The Professor's Experience
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 visit _only_ that 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 it
_was_ a 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 four A.M."
"Four P.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 is _not_ the
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 there _is_ a human
hand and brain back of it all. I'm a sensitive, and that's one reason why
these things _don't_ appeal 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 were _both_ under 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.
"Yes," agreed Hardwick, "and he seems to be a strange man. Listen; 'If I
succeed in finding a true solution to the mystery, you may pay me
whatever you deem the matter worth, if I do not, there will be no charge
of 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 the
newspapers, and no more. If you are still in the dark, I should like
prodigiously to get into the thick of it and will arrive as soon as you
summon me."
There was more to the letter but that was the gist of it, and Braye
listened in silence.
"I think," he said, as the Professor finished, "that we don't want that
detective poking into our affairs."
"I agree," said Landon. "There's been quite enough publicity about all
this already, and I, for one, prefer to go back to New York and forget it
as soon as we can."
"We can't forget it very soon, Wynne," put in Milly, "but I, too, want to
go back to New York."
"We can't go right off," Braye told them, "we must wait a week or so, at
least."
"Why?" asked Eve, not at all displeased by this statement, for she
frankly admitted a desire to stay longer at Black Aspens.
"Oh, lots of reasons." Braye put her off. "But let's settle down for
another week here, and then we'll see."
"Then I'm going to tell Wise to come up for that week," declared the
Professor. "I don't altogether adhere to my conviction as to supernatural
powers, and I want to see what a big, really clever detective can dig up
in the way of clues or evidence or whatever they work by."
"Oh, cut out Wise," urged Braye. "We don't want any more detectives than
we 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 her
pretty 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 said
to 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 thinks
Wynne is in league with Mr. Stebbins and that the two of them brought
about all the mysterious doings----"
"Hush, Milly! Don't let any one hear you! You mustn't breathe such
things!"
"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 can
to keep suspicion from Wynne. But, do this, Milly. Use all your powers of
persuasion with Professor Hardwick, and make him give up his plan of
getting that detective up here. That Wise is a wise one indeed! He'll
find 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 the
Professor 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 overheard
Peterson say, but manage to make them do all they can to keep that
detective off. If you all band together, you can do it. Wynne won't want
him; I don't; I don't think Mr. Tracy will; and if you women are on our
side, Hardwick will be only one against the rest of us, and we _must_ win
the day! Milly, that Wise must _not_ come up here,--if you value your
peace of mind!"
"Oh, Rudolph, you frighten me so. I will do all I can, oh, I _will_!"