The Story of the Haunted Lodge
Barry sat down in one of the big chairs and faced his father. Mr.
Garrison had put his magazine aside and was looking thoughtfully at his
son.
“A haunted lodge, Dad? Where is it? What haunts it?”
The lawyer laughed. “One question at a time, son! I knew that you would
want to know about it as soon as I mentioned that it was haunted, or
supposed to be haunted. Because of course it isn’t.”
“Then what makes people say that it is? Tell me something about it, Dad.
Where is it located on Lake Arrowtip?”
“Right about the middle of the lake, on a high bluff that commands a
magnificent view up and down the big sheet of water. It is the hunting
lodge that belongs to Mrs. Morganson, one of my clients. Some years ago
she had that fine big lodge built and used to go up there once in a
while herself, though she hasn’t been there in late years. You know Lake
Arrowtip fairly well, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve hiked and camped up there with Kent and the twins. I think I
know where that lodge is. Isn’t it a big log house with a porch looking
out over the lake, off in the direction of Rake Island?”
“Yes, that is the place. Ever been in it?”
“No, but we’ve passed it in a canoe. There was a party at the lodge at
the time. There is another cabin close by, a small log building.”
“Yes, that is the Bronson cabin. It is owned by a retired lawyer friend
of mine, and he never uses it any more. It is very close to the lodge.”
“Well, tell me about this mystery, Dad. Do the people around there think
the place is haunted?”
“There aren’t very many people around there to think that, but some of
our town people won’t go to the place. I suppose you remember that Mrs.
Morganson’s nephew disappeared up there over a year ago and has never
been found.”
Barry slung one leg over the arm of the chair. “I do remember hearing
something about that,” he replied. “Wasn’t he kidnaped and carried off
to Canada somewhere?”
“It seemed so,” his father nodded. “There was one letter from Canada,
telling his aunt not to worry, that he was being well treated. But no
trace of him has ever been discovered, and some splendid detectives have
been looking for Felix Morganson. Well, since the time that he
disappeared, things haven’t been going well at Bluff Lodge.”
“Is that when the haunting began?” Barry asked.
“A little later than that. You see, Felix Morganson disappeared during a
Thanksgiving party at the lodge. There was quite a crowd at the lodge,
and they were enjoying a gathering at the time. Along about ten o’clock
or so at night Mr. Morganson walked out of the place smoking a
cigarette. Several saw him go, but no one asked him where or why he was
going. As time went on they missed him, and finally some of the men
walked out on the bluff which overlooks the lake, following his
footsteps in the light snow that had fallen. Close to the edge of the
bluff they found the snow kicked and scuffed up and his cigarette only
partially smoked. Then there were long, dragging marks in the snow that
seemed to indicate that he had been pulled along down the path to the
lake. All trace of him was lost at that point, because the lake was
frozen over and the ice was as smooth as glass.”
Barry was absorbed in the story. “No one in the lodge heard anything? No
outcry or anything?”
His father shook his head. “No. But that same night a servant, a
Frenchman, disappeared. He was a man that had been hired to cook and to
wait on the tables, and this man was gone. No one knows whether he had
anything to do with it all or not, but he left the lodge about the same
time Felix Morganson did. No trace of him was ever found.”
“How long after the disappearance of Mr. Morganson before they heard
from him?”
“About a month later. Then a hastily scrawled letter came from a little
town in Canada, telling his aunt that he was well and not to worry. He
stated that he did not have time to write any more at the moment. Of
course the detectives hustled up to that town, but so far have been
unable to learn anything or to uncover a single clue.”
“He has been missing well over a year now, hasn’t he?” Barry mused.
“Yes, because Thanksgiving was three weeks ago, and it was at that time
that he vanished. The queer part about it all is the fact that no
request for a ransom was ever received. Mrs. Morganson is quite wealthy,
and a considerable sum could be raised among the friends of Felix. But
there has never been any demand.”
“It’s funny.” Barry slumped lower in the chair, his mind busy with the
details of the event. “But how about this haunting that you spoke of?
That came later, didn’t it?”
“About three months after Felix Morganson disappeared,” Mr. Garrison
answered. “Besides going up there herself once in a while, Mrs.
Morganson also rents the place out to sportsmen who go up for the winter
season to hunt, and to those that go there in the summer to fish. Well,
late in January a group of sportsmen went there, and the understanding
was that they would stay about three weeks. But at the end of one week
they gave it up and took a smaller place down at the tip of the lake.
They complained of ghostly rappings, or knocks on the door and no one
there when they opened, and they also complained that some of their
things had been stolen.”
“Sounds foolish,” Barry said.
“We thought it was, at first. You see, I handle all of Mrs. Morganson’s
business, and I had rented the place to these men, who came from
Connecticut. We thought for a while that they were just cranky and let
it go at that. But two weeks later another party went in, and it was the
same thing over again. Added to that, one of the men had an expensive
fur coat stolen, and he wanted to bring suit against us. It seems that
they heard about the experience of the former party and claimed that we
had rented the lodge to them under false pretenses. We had some trouble
getting out of that.”
“It must be just some ordinary thief that lives in the woods near
there,” Barry ventured.
“If so, he goes around annoying everybody that puts up in the lodge.
Later in the year some fishermen took over the place, and they had
similar experiences, and, besides all that, they found their fishing
boat scuttled one morning, three holes bored in it. Fortunately we had
told them the reputation that the place was getting, but they had just
laughed at it. They came away mad as hornets. Well, you can see what it
is all doing. No one will rent the lodge now, and it had a long list of
prospective renters once. The value of it keeps going down, and since we
cannot rent or sell it at a decent price, it is standing idle.”
“Does Mrs. Morganson want to sell it?”
“She does now. We have both become so tired of the place and its problem
that we would like nothing better than to get it off our hands. There is
only one buyer at present, a man named Brand Curry, but he wants it at a
price so low that we won’t even discuss it. The man never comes to me,
he always goes directly to Mrs. Morganson.”
“But look here, Dad, did you ever have a detective on the case? Ever
have any one go up there?”
“Oh, yes. I have had two private investigators spend some time on the
case. One of them didn’t find anything or have any kind of an
experience. But the other man did. He was a big, chunky fellow named
Riley, and he said he could catch anything he went after. Said he would
come home dragging the ghost or spook, or whatever it was, by the neck.
He remained there two days and then came back and resigned from the
case. The first night he was kept busy investigating thumps all over the
place, and the second night his shoes and shirt were mysteriously
whisked away somehow and he was in a fix because he hadn’t taken any
baggage with him. He had to go to Fox Point and outfit himself there,
and he had to go down there without shirt or shoes. He didn’t hear
anything that night, and all the time he was there he didn’t see
anything. He was a disgusted man when he came back here, and it was his
opinion that the National Guard should be ordered up there.”
Barry and his father laughed at the plight of the private detective who
had been so sure of victory over the haunting presence at Bluff Lodge.
“But of course, Dad, you believe that someone is doing all this for a
purpose?”
“I can’t see any other explanation,” his father confessed. “But I can’t
figure out any reason for it. Why should anyone want to frighten camping
parties that way? And who is clever enough to make raps and groans and
knocks and yet disappear before anyone can spot him? That lodge stands
pretty well out of the trees, and no one could dodge behind some
convenient tree trunk after every one of these meaningless pranks. As
for the disappearance of Mr. Riley’s shirt and shoes, that isn’t so much
of a mystery, after all. The window was open in his room, and anyone
could have fished the clothing out. He is lucky that they didn’t steal
anything more and put him in a bad position.”
“That is one thing that convinces me that the spook is a clever one,”
Barry said. “An amateur or a plain fun maker would have stolen all of
his things. This one took just enough to create an air of mystery.”
The kindly face of Mrs. Garrison appeared in the doorway. “Supper is
ready,” she smiled. Barry and his father walked out of the room
together.
“Dad,” said Barry, “that’s a real mystery. I’d like nothing better than
to go up there with some of the boys and nose around a bit. Maybe we
could find out something.”
His father smiled and slapped him on the back. “Aren’t you taking that
title of ‘mystery hunter’ a little seriously, Barry?”
“Maybe I am, Dad, but you never can tell. I still think our bunch could
find out something of value. Just try us and see.”