Hatch found Ernest Weston at luncheon with another gentleman at one
o'clock that day. This other gentleman was introduced to Hatch as
George Weston, a cousin. Hatch instantly remembered George Weston for
certain eccentric exploits at Newport a season or so before; and also
as one of the heirs of the original Weston estate.
Hatch thought he remembered, too, that at the time Miss Everard had
been so prominent socially at Newport George Weston had been her most
ardent suitor. It was rumored that there would have been an engagement
between them, but her father objected. Hatch looked at him curiously;
his face was clearly a dissipated one, yet there was about him the
unmistakable polish and gentility of the well-bred man of society.
Hatch knew Ernest Weston as Weston knew Hatch; they had met frequently
in the ten years Hatch had been a newspaper reporter, and Weston had
been courteous to him always. The reporter was in doubt as to whether
to bring up the subject on which he had sought out Ernest Weston, but
the broker brought it up himself, smilingly.
"Well, what is it this time?" he asked, genially. "The ghost down on
the South Shore, or my forthcoming marriage?"
"Both," replied Hatch.
Weston talked freely of his engagement to Miss Everard, which he said
was to have been announced in another week, at which time she was due
to return to America from Europe. The marriage was to be three or four
months later, the exact date had not been set.
"And I suppose the country place was being put in order as a Summer
residence?" the reporter asked.
"Yes. I had intended to make some repairs and changes there, and
furnish it, but now I understand that a ghost has taken a hand in the
matter and has delayed it. Have you heard much about this ghost
story?" he asked, and there was a slight smile on his face.
"I have seen the ghost," Hatch answered.
"You have?" demanded the broker.
George Weston echoed the words and leaned forward, with a new interest
in his eyes, to listen. Hatch told them what had happened in the
haunted house--all of it. They listened with the keenest interest, one
as eager as the other.
"By George!" exclaimed the broker, when Hatch had finished. "How do
you account for it?"
"I don't," said Hatch, flatly. "I can offer no possible solution. I am
not a child to be tricked by the ordinary illusion, nor am I of the
temperament which imagines things, but I can offer no explanation of
this."
"It must be a trick of some sort," said George Weston.
"I was positive of that," said Hatch, "but if it is a trick, it is the
cleverest I ever saw."
The conversation drifted on to the old story of missing jewels and a
tragedy in the house fifty years before. Now Hatch was asking
questions by direction of The Thinking Machine; he himself hardly saw
their purport, but he asked them.
"Well, the full story of that affair, the tragedy there, would open up
an old chapter in our family which is nothing to be ashamed of, of
course," said the broker, frankly; "still it is something we have not
paid much attention to for many years. Perhaps George here knows it
better than I do. His mother, then a bride, heard the recital of the
story from my grandmother."
Ernest Weston and Hatch looked inquiringly at George Weston, who
lighted a fresh cigarette and leaned over the table toward them. He
was an excellent talker.
"I've heard my mother tell of it, but it was a long time ago," he
began. "It seems, though, as I remember it, that my great-grandfather,
who built the house, was a wealthy man, as fortunes went in those
days, worth probably a million dollars.
"A part of this fortune, say about one hundred thousand dollars, was
in jewels, which had come with the family from England. Many of those
pieces would be of far greater value now than they were then, because
of their antiquity. It was only on state occasions, I might say, when
these were worn, say, once a year.
"Between times the problem of keeping them safely was a difficult one,
it appeared. This was before the time of safety deposit vaults. My
grandfather conceived the idea of hiding the jewels in the old place
down on the South Shore, instead of keeping them in the house he had
in Boston. He took them there accordingly.
"At this time one was compelled to travel down the South Shore, below
Cohasset anyway, by stagecoach. My grandfather's family was then in
the city, as it was Winter, so he made the trip alone. He planned to
reach there at night, so as not to attract attention to himself, to
hide the jewels about the house, and leave that same night for Boston
again by a relay of horses he had arranged for. Just what happened
after he left the stagecoach, below Cohasset, no one ever knew except
by surmise."
The speaker paused a moment and relighted his cigarette.
"Next morning my great-grandfather was found unconscious and badly
injured on the veranda of the house. His skull had been fractured. In
the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one within
a radius of many miles of the place had ever seen him.
"This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and
the one which the family has always accepted, being that my
grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one
who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold,
that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and
there was a fight.
"In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my
great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He
collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having
regained consciousness. That's all we know or can surmise reasonably
about the matter."
"Were the jewels ever found?" asked the reporter.
"No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession of
my grandfather."
"It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and
that he got away with the jewels?" asked Ernest Weston.
"It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I suppose
it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that only two
trails-of footsteps led to the house and none out. There was a heavy
snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously impossible that
anyone came out."
Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly.
"It would seem from that," said Ernest Weston, at last, "that the
jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found."
George Weston smiled.
"Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my
mother's story," he said. "Every inch of the cellar was dug up; every
possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire matter
passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt if it has
ever been referred to again until now."
"A search even now would be almost worth while, wouldn't it?" asked
the broker.
George Weston laughed aloud.
"It might be," he said, "but I have some doubt. A thing that was
searched for for twenty years would not be easily found."
So it seemed to strike the others after awhile and the matter was
dropped.
"But this ghost thing," said the broker, at last. "I'm interested in
that. Suppose we make up a ghost party and go down to-night. My
contractor declares he can't get men to work there."
"I would be glad to go," said George Weston, "but I'm running over to
the Vandergrift ball in Providence to-night."
"How about you, Hatch?" asked the broker.
"I'll go, yes," said Hatch, "as one of several," he added with a
smile.
"Well, then, suppose we say the constable and you and I?" asked the
broker; "to-night?"
"All right."
After making arrangements to meet the broker later that afternoon he
rushed away--away to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened,
then resumed some chemical test he was making.
"Can't you go down with us to-night?" Hatch asked.
"No," said the other. "I'm going to read a paper before a scientific
society and prove that a chemist in Chicago is a fool. That will take
me all evening."
"To-morrow night?" Hatch insisted.
"No--the next night."
This would be on Friday night--just in time for the feature which had
been planned for Sunday. Hatch was compelled to rest content with
this, but he foresaw that he would have it all, with a solution. It
never occurred to him that this problem, or, indeed, that any problem,
was beyond the mental capacity of Professor Van Dusen.
Hatch and Ernest Weston took a night train that evening, and on their
arrival in the village stirred up the town constable.
"Will you go with us?" was the question.
"Both of you going?" was the counter-question.
"Yes."
"I'll go," said the constable promptly. "Ghost!" and he laughed
scornfully. "I'll have him in the lockup by morning."
"No shooting, now," warned Weston. "There must be somebody back of
this somewhere; we understand that, but there is no crime that we know
of. The worst is possibly trespassing."
"I'll get him all right," responded the constable, who still
remembered the experience where blood--warm blood--had been thrown in
his face. "And I'm not so sure there isn't a crime."
That night about ten the three men went into the dark, forbidding
house and took a station on the stairs where Hatch had sat when he saw
the THING--whatever it was. There they waited. The constable moved
nervously from time to time, but neither of the others paid any
attention to him.
At last the--the THING appeared. There had been a preliminary sound as
of something running across the floor, then suddenly a flaming figure
of white seemed to grow into being in the reception-room. It was
exactly as Hatch had described it to The Thinking Machine.
Dazed, stupefied, the three men looked, looked as the figure raised a
hand, pointing toward them, and wrote a word in the air--positively in
the air. The finger merely waved, and there, floating before them were
letters, flaming letters, in the utter darkness. This time the word
was: "Death."
Faintly, Hatch, fighting with a fear which again seized him,
remembered that The Thinking Machine had asked him if the handwriting
was that of a man or woman; now he tried to see. It was as if drawn on
a blackboard, and there was a queer twist to the loop at the bottom.
He sniffed to see if there was an odor of any sort. There was not.
Suddenly he felt some quick, vigorous action from the constable behind
him. There was a roar and a flash in his ear; he knew the constable
had fired at the THING. Then came the cry and laugh--almost a laugh of
derision--he had heard them before. For one instant the figure
lingered and then, before their eyes, faded again into utter
blackness. Where it had been was nothing--nothing.
_The constable's shot had had no effect_.