THE GHOST
When Patsy came to herself she was still in the picture gallery. She
was leaning against Miss Martha, who was engaged in holding smelling
salts to her niece’s nose. To her right clustered Bee, Mabel and
Eleanor, anxious, horror-filled faces fixed upon her. Back of them
stood Emily, her black eyes rolling, her chocolate-colored features
seeming almost pale in the brighter light the lamps now gave.
As Patsy’s gray eyes roved dully from one face to another, she became
again alive to sounds which had assailed her ears at the moment when
consciousness had briefly fled. She was still hearing those demoniac
shrieks, mingled with savage snarls. Now there was something vaguely
familiar about them. But what? Patsy could not think.
“What--is it?” she stammered. “Where--is--it?”
She had begun to realize that the horror she glimpsed in her
companions’ faces had to do with those same shrieks rather than her own
momentary swoon.
“It’s behind this picture.”
It was her father’s voice that grimly answered her. He stood at one
side of the tarnished gilt frame, examining a rope. The rope appeared
to spring from halfway down the frame, between the canvas and the
frame itself. It ended in loose coils, which lay upon the floor of the
gallery.
Patsy stared at the picture, from behind which rose the tumult of
horrid sound. For an instant she listened intently.
“Why--why--I know _who_ it is! It’s old _Rosita_. I’m _sure_ that’s her
voice.”
“So the girls here think,” replied her father. “Bee tells me _you_
lassoed her.”
Mr. Carroll’s tones conveyed active disapproval of his daughter’s
foolhardy exploit.
“I--I----” began Patsy, then became silent.
“Well, this is not the time to discuss that side of the affair,” her
father continued. “There’s a secret room or cubby-hole, I don’t know
which, behind the picture. Rosita is in there and can’t get out. You
attended to her arms, I judge. That’s the reason for those frenzied
howls. Undoubtedly she’s insane. You’ve had a very narrow escape.”
“How could she get behind the picture without the use of her arms?”
broke in Bee. “There’s a secret lever to the picture, of course.”
“She may have been able to work it with her foot,” surmised Mr.
Carroll. “Again, she may have purposely left the door open. There may
be another way out of the place besides this one. She can’t take it as
long as the rope holds. When the door closed, the rope caught. It’s
tough, but then, the door must have closed with a good deal of force
or it could never have shut on the rope. She’s trying to break it and
can’t. That’s why she’s in such a rage. We’ve got her, but we must act
quickly. I hate to leave you folks alone here. Still, I must go for
help. I can bring half a dozen of my black boys here in twenty minutes.
If I could be sure she’d stay as she is now until I came back----”
Mr. Carroll paused, uncertain where his strongest duty lay.
“I will go for the help, _señor_,” suddenly announced a soft voice.
Absorbed in contemplation of the problem which confronted them, no
one of the little company had heard the noiseless approach down the
gallery of a black-haired, bare-footed girl. She had come within a few
feet of the group when her musical tones fell upon their amazed ears.
“_Dolores!_” exclaimed Patsy and sprang forward with extended hands.
“How came _you_ here?”
Immediately Mab, Bee and Nellie gathered around the girl with little
astonished cries.
“Soon I will tell all. Now is the hurry.”
Turning to Mr. Carroll, whose fine face mirrored his astonishment at
this sudden new addition to the night’s eventful happenings, she said
earnestly:
“I stood in the shadow and heard your speech, _señor_. There is but one
way into the secret place. It is there.” She pointed to the picture.
“I bid you watch it well. She is most strong. She has the madness.
Thus her strength is greater than that of three men. If you have the
firearm, _señor_, I entreat you, go for it, and also send these you
love to the safe room. Should she break the rope of which you have
spoken she will come forth from behind the picture and kill. Now I will
go and return soon with the men. You may trust me, for I will bring
them. Have no fear for me, for I shall be safe.”
Without waiting for a response from Mr. Carroll, Dolores turned and
darted up the gallery. An instant and she had disappeared into the
adjoining corridor.
“Dolores is right,” declared Mr. Carroll. “Martha, take our girls and
Emily into your room. Lock the door and stay there until I come for
you. I don’t like the idea of this child, Dolores, going off into the
night alone, but she went before I could stop her.”
“Oh, Dad, why can’t we stay here with you?” burst disappointedly from
Patsy.
Patsy had quite recovered from her momentary mishap and was now anxious
to see the exciting affair through to the end.
“That’s why.”
Mr. Carroll made a stern gesture toward the picture. From behind it now
issued a fresh succession of hair-raising screams interspersed with
furious repetitions of the name, “Dolores.” It was evident that Rosita
had heard Dolores’ voice and, demented though she was, recognized it.
“Come with us this instant, Patsy. You have already run more than
enough risks to-night.”
Miss Martha’s intonation was such as to indicate that she, too, was yet
to be reckoned with.
“We’re in for it,” breathed Bee to Patsy as the two girls followed
Miss Carroll, and the Perry girls out of the gallery and into the
corridor which led to Miss Martha’s room. Emily, however, had declared
herself as “daid sleepy” and asked permission to return to her own room
instead of accepting the refuge of Miss Carroll’s.
“I don’t care,” Patsy returned in a defiant whisper. “Our plan worked.
We caught the ghost. And that’s not all. What about Dolores? Did
you ever bump up against anything so amazing? Now we know who the
mysterious ‘she’ is. No wonder poor Dolores was afraid of her.”
Now arrived at Miss Carroll’s door, the chums had no time for further
confidences. Miss Martha hustled them inside the room, hastily closed
the door and turned the key.
That worthy but highly displeased woman’s next act was to sink into an
easy chair and in the voice of a stern judge order Bee and Patsy to
take chairs opposite her own.
“Now, Patsy, will you kindly tell me why I was not taken into your
confidence regarding yours and Beatrice’s presumptuous plans? Do you
realize that both of you might have been killed? What possessed you
to do such a thing? I _know_ that you are far more to blame than
Beatrice, even though she insisted to me that she was equally concerned
in your scheme. She merely followed your lead.”
“I’m to blame. I planned the whole thing,” Patsy frankly confessed.
“I don’t know how much Bee has told you, but this is the story from
beginning to end.”
Without endeavoring to spare herself in the least, Patsy began with
an account of the fearsome apparition she had seen on the previous
night and went bravely on to the moment when she had seen old Rosita
disappear behind the picture.
“I shall never trust either of you again,” was Miss Carroll’s succinct
condemnation when Patsy had finished.
“But, Auntie----”
“Don’t Auntie me,” retorted Miss Martha. “The thought of what might
have happened to you both makes me fairly sick. I sha’n’t recover from
the shock for a week. The best thing we can do is to pack up and go to
Palm Beach. I’ve had enough of this house of horrors. Who knows what
may happen next. Just listen to that!”
Briefly silent, the imprisoned lunatic had again begun to send forth
long, piercing screams. For a little, painful quiet settled down on
the occupants of Miss Carroll’s room. At last Eleanor spoke.
“I don’t believe anything else that’s bad will happen here, Miss
Martha.”
Eleanor had come nobly forward to Patsy’s aid. Standing behind Miss
Carroll’s chair, she laid a gentle hand on the irate matron’s plump
shoulder. Eleanor could usually be depended upon to pour oil on
troubled waters.
“Nothing further of an unpleasant nature will have _time_ to happen
here,” was the significant response.
“But nothing _bad_ has really happened,” persisted Eleanor. “Patsy
captured the ghost, who turned out to be old Rosita. Pretty soon she’ll
be taken away where she can’t harm anyone. If Patsy and Bee hadn’t been
awake and on the watch to-night she might have slipped in and murdered
them and us.”
“Not with our doors locked and the keys in them,” calmly refuted Miss
Carroll. “True, Patsy and Beatrice might have been murdered. _They_
disobeyed me and left _their_ door _unlocked_.”
This emphatic thrust had its effect on the culprits. They blushed
deeply and looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
“Well, she might have gone slipping about the house in the daytime and
pounced upon some of us.” Mabel now rallied to the defense. “Didn’t
Mammy Luce see her cross the kitchen and disappear up the back stairs
right in the middle of the day? That proves she came here in the
daytime too. By those yells we just heard you can imagine how much of
a chance we would have had if we’d happened to meet her roaming around
the house.”
Patsy took heart at this brilliant effort on her behalf.
“That’s why I saw the cavalier picture move the other day,” she said
eagerly. “Rosita had just disappeared behind it. That’s another proof
she came here in the daytime.”
“Hmph! Here is something else I seem to have missed hearing,”
satirically commented Miss Carroll.
“I would have told you _that_, truly I would have, Auntie, but I didn’t
want to worry you. I thought I must have been mistaken about it at the
time and so didn’t say anything. It was the day we found the book in
the patio and you asked me what was the matter,” Patsy explained very
humbly.
Something in the two pleading gray eyes fixed so penitently upon her,
moved Miss Martha to relent a trifle. She considered herself a great
deal harder-hearted than she really was.
“My dear, you and Beatrice did very wrong to conceal these things and
attempt to take matters into your own hands. You are two extremely rash
venturesome young girls. You are altogether too fond of leaping first
and looking afterward. I must say that----”
“They’re coming!” Mabel suddenly held up her hand in a listening
gesture.
Even through the closed door the tramp of heavy footsteps and the deep
bass of masculine voices came distinctly to the ears of the attentive
listeners. Shut in as they were, they could glean by sound alone an
idea of what was transpiring in the gallery.
Soon, above the growing hum of voices, came a crashing, splintering
sound, accompanied by the most ear-piercing shrieks they had yet heard.
A babble of shouts arose, above which that high, piercing wail held
its own. Again the tramping of feet began. The frenzied wailing grew
even higher. The footsteps began to die out; the cries grew fainter and
yet fainter. An almost painful silence suddenly settled down over the
house.