CHAPTER XII The Professor's Experience
But the days passed by, and Dan Peterson was unable to make good hisword. Everybody, outside of the immediate household at Black Aspensbelieved the two mysterious deaths were the result of the murderousintent of one or more human beings, and refused absolutely to considerthe spook nonsense offered in explanation by the friends and relatives ofthe victims.
Meanwhile there were a few further inexplicable happenings in the oldhouse. Now and then, one or another would notice the odour of prussicacid, or would report a glimpse of a ghostly figure prowling round atnight, or tell of hearing low moans at four o'clock in the morning.
But, usually, these were the experiences of only one, and lackingcorroboration, could be set down to imagination, which was now especiallyvivid in all the party. Often Eve or Norma recounted some of thesemysteries, but Landon laughed at them and said the girls had beendreaming.
Professor Hardwick experienced no similar illusions, though he longed todo so. Indeed, he really watched and listened, hoping for some message ormanifestation from his friend, Gifford Bruce. But none was vouchsafed tohim, and though interested in the experiences of the others, he stilllonged for a personal experience.
And finally one came to him.
At four o'clock one morning, he lay awake, as often, listening to thestrokes of the hall clock, which none of them could ever hear without athrill, and slowly in at his bedroom door floated a dim, ghostly shape.
There was not sufficient light for him to discern more than the outlineof 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 growcold with fear. He had often boasted of his desire to see the ghost, andof his scorn of fear in connection therewith. But now, that the spectrehad really appeared to him, the old man trembled all over, and tried invain to cry out.
His throat contracted, his tongue was powerless, and a sort of paralysisof terror held him in thrall.
The approaching figure seemed not to walk, but progressed by a strangegliding motion, and came within a foot or two of the bed, where theProfessor lay, shivering with dread.
Still but a misty wraith, the awful thing leaned over the prostrate manand as the shawled head drew near, Professor Hardwick saw dimly the faceof 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 faintterrorized scream.
Slowly the spectre raised a long, white-draped arm, and Hardwick saw asmall glass tumbler in front of his face. Only for an instant, and thenthe phantom faded away, and vanished into space.
Again the Professor called out, and hurrying footsteps were heard in thehall.
Mr. Tracy was away in Boston, and Rudolph Braye had gone to New York, sothe only other man in the house was Landon, who came hastily to theProfessor'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 justcame along the corridor, and I didn't see any."
"Don't tell me I didn't see it," babbled the Professor. "I did, Wynne, asplain as I see you now."
Landon had brought his own bedroom candle, and by its scant light hescanned the old man's face.
"You're all scared up, Professor," he said, kindly. "Guess I'll give youa 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'tasleep, I haven't been for an hour or more. Just at four o'clock,--thehall clock was striking,--I saw that awful thing come stalkingin--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 didthe 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 anintruder. But none was found. Every door and window was securelyfastened, and as Landon had often observed, not a mouse could get intoBlack Aspens, once it was locked up for the night.
"Nothing doing, Professor," he reported cheerfully, after the search. "Welighted up the whole place, and we scoured for burglars orghost-pretenders, but nothing human has entered this house to-night. Norwas your spook any of ourselves, for Milly has rounded up the girls, andI've made sure that the doors that shut off the servants' quarters havenot 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 personpretending 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 allnight?"
"No; and if he had, how could he have got out? All the doors and windowsare locked on the inside, just as they've been all night. He couldn'tlock 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 themain 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 dreamedyour ghost, or it's the real thing, this time. Take your choice."
Landon was so cheerful and took the thing so lightly, that Hardwick beganto feel more at ease, and recounted his story in further detail. "It wasthe real thing," he concluded. "I wish Rudolph or Mr. Tracy had beenhere. They sleep in this wing, and they would have come to me morequickly than you did, Wynne."
"I came the moment I heard you call, at least, as soon as I could slipinto a bathrobe."
"I know you did, and it wouldn't have mattered. That thing didn't walkaway down the corridor, you know, it just faded away,--vanished into theair. 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 outa very faint glow, enough for me to see it, anyhow. Oh, I shall neverforget its awful grin!"
Professor Hardwick told his tale to Eve and Norma later in the day, andin 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, andBraye had been in New York looking after some of his late uncle'sbusiness affairs.
Both men were deeply interested in the story of the ghost, for as theysaid, Professor Hardwick was not one to imagine or to think himself awakewhen he was dreaming.
They listened attentively, and Tracy summed it up by saying, "Well, ifProfessor Hardwick saw that, it makes me feel like believing in thesupernatural."
"Me, too," agreed Braye. "I don't take much stock in the stories of thegirls, for Eve is a visionary creature, and Norma is very imaginative.But when a rational, scientific man sees things, I believe the things arethere to be seen! At least, I'm willing to believe. I would feel morecertain if I saw it myself,--and yet,--to tell the truth I've no desireto 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," andthe clergyman smiled. "You know I slept in the Room with the Tassels, butno ghostly visitor favoured me."
"It may come to you yet," said Hardwick, turning grave eyes on Tracy, "oryou, either, Rudolph. You see, it doesn't visit _only_ that room. I wishsome 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 it_was_ a ghost, and not a person tricking me. Could it have been MissCarnforth, now?"
"No, it wasn't," declared Landon. "Milly went to the girls as I went toyou, 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 lesswakeful at four A.M."
"Four P.M. is a more fatal time," said Braye, musingly. "The whole thingis 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-calledsupernatural manifestations are produced by fraud. When I said that, MissCarnforth very astutely said, that it was the eleventh case that was ofinterest to investigators. And I agreed. If this, now, is the eleventhcase,--I don't mean only my experience of last night, but all ourexperiences up here,--if this is the eleventh case, that is _not_ theresult of fraud, and it certainly looks like it, why, then, we havesomething worth investigating."
"Not at the cost of any more lives," said Braye, sternly. "If it is theeleventh case, and if it is going right on being an eleventh case, I'vehad enough of it! Perhaps that apparition of a glass in the spectre'shand, foretells tragedy to you, Professor."
Braye spoke gloomily, rather than as an alarmist, but the Professorturned white. "I've thought of that," he said, in a low voice. "That'swhy I want to be sure the phantom was a real one. If it was fraud, I haveno fear, but if it was really the disembodied spirit of that shawledwoman, appearing in her own materialized skeleton,--I, too, have hadabout enough investigating!"
"What do you think, Norma?" Braye asked of the girl, as, later in theafternoon, they were walking round along the wild path that was the onlyapproach to the great portals of Black Aspens.
"I don't know, Rudolph, but I'm beginning to think there _is_ a humanhand and brain back of it all. I'm a sensitive, and that's one reason whythese things _don't_ appeal to me as supernatural. I've had more or lessexperience with supernormal matters and I've never known anything likethe things that have happened and are happening up here."
"Whom do you suspect, Norma? Tell me, for I, too, think there may be sometrickery, 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 tosay 'dear' to you, but,--Norma, after we get back to town, after thesehorrors are farther in the past, mayn't I tell you then,--what I hope youwill be glad to hear?"
"Don't--don't say such things," and a pained look came into the blueeyes. "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 onyou! I have kept myself from telling you, because of all these dreadfulthings that have been going on. This atmosphere is no place forlove-making, but, dearest, just give me a gleam of hope that later,--whenwe 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 ofthe fatal room peered out at them a ghastly, grinning skull!
It was nearly dusk, but they could see quite clearly the holloweye-sockets and the awful teeth of the fleshless face.
Norma clung to Braye, almost fainting. He slipped an arm round hersaying, "Brace up, Norma, dearest, be brave. This is our chance. Let usdash 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 feltimbued with his spirit of courage and bravery, and together they hurriedand burst in at the front door, which was never locked save at night.
Without stopping, Braye rushed into the Room with the Tassels. But therewas no one there, and no sign of any occupant, either human orsupernatural.
There was no one in the hall, and further search showed no one in thedrawing room. Nor could anything unusual be found in the house.
Most of the people were in their rooms. Eve was partly ill with aheadache, and Milly was looking after her.
The men appeared as Braye and Norma called out, and soon all had gatheredto 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 were _both_ under the spell of imagination."
"I want to go home," Milly said, plaintively, "I don't want to see thething, 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 arrangementswe'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 themajority wish."
But the matter of going away from Black Aspens was not entirely at theirown disposal. The detective, Dan Peterson, had been exceedingly busy, andhad wrung a confession out of Elijah Stebbins. It had been a mild sort ofthird degree, but it had resulted in a frank avowal of Stebbins'implication in some, at least, of the mysterious happenings that hadpuzzled the people at Black Aspens.
Stebbins defended himself by the statement that he only rented his houseon the understanding that it was haunted. He said, it was reputedhaunted, but he knew that unless something mysterious occurred, thetenants would feel dissatisfied.
He said, too, that he saw no harm in doing a few little tricks to mystifyand interest the investigators, but he swore that he had no hand in thespectral appearances nor in the awful tragedy of the four o'clock tea.
What he did confess to was the placing of the old, battered candlestickin Miss Reid's room the first night the party arrived.
"I done it, sort of on impulse," he said; "I heard 'em talking aboutghosts, and just to amaze them, I sneaked in in the night and took thatcandlestick offen Mr. Bruce's dresser and set it on the young lady's. Ididn'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 afterhis tale was told.
"Well, then, the first night Mr. Bruce slept in that room, that ha'ntedroom, I thought I'd wrap a sheet round me and give him a littlescare,--he was so scornful o' ghosts, you know. An' I did, but nobodywould believe his yarn. So that's all I did. If any more of them ghostperformances was cut up by live people, they wasn't me. Somebody else didit."
And no amount of further coercion could budge Stebbins from thesestatements. He stuck to it, that though he had tricked his tenants, hehad done nothing to harm them, and his intentions were of the best, as hemerely 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 playedspooks themselves, what was the use?"
"How did you get into the house at night, when it was so securelylocked?" 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!" hewhistled; "I think I begin to see a glimmer of a gleam of light on thismystery! Yes, I sure do! Excuse me, and I'll fly over to the house and doa little questioning. Officer, keep friend Stebbins safe against myreturn."
Arrived at Black Aspens, Peterson asked for Rudolph Braye, and wascloseted with him for a secret session, from which Braye came forthlooking greatly worried and perturbed.
Peterson went away, and Braye sought the others. He found them listeningto a letter which Professor Hardwick had just received and which the oldman 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 thiscase."
"What a strange thing to do!" exclaimed Braye.
"Yes," agreed Hardwick, "and he seem
s to be a strange man. Listen; 'If Isucceed in finding a true solution to the mystery, you may pay mewhatever you deem the matter worth, if I do not, there will be no chargeof any sort. Except that I should wish to live in the house with you all,at Black Aspens. I know all of the affair that has been printed in thenewspapers, and no more. If you are still in the dark, I should likeprodigiously to get into the thick of it and will arrive as soon as yousummon me."
There was more to the letter but that was the gist of it, and Brayelistened in silence.
"I think," he said, as the Professor finished, "that we don't want thatdetective poking into our affairs."
"I agree," said Landon. "There's been quite enough publicity about allthis already, and I, for one, prefer to go back to New York and forget itas soon as we can."
"We can't forget it very soon, Wynne," put in Milly, "but I, too, want togo back to New York."
"We can't go right off," Braye told them, "we must wait a week or so, atleast."
"Why?" asked Eve, not at all displeased by this statement, for shefrankly admitted a desire to stay longer at Black Aspens.
"Oh, lots of reasons." Braye put her off. "But let's settle down foranother week here, and then we'll see."
"Then I'm going to tell Wise to come up for that week," declared theProfessor. "I don't altogether adhere to my conviction as to supernaturalpowers, and I want to see what a big, really clever detective can dig upin the way of clues or evidence or whatever they work by."
"Oh, cut out Wise," urged Braye. "We don't want any more detectives thanwe are ourselves. And Peterson is pretty busy just now, too."
It was after the confab broke up that Milly went to Braye.
"Why don't you want Mr. Wise to come?" she said, without preamble.
"Why, oh,--why just 'cause I don't," he stammered, in an embarrassed way.
"You can't fool me, Rudolph," she said, with an agonized look on herpretty face. "You are afraid he'll suspect Wynne,--aren't you?"
"Don't, Milly," urged Braye, "_don't_ say such things!"
"You are! I know from the way you try to put me off. Oh, Braye, he_didn't_ do it! He hadn't any hand in any of the queer doings, had he,Rudolph? Tell me you _know_ he hadn't!"
"Of course, Milly, of course."
"But, listen, Rudolph, I heard some of the things that Peterson man saidto you, I listened at the door, I couldn't help it."
"Milly! I'm ashamed of you!"
"I don't care! I'm not ashamed. But,--I heard him say that he thinksWynne is in league with Mr. Stebbins and that the two of them broughtabout all the mysterious doings----"
"Hush, Milly! Don't let any one hear you! You mustn't breathe suchthings!"
"But he did say so, didn't he, Rudolph?"
"I won't tell you."
"I know he did! I heard him."
"Then forget it, as soon as you can. Trust me, Milly. I'll do all I canto keep suspicion from Wynne. But, do this, Milly. Use all your powers ofpersuasion with Professor Hardwick, and make him give up his plan ofgetting that detective up here. That Wise is a wise one indeed! He'llfind out every thing we don't want known, and more, too! Will you, Milly,_will_ you,--if only for Wynne's sake--try to keep that man away?"
"I'll try, Rudolph, oh, of course I will! But what can I do, if theProfessor has made up his mind? You know how determined he is."
"Get the girls to help. Don't breathe to them a word that you overheardPeterson say, but manage to make them do all they can to keep thatdetective off. If you all band together, you can do it. Wynne won't wanthim; I don't; I don't think Mr. Tracy will; and if you women are on ourside, Hardwick will be only one against the rest of us, and we _must_ winthe day! Milly, that Wise must _not_ come up here,--if you value yourpeace of mind!"
"Oh, Rudolph, you frighten me so. I will do all I can, oh, I _will_!"
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