill, and slowly in at his bedroom door floated a dim, ghostly shape.
There was not sufficient light for him to discern more than the outline of what seemed to be a tall, gaunt figure, with a shawl over its head. Nearer to him the thing came, and the old Professor felt himself grow cold with fear. He had often boasted of his desire to see the ghost, and of his scorn of fear in connection therewith. But now, that the spectre had really appeared to him, the old man trembled all over, and tried in vain to cry out.
His throat contracted, his tongue was powerless, and a sort of paralysis of terror held him in thrall.
The approaching figure seemed not to walk, but progressed by a strange gliding motion, and came within a foot or two of the bed, where the Professor lay, shivering with dread.
Still but a misty wraith, the awful thing leaned over the prostrate man and as the shawled head drew near, Professor Hardwick saw dimly the face of his visitor, and it was a skull!
The fearsome sight of hollow eye-sockets and grinning, fleshless jaws, gave a sudden strength to the frightened man, and he uttered a faint terrorized scream.
Slowly the spectre raised a long, white-draped arm, and Hardwick saw a small glass tumbler in front of his face. Only for an instant, and then the phantom faded away, and vanished into space.
Again the Professor called out, and hurrying footsteps were heard in the hall.
Mr. Tracy was away in Boston, and Rudolph Braye had gone to New York, so the only other man in the house was Landon, who came hastily to the Professor’s door in his dressing-gown and slippers.
“What is it,” he asked, “did you call? Are you ill?”
“The—the ghost——” the old man articulated with difficulty.
“Nonsense!” said Landon, “you’ve been dreaming. Where’s a ghost? I just came along the corridor, and I didn’t see any.”
“Don’t tell me I didn’t see it,” babbled the Professor. “I did, Wynne, as plain as I see you now.”
Landon had brought his own bedroom candle, and by its scant light he scanned the old man’s face.
“You’re all scared up, Professor,” he said, kindly. “Guess I’ll give you a nightcap, and send you back to sleep again, it’s only four or so.”
“I know it, Wynne, it was just four when that—that thing came. I wasn’t asleep, I haven’t been for an hour or more. Just at four o’clock,—the hall clock was striking,—I saw that awful thing come stalking in—and—and it had a death’s head under that white shawl——”
“Hold on, there, Professor, if that’s so, there must be somebody who did the stalking! I’m going to make search.”
Landon called Thorpe, and together the two went over the whole house, searching in every nook and cranny that could possibly conceal an intruder. But none was found. Every door and window was securely fastened, and as Landon had often observed, not a mouse could get into Black Aspens, once it was locked up for the night.
“Nothing doing, Professor,” he reported cheerfully, after the search. “We lighted up the whole place, and we scoured for burglars or ghost-pretenders, but nothing human has entered this house to-night. Nor was your spook any of ourselves, for Milly has rounded up the girls, and I’ve made sure that the doors that shut off the servants’ quarters have not been opened. Now, what have you to say?”
“Only that I saw the thing,” the Professor had pulled himself together, “and I’m not prepared to say whether I think it was a phantom or a person pretending to be one. You’re sure about the servants?”
“Absolutely, they couldn’t get through.”
“What about Stebbins? Could he have been concealed in the house all night?”
“No; and if he had, how could he have got out? All the doors and windows are locked on the inside, just as they’ve been all night. He couldn’t lock them behind him.”
“Thorpe could let him in and out, if he wanted to.”
“Into the back part of the house. But Thorpe himself can’t get into the main house, the rooms that we use, after I lock the doors between. Come, now, Professor, you know all that as well as I do. Either you dreamed your ghost, or it’s the real thing, this time. Take your choice.”
Landon was so cheerful and took the thing so lightly, that Hardwick began to feel more at ease, and recounted his story in further detail. “It was the real thing,” he concluded. “I wish Rudolph or Mr. Tracy had been here. They sleep in this wing, and they would have come to me more quickly than you did, Wynne.”
“I came the moment I heard you call, at least, as soon as I could slip into a bathrobe.”
“I know you did, and it wouldn’t have mattered. That thing didn’t walk away down the corridor, you know, it just faded away,—vanished into the air. I could see it——”
“How could you, with no light?”
“I don’t know how I did. It wasn’t exactly luminous, and yet it gave out a very faint glow, enough for me to see it, anyhow. Oh, I shall never forget its awful grin!”
Professor Hardwick told his tale to Eve and Norma later in the day, and in the afternoon the men returned. Mr. Tracy said he had been to Boston, to see the trustees of a church that had called him to its pastorate, and Braye had been in New York looking after some of his late uncle’s business affairs.
Both men were deeply interested in the story of the ghost, for as they said, Professor Hardwick was not one to imagine or to think himself awake when he was dreaming.
They listened attentively, and Tracy summed it up by saying, “Well, if Professor Hardwick saw that, it makes me feel like believing in the supernatural.”
“Me, too,” agreed Braye. “I don’t take much stock in the stories of the girls, for Eve is a visionary creature, and Norma is very imaginative. But when a rational, scientific man sees things, I believe the things are there to be seen! At least, I’m willing to believe. I would feel more certain if I saw it myself,—and yet,—to tell the truth I’ve no desire to see it. I’ll take other people’s words for it. How about you, Tracy?”
“I don’t believe I’m psychic, or sensitive, or whatever you call it,” and the clergyman smiled. “You know I slept in the Room with the Tassels, but no ghostly visitor favoured me.”
“It may come to you yet,” said Hardwick, turning grave eyes on Tracy, “or you, either, Rudolph. You see, it doesn’t visitonlythat room. I wish some of you others could see it, I’d feel more sure of my own story.”
“Aren’t you sure of it?” asked Tracy.
“What do you mean by sure?” queried the Professor, a little petulantly. “Of course, I’m sure I saw what I’ve told you, but I want to be sure itwasa ghost, and not a person tricking me. Could it have been Miss Carnforth, now?”
“No, it wasn’t,” declared Landon. “Milly went to the girls as I went to you, Professor, and found them both asleep. Or at least they were dozing, but they were safely in their beds. You know we’re all more or less wakeful at fourA.M.”
“FourP.M.is a more fatal time,” said Braye, musingly. “The whole thing is frightful. I’m for going back to New York, as soon as we can.”
“If this should be the eleventh case,” began the Professor.
“What do you mean, the eleventh case?” asked Tracy.
“As I told these people before we started up here, Andrew Lang has said, in one of his books, that ten out of every eleven cases of so-called supernatural manifestations are produced by fraud. When I said that, Miss Carnforth very astutely said, that it was the eleventh case that was of interest to investigators. And I agreed. If this, now, is the eleventh case,—I don’t mean only my experience of last night, but all our experiences up here,—if this is the eleventh case, that isnotthe result of fraud, and it certainly looks like it, why, then, we have something worth investigating.”
“Not at the cost of any more lives,” said Braye, sternly. “If it is the eleventh case, and if it is going right on being an eleventh case, I’ve had enough of it! Perhaps that apparition of a glass in the spectre’s hand, foretells tragedy to you, Professor.”
Braye spoke gloomily, rather than as an alarmist, but the Professor turned white. “I’ve thought of that,” he said, in a low voice. “That’s why I want to be sure the phantom was a real one. If it was fraud, I have no fear, but if it was really the disembodied spirit of that shawled woman, appearing in her own materialized skeleton,—I, too, have had about enough investigating!”
“What do you think, Norma?” Braye asked of the girl, as, later in the afternoon, they were walking round along the wild path that was the only approach to the great portals of Black Aspens.
“I don’t know, Rudolph, but I’m beginning to think thereisa human hand and brain back of it all. I’m a sensitive, and that’s one reason why these thingsdon’tappeal to me as supernatural. I’ve had more or less experience with supernormal matters and I’ve never known anything like the things that have happened and are happening up here.”
“Whom do you suspect, Norma? Tell me, for I, too, think there may be some trickery, and I wonder if we look in the same direction.”
“I don’t want even to hint it, Rudolph, but——”
“Don’t hesitate to tell me, dear. Oh, that slipped out! I’ve no right to say ‘dear’ to you, but,—Norma, after we get back to town, after these horrors are farther in the past, mayn’t I tell you then,—what I hope you will be glad to hear?”
“Don’t—don’t say such things,” and a pained look came into the blue eyes. “You know you are not free to talk like that!”
“Not free? Why am I not? What do you mean?”
“You know, you must know. Eve told me——”
“Eve couldn’t have told you that there was anything between her and me! Why, Norma, I have loved you from the very first moment I laid eyes on you! I have kept myself from telling you, because of all these dreadful things that have been going on. This atmosphere is no place for love-making, but, dearest, just give me a gleam of hope that later,—when we go back home, that I may——”
“Oh, Rudolph! Look! What is that? See, in the Room with the Tassels!”
They had neared the house on their return stroll, and from the window of the fatal room peered out at them a ghastly, grinning skull!
It was nearly dusk, but they could see quite clearly the hollow eye-sockets and the awful teeth of the fleshless face.
Norma clung to Braye, almost fainting. He slipped an arm round her saying, “Brace up, Norma, dearest, be brave. This is our chance. Let us dash right in, and see if it is still there. Stay here, if you prefer, but I must go!”
He hastened toward the house, and Norma kept pace with him. She felt imbued with his spirit of courage and bravery, and together they hurried and burst in at the front door, which was never locked save at night.
Without stopping, Braye rushed into the Room with the Tassels. But there was no one there, and no sign of any occupant, either human or supernatural.
There was no one in the hall, and further search showed no one in the drawing room. Nor could anything unusual be found in the house.
Most of the people were in their rooms. Eve was partly ill with a headache, and Milly was looking after her.
The men appeared as Braye and Norma called out, and soon all had gathered to hear the strange new story.
“I shouldn’t believe it, if you hadn’t both seen it,” said the Professor, “but I can’t think you werebothunder the spell of imagination.”
“I want to go home,” Milly said, plaintively, “I don’t want to see the thing, and I’m afraid I’ll be the next one it will visit.”
“We will go, dear,” said Landon. “As soon as we can make arrangements we’ll get off. Don’t you say so, Eve?”
“Yes,” she assented, but slowly. “I would prefer to stay a bit longer, myself, but I really don’t think Milly ought to. However, I’ll do as the majority wish.”
But the matter of going away from Black Aspens was not entirely at their own disposal. The detective, Dan Peterson, had been exceedingly busy, and had wrung a confession out of Elijah Stebbins. It had been a mild sort of third degree, but it had resulted in a frank avowal of Stebbins’ implication in some, at least, of the mysterious happenings that had puzzled the people at Black Aspens.
Stebbins defended himself by the statement that he only rented his house on the understanding that it was haunted. He said, it was reputed haunted, but he knew that unless something mysterious occurred, the tenants would feel dissatisfied.
He said, too, that he saw no harm in doing a few little tricks to mystify and interest the investigators, but he swore that he had no hand in the spectral appearances nor in the awful tragedy of the four o’clock tea.
What he did confess to was the placing of the old, battered candlestick in Miss Reid’s room the first night the party arrived.
“I done it, sort of on impulse,” he said; “I heard ’em talking about ghosts, and just to amaze them, I sneaked in in the night and took that candlestick offen Mr. Bruce’s dresser and set it on the young lady’s. I didn’t mean any harm, only to stir things up.”
“Which you did,” remarked Peterson drily. “Go on.”
The confession was being recorded in the presence of police officials, and Stebbins was practically under arrest, or would be very shortly after his tale was told.
“Well, then, the first night Mr. Bruce slept in that room, that ha’nted room, I thought I’d wrap a sheet round me and give him a little scare,—he was so scornful o’ ghosts, you know. An’ I did, but nobody would believe his yarn. So that’s all I did. If any more of them ghost performances was cut up by live people, they wasn’t me. Somebody else did it.”
And no amount of further coercion could budge Stebbins from these statements. He stuck to it, that though he had tricked his tenants, he had done nothing to harm them, and his intentions were of the best, as he merely wanted to give them what they had taken his house for.
“You intended to keep it up?” asked Peterson.
“Yes, I did, but after they took things into their own hands, and played spooks themselves, what was the use?”
“How did you get into the house at night, when it was so securely locked?” asked Peterson.
“I managed it, but I won’t tell you how,” said Stebbins, doggedly.
“With Thorpe’s help,” suggested Peterson, “or—oh, by Jinks!” he whistled; “I think I begin to see a glimmer of a gleam of light on this mystery! Yes, I sure do! Excuse me, and I’ll fly over to the house and do a little questioning. Officer, keep friend Stebbins safe against my return.”
Arrived at Black Aspens, Peterson asked for Rudolph Braye, and was closeted with him for a secret session, from which Braye came forth looking greatly worried and perturbed.
Peterson went away, and Braye sought the others. He found them listening to a letter which Professor Hardwick had just received and which the old man was reading aloud.
“It’s from Mr. Wise,” he said to Braye, as the latter came in hearing. “He’s a detective, and he writes to me, asking permission to take up this case.”
“What a strange thing to do!” exclaimed Braye.