THE MYSTERY OF
BURNLEIGH MANOR


COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY
THE MYSTERY LEAGUE, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
FIRST EDITION


THE MYSTERY OF
BURNLEIGH MANOR





CHAPTER ONE
"Burnleigh Manor County seat of the Earl of ,
located on the edge of a cliff overlooking the North Sea, fifteen
miles N. by E. of King's Lynn, Norfolk, and one hundred and
fourteen miles N. by E. of London. At one time ranked among
the show places of England, it has stood empty for some years
and is now in a state of disrepair.
Upon the death of Edward, it became the property of Cecil.
Upon the death of Cecil it will in all probability pass from the
direct line of succession for the first time in its history, inas-
much as Robert, younger brother of Edward and Cecil, disap-
peared over fifteen years ago, and Lord Cecil is a bachelor.
For further details, see the Register."
*******
I give you the above just as I copied it into my notes
some years ago. I can also tell you that it will avail you
nothing to turn to the Register. You would find, as I
did, that there are no further details.
To be sure, the whole interesting history of the Burn-
leigh family, beginning somewhere in 1100, is there, with
a great deal of furbishing and fanfares; but you will find
that when the Recorder reached Edward, Cecil, and the
youngest, Robert, his pen had run dry—or else he felt
that what could be entered would be better left unsaid.
Figuratively speaking, Cecil Burnleigh walked into my
7


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 9
I attributed to the peculiarities of his family, and I
found later that, in the main, I was quite correct.
However, they did not enhance my first trip abroad. I
was made comfortable enough in a suite adjoining that
occupied by Lord Cecil, and for the first time in my life
I knew, the luxury, but rather doubtful enjoyment, of
a valet. Personally I still prefer chasing my own collar
buttons under beds and bureaus. Irrespective of my
preferences which I was not ungracious enough to men-
tion, my every want was ministered to by Burnleigh's
own man, Glome. Odd name, that, and at our very first
meeting I changed it to Gloom, a much more appropriate
designation. He impressed me as the perfect model for
an undertaker's assistant.
It would seem to be the height of callousness to make
any complaint of a trip which one made at no expense
whatever, in a luxurious suite on a fast, comfortable
liner, especially when one is provided with a shadow
that hovers about the entire day anticipating each wish
as it is born. Ungrateful and blase as it may seem, I
can truly say that I have had far more pleasure from
trips made later and under far more humble conditions.
No matter how sumptuous one's surroundings are they
become irksome when they constitute too steady a diet.
Let me explain what I mean.
We sailed at twelve, and my luncheon was brought
to me shortly after by "Gloom." On the tray with the
delicious looking food was a note written in rather a
shaky hand. I give it to you here:


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR n
because at this time it had not occurred to me that there
might be anything of a serious nature behind them. At
least I felt that my case was the first on record. There
were probably many people who would like to lock
their architects in far more unpleasant and hotter places
than these quarters of mine, but up to the present I have
never heard of it being done.
After luncheon I roamed about the suite and found on
the table beside my bed quite a collection of magazines
and books. On top of them lay a card. I seemed to be
surrounded with correspondence if not company.
"Perhaps these will partially repay you for the part
of the trip of which you have been deprived by my
peculiarities.
Cecil B."
At least the old fellow was thoughtful. The periodicals
were recent and diversified. After glancing idly through
one or two I turned up the books and read their titles.
There was not a novel among them. If and when I ab-
sorbed their contents I would be well versed in some
odd phases of architecture. I cannot remember them all
now, but two do stand out clearly from the rest,—
Thenaud's, "Notes on the Detection of Hidden Spaces"
—and Wilson's, "Studies of Ancient Architecture."
These two were as fascinating as any novels could have
been, and were destined to be of some assistance to me
later. They were delightful companions and the first


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 13
"Have you ever been in Burnleigh Manor, Gloom?"
He stiffened as if I had touched him with a hot poker.
It was only for a second, and as he relaxed and opened
his mouth to speak, I knew instinctively that he had
thought his way out of that one, too.
"Glome is the name, sir, begging your pardon."
With the tongs suspended over my tea-cup he turned
the tide by asking a question himself.
"One or two lumps, sir?"
Ordinarily I take one lump with lemon, but with an
idiotic idea of annoying him by selecting something he
had not mentioned, I answered him.
"Three lumps."
His eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch which
was quite a dramatic gesture for him to make, and he
carefully—almost maliciously—counted out three lumps
of sugar. For no good sound reason the man irritated
me. He had evaded my question and I was determined
he should not do it again.
"I asked you if you had ever been in Burnleigh
Manor."
"Why do you ask that of me, sir?"
"Idle curiosity I suppose."
"Oh yes, to be sure, sir."
And that was that. To be sure what? I certainly
was not going to humiliate myself to the extent of ask-
ing whether the "Oh yes" referred to my curiosity or
to Burnleigh Manor. I thought I could get him to dis-


14 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
cuss himself a bit. The most astute and taciturn of
men will become quite loquacious when afforded as fas-
cinating a subject as themselves.
"Been in the family long, Gloom?"
I knew that I was irritating him by calling him Gloom,
but this time he made a valiant effort to hide his feel-
ings.
"For years, sir, I might say for a good many years."
With this running start I turned the conversation in
an abrupt movement against his flank designed to catch
him off his guard, to one point on which I really wished
enlightenment.
"Then I suppose that you knew Lord Robert?"
He glanced up at me quickly and I was quite sur-
prised at the expression on his face. It was one of the
few times that I have ever seen anything on Gloom's
face which could be dignified by the term "expression."
It was only a flash, but when he spoke again it seemed
to be with an enormous effort.
"Begging your pardon, sir, His Lordship asked me
to convey his apologies to you and to tell you that as
soon as he is feeling well enough he would see you. I
—I hope you enjoy your dinner, sir."
With a bow and what, I suppose, was meant to be a
smile, he was gone. His attitude, together with the
conditions under which I was travelling, began to get on
my nerves. I think it was here that I began to suspect
that something more than architecture lurked in the air.
The next evening my suspicions were confirmed.
i


CHAPTER TWO
I had come in from a short evening stroll. There is not
a great deal of enjoyment to be derived by a young
bachelor in strolling about empty decks, listening to the
seductive strains of an excellent dance orchestra from
somewhere below. Everything was so far from normal
that I caught myself giving wide berths to the very
shadowy corners that I might otherwise have been seek-
ing, and glancing over my shoulder occasionally as if
half expecting something to jump at me from each dark
niche.
When I returned to my stateroom I found Gloom
waiting there.
"Lord Cecil would like to see you tonight, if you
would care to step into his cabin."
"Care is hardly the word, Gloom. An explanation is
long since due me."
"I am repeating His Lordship's words, sir."
"Is this game of hide and seek over now?"
"I can't say, sir."
"You mean you won't say!"
"I mean I can't say, sir."
"Oh, go to the devil!"
And Gloom went. Naturally, I mean out of the room.
is


16 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
I tagged along at his heels for all the World like a blus-
tering little bull pup. Without any further words he led
me to Burnleigh's quarters which were duplicates of
mine. As I entered, the old man looked up at me from
the comfortable depths of his chair with the ghost of
a smile. Smiles were a rare thing with him, and when
they did come they actually seemed to be the ghosts of
others that had died on his lips centuries ago, when
smiling came more easily.
"Good evening, Mr. Riker. I know that I could
spend the rest of the evening with apologies and not
make up for your discomfort. Sit there, will you please?"
He indicated a chair across the table from him. I am
afraid my replies to his preliminary remarks were not
any too gracious, but being the very acme of the Eng-
lish gentleman he did not seem to notice it.
"It has been quite lonely for you, has it not?"
"Well, I have had better travelling companions than
Gloom."
"Gloom?"
"I prefer Gloom. It is more descriptive."
Again that flicker of a smile crossed his face.
"He intimated that your solitude was beginning to
be—well—a trifle irksome to you."
"He was putting it mildly."
"Putting it? Ah, yes—will you have one?"
His open cigarette case was passed across the table.
"I do not smoke cigars and I do not like them smoked
in the room with me. Another whim."


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 17
When he had lighted up, he leaned forward in his
chair.
"Mr. Riker, instead of expressing my gratitude to you
for the splendid way you have granted my silly requests,
I am going to ask you to do still another thing for me.
When I have finished telling you a bit of a story to-
night, you may not care to go any further. That is
your privilege, but before I start I must have your as-
surance that what I am about to tell you will be kept
a secret by you as long as I live. Will you give me your
word on that?"
I did. I had reached a stage where his affairs were
not of the slightest interest to me. Enticing as the res-
toration of an old English Manor was to my architec-
tural heart, I regretted coming. But I have kept my
word, for until Lord Cecil's death last year I have not
breathed a word of the story to anyone. With my ex-
pressed assurance, he went on talking.
"By now the possibility of my being some sort of a
crank has occurred to you, I suppose?"
As a matter of fact, it had not. But why not? One
brother a suicide—the other disappearing off the face of
the earth
"I see it had not until I mentioned it. That was kind
of you. At best, Mr. Riker, sanity is only relative. I
believe I am in my right mind at the moment even if
I have reason not to be"
He was watching the smoke curl up from his cigarette,


18 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
lost in thought. With a visible start he brought his at-
tention back to me.
"However, you will have to take my word for that.
Now if you are comfortable, I will begin at the very
beginning and give you all the facts surrounding this
new venture of yours. First, about my family—unless
you already know some of our history?"
This was an embarrassing question to answer, and I
stammered out the fact that I had glanced at the Reg-
ister.
"I rather imagine the Register was silent on the pres-
ent generation, and—I am sorry to say—rightfully so.
Suppose I introduce you to the Burnleighs? My father
had three sons, in the order of our ages, Edward, my-
self—and Robert. My father was rather an odd type
and he had two great passions in life—my mother, and
Egypt. His early manhood was spent there in the dip-
lomatic service and he knew our country as few Eng-
lishmen have ever succeeded in knowing it. My mother
died when Edward was twenty-three and my father two
years later, from grief."
As if to punctuate his sentence, the ash dropped from
his cigarette to the floor unheeded.
"As the eldest, Edward became the head of the house.
He inherited two things from my father—the finest col-
lection of things Egyptian privately owned in the World
—and his love for Egypt itself. To the former Ed-
ward added all his life, spending at least half of his


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 19
time in the country of sphinxes and pyramids. Return-
ing from one of these long stays, he surprised us by
bringing back a wife. She, too, was Egyptian—in fact
she could trace her descent far back into that charming
past of a vanished race. Mr. Riker, she was unques-
tionably the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
The entrancing mystery of the East was about her like
an invisible veil and it made of her something that
defies"
He shifted uneasily in his chair and his eyes avoided
mine.
"Words are inadequate and it would not help us with'
our story. One thing that is probably incomprehensible
to you is the position of younger brothers in my country.
At my father's death, all of his property and influence
went to the eldest son, Edward. For myself and for
Robert, the youngest, there was a mere pittance. This
did not bother me in the least. I expected it and was
happy in my work, but it always irked Robert. He was
a handsome chap—lovable, talented, and popular. Al-
though given to sulking on occasion, he was always wel-
come at Edward's home and spent much of his time
there. I was by nature and occupation a wanderer and
saw little of them. There was one time each year that
we all gathered under one roof—that of Burnleigh Manor
—and that was Christmas. We never failed to get there
Christmas Eve and for a few days we would be together.
Lady Burnleigh was the most charming hostess that ever


20 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
lived, and that sample of her hospitality and sweetness
remained with me for the rest of the year. Then some-
thing happened to Edward."
His voice died away and he sat looking back into the
past he was describing. As we sat there in silence it
seemed as if something crept into our cabin. Something
cold. Something oppressive. Something black and
bitter tasting. Burnleigh leaned forward abruptly and
took another cigarette. When the first puff of smoke
was on its way ceilingward, he picked up his story again.
"I reproach myself for not knowing more about this
part. I should have remained in England and tried to
—to help. As I look back now I think the first warning
I had of the way things were going was a letter from
Robert in which he stated that practically the entire
collection of Egyptian pieces had disappeared. The fact
that he carefully avoided mentioning Edward's name in
this connection convinced me that he felt our heritage
had been sold and the funds diverted to the personal
use of our older brother. Rumors reached me that Ed-
ward was changing from an hospitable, generous and
brilliant man, to a morose, silent—almost vindictive
caricature of his former self. Naturally it was with
some trepidation that I approached the Manor on that
last Christmas Eve that we ever spent together. From
the very first moment my visit was unpleasant. I en-
tered the doors of Burnleigh Manor and found my
brothers in a violent quarrel that ended abruptly on my
entrance. Neither one would discuss it with me or ex-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 21
plain its cause, so I was helpless to smooth it out. Dur-
ing my short visit I felt a terrific tension existing in the
household. Edward was taciturn and moody. Robert
was unnaturally gay, reckless and charming. Under-
neath Lady Burnleigh's evident effort to carry things
along smoothly I sensed a desire to tell me something—
warn me of something that was threatening—but Ed-
ward never allowed her out of his sight. A day later
I left in pique, feeling I was no longer welcome under
my brother's roof. I know now that my egotism closed
my eyes to the truth. The next evening the papers were
full of my brother's disappearance. Robert had van-
ished from Burnleigh Manor the night of the day I had
left. No one saw him go, nor have I ever found any-
one who has seen him since. For five long years I did
nothing but search for him and in all that time, or in
the time since then, I have never found a trace."
An ugly suspicion flashed across my mind and I in-
terrupted him for the first time.
"Did Edward aid you in the search? You spoke of
a—a quarrel."
"He did not. You see, Mr. Riker, his wife disap-
peared at the same time—the same night."
He bowed his head for a second. I could understand
what it meant to share this with an outsider and I began
to get a glimpse of the reasons for the deep lines in his
face and the white hair that seemed somehow premature.
"It seems quite clear at this point, does it not? But
tiie Yard thought of that, too, and no stone was left


22 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
unturned that might yield evidence against Edward. It
is not easy to fool the Yard, Mr. Riker. He refused to
help the police, but he in no way hindered them, and in
the end they gave it up. It left him a crushed man. He
rarely spoke to anyone and went about like a man in a
dream. So you see we really do not know what did"
He checked himself and continued quickly.
"There is not much more to tell, so be patient. You
must be frightfully bored."
Boredom was far from me at the moment!
"During my search for Robert, or in the years that
followed it I never saw my older brother. Then one
winter that I happened to be spending in my London
quarters I received a telegram from him summoning me
to spend Christmas with him. It was a bit of a shock
for I had had no replies to my letters to him and it was
quite common gossip that no one was welcome at the
Manor. However, I left at once for what had once
been our home—Burnleigh Manor."
He stopped and I noticed his face was slowly paling.
From this point on I do not believe he was conscious of
my presence in the cabin. He was feeling the relief of
unburdening in speech a horrible memory that had been
pent up within too long.
"It had been snowing for two days, but when I stepped
down from the train at King's Lynn it was a clear, cold,
starry night. The station was deserted. There was no
sign of a waiting car, and believing that my telegram in
reply had not reached the Manor I stepped over to the


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 23
Inn to secure a conveyance. I will pass over that if
you do not mind, by simply saying that there was no
one in the town who would drive me to Burnleigh Manor
and no one who would tell me why they would not. So
I walked those long, cold miles through the snow."
The howl of the wind at the port-hole and the creak
of the ship as it rolled made a fitting accompaniment.
"I could never describe to you my feelings as I came
toward my brother's gates. They hung open on dilapi-
dated hinges, but not a track showed in the snow. The
Lodge was dark and empty—most of its windows broken
—its door standing ajar. The shrubbery had grown
up in wild disarray as if nature were making an effort
to hide its shame. I started up the long, winding drive.
I could now hear the pounding of the sea on the cliffs
beyond and below. Above the bare trees with their
crooked arms the two towers of the Manor lifted them-
selves into the sky like two sentinels guarding the noth-
ing that was left. Below them was the black dismal
bulk of the house with not a light showing. So far there
had not been a single indication that would lead me to
believe that a living soul was within miles of the place.
I began to wonder if the telegram had not been a hoax
or a trap to lure me to this lonesome end of the World.
The drive ended at the terrace steps and not a footmark
marred the snow even here. As I approached the big
front doors I saw that there was a dim light somewhere
in the hall. Weary and cold, with a heart torn by grief
and evil foreboding, I knocked. Nothing but hollow


24 MY-STERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
echoes that reverberated across the great hall and went
rambling through the gallery and the rooms above an-
swered my rapping. Again I knocked and again only
the echo answered me. Reluctantly my cold hands
turned the handles and I pushed the doors open before
me. There, facing me, seated at an old table piled high
with indiscriminate looking refuse and with a dingy oil
lamp at his side, sat my brother. His shaking hand
held a revolver leveled in my direction. He was ema-
ciated—shrunken beyond belief and sat huddled down
in a pile of rugs and blankets that looked filthy. At
sight of me he dropped the gun to his lap and burst out
in a gale of cackling laughter.
"'So it is you, brother dear? Come in—come in—and
welcome to Burnleigh Manor! What a sorry welcome
I did give you but'—he held his finger cautiously to his
lips and whispered—'but I should have known that
ghosts do not have to open doors!'
"And he gave another of those horrible cackling laughs.
I realized that I was dealing with a man who was stark,
raving mad—a physical derelict with an insane pilot—
my own brother. I shuddered and those darting eyes
of his detected it.
"'Keep your coat on—it is cold in here—cold as the—
grave!'
"It was not the cold that kept me shivering. All that
had in the previous years been so bright and cheery was
now cold—bitter cold and damp and evil smelling. The


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 25
great fire place that had held the blazing Yule log each
year was dark and full of trash. So far I had not been
able to bring myself to speak. I stood there staring
stupidly at the heart-rending sight before me, conscious
of the stare of his eyes that looked like the peep holes
of a furnace, so glittering was the fire within him that
was consuming his brain.
"'I suppose you think I am crazy? Well, I'm not.
Not yet. Perhaps I will be if they do not get me first.'
"Here was something more tangible to work on and for
the first time since I entered, I spoke.
"'If who does not—get you—Edward?'
"'The ghosts. Laugh, if you wish, but you will hear
them.'
"His hands that had been lying quietly over the re-
volver in his lap began to twitch, and he moved his head
from" side to side with an odd jerky motion. Stepping
quickly to his side I patted his shoulder reassuringly.
"'Do not speak of such things! There are no ghosts
except those we make for ourselves. The real truth of
the matter is that you are too much alone here. Where
are the servants?'
"Again he gave that laugh that was weirdly devoid of
mirth.
"'They couldn't stand it. I am the only one with
nerve enough to stay in this ghastly place. So there are
no ghosts, eh Cecil?'
"Just then the clock struck the first note of midnight


26 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
and a look of abject terror came over my brother's face.
Half rising from his chair he spoke in a whisper that
ended in a shriek.
"'No ghosts you say? Then listen—listen—LISTEN!
Good God—why can't she rest?'
"The clock ceased striking and I turned quickly to-
ward the stairs. I could hear the soft footsteps of some-
one descending them. Believing the dim light of the
hall prevented me from seeing who it was, I stepped to
the first tread and looked up. The step came nearer
and nearer—the stealthy tread of someone tip-toeing
down, but as yet I could see no one. I remember spread-
ing my arms completely across the first part of the stairs
in the belief that if for some peculiarity of the lighting
I was prevented from viewing whoever it was, they cer-
tainly could not get past me. I heard my brother moan-
ing in his chair. The footsteps came closer and closer
and then they passed me and I saw and felt no one.
Whoever it was had slipped by me without my arms or
body impeding their progress. I followed the sound of
the steps, fighting for a rational explanation of the in-
ability of my eyes to descern the figure—across the
hall—to the front door. Then Edward shrieked at me.
"'No ghosts, eh? She walked through you—through
you—do you hear what I say? Don't open that door!
DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!'
"Then he fell back in his chair in what I took to be a
faint. Closing the door again I rushed to his side. He
revived rapidly for one so terribly weakened and I be-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 27
lieve he was entirely rational when he opened his eyes
and looked up at me. It was a pathetic moment, Riker,
for the look he gave me was that of a strong man hope-
lessly beaten—that of a man who was dreadfully, dread-
fully tired.
"'Cecil, I leave it all to you. I can go on no longer.
Promise me that you will never live here, nor allow any-
one else to do so. It will make of you what you see me
tonight, and I know that you did not find me a pretty
sight.'"
The cigarette had gone out in Cecil Burnleigh's hand.
His head was bent—chin resting on his chest and at
intervals a tremor would pass over him as if he were
chilled. His eyes were closed and I knew that it was
to keep me from seeing the pain in their sombre depths.
He was forcing himself to go on now, and the words fell
from his lips in a meticulously metered flow.
"Then, muffled by the rugs, there was the sound of a
revolver shot and Edward's head fell forward. He had
shot himself as I watched—his movements hidden by
the blankets he had gathered about his shrunken frame.
As I closed the doors of the Hall to go for the assist-
ance I knew to be useless, it was with the realization
that another tragedy had been added to the already too
long roll against the name of Burnleigh Manor."





30 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Lord Cecil,—
In accordance with your instructions we have had
our man living in the Lodge of Burnleigh Manor. A
few days ago he reported to us that he had found foot-
prints leading to the doors of the Manor itself, but
none returning therefrom. We immediately had the
boarding examined and found that it had unques-
tionably not been disturbed. However, wishing to be
sure that your interests were fully safeguarded, we had
sufficient planking removed from the front door, and
entered. No one was found on the premises, but on
checking with our careful inventory as of the day of
closing the building, we found two volumes to be miss-
ing from the library table. We also found conclusive
evidence that some one had been in the library more
than once since the Manor was boarded up. There
were fresh muddy footprints as well as what seemed to
be dried ones of other visits. The manner of entrance
and exit is a mystery to us and before taking any
further steps we would like instructions from you.
Our man also reports some peculiar circumstances
which we feel certain can be readily explained. Be-
lieve us when we say that it is with the greatest re-
luctance that this matter is brought to your attention.
Faithfully yours,
BURBECK & BRIGGS"
Burnleigh had been watching my face as I read it and
the instant I glanced up he spoke.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 31
"And so you see, Mr. Riker, we not only have some-
one who is able to come down a stair remaining invisible,
but who can also walk through boarded windows and
doors leaving footprints going in but none coming
out."
The smile on his lips was not matched by the light in
his eyes.
"What instructions did you give to your solicitors?"
"I asked them to make doubly sure that the boarding
was secure and undisturbed. Nothing further was to be
done until they heard from me. I have not communi-
cated with them since that time."
I laid the letter back on the table.
"These—these peculiar circumstances mentioned in
the letter—what were they?"
"Inasmuch as I took steamer for your country a few
days after I received that letter I know nothing about it."
He leaned toward me over the table and his eyes had
an arresting glitter.
"Mr. Riker, as long as Burnleigh Manor slept quietly,
I was content to let it sleep. It would seem as if it had
laid down its challenge once more—these events have a
mysterious undertone—and I, as the last of the Burn-
leighs, do not intend to let it go unanswered. That is
where you enter the affair—if you wish."
It impressed me as a typical case for one of the super-
human, master-mind individuals so prevalent in our
mystery novels today, rather than a task for a person
specializing in the rebuilding of ordinary houses into hab-


32 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
itable homes. I said as much, and was met with a slow
shake of the head.
"Off hand it might seem to be a job for Scotland Yard,
but I know it is not. While I have not been near the
Manor since the day it was boarded up, it has been a
rare moment when it has not been on my mind. The
more thought I have put on it the more firmly have I
become convinced that the explanation of everything that
has seemed so—unusual—lies in that old house itself.
It was there, dormant, for anyone who searched to find.
Now it is not dormant—it is alive again. I intend to
answer its challenge by myself if necessary. The issue
is between that building and myself—a building that
holds a secret I now want to know—a structure of stone
and mortar with a definite personality to me. Is it not
natural then, that I should secure the assistance of a
man who knew houses—who could at a glance tell more
about its character and construction than I would know
after years of study?"
He sank back in his chair and his fingers drummed
nervously on its arm. I knew he was not through speak-
ing so I held my peace.
"I also wanted someone who was young and who was
not steeped in the traditions and the legends of the place.
I wanted someone who will, if necessary, tear it stone
from stone until it yields its secret—or until it is proven
that I am an old man with foolish notions and a per-
fectly normal ancestral home. Above all, I need a man


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 35
what the old place holds. Their interest is a compelling
one, for on the gates is a sign informing all trespassers
that the deputy stationed there has received orders to
shoot on sight. Their errand cannot be even partially
legal or they would have applied to me for permission to
enter. I have had other indications that I will tell you
about later. It is relatively certain that I was followed
on my trip over—at least to the boat. I wished to be
certain that I was not being followed back before we
were seen together or our identities known to the other
passengers. I preferred that our mission at Burnleigh
Manor be unknown to any competitors we might have
until the last possible moment. So I 'hid my threat'
as you Americans say, in a stateroom until I felt it was
safe to bring him out. From now on the ban is lifted."
That certainly was plausible enough to satisfy any-
one. I even was conscious of a feeling of irritation that
anyone was to lay hands on the place before I could
get at it. The realization that they had a clear field at
the present moment was especially annoying. Burn-
leigh's face was expressionless. He was watching for my
reaction.
"Well, your competitors seem to have somewhat of a
head start."
He nodded quickly.
"Indeed, yes. They seem to know a lot about the
place too, but if they had found that for which they
were searching they would not be returning now. One
thing over which I have pondered and which still re-


36 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
mains a puzzle to me, is the fact of their silence and in-
activity for all these intervening years."
As he wearily leaned toward me I noticed for the first
time the tremendous cost of his narration. His face was
chalk white and his eyes had sunken into his head.
"Perhaps you would like to think this over quietly by
yourself, Mr. Riker, and let me have your decision in
the morning. There are two days more before we dock."
My answer to that was a surprise to myself.
"Not at all. I haven't the least idea of backing down.
Frankly I think it is much ado about nothing, and I
am anxious to begin the reconstruction work."
He was unquestionably delighted and relieved by my
attitude and proffered me another cigarette as a tacit
invitation to stay with him a bit longer. As a matter
of fact I had no desire to go back to my cabin. I am
the sort of person that reads a "thriller" with a su-
percilious and tolerant smile and with much mental
"tush-tushing" and then leaps wildly out of his chair
with hair literally on end when the clock strikes. I much
preferred sitting with him and discussing the necessary
details and plans of procedure to returning to my empty
cabin that would surely be dark.
It was the "wee small hours" when we said good-
night and I was much too tired then to do anything but
crawl into bed and sleep soundly. However, I was some-
what chagrined and much ashamed to find, when I awoke
the next morning, that I had left the light burning in
my cabin all night!


CHAPTER FOUR
I saw very little of Burnleigh during the rest of the
voyage and we did not discuss the Manor except that I
was given to understand that from now on the matter
rested entirely in my hands. I turned all of the odd
details over in my mind many times and either the repe-
tition or the bright sunlight gradually robbed the whole
affair of everything but the expectation of the renovating
work.
For a few days after we landed I was left almost en-
tirely to myself while Burnleigh tended to certain mat-
ters needing his attention. I decided to reconnoitre "on
location" and dispose of the owner's suspicions before
taking out any real labor staff, so I confined my efforts
in that direction to listing all possible sources. I also
arranged for the necessary materials and supplies so that
when the need arose I could secure them promptly. Then
I spent two delightful days sightseeing.
After supper on the fifth evening of my stay on Brit-
ish soil we started for Burnleigh Manor. At my hotel
the chauffeur turned Lord Cecil's big Rolls over to me
and disappeared into the night. We had selected the
evening for the trip so that we might arrive at the Manor
37


38 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
without attracting any more attention to our arrival than
was unavoidable.
It was a delightful night—cool and fresh—and as I
climbed under the wheel Lord Cecil took the seat beside
me. In the tonneau sat Gloom and beside him an elderly
man, evidently another servant of some kind, whom I
had not seen before.
Swinging the car from the curb I let it spurt down the
semiquiet street of my hotel. As I glanced back before
turning the corner I caught a fleeting glimpse of Gloom
sitting bolt upright in the back seat, and the humor of
the situation gave me an irresistible impulse to laugh.
Burnleigh turned an inquiring and surprised glance my
way.
"I have been told that you Americans are noted for
a peculiar sense of humor likely to break out in unex-
pected places, but would you mind telling me what there
is about this particular trip that even borders on the
amusing?"
Turning partially about in my seat to be sure that the
glass partition between it and the back tonneau was
closed so that our conversation could not be heard by
those in the rear seat, I lowered my voice and answered
him.
"I was just wondering how it felt to Gloom to have
a driver and a man on the box—the man on the box be-
ing an English lord, no less!"
I have never heard Lord Cecil laugh, but I think he


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 39
was very close to it at that moment. His reaction to my
remark, however, was typically English.
"I say—I never thought of that. You don't mind it
—driving I mean? I thought it would be best if my
chauffeur was left out of this thing entirely and so"
I assured him that I did not "mind" and kept my
thoughts to myself while we threaded our way through
the city and suburbs. When we had cleared traffic and
were out on the open country road I let the Rolls out a
little, trusting that I would not frighten Burnleigh, yet
hoping that I would throw a bit of a scare into the im-
perturbable Gloom who could not possibly see from
where he sat what lay ahead of us in the darkness. Fully
an hour passed with the lovely old trees rushing past
us on both sides and with the soft evening air pressing
against our faces. The English countryside is blessed
with a thousand lovely perfumes at evening.
I thought Burnleigh had dozed off but after we had
flashed through a tiny village with its lighted inn he
stirred at my side.
"You drive beautifully, Riker."
I thanked him for the compliment and wondered to
myself what else a person could do with a car like his.
I thought of telling him about the rather ancient con-
traption that I managed to get about in back in the
States. There was some question in my mind as to his
sense of humor appreciating it so it was he who opened
the conversation again.


40 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Does it annoy you to have some one talk to you
while you drive?"
I assured him I would thoroughly enjoy it.
"I thought I might tell you about the other man I have
in the tonneau. His name is Hooper and he is the man
I think I told you about—the one that served my brother
Edward. I believe he was the last one to leave my
brother—in fact I am not sure he ever really left him.
Naturally he knows the Manor quite thoroughly. It is
doubtful if we can get him to enter the place again, but
he can stay at the Lodge with us and probably be a
source of useful information. He is a most taciturn per-
son and especially so concerning things that happened
prior to Edward's death. As a stranger you will find it
hard to get him to answer your questions, perhaps, but
I will always be there to help you. With the man now
living at the Lodge, you, myself, Gloom and Hooper,
we will have quite a staff for a start."
I kept my own opinions of the staff to myself. Unless
the man at the Lodge was of a decidedly different stamp
from our two passengers on the back seat, I could not
see what good any of them were going to be to me.
For a time we sped along a straight and open road at
an outrageous speed and the conversation consisted of
small bits snatched against the wind. Then we slowed
for another sleepy little hamlet and Burnleigh started
again.
"Do you know anything of the coast we are approach-
ing?"


42 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
things to occupy my mind, for the road was getting
narrower and more winding and it seemed to me that my
guide was not so sure of his direction. We could not
afford to get lost as it was getting late and the little
towns we passed through were dark and their streets
deserted. At a fork, Burnleigh hesitated a moment and
then indicated that I was to take a wickedly twisting
bit of road up a hill. At the top the trees thinned out
and as I came over the brow, he laid a hand on my arm
and I brought the car to a stop.
"Down there in the valley is King's Lynn. Dip down
over the hill and then if you will take the next right
fork we will avoid the town entirely and strike a back
road leading out along the cliffs."
A dog barked down in the valley and the wind swept
up with a new chill. An answering howl from another
dog on the far side of the town came down the wind to
us and I shivered involuntarily. There was nothing so
different in the spot from a hundred other dark and
sound asleep towns through which we had passed, but it
brought to me a sudden depression. Perhaps it was the
knowledge that over beyond that dark line of hills sat
that house of the weird tale, Burnleigh Manor. One
thing was evident. I was not the only one to feel the
peculiar chill, for conversation ended as I put the car
in gear for the ascent.
At the fork I turned as directed and after we had
gone a little distance I smelled the salt air from the sea
and imagined I could hear the sound of the surf against


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 43
the cliffs over the soft, reassuring purr of the motor.
We were literally crawling along a bumpy clay road
that must have been wicked after a rain. The wood was
quite dense on both sides to us and consisted mostly of
short, twisted, wind-blown trees. The night air from the
sea was really cold now and I felt Burnleigh shiver.
"Are you cold? Would you like to stop a moment?"
He shook his head with his eyes fixed on the road
ahead. For a moment I thought he did not hear me.
Then he shook his head again and answered in a hushed
voice.
"It was not the cold, Riker. Around that bend ahead
are the gates of Burnleigh Manor."
I had brought the car almost to a stop and now I
could hear very distinctly the moan of the surf and the
whistling of the wind through the bare, scrubby trees.
I glanced sidewise at him and saw that his head was bent
forward as if making an attempt to pierce the dark-
ness between ourselves and that bend. I could under-
stand his feelings and so I sent the car lurching ahead
at the imminent risk of a broken spring. As I swung
around the curve we saw the first light that had been
visible to us for over an hour.
The car's headlights shone on a pair of great, wrought
iron gates, and just inside them were the gleaming win-
dows of the Lodge. Burnleigh slumped back in his seat
with what sounded like a sigh of relief. Apparently he
had been half expecting something besides the cheery
lights to greet him.


44 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Sound your horn, Riker."
I did and almost immediately the gates swung open.
We were expected and someone had been waiting just
inside them. Driving the car through them I brought
it to a stop at the door of the Lodge. A clang of metal
on metal behind us told me that Burnleigh Manor was
once more closed to the World.


CHAPTER FIVE
Gloom climbed stiffly out of the tonneau and assisted
Lord Cecil to alight. Hooper busied himself piling our
luggage on the ground close to the door of the Lodge.
I switched off the headlights and snapped on the side
ones and took a quick survey of the Lodge.
It was a compact stone affair designed by a man who
did not have to think of expense. Even in the dark it
was apparent that it had been a little gem in its time.
Not that it was in a state of collapse now—it had been
much too well built for that—but I could see little indi-
cations here and there of a run down condition. How-
ever, my eyes were trained for that sort of thing and to
anyone else it might have seemed a delightful home for
an American suburb just as it stood. From an archi-
tectural viewpoint it was vastly superior to our suburban
atrocities committed in the name of England. The man
whose work I was to rehabilitate had been an artist and
I confess to a qualm of uncertainty.
My examination was cut short by the appearance of
a man who stepped into the circle of light from the car.
"Good evening, my lord. We have everything in
readiness for you!"
Burnleigh turned and stepped nearer to the car.
45


48 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
not, I was going to enjoy this visit. She was simply
lovely and the sort of person you classify as "interesting
looking." Dark wavy hair framed a face that was al-
most unnaturally pale. Her eyes were either a very
deep brown, or black. The only color in her face was
the red of her lips. Perhaps they only seemed so vivid
because of the whiteness of her skin.
She acknowledged our greetings graciously if coolly
and at once set about pouring tea. I appointed myself
waiter with one wary eye on the stair to wave Gloom
back if he put in an appearance, but not until she passed
me my own cup did she glance up. Only for a moment
did her glance cross mine and the expression I saw in
her eyes puzzled me.
I thought I detected something very much like fear
in them before they dropped and a certain disturbing
quality that could have passed for animosity. I may
not be handsome, but I am certainly no ogre to look at
and as far as I could remember I had done nothing to
frighten anyone. As far as she was concerned I had
set out to be especially nice.
I found out later that my efforts along these lines
afforded the others some amusement. They certainly
netted me nothing, for excepting monosyllabic replies to
my questions—or an occasional fleeting and very reluc-
tant smile—I might just as well have been back in the
United States. Patiently I waited for the tea ceremony
to be over with the idea of settling down into a conver-
sation with her, but when it was finished she rose


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 49
abruptly and left us. Captain Lowry watched her go
and then spoke to Burnleigh with an occasional amused
smile in my direction.
"She is an odd girl, sir, keeping mostly to herself.
She has always been a bit that way, but more so since
she came out here. She likes to roam through the woods
both in the day time and at night. I can't say I like
the night prowling out here, but she is absolutely fear-
less and I don't like to deprive her of anything that gives
her pleasure because she is so far from her friends. It
is a frightfully lonesome life for her."
Burnleigh tossed a cigarette into the burning em-
bers.
"Can't you send her to the city now and then, Lowry?
I will be delighted to get some one to keep house for
you both."
"That is very kind of you, sir, and when she first
came here she did run back and forth. Lately I cannot
get her to leave the grounds themselves. For some rea-
son, I do not like it either."
I remembered the fear in her eyes and took a hand
in the conversation myself.
"What do you mean by saying you do not like it,
Captain Lowry?"
He turned to face me and with a shock I saw that the
same peculiar look of fear was in his eyes.
"Since the day we found the footprints—ah! I am
sorry, Lord Cecil!"
"Perfectly all right, Lowry. Mr. Riker knows every-


SO MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
thing there is to know and is to be told everything that
has come to your attention."
He turned back to me with an expression of relief.
"As I was saying, then, since we found the footprints,
she has developed almost a passion for remaining close
to the place. I can never seem to find why."
"Probably detective minded, Lowry and she"
And then happened the first of the peculiar events that
marked my acquaintance with Burnleigh Manor. Hooper
came slowly down the stairs—which were at my right
as I sat facing the fire—and stood respectfully waiting
to catch Lord Cecil's attention as soon as he should
finish speaking to Lowry. At the same moment Edith
Lowry reentered the door on the first floor through
which she had gone—also to my right—and I saw that
she had donned a small chic hat and a warm looking coat.
The rest of us of course were sitting with our legs
stretched out before us facing the fire, and remained so
at her
"Please do not get up. I am going right out."
That left Hooper and Miss Lowry, alone, in a position
to see the windows at our backs. My eyes were on
Edith the whole time the others were speaking. Not
because I suspected anything at that time, but because
she was mighty easy to look at. First I heard Lord
Cecil say,
"What is it, Hooper?"
She was drawing on her gloves and I did notice that
she seemed to be staring fixedly over my shoulder.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 51
Either the comfortable heat of the fire or my lack of
appreciation for the intensity of her gaze kept me from
investigating the matter.
Suddenly I saw her eyes dilate. Their expression is
rather hard to describe. My impression was that they
had seen something not unexpected and something that
frightened her. It was like the look a mother has in
her eyes when her child suddenly dashes across a busy
street. The hand that had been smoothing down her
glove went up in a natural enough gesture—apparently
to adjust her scarf—but it hesitated a second on the way.
That hesitation might have been one of two things. It
might have been a warning or it might have been a
singling out indication to someone. If it was the latter,
I uncomfortably realized, it had pointed at me. Re-
member that it was only the fraction of a second and if
I had not been coached so thoroughly to expect unusual
things to happen, I should have never noticed it at all.
I did not turn even then, for Hooper was speaking.
"Your rooms are ready, sir, but I am at a loss to
know what to do with the peculiar contents of one of
Mr. Riker's trunks. It seems to contain"
Hooper's eyes had strayed over my shoulder, too, and
as he stopped speaking he took an involuntary step back-
ward and gasped as if for breath. His face was con-
torted with fear.
"There he isl—there at the window!—Oh my
God"
His eyes closed as if to shut out the sight—his hands


52 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
clenched at his sides—he swayed for a moment like a
tree in the wind and then pitched forward in a faint,
striking the floor with a sickening thud. I saw Lowry
dash for the door. Burnleigh leaped to his feet arid
faced the windows. In the midst of the confusion Edith
Lowry knelt by old Hooper's side on the floor. As I
dropped down beside her I noticed that her hands were
trembling so she could not loosen the old man's collar.


CHAPTER
SIX
After a moment or two of frantic effort on our part
Hooper's eyes fluttered open and he attempted to rise.
A glance at our faces bending over him reassured the
old man and his head dropped back on the pillow I had
made of my coat.
Captain Lowry stepped through the front door and
Burnleigh rose to meet him.
"I did not see a sign of anyone, Lord Cecil. What do
you"
Edith Lowry sent a quick glance at her father. It
had something furtive in it and she seemed immensely
relieved at his news.
"It isn't likely that there would be anyone within
miles of us here, father, and the gates are locked."
Burnleigh was not convinced.
"Hooper saw something. I think that was perfectly
evident."
He leaned down over the old man and spoke sooth-
ingly.
"Didn't you, Hooper?"
A feeble nod answered him.
"What was it, Hooper?"
When Hooper answered it was almost a whisper.
S3


54 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"If you please, sir—not tonight—not just now, at
least."
Then, in an undertone, I spoke to Edith Lowry.
"You have a strong grip for a girl, Miss Lowry."
She glanced down and saw that she had been holding
my finger prisoner in a fold of Hooper's coat clasped in
her hand. When Burnleigh had asked his question of
Hooper, her grip had tightened until her knuckles had
shown as white dots on the back of her hand.
She drew it away now as if the old man's coat had
suddenly burned her fingers and her eyes met mine.
There was that flash of animosity again, but back of it
I thought I detected a frightened appeal. Rising
quickly, she stepped toward the fireplace.
Our quick exchange of glances and my one remark
had gone unnoticed by the others. Burnleigh gave
Hooper a reassuring pat as the old man rose with my
assistance.
"Perfectly all right, Hooper. Go up stairs and get
some rest."
Wearily he climbed the stairs and I noticed that he
carefully kept his glance from the windows. I knew
there was nothing there now for I kept them in view at
all times. We all stood watching him go and I was the
first to break the silence.
"I don't think we should just let it rest at that, do
you? He must have seen some prowler."
Lowry answered me.
"Or thought he did. There were no footprints under


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 55
any of the windows and I went out so quickly I should
have heard anyone running."
There was really no malice behind my next remark
although it might have seemed so to the others.
"Perhaps Miss Lowry can help us. She was looking
at the same window I think and I have a feeling she,
too, saw something."
She wheeled about to face me with her back to the
other two, and I was badly jolted by her expression. Her
face was deathly pale, her teeth bit cruelly into her
underlip, and her eyes literally flashed. In them was
a kaleidoscope of emotion—fear—anger—appeal—des-
peration, but her voice was so steady and cool that it
would betray nothing of what was passing through her
mind to those behind her.
"You are mistaken, Mr. Riker. I was not looking at
the window."
Somehow it hurt to have her tell such a deliberate
lie. My face must have shown my feelings, but she
diagnosed it incorrectly. To her it probably seemed that
I was nonplussed by her reply, and for a second her
lips curled in a smile tinged with sarcasm. The lie was
enough—the smile was too much and I felt my cheeks
flush.
"I happened to be watching you at the moment and I
was quite certain by your expression that"
Her answer cut me short.
"An imagination like that is not a healthy thing to
have around here, Mr. Riker."


56 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Turning to face the others she continued.
"If you will be kind enough to excuse me now, I will
take my usual walk."
The door closed behind her at one o'clock in the morn-
ing for her "usual evening walk"! This might be a
crazy place with crazy people in it, but that was too
much. If she had asked me to go with her that would
have been—but she hadn't. I looked at Lowry.
"Isn't it pretty risky for a young girl to be out alone
at this hour of the morning, Captain Lowry?"
Outside I heard the little gate at the end of the flag
stone walk slam with entirely unnecessary violence. Her
father smiled at me good naturedly and I knew that he
misunderstood my feelings completely. Perhaps he
understood them better than I did myself!
"It is her custom, Mr. Riker, and I could not let her
go until after you and Lord Cecil had arrived. While
it is lonely here it is not a neighborhood where one is
likely to meet anyone else."
He shrugged his shoulders and I understood the im-
potency behind the gesture. Burnleigh stirred in his
chair before the fire.
"Hooper did not seem to find it as you describe it."
Lowry nodded.
"I suppose in view of that I should have prohibited
her going out tonight. She is quite head-strong, Lord
Cecil, and equally confidant of being able to take care
of herself."
I certainly could believe she was head-strong. The


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 57
lift of her chin when she had so coolly told that little
lie about the window—the way she carried on in spite
of that turmoil deep in her eyes—the frank and open
way she indicated her disapproval of something about
me—all these things gave evidence of that. In my first
few moments about the premises I had succeeded in
getting off to an abominable start with the one person
with whom I wished to be at least friendly. If I knew
the reason for it the situation would have been more
bearable. I went back over my remarks one by one in
an effort to locate what had caused the light of almost
enmity that came into her eyes from time to time when
they met mine.
There was another light in her eyes that puzzled me
still more—that haunting look of fear. Lovely eyes
like hers had no right to harbor a thing like that. It
was some comfort to recall that this was something for
which I was not responsible. At least I was not the only
one—or thing—that called it forth. Her eyes had held
it when they looked over my shoulder at that window.
Burnleigh broke in on the meditation that seemed to
have enveloped all of us.
"I would give a great deal to know just what it was,
or whom it was that gave old Hooper such a shock."
If I knew that, the reason for the expression in those
black eyes would be explained.
"Perhaps Hooper will tell us now."
Burnleigh shook his head.
"Hooper has been almost insane with fear since we


58 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
left London. To push him before he is ready would be
very dangerous. That is why I permitted him to go to
his room tonight without finding out. Surely you realize
that I wanted very much to know what it was at the
moment of the—the occurrence."
It struck me that the answer to our question was more
important than Hooper's feelings, but Lowry spoke be-
fore I could declare myself.
"Is it not barely possible that the reputation of the
place had worked on his imagination to such an extent
that he only thought he saw something—a sort of hallu-
cination?"
Again Burnleigh shook his head in negation.
"But you said yourself, Lord Cecil, that he was al-
most insane with fear since you left London."
"However I failed to tell you two other things, Lowry.
One is that Hooper has as much imagination as a cricket.
The other is that he knows more about this place than
any of us here tonight. He was here ten years prior to,
and as far as I know, at the time of the tragedy of my
brother's death."
Silence settled down once more and we each were ab-
sorbed with our own thoughts. I confess that mine
strayed out into that chill and black night, wondering
just where that slip of a girl was and what she was doing.
At last, as if delivering an undisputable fact arrived at
after exhaustive thought, Burnleigh spoke.
"No, Lowry. Someone looked in that window. Some-
one Hooper knew and feared."


60 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Which have been—what, for instance?"
Lowry shifted uneasily in his chair, his eyes fixed on
the fire.
"They are not the sort of things that it is easy to talk
about, just so, sir—not easy to describe."
I marvelled at Burnleigh's persistence. I had never
seen a trace of it in him before and I wondered if it
was the desire to convince Lowry to remain, or the desire
to hear what had happened to make him wish to leave,
that prompted it.
"But, Captain Lowry, don't you think we should be
told these things if we are to remain here?"
"There is something in that, sir, but my daughter is
so opposed to my telling any of it. She did not wish
me to mention even the footprints."
Burnleigh glanced across at me as if to indicate that
this was a matter for me to take up, but I held my
peace.
"Why should she feel that way?"
"Partly because she felt you would not believe us."
"Why should I not believe there were footprints?"
Lowry ignored his question.
"And partly because she thinks people will say we, too,
have become superstitious about the place."
Burnleigh urged him on.
"And partly?"
"Well, the other part is my main reason for wishing to
leave. I do not like the effect the place is beginning to
have on my daughter. There is—is some change that


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 61
I do not understand, and as I said, I certainly do not
like."
It was evident that Lowry had thought the matter over
and was quite decided in his own mind. His leaving
would be a blow to me, for I should lose assistance I
had already come to rely upon, and I should also lose
my chance to make friends with my lady of the mys-
terious eyes. When Burnleigh spoke again I saw that
he too, had recognized the firmness of the man's de-
cision.
"I shall be sorry to see you go, for I know we both
counted on your help, but I can understand only too
thoroughly that it is not a healthy place for a young
girl. Would you mind if I asked you again to tell me
something of what has happened to upset you?"
This time there was something of a command in the
older man's voice. Lowry leaned forward and laid his
pipe on the edge of the hearth and then settling back,
with his gaze still fixed on the glowing embers, he began
his puzzling narrative.





CHAPTER SEVEN
Lowry spoke slowly, and it seemed to me, rather
reluctantly.
"I will give you one example of the sort of disturbing
things that have been happening recently. Two weeks
ago last night, I retired quite early. As I was going in to
bed, my daughter passed me on her way out for her
walk. I asked her why she was taking her exercise so
much later at night these last few weeks, and she told
me that she loved the sound of the surf on the cliffs
when it was too dark to see it."
Burnleigh nodded.
"Odd, but wholly understandable."
"Possibly. I was awakened first by her return. I
heard her lock the front door and go into her room
which as you probably know is on this first floor, over
there."
He pointed to a door about six or seven feet from
the fireplace and to the right of it.
"I had just about dozed off again when I heard—or
else dreamed that I heard the soft call of an owl. I
listened intently for a few moments, and I heard it again.
It seemed to come from the foot of the stairs there."
He indicated the stairway to the right of us. The
63


64 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
stairway was a boxed in arrangement and mentally I
made a note that a sound made anywhere in the room
would probably sound as if it was made on the stairs to
anyone up above.
"Now sir, the call of an owl is not a sound one expects
to hear this season of the year and certainly not in the
house. I lay in bed for a moment wondering whether I
was awake or just dreaming when I heard a soft tread
in this room that was not made by any bird—and what
was more—was not made by my daughter. I arose
quickly and as quietly as I could—secured my revolver
and crept to the head of the stairs. The room was quiet
except for the rustling of paper. It sounded much as
the pages of a book sound when a wind is turning them
rapidly. I came down to the turn, up there, and from
there I could see the entire room. In front of the fire-
place—just about where Mr. Riker is sitting—a man
was resting on one bent knee, examining something in
the dying light of the fire. It seemed to be a book for
he would turn a leaf or two and then hold it over closer
to the embers for light."
Lowry sank back deeper into his chair and hunched
his shoulders as if he were cold.
"I stole down the rest of the stairs as quietly as I
could, until I reached the next to the last tread. It
creaked, and he turned his head in my direction. The
fire was behind him so that all I could see was his out-
line. I levelled my revolver at him—he had not moved
a muscle—and told him I had him covered. Then I


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 65
stepped around for the light switch. You can see it there
at the foot of the stairs. It certainly takes but a few
seconds to reach it, turn it and look back again, and yet,
Lord Cecil, when the lights blazed on this room was
empty!"
Burnleigh leaned forward and repeated after him
"Empty?"
"Well, not exactly. My daughter stood there by her
door in a dressing gown. She asked me quite calmly
what the trouble was and I told her."
I could not help asking an evident question.
"She saw the man too?"
"She assured me that she had seen no one in the room.
I know that I did."
This was interesting to me.
"How did he get away then?"
"Theoretically, he couldn't. Actually, of course he
did. The door was locked on the inside, as were all of
the windows. If he could have reached my daughter's
room in that short interval of time—which seems im-
possible to me—he would have had to brush her aside to
enter, and her window was also locked on the inside.
He did not pass me on the stairs. The only other open-
ing that he could possibly have used in this room was
the chimney. You may smile, but I examined that and
found it too small at the top to pass a man, and it was
of course, much too hot to have been a means of egress
for even the hardiest and most desperate. He was not
visible to my daughter and he vanished before my eyes.


66 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
I do not like that sort of thing and have had quite
enough. There is some explanation of course, but I
am not interested in searching for it further."
There was an interval of silence except for that somber
wail of the wind through the trees which was beginning
to get monotonous to me. I was the first to speak.
"Did you notice anything in the room that seemed
disturbed, or that drew your attention, Captain Lowry?"
He got up and went to a small carved box on the
mantel. Opening it he took something out and placed
it in my hand.
"Only this. Neither my daughter nor I smoke
cigarettes."
It was a half smoked cigarette with a peculiar mono-
gram on the butt end. I passed it to Burnleigh.
"There is evidence, Lord Cecil, although I have never
seen the brand before. Have you?"
A startling change came over him as he gazed at the
crumpled remainder of the cigarette I had placed in
his hand. His face became deathly pale and he stared
at it as if it were some horrible thing, rather than the
paper and tobacco that it was. He tried to speak and
failed and then managed to whisper.
"It is one of a brand that my brother Edward had
made for him in Egypt fifteen years ago! It was—was
never duplicated for anyone else."
And it fell from his trembling hand to the floor. Sit-
ting there in that Lodge, miles from civilization and in
the shadow of a place of strange legends, his declaration


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 67
was, to say the least disconcerting. This mysterious
intruder of Lowry's had left behind him the partly
finished smoke of a man who had been dead for years.
Certainly the dead man had not
"Have there been reoccurrences of this sort of thing?"
Burnleigh had mastered his momentary fright.
"Not of that exact nature."
"But equally hard to explain?"
Lowry nodded assent.
"You do not wish to discuss them?"
"Not if you will be kind enough to excuse my seeming
rudeness."
Burnleigh quietly assured him he understood, much to
my relief. Frankly I had had quite enough of weird
tales about the place. This last one was especially up-
setting, for it was recent.
The utter stillness with only the incessant rush of the
wind from the sea was beginning to pall on me. I felt
that if I were to remain inactive much longer I would
get into an unhealthy mental state. I was in this thing
now too far for any backing out. Not that I had such
an inclination. I was convinced it was simply a case of
bad reputation, so bad from constant repetition that even
the most commonplace occurrences were twisted to con-
tain something of the supernatural.
As I reacted from Burnleigh's startling statement of a
few minutes back, I was conscious of a sense of irrita-
tion. I was not going to be taken in with all the bunkum
of the place. It was evident of course that something


68 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
was not quite right. Then quite suddenly a desire crys-
tallized within me—a desire to get my hands on whatever
or whoever was back of it all. Burnleigh Manor itself
stood as the symbol for all the rest and I felt an instant
urge to see the old house with that thought. I rose and
reached for my coat.
"I am going to have a look at the Manor."
Instead of greeting my announcement with surprise,
Burnleigh slowly got to his feet and answered me in a
most matter of fact manner.
"I will go with you."
He had understood the impulse that prompted my de-
sire. Perhaps he had felt the same way himself. At the
same time I realized and appreciated the courage it took
for him to come to the decision to accompany me. To
me it was all something new, and stripped of its peculiar
trappings was "just another job." To him it was a return
to a place of tragedy—the scene of ugly events and ugly
rumors—things better seen in the full light of the sun
than the dim, brooding darkness of the night.
Together we started up the long, winding drive leading
to the house of mystery. The wind tugged at our clothes
and went sighing off into the woods. It brought to us
the crash of the surf against the cliffs somewhere out
there in the darkness—the tireless efforts of the watery
giants to tear down the barrier nature had thrown up
against them. Only once as we passed through the dark
woods did Lord Cecil break the silence. He leaned close


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 69
to my shoulder so that the wind would not carry his voice
away.
"Take this, Riker."
He pressed into my hand a small, but efficient feeling
automatic. I crammed it into my coat pocket without
comment. Evidently he was not shaken in his belief
that our "ghost" had puncturable attributes.
At last we came to the end of the woods and involun-
tarily I halted. In front of me rose terrace after terrace
that had at one time formed a lovely cascade of lawn
and flower beds. It was overgrown now and the beds
had long since disappeared. The tall grass waving in the
wind made it seem like a great, wide-stepped stair for
some gigantic pair of legs to negotiate.
On the topmost step of this weird stair stood a long
dark building with two towers pointing to the sky as if
they were arms raised in supplication. The drive over
which we had been walking turned abruptly to the left
at the edge of the wood and swept in a great arc to the
front of the Hall.
Even in the dim light I could see that the house stood
on the very edge of the cliffs, so that the tower on the
far end seemed to rise sheer from the sea. The moon-
rimmed clouds scudded by it driven by the wind and
looked as if they touched the tip of the tower in passing.
So I had my first glimpse of Burnleigh Manor—dark and
forbidding—windswept—with the moan of the restless sea
for its voice.


70 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
As I took a step forward, Burnleigh laid his hand on
my arm. I shook it off rather brusquely and started up
the first terrace toward its dark bulk. I wanted to touch
it. I wanted actual physical contact with this thing of
wood and stone with the melancholy voice. It had laid
down its challenge to all of us, and I would feel better
after I had acknowledged it at close quarters.
It seemed somehow to be drawing me toward it and
I welcomed the pull. On the last terrace I suddenly
stopped and stood transfixed, my eyes on the top of the
tower nearest the sea. In the fitful light of the moon—
arms flung out wide—clothes floating back in the gale—
face turned to the dark horizon of the sea—was the
figure of a woman!


CHAPTER EIGHT
The picture fascinated me. I could feel the spirit of
abandon and exultation that prompted the outflung arms.
I could picture the closed eyes and the distended nostrils
drinking in the rushing breath of the sea. The gale tore
at her clothes whipping them far out behind her. She
seemed to challenge the wind and water to come and
wrench her from where she stood. On the other hand
she might have been the imprisoned spirit of the Manor
begging the elements for escape!
I have no idea how long it was that I stood watching,
but finally the arms dropped reluctantly and turning,
the figure seemed to be swallowed up into the tower.
Close beside me I heard Burnleigh's voice.
"We have seen the ghost of Burnleigh Manor, Riker!"
His voice was a shock showing how tensely I had stood
watching. His thought was annoying for some reason—
possibly because it had been a thought of my own of
which I was not proud.
"That was a very real person made of flesh and blood.
No phantom would thrill at facing the teeth of the gale
from a perch like that!"
"Then would you mind explaining to me how this
flesh and blood person gets into a place securely boarded
71


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 73
idea if we say nothing of what we have seen to anyone."
Closer and closer it came. In the intermittent light
of the cloud harassed moon it was apparent that it was
a woman and it seemed to me that the part coat, part
cape that she wore was the same I had seen fluttering
atop the tower. She passed within six feet of where we
stood crouched back under the trees literally holding
our breath, and I recognized Edith Lowry. When she
had passed I whispered to Burnleigh.
"There goes your precious ghost—the caretaker's
daughter!"
"Oh come, not really?"
He was all for calling her back and asking her if she
had been on the tower and if so how she had reached it.
We had a thorough understanding right then and there,
and it was agreed that from now on the entire matter
was to rest in my hands. No one was to be told any-
thing unless I said so and no questions were to be
answered except through me. I was master of the situa-
tion for the present at least—a dubious, doubtful honor.
"I know perfectly well that it was not Miss Lowry up
there on that tower. Because the poor girl returns from
her evening stroll and passes us we immediately connect
her with the Manor. It is preposterous"
I let him run along until he finally collapsed conversa-
tionally for lack of opposition.
When we reentered the Lodge, Lowry was still sitting
before the fire. That he had been waiting for us was
evidenced by the fact that he rose at our entrance.


74 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Lord Cecil, we have decided to stay as long as you
need us."
He avoided looking at us and there was something in
his tone that made my heart go out to him. That decla-
ration was the outward evidence of a real disappoint-
ment. Burnleigh missed seeing that side of it and was
almost pathetically delighted with his decision.
"That is just fine, Lowry! We'll talk things over at
length in the morning. Thank you ever so much for
changing your mind!"
Lowry bade us goodnight and left for his room on the
first floor. We climbed the stairs wearily to our own
rooms. I had an idea that ghosts or what not, I was
ready for a good night's sleep.
I knew only too well what had changed Lowry's mind
about leaving. His daughter had changed it for him.
It would have been very interesting to know just what
her reasons for staying were. Of the two, she should
have the strongest desire to get away.
As I lay in bed going back over the events of the past
few days in an effort to get them straightened out in my
mind, my thoughts kept coming back to her. She was
certainly lovely to look at and there was something in
her personality that drew you to her. There was some-
thing there also that was somehow unnatural. I tried to
analyze it. Her feeling toward me, for instance—from
the outward signs what was it? First, something of
fear, and then hatred. Hatred was not the right word
either—more resentment. Whatever it was I knew that


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 75
I wanted it corrected for she was the sort of girl I wanted
very much to know.
Perhaps it was not me personally that she resented.
Then what? My mission here? Something that I had
said? Something I had done? So far I had said and
done nothing that I could remember to kindle her dis-
like. If it was my mission, why should she resent a
stranger within the gates of the Manor? She did not
want the Manor investigated for some reason? That
was the only construction I could place on it, and yet I
felt that my conclusion was not very plausible.
Why should an attractive young girl, unrelated to the
Burnleighs and surely interested in their affairs in only
the most casual way, be upset by someone poking about
the old house? Not very reasonable and yet she knew
more than she was telling as far as I could see. I could
not shake the conviction that it was she who had stood
on the tower facing the sea, yet the owner had no idea
as to how she could reach her perch. Perhaps she had
stumbled on some secret of the place and did not wish to
share it with anyone. That explanation did not appear
very strong because she was not the phychological type
for that sort of thing.
Then the something she had seen at the window that
evening. I was absolutely certain that she had seen it,
despite her denial. It had frightened Hooper, but as
far as I could see, it had not produced any strong emotion
in her. I intended to question Hooper in the morning on
this phase of the situation and would know more after


CHAPTER NINE
In the morning we sat down to a leisurely breakfast
and discussed the plans for the day. Miss Lowry seemed
to have had hers for she moved about seeing that we
were properly cared for in a most motherly way. To
my over sensitized feelings it seemed that she avoided my
eyes and answered my questions in the briefest possible
manner, but she was quite kind and probably more than
gracious considering the continued scrutiny I was ac-
cused of directing at her later by Lord Cecil. There in
the small English cottage, with sunshine pouring through
the attractive colors of the curtains—a steaming and de-
licious breakfast on the table—and Edith Lowry making
her way gracefully about—well, I felt myself becoming
sentimental in spite of the grim business ahead.
That grim business poked its unwelcomed head into
the sunny atmosphere of the room when Burnleigh ex-
plained that the entire course of procedure now lay in
my hands. She sent me a quick glance that had a
trace of the feeling of the night before in it. Lowry
asked me what would be the order of the work and I
turned to face him with a feeling of regret. I explained
that before the reconstruction could begin I would have
77


78 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
to study the Manor in detail and then make all my draw-
ings and specifications for material.
"This morning I should like to go through the building
from top to bottom with an idea of getting the layout
in a general way."
Lowry turned to Burnleigh.
"Then we will have to tear down the boarding."
With my eyes on Edith Lowry's face every minute I
asked very distinctly,
"Isn't there some way we can get in without that?"
She paid no heed to my question—not by so much as
the flicker of an eyelid—but as Lowry answered it I
noticed that she was absent mindedly endeavoring to
put the lid of the tea pot on the sugar bowl.
"Not that I ever heard about. However, if you are
going to be here working on it we might as well take it
all down."
This did not fall in with my plans and I said so.
"If you do not mind I would like the boarding taken
off the front door only and a new padlock placed on the
main doors themselves. That will be the only opening
I shall need for the present."
Burnleigh spoke up.
"But the main doors have a massive lock!"
I could not help smiling.
"So do all the other front doors I have ever seen. It
just happens that I want my own locks there also."
It was a tactless way to put it. My middle initial is
"T" but certainly it never stood for tact. The at-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 79
mosphere in the room became frigid and Lowry rose.
"As you wish. Shall we start now?"
That was the end of a perfect breakfast. As I stepped
out the door of the Lodge I felt a sort of thrill at the
imminence of the first real contact with the old place.
Gloom and Lowry had stepped around to the back for
a wheelbarrow full of tools, and I could hear them get-
ting under way on the other side of the house. Burn-
leigh had gone upstairs for a wrap. Quietly I walked
around the side nearest me and stopped under the
window at which Hooper had glanced the night before.
Bending down, I carefully examined the soft earth be-
neath it. Burnleigh called from the front.
"Riker! Where are you?"
I came around to the front and he seemed a bit startled
by my appearance from that unexpected quarter. As
we walked toward the Manor he peered around at me
from time to time and finally curiosity got the better of
him.
"You—er, found something unusual about the
Lodge?"
"Unusual and disappointing."
"Really? What for instance?"
"Well, it appears that the one person I had decided
to trust is not worthy of trust. You will recall that
Captain Lowry stated last night that there was no evi-
dence of anyone having been near the windows? I found
distinct and deep footprints there."
"But I cannot believe"


80 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
He lapsed into silence and we plodded along for some
hundred yards or so before he spoke again.
"Did you measure the prints or whatever they do
under the circumstances?"
"As a matter of fact I did measure them although the
identification would be quite simple without that. Who-
ever it was—and it must have been a man—wore a very
unusual foot covering for this country I imagine. To be
exact, he was trotting about the night over stones etc.,
in mocassins!"
"Mocassins! Jove! I didn't know there was a pair
in all of Norfolk except those"
He stopped abruptly and I did not press him for the
rest, inasmuch as I had just remembered something I
had not done.
"Lord Cecil, I must go back."
"Very well. Why?"
"I intended to talk to Hooper about last night and I
forgot it until this very moment."
Burnleigh laid a hand on my arm.
"It will not be necessary to go back. I have talked
with him, and I doubt if he would tell anyone else what
he has told me."
"Did you get him to say whether he is sure he saw
something or whether it was just his imagination?"
My companion had slowed in his stride and glanced
about him from time to time as he spoke to me in a
lowered voice.
"I am afraid Hooper is done in. He is firmly con-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 81
vinced of an impossible thing. Framed in that window
last night he says he saw the face of a man looking at
Miss Lowry. I cannot shake him from his conviction,
but Riker, his story is that he saw my younger brother
Robert peering in at her last night!"
That was a poser! I had assumed from the first that
Robert was dead and yet no one knew anything about
him except he had disappeared completely years ago.
Why could he not be here now conducting an investiga-
tion of his own? Burnleigh read my thoughts.
"There is no use speculating on that, Riker. It was
not my brother."
"Why do you say that?"
"If my brother were alive he would be a man fifty
odd years old."
"Well, what of that?"
"Only that Hooper is positive the man he saw was not
more than thirty years old. Of course Hooper is certain
that what he has seen is the ghost of my brother, un-
changed, unaged—just as he was that night he dis-
appeared from the Manor for ever. Hooper is now a
firm believer in the occult."
So that was what had given old Hooper such a jolt.
Under the circumstances one could not blame him.
"You told Hooper to keep his thoughts to himself?"
"Hooper would do that, you know."
"Has he seen anyone but you?"
"Miss Lowry took him his breakfast early this morn-
ing."


82 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Did he tell her anything?"
"I believe she did ask him what had frightened him
so, and he told her in a general way. In fact she
suggested that he not"
"Not tell anyone else—yes of course—but what do you
mean by 'general way'?"
"Well, now—I—I say my boy, you are being a bit
tiresome with this inquisition thing."
I mumbled some sort of an apology and trudged along
with a peculiar feeling of discouragement. That girl—if
I was right about her knowing something about the
Manor—had a comfortable lead and was bidding fair to
maintain it. Burnleigh noticed my dejection and annoy-
ance.
"Oh, come now Riker, certainly you do not think that
this slip of a girl is really—well, mixed up in an affair
that happened years ago and before she even knew
Burnleigh Manor existed?"
"It doesn't matter a great deal what I think. In a
thing of this kind it is best to assume every one is a
suspect. It would be a relief to me if we could go on
that basis."
"I do not know just what it is we are suspected of
doing, but on that basis why except ourselves?"
"Suits me, although it happens to be an invitation
affair for me."
"And I think we are both being a bit stuffy, don't you?"
I noticed that a smile tugged at the corners of his
mouth. He probably thought a large part of my pique


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 83
could be traced to the coolness with which I was met in
certain quarters. It probably could!
As we came out of the wood and started over the
stepped terraces, he gave me a sly dig.
"I am looking forward to your explanation of the
manner in which your flesh and blood statue reached
the top of that tower."
There was no answer to that but the deed, and after
thinking things over I had lost a lot of my confidence.
However, I meant to go over every inch of the exterior
of the place before we glanced at any of the inside, and
I was determined to find how the trick was done.
I found Lowry and Gloom at the front door and tell-
ing them to wait for me there I started my examination
by slowly circling the ground floor. The man who had
been commissioned to board the house up had taken his
work seriously, and I imagine, was fully aware of the
weird contents he was bottling up. I was unable to find
one of the house's hundreds of openings that could have
been entered by anything short of blasting. The house
was a double ell, the main part of the building running
back from the cliff with two massive wings at each end
standing out at right angles. This, of course made the
wings parallel to the cliff and the towers rose at the
juncture of wing and main building.
Across the front—on both sides of the great front
doors—were long casement windows, all opening on the
terrace. Every one of these were securely boarded up,
and I am certain, had not been tampered with.


CHAPTER TEN
When we had stripped away all boards exposing the
great studded doors of the Manor (and it was easily a
three man job to do it) Burnleigh handed me a long
heavy key. I noticed that his hand trembled and the
lines had deepened in his pale face. I felt for him. It
was the first time he had stepped across that threshold
since the day he had seen his brother carried over it
for the last time. I knew that the best way would be to
get it over as quickly as possible, so I thrust the key in
the lock, turned it and swung the doors wide.
The cold darkness of the air that rushed out from
the open doors and brushed my face was probably no
worse than the air of any place that has been shut up
for as long a period of time as the Manor, but it gave
me an unexpected creepy feeling even in the broad day-
light—and I admit I was thankful for that daylight.
It did not penetrate very far into the shadowy hall,
but it was sufficient for me to grasp the sheer beauty of
design and execution that had been built into the tre-
mendous place many years ago. To the right and left
as one entered the front door were great staircases which
ended in a gallery that ran across the entire back of the
entrance hall. From the right and left end of this
85


86 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
gallery smaller staircases went up to the second floor
level.
Beneath the gallery were long casement windows that
had, at one time, looked out on a terrace and below, a
garden. Across the gallery itself were long windows
also that must have permitted a downward glance at the
flowers and shrubs that had grown in the shelter of the
two ells.
"This must have been lovely, Lord Cecil!"
He nodded and I barely caught his answer.
"That was long, long ago, Riker."
Something seemed to have placed a depressing hand
on our shoulders and I spoke brightly in an effort to
throw it off.
"We'll have it back there in no time. Lowry!"
From the doorway behind me came his response.
"Yes, sir?"
"You and Gloom fit a padlock to those doors and give
me both keys, please."
Burnleigh and I left them at their tasks and with our
flashlights began a tour of the house. As I progressed
through the spacious halls and large, richly panelled
rooms I was increasingly impressed by the beauty of the
place and at the time, saddened by the decay and ruin
that had overtaken it.
In a quiet tense voice unlike any he had used before,
Lord Cecil told me the history of each room, until we
came to an immense bedroom on the second floor almost


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 87
over the entrance hall through which we had entered.
Here he stopped on the threshold and hesitated a moment.
I doubt if he was conscious of my presence when he de-
scribed it.
"This is the Master's bedroom. Here every Lord
Burnleigh has slept since the beginning—with the excep-
tion of course of the present one"
I looked for a smile but there was none.
"—and through there is the bedroom of Lady Burn-
leigh."
When his voice died away, I glanced in the same direc-
tion in which he was looking and found that another
tremendous room opened off this one. Stepping back,
I glanced along the hall for I remembered seeing no door
to such a room. There was none, which meant that the
only entrance to milady's chamber was through this
Master bedroom in which we stood. Rather an odd
arrangement but these Burnleighs were an odd lot. The
furniture scattered about these rooms must have been
worth a fortune in itself for I believe its history carried
it back to the Crusades. Now all of it was covered with
dust, uncared for and molded.
"While these rooms are in no way detached from the
rest of the house, they are in reality a unit by themselves.
Below Lady Burnleigh's room is the hall. Below the
Master's room is the library which, as you saw, is also
the Master's den."
I stood looking at the lovely expanse of Lady Burn-


88 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
leigh's room. The things on her dressing table were
scattered about just as if she had left them there an
hour ago instead of many years ago.
"No trace was ever found of Lady Burnleigh, either,
was there?"
"I have run down many rumors, but never once have
I met anyone who had seen her again."
Our tour of inspection over, we returned to the great
Hall. I could not shake off the peculiar feeling of almost
gloom that had settled over both of us. A pair of mo-
rocco leather slippers under the Master's bed haunted
me. One had been lying on its side just as if a warm
foot had recently been withdrawn. Instead of that the
foot had been cold—in the ground for—that was morbid
and I decided work would be the best antidote.
"I am going to begin my sketches if you do not mind."
I settled down at the table with my note book spread
out before me. It gave me a bit of a twinge to think
that it was on this same table that Lord Edward had
lain the revolver with which he later had shot himself,
and that the oil lamp at my elbow was the same one
that I had heard mentioned on the boat. However, I
was soon engrossed in my first rough drawings and
Burnleigh stood looking over my shoulder and making
suggested corrections as the sketch progressed.
The rest of the morning passed quickly enough and
shortly after noon I locked the door behind us and we
started back to the Lodge for lunch. When we had


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 89
walked a short distance in the warm sunlight, Burnleigh
spoke.
"Well, Riker, what do you think of it?"
"It is one of the loveliest pieces of work I have ever
had the pleasure of studying. I don't think I ever heard
you say who the architect was."
"I doubt if anyone knows, or if there was one architect
responsible for the whole thing. You see as I told you
it was built over the foundations of an old pirate strong-
hold, and perhaps the design was dictated by the ori-
ginal foundations."
"Just the same I am certain that one man's brain
conceived that design. It has a single purpose in its
set up. Frankly, I think the gossip about it is wicked.
It should constitute grounds for a slander charge."
"I hope nothing happens to change your mind. Have
you mapped out a plan of campaign as yet?"
I had not. I could see no earthly reason why renova-
tion should not begin at once. If Burnleigh was to be
insistent on my determining whether there were any
peculiar features not clear to an ordinary survey, then
of course I would have to make test cuts through various
walls, but the thought of tearing an inch of that place
apart hurt me almost as much as if it were a live thing.
I was soon to lose my kindly feeling.
"If we are to find any of the clues to the—well, odd
events that you told me of, it will be in the Master's
rooms, the hall itself, or the library. I shall spend the


90 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
afternoon studying them and I honestly hope it will not
be necessary to cut into anything."
"Fine! I shall leave you to your work. I want to
be of any assistance that I may, but I do not wish to
be a hindrance. Further than that you can understand
my feelings when I am in the Manor. I will drop in to
see you later in the afternoon."
When we approached the Lodge our noses caught an
appetizing mixture of odors.
"Love, Riker! I believe I am truly hungry. Perhaps
facing this thing out will do a lot for me."
We sat down to a very tasty luncheon served by Miss
Lowry. During the meal I inquired who it was that was
doing the cooking for us and was shocked to learn that
she was doing the whole thing for our large household.
Burnleigh was indignant and ordered a cook secured at
once. Lowry meekly mentioned that it would not be easy
to get a servant to come out here and harder still to
keep one. He was immediately over-ruled by Burnleigh
who mentioned a salary that should have guaranteed
us a French chef. In the intercourse I noticed a differ-
ence in Lord Cecil's attitude toward Lowry and regretted
the fact that I had mentioned the footprints under the
window. As a matter of fact it was possible that Lowry
had not seen them in the dark. It was a weak possibility
but I did not wish anyone to get the slightest idea he
was anything but fully trusted.
As soon as we had finished I gathered up some dishes
and followed our present cook into the kitchen. I was


92 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
This was frank and open enough to suit anyone. I
had to smile at the thought. There are few flirtations
carried on under circumstances such as these.
"Lots of things. Tear some of it out—build some
over—and perk up the old place generally."
"That sounds like a long job, Mr. Riker."
"Under pleasant surroundings, Miss Lowry."
She smiled at me frankly and for a moment I felt I
was going to have a dizzy spell, but then her eyes clouded
over with that same odd, tense expression.
"It is a dark place to work—and cold."
That was interesting. How did she know?
"I heard that you were anxious to get back to the
states again so I expect we must be prepared to work
night and day."
Now I had mentioned to no one that I was anxious to
go back, and sitting there talking to her made me feel
that I didn't care if I never got back. The reference to
night work, too—odd. Suppose she was trying to find
out if the nights would be clear? I began to suspect I
might do some night work! In fact I made a mental
note that it might pay me to do all of my preliminary
investigation at night. My answer was casual enough
although our tete-a-tete had a new keenness to it.
"You know the old place pretty thoroughly, I
imagine?"
She turned to face me, dishes done and Gloom fussing
about the back door.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 93
"Hardly! It is not the sort of place by reputation
that one would wish to prowl around, and one cannot
see much through boarded up windows. I make a prac-
tice to avoid it."
And I had seen her coming from it early this very
morning! I was not ready to divulge that so I switched
the subject.
"What do you mean 'by reputation'?"
She sent a quick glance my way which I pride myself
was met by my most pleasantly stupid expression. She
seemed convinced.
"No one could tell you more comprehensibly than Lord
Burnleigh."
"You don't expect the owner to go around knocking
his own ancestral home, do you? Especially if the tale
concerns family skeletons."
A glass goblet that she had been holding up to the
light crashed to the floor and splintered into bits. For
a second she looked at me and I saw the fear in her eyes
beyond any further doubt. Then she glanced at the
glass.
"How stupid of me! When you said skeletons you
frightened me."
"I am sorry. Here let me do it."
I gathered up the pieces and put them on the table.
"Now tell me why the mere mention of skeletons
should frighten you so."
She hesitated a second and I had a feeling that there


94 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
were many thing she wanted to tell me and was on the
verge of telling. When she spoke it was apparent that
she had changed her mind about doing it.
"You said 'family skeletons'."
"Well then, why should the family variety startle
you?"
"Because that is what the local gossips say is lying
within the Manor somewhere."
This was news to me. Burnleigh had not even men-
tioned such a thing.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You knew that Lord Cecil's brother, Edward, shot
himself there, did you not?"
There was no use in overdoing this stupid attitude.
"Yes. I had heard that, but he was given proper
burial, wasn't he?"
"To be sure, but do you know why they say he killed
himself?"
"No, why?"
She looked at me steadily for a moment and I would
have given a great deal to know what was passing
through her mind.
"It is not very nice of me to spread gossip this way,
is it?"
"If I am to work about the old place I think it is only
fair of you to tell me what you know about it, or have
heard about it. I always assumed he killed himself
because he was tired of living."
There was something in her expression now that told


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 95
me she saw a chance to scare me off and intended
to try.
"You know of course that the youngest brother, Rob-
ert, disappeared one night with Lord Edward's wife?"
"Good heavens, what a scandal! Sounds more like
New York. Where did they eventually turn up?"
"They have never 'turned up' as you say. The rumor
is that Lord Edward had turned miser and had hidden
almost all of the family fortune away. Robert demanded
his share and Lord Edward's wife took his side. Edward
then shot them to keep them from getting it and hid
their bodies somewhere about the Manor. That is why
I jumped when you said something about the family
skeletons."
How much more did she know? And how much truth
was there in this new version of the affair? It checked
with the details given me on the boat even better than
the construction that Lord Cecil had given them. There
was one flaw in her story.
"If he killed them to keep the family fortune, why
did he allow Lord Cecil to live?"
"Because the ghosts of his first two victims roamed
the house and drove him insane before he could do it."
"Oh, come now, that is spreading it a bit thick. The
next thing you will be telling me that you have seen the
ghosts yourself!"
"Please remember I have been giving you the local
gossip, and not my ideas. There are many things hard
to explain—even you might have trouble."


96 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
I passed up the nasty little dig and asked for more.
"For instance?"
"The footprints going into the house and not coming
out 'for instance'."
If I had appreciated what it cost her to say that I
should have dipped my flag at the moment. However,
I did realize she was trying to draw me out and find
just what I knew or guessed.
"The feet of ghosts do not make footprints—as a mat-
ter of fact do ghosts have feet? Excuse my ignorance,
but no one ever pointed one out to me."
She smiled at me and her eyes lost some of that cold
light when she did.
"Perhaps not, but neither do normal people walk up to
a house and then evaporate into thin air."
"Perhaps he turned his shoes around and walked back
in the same treads."
I was quite proud of that one.
"It would take a genius to do that for two miles,
wouldn't it?"
"Well, who said he wasn't a genius?"
I smiled at her but there was no answering one for
me. Instead she seemed to be turning some grave
thought over in her mind.
"Mr. Riker, it was very nice of you to offer to help
me, and to come out and talk this way to me. I have
been a bit hateful in repeating that gossip, but would
you mind if I said something to you that sounds rather
ridiculous?"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 97
"Anything you wish."
And I meant it, for she was mighty sweet at the
moment.
"The Manor has brought trouble and sorrow to all who
have touched it. There is something unusual about it—
something unnatural—something dangerous. Before
anyone else is harmed won't you all go away and leave
it alone?"
Nicely placed! Enough of the mysterious—sweetly
and thoughtfully said to make it look sincere—and I
was supposed to get frightened and run away, leaving
the Manor to someone else. Then I had an interesting
thought! Suppose the fortune that the miser brother
had hidden away was in the house? That would
explain
"If you feel you cannot do that, please avoid it at
night, and don't ever go there alone."
"Miss Lowry, what do you really know about the
Manor?"
She turned quickly and went out of the room.
"Nothing more than I have told you."
I knew she lied and I knew that the way to find out
what we wanted to know was to do the two things she
had advised me against—stay there at night and do it
alone!





CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tucking my flashlight in my pocket and with my sketch
book under my arm I started for the Manor. The next
stop would be that old lighting unit, and if it was at all
workable it was going to start mighty soon! Enough
of this mysterious, ghostly business and it gets irritating.
There was no one in sight when I reached the front
doors and after I let myself in I left them open. It
occurred to me that a free and open exit might not be
a bad idea. Then I went directly to the cellar, and what
a peculiar place it wasl
I found the lighting unit after getting wholly covered
with cobwebs and badly lost once or twice in a labyrinth
of rooms and passages that seemed to have no logical
purpose or plan. I gave the power unit a cleaning and
then a tentative turn. The story that Miss Lowry had
just told me kept running through my mind. Suppose
the old boy had murdered them in cold blood? If he
had he would probably bury them in the cellar. That
was the proper form for the everyday affair back in the
United States, and murder was probably the same the
World over. Good Lord! I might be standing on them
right now! Or I might stumble over their bones any
minute. Just then, as I walked around the unit, I did


ioo MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
stumble over something! My flashlight slipped from
my hand and went out. I turned in a panic and made a
dash for where I remembered seeing the door. Some-
thing struck me on the head and I dropped.
I do not know how long I lay there, but when I did
regain consciousness I also recovered some common
sense. I felt about on the floor for the flashlight, found it
and turned it on. I had stumbled over a piece of the
railing that went about the base of the motor, and then
rushed in the exact opposite direction from the door.
I had rapped my head on a low girder that supported
the inner step of the outer wall of the Manor. What a
fine, cool-headed investigator I had turned out to be!
Sitting down on the railing of the lighting unit I rubbed
my head ruefully. I was going to have a hard time ex-
plaining away that bump and it hurt. Then an interest-
ing thing came into the line of my flash. The outer wall
of the house was at least five feet thick! I had never
seen such massive construction on a private residence.
I made a mental note of the fact so that my dimensions
would take it into consideration. Then I turned my at-
tention back to the source of the electric light.
It was frightfully rusty, of course, and even after my
cleaning had cobwebs and dust, but the motor turned
over easily enough. I was thankful for that inasmuch
as it was of such an old model that parts would have
been a problem. I felt convinced that with a little petrol
in the tank and new battery units I could make a go of it.
It was quite a relief when I walked out into the sun-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 101
shine and shook off the cold dampness of the cellar.
However, I was not being retained to bask in the sun
and so reluctantly went back into the Hall. By this
time my head was throbbing in a most annoying way.
Gloom had brought some oil lamps up from the Lodge
and I lighted one. Then deciding that the proper start-
ing point was the Master's library I started down the
hall, lamp in one hand and note book in the other. The
oil lamp barely reached to the shadowy corners. The
boarding on the windows shut out all light. With not
too hearty a smile I recalled that I was alone and that
here it might just as well be night.
Dusting off the large table, I placed the oil lamp on it
and laid my note book beside it. Then wiping the thick
layer of dust from the roomy arm chair that had once
been Lord Edward's I drew it up and prepared to work.
It was dreadfully silent. The surge of the sea barely
reached me and sounded more like someone breathing
in his sleep. Occasionally a board would creak and I
found myself studying the shadowy corners. Drawing
my coat closer about me I reflected on the desirability
of investigating the heating unit also.
The first dimension that I needed for my sketch to
scale was that along the hallway from the entrance hall
to the library door, so taking my scale and flash I went
out leaving the door open behind me. When I had
worked my way back to the library door again, sliding
the scale along the floor of the hallway, I found it was
closed! I made a mental note of that for it probably


102 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
meant that the wall had sagged somewhere throwing the
door off balance. That was one thing to be corrected
and yet why had it not started to swing as I walked
out of it?
I opened the door to go in the library—and it was in
darkness! It did give me a jolt, and I sent my flash in
a quick circle about the high old bookcases with their
musty volumes. The room was empty and censoring
myself for my nervousness I went to the lamp and lighted
a match to rekindle the wick. The wick was turned
completely down! Now that was peculiar, for lamps
do not turn down their own wicks—at least not the kind
with which I am familiar. I lighted it again and was
conscious of the fact that the hairs on the back of my
neck and on my forearms were standing up with a prickly
accompanying sensation.
When the lamp was functioning again I gave the room
a more careful survey. Everything seemed to be normal,
so I sat down in the chair again—but I had forgotten the
dimension I had just carefully taken. It was that fact
that directed my attention to the fact that my book was
gone. I searched for it under the table and chairs in a
mild panic, desperately hoping I would find if had just
slipped under one of them. It was not to be found. I
knew I had brought it in. Now it was gone. Somebody
had sneaked into the room and taken it! They were
welcome to anything that they found in it so far, but I
vowed that from now on nothing important would be
written in a similar place. That was one mistake they


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 103
had made—they had forewarned me before anything of
value could be taken. Who would want it?
Then a new puzzle occupied my mind. Just how had
they entered? There was only one door to the library
and that was the door from the hall. The two windows
were securely boarded—there were no closets—just that
door that had been in my view all of the time I had spent
in the hall. Had it though? It had been closed and I
had not seen that. In spite of that my common sense
told me that no one could have entered and left that
room while I was only a few feet from the door without
my attention being called to their movements. How
could the door be closed without my seeing it done? Just
one way—from the inside. That line of thought brought
me to my feet, for whoever had done the closing must be
in the room with me now!
I stood listening for quite some time. Was it the sea
against the cliff or was it really someone's breathing?
Was that a board creaking from age or the result of
someone shifting their weight from one foot to the other?
Well, there was no help for it, I had to cross the room
anyway to get out, so I might just as well take the chance
of looking around. Why had I not left that confounded
door open when I came in? , Or, on second thought, had
I not done just that? The room seemed suddenly filled
with furniture forming perfect hiding places and the
shadows seemed suddenly deeper.
With my flashlight in readiness, and cursing myself
for having left the automatic at the Lodge, I made my


104 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
way toward the nearest chair. Twice I circled the room
examining every conceivable hiding place. Back at the
table the second time I leaned against it steadying my
nerves as well as my legs. Frankly, I was not feeling
comfortable.
I was alone—there could be no doubt of that. The
door had been shut—the lamp turned down—and my
note book stolen from the inside of the room. Whoever
had done it had to be in the room with me now. The
thief then had to be invisible! I was becoming angry,
which was a relief, and I knew that the advice given me
was good advice. There would be no more working in
this place alone without proper precautions being taken
to watch what happened about me—not even during
the day.
I was still listening intently and to my straining ears
came a peculiar sound—a woman's stifled sob. It seemed
to be coming from the hallway, but was so faint I could
not be sure. I waited for it to be repeated. Then from
somewhere I heard a scratching. It was behind me and
sounded like finger nails against the edge of a piece of
wood—long nails clutching at the edge of a door. A rat,
probably, but I got out and got out quickly. Apparently
the ghost had walked!


CHAPTER TWELVE
I walked quite rapidly across the terrace until I reached
the cliffs, then strolling along close enough to the edge to
get the full sound of the surf, I made an effort to go back
over the events of the last hour. About one hundred
yards from the terrace along the cliff I came to a small
patch of woods which had escaped my notice up until this
time. The path along which I was walking passed the
clump of bushes and trees on the seaward side and when
I came abreast, I peered through the foliage in the hope
of finding some quiet spot where I could rest. The
growth was quite wild and just as I had decided to go on
farther, I happened to notice some footprints in the soft
earth of what seemed to be a long forgotten path to the
center of the undergrowth. Everything was significant
now and I stooped lower to see if I could identify them.
The identification was somewhat of a shock for the prints
were unquestionably made by moccasions and were
identical with those which I had seen under the window
at the Lodge. Who ever had stood peering through the
windows that night also had frequented this spot and if
I could judge from the general appearance of the traces
left behind, his visit here had been quite recent.
Some distance farther along the cliff I found a large,
105


106 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
flat rock that actually hung over the edge and here,
with my face seaward, and with the sound of the sea far
below me, I settled down to think it out.
What interested me most was the succession of peculiar
events that had happened in the library—and because
they were the most recent evidences of the peculiarities of
the Manor, they would be the most fruitful to study.
On the face of it, someone or something that had the
property of entering and leaving a room without being
seen, had turned down the lamp and taken my notebook.
I did not doubt that it was a warning of a flippant, im-
pudent nature, a sort of "see what I can do if I have to,"
gesture, but who or what would have the necessary fac-
ulty and what could possibly be behind their bravado?
Although in my work, since, I have encountered things
I still cannot explain, I have yet to be convinced of any
supernatural manifestations. I reasoned desperately
with myself that afternoon, perched high above the sea.
Spectral hands do not turn down lamps or pick up note-
books. Things such as that would be of no value in the
other world. Even the demonstration would be unneces-
sary and foolish. All that would be required of any loose
spirits would be to appear before me and Burnleigh
Manor instantly would become a place too small to hold
both of us. No, it was a real person—someone who knew
exactly what I was doing and knew a trick of the place
that let them watch me without being seen. A trick—
why had that not occurred to me before? However, I
had no desire to go back now for any further investiga-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 107
tion. I felt that I could, sooner or later, by close exami-
nation, discover how the trick was performed but I
doubted if the identity of the person performing it would
be quite so easy—and that question was the most im-
portant.
Mentally I started over the list. Burnleigh?—cer-
tainly he would not bring me over here at all that expense
just for the pleasure of frightening me half to death. He
could be crossed off. Lowry?—not the type. While it
was true he had been there for years and might conceiv-
ably have found something of interest that he wished to
conceal, I could not believe he was the kind who would
use this sort of indirect, stealthy method. He had wanted
to leave anyway, or had said he had. On the other hand,
he had lied to me about the footprints under the windows
although Burnleigh's explanation of his not seeing them
in the darkness might clear him of even this charge.
Gloom? He was a candidate, but much as I disliked
him I could hardly visualize his taking chances with a
position he had held for years. Of course, he might feel
that he was perfectly safe, but my own opinion would
be that he had neither the brains nor the nerve to exe-
cute the nice little coupe of the library. Instead of
crossing him off the list I put the mental note after his
name that he would bear watching. Hooper was next.
He probably knew more about the place than any one
of us, things I had better find out quickly, but the poor
old fellow was still too knocked out to have been at the
Manor this afternoon. I felt that I could strike him off


108 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
the list. I had deliberately left Edith Lowry to the last
—partly because of my reluctance to associate her with
the grim old place and yet partly because there seemed
to be some mysterious bond existing there.
First of all, she had unquestionably lied to me, not
willingly and not even gracefully but still, something had
forced her" to deny what I knew to be a fact. Secondly,
she was so insistent in her advice that I avoid the Manor
and my presence in its vicinity seemed to inspire a pe-
culiar mixture of fear and resentment. Then there was
the hairpin which I had picked up beside the front door
that morning. Reluctant as I was to admit it and im-
probable as her nature made it seem, she had to be re-
tained on my list as a possibility. The admission irritated
me and I could not picture her wandering alone around a
dark and deserted old house in an effort to frighten me.
Further, having succeeded in doing so, why should she
weep about it and I certainly had heard, very distinctly,
the sound of a sob before my hasty exit. Then again, I
had been so sure that it was she who had stood on the
tower that first weird veiw I had had of the Manor.
There was a growing conviction in my mind that what-
ever her connection with the dirty old place, it was an
unwilling one and the thought spurred me on to find the
true source of the trouble.
The sob, the hairpin and the figure on the tower fixed
the sex of one person mixed up in the affair. There was
no other woman on whom I might turn my suspicion
unless—and the very thought brought a smile—the mys-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 109
terious Lady Burnleigh who had disappeared so many
years ago was still the hostess of Burnleigh Manor. The
matter of food and other living supplies made this ut-
terly ridiculous, except a disturbing recollection of the
phrase I had heard on the boat—"why can't she rest?"
At least I had narrowed it down to two people. Gloom,
a weak possibility and Edith Lowry, a mighty sweet but
unknown quantity. I must remember that I really knew
nothing about Hooper but certainly he was in no shape
to have participated in this afternoon's entertainment.
Just then that gentleman went back on my list with a
vengeance.
About a hundred yards to my right and a few feet
from the cliff someone was moving in the clump of trees.
They seemed to be poking about searching for some-
thing. Anything was significant now and I started cau-
tiously in his direction. I was conscious of a distinct
thrill at the thought that perhaps I was to identify once
and for all the wearer of the moccasins. I reached the
edge of the growth and through its denseness I saw with
a feeling of disappointment that it was Hooper, on his
knees, feeling about in the leaves. I am now experienced
enough to know that the proper thing to do in a case like
that is to wait and watch in the hope of getting the object
of the search. Instead of doing it in this case, I broke
through the brush and demanded in no uncertain terms
to know what he wasjdoing. He was frightened out of
his wits by my sudden appearance and jumped to his
feet trembling—a really pathetic sight under other cir-


no MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
cumstances. I glanced down at his feet and certainly
the heavy soled, square toed shoes that he wore bore no
resemblance to the foot for which I was searching.
"It's you, Mr. Riker! Thank goodness for that."
"Who did you think it was?"
"I—I don't know, sir. I—don't—know."
I felt that he was really saying, "I won't tell you." I
brought him back to my first question.
"I—I dropped something here, sir, and was looking
for it."
"What?"
"My—my knife, sir."
I was in the midst of a nice pack of liars.
"Would you mind telling me what use you found for
a knife in this spot?"
"Not at all, sir. You see I was er—I was cutting a
switch. That was it, sir, I was cutting a switch."
He had had an inspiration and was evidently delighted
With himself for having thought his way out of an em-
barrassing situation so neatly.
I could have pointed out that he was standing some
ten feet from the edge in a cleared space with plenty
of nice switches growing around the outside, but he would
have dodged them, too, so what was the use? Directness
was getting me nowhere so I tried craftiness.
"Feeling better, aren't you, Hooper?"
"Indeed yes, sir, much better."
He was following me out of the mass of underbrush,
the knife completely forgotten as imaginary knives are


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR in
apt to be. When we got into the clear he fumbled in
an inner pocket.
"By the way, Mr. Riker, isn't this yours?"
I looked down at my note book in his hands. This was
impudence for you! The cool nerve of the man.
"Nice of you to give it back to me, Hooper."
"Why shouldn't I, sir? I found it—that is I picked
it up over there on the lawn, sir—or perhaps I should
say what was once the lawn."
The look he gave me was bland and innocent. He was
a consummate actor beyond a doubt, in fact he was as-
suming a somewhat injured air.
"Didn't you know that you had lost it, sir?"
"I didn't lose it."
"Now, sir, if you didn't lose it how could I have"
I was fighting to keep my temper. It was bad enough
to get the treatment I had received in the library, but
this being played with like a child was too much. I cut
him off.
"It was stolen, Hooper, plain ordinary stolen, and if
I get my hands on the person that did it I'll break his
neck."
He flinched before my look and took an involuntary
step backward.
"You aren't suggesting—that I—that I"
"I am not suggesting anything. I am issuing an ulti-
matum."
I.set off at a fairly rapid pace in the general direction
of the Lodge. He trotted along sometimes at my side,


112 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
sometimes behind me, apparently deep in thought. Just
before we reached the Lodge he rather hesitatingly asked
a surprising question.
"Was it taken—that is, did it disappear from the
library, by any chance?"
I imagined that I got the purpose of that query. He
was anxious to know my reaction to what had happened
in there.
"What difference would it make if it had?"
"A lot, sir."
"Just exactly what do you mean by that?"
"Well—it happens that the library has some odd things
in its history."
"Such as?"
"Just gossip, sir, just idle gossip, and I am not a hand
to repeat that sort of thing."
Of course he was making every effort to evade my
questions. He knew something definite and I knew that
he did, but it was another thing to get it out of him.
"If you ever feel that your high moral standards are
in danger of bending sufficiently to tell me some of this
interesting rumor, let me, Mr. Hooper."
"It is merely an aversion to gossip that makes me re-
luctant to repeat the story of the strange happenings in
that room, sir."
That was artfully put. Just enough mystery to in-
trigue—just enough awesomeness to frighten the weak
livered. I found myself wishing he were not so old.
"Hooper, there is some funny business going on around


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 113
here and I am a bad one to try it with. In the first place
it has made me just mad enough to tear things wide open
and in the second place as an American citizen it would
be embarrassing to anyone that allowed anything to hap-
pen to me while I am over here."
"I understand how you feel, sir. I felt the same way
years ago but when the Manor reaches out it recognizes
no flag and leaves no trace behind for diplomatic dis-
cussion. If you were to take an old man's advice, you
would leave it alone."
The second threat in one dayl We had reached the
Lodge but before opening the door I turned to him.
"I shall want to talk to you one of these days and I
want to hear all you know about the place. If you will
take some of my advice in return you will hold nothing
back."
He bowed and passing me, went to the back. I opened
the door and bumped into Burnleigh coming out.
"Well, I was just coming up to fetch you back."
"I knocked off a little early but I'd enjoy a walk."
We went down the walk and I turned our footsteps in
the direction of the gates and the open road. Without a
question Burnleigh followed. When we had gone some
distance along the road he spoke.
"Something has happened to upset you?"
"Plenty."
"Anything that you might call definite?"
"Definite enough to convince me that if we are going


114 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
to do anything we have got to do it quickly. As you
would say, we are being 'jolly well spoofed.'"
"Not really! What has happened?"
"If you don't mind I'll keep it to myself for a while."
"As you wish."
I could tell by his tone that he was hurt. I had no
real reason for not telling him except that I wanted to
think it over. I also had a vague idea that I could get
advice from him that would be valuable if it were not
colored with the knowledge of what had happened to me.
I tried to mollify him a little more.
"Don't misunderstand me. I want to turn things over
in my own mind before talking about it."
"I merely wish to help."
It was evident that I had not succeeded in appeasing
him.
"You can help me by answering some questions, if you
will."
"Delighted, if I am able."
"I think you told me some books were stolen from the
library while the house was closed?"
"Two volumes, to be exact."
"How were they stolen?"
"How?"
"Well, for instance, from where were they taken?"
"From their place between the book ends on the library
table."
If I had only known this I should have looked for any





CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Burnleigh glanced at me through the gathering dusk,
with a smile that had something of sarcasm in it.
"I admire the persistent and analytical way your mind
winds its way through the details with which you are
familiar. Perhaps my modesty should keep me from
saying I had much the same thought as that which you
are at present turning over in your mind, but I am afraid
the titles of the books will not tell you much about the
person doing the stealing."
"But you have no objection to my knowing them, have
you?"
"None whatever. One was Godfrey's 'The Making
of a Will' and the other was Dupruere's 'Egyptian
Pyramids'."
"Certainly the gentleman doing the stealing had a
wide range of tastes."
"They stood side by side."
"The tastes?"
"The books—naturally."
"In what part of the bookcase?"
"I just told you they were not in the bookcase, but
were supported by book ends on my brother's desk."
"Probably they were used recently by him?"
117


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 119
"I do not know. He came to me shortly afterward."
"Try and find out where he was after he left Burn-
leigh Manor."
"Good heavens, you have not come to be suspicious
of poor old Hooper?"
"I am getting so I suspect myself."
Burnleigh turned a quizzical smile my way. Then his
expression changed to a thoughtful one and after a few
steps in silence he spoke.
"Now that you mention it I realize that I know very
little about Hooper."
"I suppose he suggested he would accompany you out
here?"
"As a matter of fact, I believe he did."
"I thought so."
"But I am sure that he was moved only by a desire to
help."
I kept my own thoughts on this point to myself.
"Did he ever talk to you about the ghosts your brother
was supposed to hear?"
"Only once and I shall never forget it. His old eyes
blazed with indignation. It seems he was not a believer
in ghosts and he had some theory, some vague theory,
about Edward being deliberately and slowly driven in-
sane—in fact he always refers to his death as murder."
"Then why did you say you doubted that you could get
him to go into the Manor?"
Burnleigh shrugged his shoulders and there was a
puzzled frown on his face.


120 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"I don't know myself but I half suspect him of not
being quite sincere in his protestations of non-belief in
the supernatural."
I recalled the perfectly evident terror of the old man's
expression when I had come on him quietly in the bushes
and his equally apparent relief on seeing it was I who
stood before him.
"I think we had better have a thorough talk with him
tonight."
"Very well."
"If I may I am going to take your car into town this
evening for some supplies I will need to get the light-
ing system working. I can take Hooper with me and
quizz him a bit on the way."
We turned in the gates and found supper had been
waiting for us for quite some minutes. Another black
mark against me on the cook's slate! Lowry was not
there and his daughter explained that he had gone into
town to see what he could do about our domestic situa-
tion. It was unfortunate that he had not waited to drive
with me. After supper I repeated the performance of
lunch by the playing at being dish dryer. I seemed to be
making better progress despite the added handicap of
my tardiness at the meal for I was rewarded by a smile or
two. One thing bothered me. Her eyes looked suspi-
ciously like recent tears. When we had finished I care-
fully took the hairpin I had found on the Manor's terrace
and stooping in a pretense of picking it up from the floor
of the kitchen, I handed it casually to her.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 121
"This must be yours, Miss Lowry."
She accepted it and looked at it closely.
"Yes, it is. Thank you."
Then her eyes met mine and something she saw there
must have given me away. Her face paled and she
looked away quickly. She realized in her remark the
possibility of having stepped into a trap. It was a valiant
effort she made to regain safe ground.
"At least if you found it here it has to be mine."
I had found out all I needed to know and there was
no purpose served in placing her any more on her guard
than was absolutely necessary, so I passed it off lightly.
"I am sure that it is not mine, young lady."
She laughed but I felt she was mentally searching for
a recollection of dropping it somewhere that would give
her away. Then came the remark I had been waiting to
hear. It just happened that she was the first to see me
in the light without my cap.
"I see you struck your head on something."
"Not a bit of it—the ghost of the Manor attacked me
most brutally."
"Not really."
"Can it be that you doubt my word?"
She smiled at me but it did not extend to her eyes.
They were direct and unescapable and worried.
"That is possible, but what did you do to make the
poor ghost turn on you like that?"
"Wouldn't it be more appropriate to ask what the
ghost had against poor me? Well, I'll be broad minded


MYSTERY Of BURNLEIGH MANOR 123
She seemed to be cornered in some way and desperately
trying to think her way out of the situation. It struck
me as an opportune time to bring things out into the
open.
"Won't you tell me what it is that is worrying you
so frightfully?"'
She turned from me quickly so that I was no longer
able to see her face.
"There is nothing worrying me, except your stub-
bornness."
"The very fact that my persistence in staying here up-
sets you is evidence that there is something back of the
things which you know and which you fear."
"There is nothing—absolutely nothing. I asked one
favor of you and that was to give up your investigation
of the Manor. I am going to ask still another and this
one I hope you will grant."
"I am not investigating the Manor. I am here to
renovate it."
"Call it what you like. I know what your true
errand is."
"We will not argue that. What was the second favor?"
"That you will be kind enough not to pry any further
into my private affairs."
There was no bitterness or reproach in her voice.
"My only reason for asking was that I am sincerely
interested in your welfare and I thought I might help."
"If you really wish to help me you will go away and
leave Burnleigh Manor as it is."


124 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
There was nothing in the world I wanted to do more at
the moment but she asked the one thing that was prac-
tically impossible. Before I could put my thoughts into
words she swept by me and out of the room. As she
passed I was certain that I saw tears in her eyes.
In a decidedly upset state of mind I went out to the
garage behind the Lodge to get Lord Cecil's car and
found Hooper, like a statue of patience, waiting for me.
Burnleigh had evidently spoken to him, for without a
word he climbed into the car and we swung out through
the gates and headed toward the town. We had almost
reached the outskirts before the silence was broken and
then Hooper stirred in his seat.
"His Lordship says you want to know where I went
when I left Lord Edward's service."
"I believe I did ask him that question."
Burnleigh's childish trust in everybody was a decided
handicap. No doubt he had chatted away with Hooper,
leaving the man fully forewarned and forearmed for any
questions I might be going to ask. Hooper went on
talking:
"I went to Birmingham, sir, where I had some rela-
tives."
"How long were you there?"
"One month after his Lordship's death."
"And then?"
"Then I came out here again to see if I could help, and
Lord Cecil took me into his service."
"Could you prove you were in Birmingham?"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 125
"By my relatives, sir—that is, if they were alive—
which they are not."
"What was the name of your relative?"
I thought he hesitated a second before answering.
"Ezra Hooper, sir, my brother."
A moment's silence and then we pulled into town.
Hooper helped me with my purchases and I looked
around in the hopes of picking Lowry up to take him
back. We were unsuccessful in our search. I could not
imagine where the caretaker could have hidden in a
town as small as this one that he would not be found in a
moment's looking. It was quite clear that Hooper had
something on his mind but he remained silent until we
were nearly back to the Lodge again. I wanted to ques-
tion him fully about a great many things but somehow
I felt it would be better to let him open it up. He did.
"Mr. Riker, I am sorry, sir, but I didn't lose my knife
this afternoon."
"I suspected as much."
I was quite delighted with the direction things were
taking now for apparently we were to get down to a little
honest discussion.
"Yes, sir, I had the feeling you did. I was afraid you
wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth."
"Well, suppose you try it now, Hooper."
"As it happens, sir, just a little while before you came
upon me I had been walking across the lawn toward the
Manor."
"With what in mind?"


126 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"It would be easier if you would let me tell it my own
way, I think."
"All right, Hooper, go ahead. I'll save my questions
until later."
"As I was saying, I was walking across the lawn. I
should say I was within two hundred yards of the Manor
when I saw someone come out of the clump of bushes
in which you found me. He was carrying two buckets.
I didn't recognize the man, sir—at first—and the reason
for any of us carrying around buckets was not clear to
me so I started in that direction. I could tell by the
quickness of his movements that he was a young man.
For a few minutes I thought it was you. He stepped to
the cliff and after he had emptied both buckets over the
edge he turned and started for the bushes again. I
should say he almost had reached them before he saw
me. I must have given him a bad start for he fairly
leapt into the brush and was gone. In that instant he
hesitated I thought I recognized him."
He paused and seemed to lapse into thought. I
prodded him.
"Well, who was it?"


128 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Then I had a brilliant, if late inspiration—for me.
"Did Lord Robert ever have a son?"
A broad smile crossed his face this time.
"He was a single man sir, that is until he disappeared
and if he'd had one since it would not be over sixteen
years old."
"Isn't it possible that he had one before he disap-
peared?"
"I don't think so, Mr. Riker, for he spent too much of
his time with us at the Manor and hereabout, ever to
have kept it a secret."
"Well, get on with your story. You followed him
into the bushes, of course?"
"I did, sir, but he wasn't there."
"In one side and out the other."
"I'd like to think so, but unless he jumped over the
cliff there is nowhere he could go out that I could not
see him leaving."
"Good Lord, Hooper, he went in, you went in and he
wasn't there when you got there. What else could he
do—climb a tree?"
Hooper sat up straight in his seat and slapped his
knee.
"I never thought of that, sir, that must have been what
he did. I know he wasn't there—that is where I was
looking—and I know he couldn't have run across the
lawn in any direction without my seeing him—so he
must have climbed a tree!"
Hooper sat back with a sigh of relief. I had a feel-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 129
ing that I had advanced in his estimation but I had cer-
tainly gone down in my own. At any rate, I had eased
his mind temporarily.
"Why were you poking about on the ground when I
found you?"
I thought I could see a flush come into his cheeks
even in the darkness.
"I thought perhaps there was a secret way to get out
of those bushes."
"Via a hole in the ground?"
"There was some gossip to that effect, once, a good
many years ago, sir."
"Suppose you tell me about it, Hooper."
We had reached the gates of the Lodge again in spite
of the way I had reduced my speed in the last few miles.
I swung the car through them but instead of stopping
I continued up the wood bordered driveway toward the
Manor.
"It seems her Ladyship had a habit of walking along
the cliffs on moonlight nights, sir. I know there is noth-
ing unusual about that but she would appear out there
at the edge at the strangest times without anyone having
seen her come or leave the Manor."
"Ever see anything yourself?"
"Yes, I did once. I came home quite late from the
village and I took the way along the cliffs. You may
have noticed where it branches off up the road. It is
quite a bit shorter. I saw her Ladyship standing on the
'very edge, just where he emptied the buckets this after-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 131
"Couldn't you wait until morning, sir?"
Perhaps I was short with him for the simple reason
that there was nothing I would rather have done than
take his suggestion.
"I could, but I don't intend to, and by the way,
Hooper, will you please stop whispering?"
"I'd rather not say anything than"
"Well, try that then."
We walked a little way in silence and then Hooper
spoke again in a tone almost as annoying as whispering.
"I am sorry that my way of talking annoyed you, sir,
but when you have been around the Manor as long as
I have, sir, you get a feeling that the place has ears. It
must have. I remember one terrible night when Lord
Edward was alive, we were in the"
An involuntary shiver went up my spine and I inter-
rupted him,
"Some other time. Now, just where was this man
standing this afternoon?"
Hooper hesitated a second and then pointed ahead
of us in darkness.
"About there, sir."
"Show me."
He looked at me and then at the spot but made no
move.
"I'd—I'd rather not."
"Come on, I'm going with you."
Still he made no move.
"I—I think I ought to tell you that it was just below


132 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
there that they found the body of the man from Scotland
Yard just a few months after"
"Well, we'll be careful not to fall over."
Hooper fell back on his whisper.
"Somehow I don't think he—fell over, sir."
There was a rustling in the bushes behind me and I
wheeled quickly to face it. Some innocent night bird
. rustling the leaves probably, but the perspiration stood
out on my forehead just the same. My own reaction
annoyed me. This constant insinuating around me was
finally taking effect. Everyone seemed to want me to
turn tail and get out for reasons of their own. I made
a solemn vow that if I was to die of fright (the thought
brought a welcome smile) I was going to die with my
face in the right direction. I put it to the test.
"You are going over there if I have to carry you,
Hooper."
It worked.
"Very well, sir."
He started off quite bravely for one so recently in
deadly fear. He was probably disgusted with me for
being so hard to scare. What a chuckle he might have
had if he could have known my real feelings as I fol-
lowed him.
"He was standing right here, I think."
He was on the edge of the cliff and I was beside him
just out of his reach and very much on my guard.
"And then he turned, I believe you said, and went
straight into the bushes?"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 133
"Yes sir."
"Like this?"
I turned away from the edge and started for the
clump. I had wanted to look over the side but had not
felt safe enough to let my attention wander. My flash-
light was on now and Hooper had turned his on, too.
I looked back and saw that he was following directly
behind me.
"There is one thing we will have to be careful of,
Hooper, and that is not to let the light from these shine
on each other for one instant."
He did not answer.
"Did you hear me?"
He was a consummate actor for he gave one of the
finest imitations of chattering teeth I have ever heard.
"Y-y-y-yes—s-s-s-sir."
We passed through the bushes at separate points
about ten feet apart and met again in the clear space
inside.
"Put out your light and stand close to me."
He obeyed at once. I kept him a little in front of
me, swinging him about as I allowed my light to make
a complete circle about us. The beam from my light
disclosed nothing but the bare bushes and the scrubby
twisted trees. As far as was humanly possible to de-
termine, we had the clump of scrub growth to ourselves.
There was a slight tremor in the arm I was holding,
but the voice was quite steady and calm when he spoke.


134 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Apparently he was gradually laying aside his frightened
role.
"Although I still think the daylight would be better,
sir, if you intend continuing I suggest we divide the
place in half and each take one part."
I drew a line with my foot through the leaves.
"All right. That is your half and this is mine. If we
find nothing we will change halves and try again."


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I didn't want him to think that his suggestion was going
to keep me from seeing his half. Turning my light down
on the ground I began scraping it bare of leaves with my
foot. Back and forth we worked across the clearing.
From time to time I glanced over at Hooper's light and
I had a feeling that his eyes were on me a good part of
the time. So the search went on for some time. There
was no need for conversation but the silence was op-
pressive. I began to wonder if I had played the ass.
Here I was in the middle of a dense piece of woods with
a man I certainly did not trust. Supposing his tale had
been told with the deliberate intent to lure me in here
so that someone else, an accomplice, could drop me over
the cliff—another accident in the dark? I decided to
give the trees that bordered the clearing a wide berth
and to stop the search as soon as I could reasonably do
so and still save my face.
I heard the far away hoot of an owl, probably in the
trees about the Manor, and then I snapped out my light
and straightened up with a jerk. It was answered al-
most at my side! Hooper spoke in an agitated under-
tone.
"Did you hear that, sir?"
135


136 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"I am not deaf."
"Are you all right?"
"Absolutely. Find anything?"
"Not yet, sir, but I don't like that."
"Don't like what?"
"The owl, sir."
I snapped on my light again and started poking about
but my mind was on other things. I most assuredly did
not like the owl either. I am not an expert ornithologist,
but I have had enough experience to know one thing—
that owls are not in the habit of making a sound when
there is a light near them, and certainly not a moving
light. One or two other facts came back to me. When
we had started across the lawn I remembered vaguely
that there had been the hoot of an owl from the Manor.
When we stopped at the edge of the cliff I had heard it
again. Coincidence, probably, but I had a vague recollec-
tion of reading somewhere about bird calls being used as
signals and it is a peculiar owl that hoots not ten feet
away from a flashlight! As I said before it seemed to
come from a point almost at my side. Hooper? Possibly,
but yet it had seemed to be a little beyond him among the
trees. I was about to call it a night when I heard
Hooper's voice tense with some excitement. He had
left the clearing but I could see his light among the trees
on the far side.
"By Gad, sir, you weren't far wrong at that. I be-
lieve I've"
There was an unpleasant sounding thump followed


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 137
by another as if he had stumbled and fallen—and then
silence. His light had gone out and I stood listening for
some further sound. Then clear and loud came that
same call—the long drawn out hoot of an owl and from
the distance, softly and mournfully, the answer. I stood
rooted to the spot a moment. Then I called to Hooper
and received no answer. With my light sweeping every-
thing ahead of me I went toward the place where I had
last seen the glow of his light and found him. He was
lying on his face and blood was flowing freely from an
ugly gash across the side of his head. He was moaning
softly so I knew he was not dead. Forcing my way
out of the clearing I ran completely around it but no
one was in sight in any direction. Then in the dis-
tance I saw a figure running down the terrace. It had
apparently just left the Manor and was headed for the
Lodge. It was a familiar figure—one I had seen hasten-
ing over those terraces the first night and for reasons
of my own, one which I did not care to investigate. At
any rate, it could have had nothing to do with what hap-
pened to Hooper. That meant that Hooper's assailant
was still in the brush and the trees! In the next few
minutes that spot had a thorough examination for I was
fighting mad. I found no one.
I returned to Hooper and turned him on his back. He
was still moaning but was only semi-conscious. I was
about to lift him when I saw that he was making a des-
perate effort to say something. I placed my ear close
to his lips in an attempt to catch the words.


138 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"I—I think I'm done for, Mr. Riker. A letter—by
your knee. Please don't ever go in—the Master's—bed-
room. Before I go—promise to keep everyone—
out of"
His head dropped back against my shoulder and he
was still except for his fitful, irregular breathing. I
glanced at the ground where I was kneeling and saw the
letter to which he referred. It had evidently fallen from
his pocket. Cramming it in my jacket pocket I half
carried and half dragged him out of the thicket. He was
a heavy man but somehow I managed to get him across
the long stretch of lawn and into the car and so back
to the Lodge. When I brought the car to a stop, the
Lodge door was thrown open and Burnleigh came out
followed by Lowry. They saw Hooper slouched down
in the seat with the entire side of his face now covered
with blood. Burnleigh was the first to find his tongue.
"Good Lord, Riker! What has happened?"
"Hooper had an accident. Help me to get him in."
I carried him in and stretched him out on his bed.
Burnleigh dispatched Gloom in search of a doctor. I
was bathing his head as gently as I could. Everything
was hustle and bustle, an ideal condition for anyone
covering his tracks. I heard the car whizz through the
gates. If I had been really clever I would have care-
fully noted where Gloom was when I came back, but
then I do not believe people are ever as sagacious or
astute in real life as they are supposed to be in these
mystery novels.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I had it in my hand when I entered the living room. As
we came in Edith Lowry got up from a chair by the
fireplace, and as she turned to face us her eyes fell on
the letter almost instinctively and then swept quickly
away. She wore her coat and hat so I ventured a ques-
tion to start the ball rolling.
"Going out?"
Frankly I hoped she was but with her characteristic
quickness of gesture she swept the hat off her lovely
black hair.
"Just coming in."
Burnleigh drew three chairs about the fireplace.
"Won't you sit down a few minutes and talk with us,
Miss Lowry? There has been rather a nasty accident
and Mr. Riker is about to tell us how it happened."
At the mention of accident she stiffened visibly. I
had not taken my eyes from her face and I knew she
felt it. She was doing everything in her power to avoid
looking in my direction. Perhaps my next remark was
a little crude, but I couldn't help it.
"How do you know Miss Lowry would be interested
in my account of how it happened?"
141


142 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Burnleigh gave me a glance full of wonder at what
seemed to him to be an uncouth and ungentlemanly ex-
pression of peevish vanity; but the glance that gripped
me and left me a little breathless was the direct one I
got from the girl herself. She seemed a wholly different
person for a second—the look in her eyes was like that
of a bewildered child, pleading and afraid—and then
the mask dropped again.
"I was shocked to hear of poor old Hooper's—ac-
cident—and I do so want to hear how it happened."
She dropped gracefully into the chair furthest from
me and sat staring at the fire while I went over the
events of the clump of bushes. Although her chair was
turned so that she faced me, her hand was against her
face to protect her eyes from the light of the fire and it
kept me from seeing any of her expressions. I care-
fully avoided mentioning my thoughts on the owl hoot-
ing and the real purpose of our search. When I had
finished Burnleigh leaned forward.
"Then someone actually struck Hooper down?"
I thought I saw a slight shudder pass over her. I
nodded to Burnleigh.
"From behind. That was bad business and very
foolish on the part of whoever did it."
She started to speak, failed, and then in a voice little
above a whisper,
"What do you mean 'foolish'?"
I answered her slowly and with emphasis.
"Just that violence begets violence and, Miss Lowry,


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 143
murder is not a nice charge to be laid at your door—not
even that of an accomplice to the act."
She rose quickly. It was probably cruel of me to say
it but I hoped that by constantly driving home to her
the seriousness of holding any information she might
have, that eventually she would be forced to divulge it
and allow us to really help her.
Burnleigh spoke rather explosively.
"Murder! You don't mean that old Hooper—will—
that he"
"It may be. He is badly hurt and any jury in my
country would be convinced it was attempted murder."
She swept by me toward her room.
"If you will be kind enough to excuse me, I think I
shall go to my room. It has all been so—so horrible.
I am hoping that in the morning we will find that poor
old Hooper just fell in the dark and struck his head as
he went down."
"After being pretty badly frightened by stumbling
over an owl in the dark."
She stood framed for a second in the door and her face
was deathly pale.
"I am afraid you are deliberately trying to be rather
horrid, Mr. Riker. Would it not be a little kinder to let
me hope that poor old Hooper's injury came from a fall
and that we will find him all right in the morning?"
For a moment or two after the door closed behind her
there was silence. Then Burnleigh stirred and when he
spoke there was a note of relief in his voice.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR r4S
"Riker! How can you think such a thing, much less
say it!"
"Then suppose you tell me how it was that she knew
the accident had happened to Hooper?"
He hesitated a moment, and there was less convic-
tion in his voice when he answered.
"Someone must have told her, of course."
"Who? Every one of us that knew had absolutely
no way of imparting that news to her."
"It is impossible—impossible. How about"
"Gloom? He was in"
"Glome, if you please."
"Oh, have it your own way!"
My temper had the upper hand for a moment and I
stalked to the mantel and stood looking down at the
fire. Then from far away I thought I heard the call of
an owl. It may have been the wind through the shut-
ters, but it brought back the memory of that call at my
side in the wood.
"Another thing you might explain to me if you will.
Are English owls in the habit of hooting at the sight of
a flashlight?"
"Naturally not, but why should you ask that? There
are no owls in this part of the country at this season."
"I heard two—possibly more tonight."
"I am afraid Miss Lowry was right about your imagi-
nation."
"I tell you I heard them not six feet away from"


146 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"And I tell you there are none here for another two
months."
I crammed my hand into my pocket for a cigarette
and realized for the first time that I had been clutching
the letter picked up from Hooper's side in my hand all
that time. I was about to lay it on the mantel when I
noticed it was addressed to "Whom it may concern."
The flap was not sealed and I opened it. Spreading the
sheet out in the light from the fire, I read.
To whom it may unfortunately concern,
If Burnleigh Manor strikes it will be with regret,
and only to protect itself. It will also be with the
hope that the warning will be heeded by all others.
It is not a safe place for the living. It is not even
a safe place for the dead. It will guard its secrets
at any cost. Perhaps you who read this do not be-
lieve in ghosts—at least not in the kind who write
such notes as this on ordinary paper, and yet you
may believe me when I say I am justified in sign-
ing myself,
The Spirit of Burnleigh Manor.
I read it a second time, slowly and carefully, and then
passed it to Burnleigh.
"Read this, and see if it checks with the fall theory."
When he had finished reading it, his fingers continued
to run along its edge nervously.
"Where did you find this?"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 147
"Beside Hooper's—beside Hooper where he lay on the
ground."
Then in that familiar, tired voice I had heard on the
boat he spoke as if he were alone in the room.
"I must go on alone. It is not fair for me to jeop-
ardize the lives of others in this strange place. There
can be no doubt now of the risk."
I rescued the letter from his fingers.
"Stop mauling the evidence, and stop worrying about
the rest of us."
"Evidence?"
"Certainly. I have a sheet of paper here that came
from the same hand that dealt the blow. I even have
a sample of his printing."
This seemed to revive his spirits somewhat and he
leaned forward with a new light in his eyes.
"Let me see that sheet once more."
He rose and taking the note from my hand stepped
into the light from one of the lamps with it. I saw his
thumb pass slowly over a crest which I had noticed my-
self at the top. It was heavily pressed into the paper
and looked like a coat of arms. When he straightened
up from his examination and faced me again the light
had died from his eyes leaving them dull and bewildered.
"You will learn nothing from this, Riker."
"Why not?"
"Because, impossible as it may sound, this sheet of
paper is from the personal portfolio of my brother
Robert. Take it. You will notice the crest of arms at


148 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
the top which is that of the Burnleigh family, and then
pressed on the face of the shield is the letter "R" which
identifies it positively as that of Robert Burnleigh."
To me this opened up a new and interesting line of
thought.
"What disposition was made of Robert's personal ef-
fects after he—he disappeared?"
Burnleigh went back to his seat.
"Everything of this nature was destroyed, although
I have a feeling that this would disappear with him."
If that was a fact, and surely Burnleigh should have
known, then it meant that the person writing this note
must have secured the paper after Robert disappeared
and from the supply he took with him. That was not
really a safe assumption for there might have been one
or two sheets left behind somewhere.
I scrutinized the printing closely. It was done in ink
and in the crudest sort of way with every effort to avoid
identification. Yet its phrasing and wording seemed to
indicate culture.
"Does the writing look at all familiar to you?"
Burnleigh did not even take his eyes from the burn-
ing logs when he answered.
"I do not believe there is a living soul who could
identify the writer from that carefully disguised print-
ing."
Summing up, all that could be derived from our only
tangible piece of evidence, was the fact that the paper


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 149
came from the personal effects of Robert Burnleigh, and
the writing was such a scrawl that it was hopeless as a
clue. To find the person who would be in a position to
secure the paper put us in exactly the same position we
were in before receiving the note. We could do that
with greater certainty and speed by finding who it was
that was behind the peculiar happenings at the Manor.
One phrase of the letter puzzled me and I thought
aloud.
"There is something behind that line that reads, 'and
yet you may believe me when I say that I am justified
in signing myself the Spirit of Burnleigh Manor.'"
"Probably."
"I have a feeling that if we think about that hard
enough it will lead us to what we wish quicker than any
other thing in the letter."
Burnleigh shook his head.
"It might mean so many things where the Manor is
concerned."
"Well, beginning tomorrow we can at least stop fool-
ing."
"Have we been fooling?"
"No, not exactly, but I mean that we can start right
in tearing that place apart stone for stone. Whatever is
in there will be forced out in the open."
"Yes, Riker, but that will take time and something
—something sinister may happen while you are doing it.
I could never forgive myself that after this."


150 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
He indicated the letter.
"As for that letter, I am going to show them what
one Yank thinks of their mysterious bunkem. From to-
morrow on, I am going to live at the Manor all of the
time!"


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Burnleigh stared at me as if I had suddenly gone mad.
"Live at Burnleigh Manor?"
"Certainly."
"You are joking, of course?"
"Not a bit of it. I intend to move up there in the
morning."
Wearily he rose from his chair, and coming up to me
placed his hands on my shoulders.
"You will do nothing of the kind, my boy. In the first
place the house is not habitable—no heat—no light—and
in the second place I could not permit you to take such
a risk after what has happened tonight. I am sorry now
that I spoke as I did a moment ago. You were entirely
right. This time I am right."
I could understand what was going through his mind
very easily. He was so steeped in the lore of the place
that it had done what I fought off allowing it to do to
me—upset all logical processes of reasoning. In the next
few moments I endeavored to' convince him he was wast-
ing his breath with protests against my plan.
"But my boy, can you not see that you are doing the
very thing that will hamper the result you desire?"
"I can not. The nearer the job, the faster the work."
151


152 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Ah, but not this one. I admire your courage, but
you are doing the one thing that will place you at the
mercy of—of the 'Spirit of Burnleigh Manor' for lack of
a better title."
When he saw I was determined he turned away with
a shrug and stood silently looking into the fire. For a
moment he was absorbed with his own thoughts and then
he spoke very quietly.
"You have been right in so many things I do not see
that I have the right to question your judgment in this
either. I believe I said at one time that it was entirely
in your hands. I shall try to remember that more often.
We will move in tomorrow."
I was somewhat taken back by the way he put it.
"We?"
"You and I."
"Now look here—there is no sense in your going
through any possible unpleasantness just because"
"A moment ago you told me to save my breath. May
I wish you the same economy? I have come to like the
idea and I, too, have quite made up my mind."
There was the sound of a car coming up the gravel
of the drive and it came to a stop at the door. Gloom
ushered in the doctor, a wizened and unpleasant looking
little creature. With the most brusque sort of greeting
he made for the stairs under Gloom's leadership. Burn-
leigh followed closely at his heels and I turned to pick
up the letter from the mantel before following. I had
carefully put it in my inner pocket and had placed my


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 153
foot on the first tread to go up when I was stopped by
a peculiar sound. I stood listening and it came again.
Through the door of Miss Lowry's room I heard quite
distinctly the sound of sobbing.
Perhaps all women sound exactly alike when they
weep, but that sound as it came through the closed door
seemed identical with the stifled one I had heard that
afternoon as I stood, frightened and silent in the Li-
brary of Burnleigh Manor. I felt a strong desire to go
into her room and beg her to tell me what it was that
made her cry—to beg to be allowed to help her but in-
stead I went on upstairs and to Hooper's bedside.
We all stood silently by as the doctor made his exami-
nation. When the little man straightened up his face
had a worried look. I found out later that when his
features did not have their usual crafty set, they relaxed
into this worried one.
"This man has suffered a nasty concussion from his
—from his fall. It was a fall, was it not?"
I hastened to assure him it was for I saw Burnleigh's
indecision, but he gave me rather a suspicious, steely
glance. Burnleigh came to my rescue.
"Does that mean it is serious?"
The shriveled little doctor fairly bit off his words.
"Naturally, although it is impossible for anyone to say
how serious as yet. He must have absolute quiet, of
course—no noise—no conversation of any kind—and
now if someone that is not paralyzed will help me"
I stepped forward and he prepared to dress the wound


154 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
in Hooper's head. The sight of the bloody gash made
my own blood boil. All previous suspicions and preju-
dices with respect to him had fled from my mind and all
that was left was a strong itching in my fingers to get
them on the throat of the person who had dealt that
blow. It was a contemptible thing to do to a man as
old as Hooper, and certainly they would not do it to one
who was allied with them.
Naturally, I was not in a pleasant frame of mind when
I left Burnleigh and Lowry with Hooper and the Doctor,
and reentered the living room. I was not surprised to
find Edith Lowry standing in her door very apparently
waiting anxiously for news of Hooper.
She wore a flimsy sort of negligee which was most
attractive in the soft light of the fire. I was alternately
torn by a desire to tell her she could count on my help
no matter what was back of it all and a desire to shake
her until she told whatever it was she knew or suspected
of the Manor. She stepped toward me as soon as I
came down the stairs.
"He will be—will be all right?"
Her agitation made her just that more attractive and
when I stood quietly looking at her she went on halt-
ingly.
"He is not—is not hurt—badly, is he, Mr. Riker?"
"The doctor says he has a rather bad concussion. It
must have been a bad—fall."
She turned away slowly when I mentioned the fall.
"But you have not told me that he will be all right."


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 155
"Because there is no assurance that he will be."
Her face was deadly white and her eyes wide with
horror.
"No! Oh, nol You are not telling me the truth!"
Just as I was about to capitulate to the appeal in her
eyes a new thought occurred to me. This was the first
time I had seen her poise upset, and perhaps if I were
cruel with her for a few moments, by driving her tighter
in the corner I might secure the information that I
wanted and so help her. In other words, by hurting her
still more I might put myself in a position to assist her
later. Steeling myself for the effort I stepped closer to
her.
"Miss Lowry, do they hang people over here for mur-
der, or do they have"
Her hand quickly went to her slim white throat.
"Oh please—please!"
She turned quickly away from me and rested her head
against one bare white arm stretched along the mantel.
The light of the fire outlined her figure in a lovely haze,
and tinged the waves of her hair with red. I was ac-
tually driving myself along now with gritted teeth.
"Well, do they?"
Then she did the one thing with which I was not
prepared to cope. Turning from the fire she walked
slowly toward me until I could have reached out and
touched her—and how I wanted to do just that! Then
with a shock I saw that there were tears in her eyes. It
was one thing to hear a sob and go on, but to have to


156 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
look into soft dark eyes fringed with tears and continue
with a sort of inquisition, was something else again.
Sooner or later I knew that I was going to give in.
"Why do you ask me that, Mr. Riker?"
My voice sounded strained and far away to me.
"Because I want to know."
"No, it is because you hate me and think it will make
me suffer just that much more. Why do you hate
me so?"
I heard myself talking—automatically—with no
thought behind it.
"Probably because you feel much the same to-
ward me."
She stood looking up at me and the room seemed to
be spinning about us both. Soft hair about to fall—a
hairpin by the door of a grim old house—soft white
throat with a visible pulse meant for kissing—a coarse
brown hangman's noose—it was all a bewildering kalei-
doscope.
"How can you say so positively how I feel toward
you? I warned you of a danger threatening you. That
was hard for me to do and certainly it was not an un-
friendly thing for"
She stopped speaking and seemed to be listening.
Looking into her eyes this way was not helping me a
bit. I would shortly be in a state where I would be-
lieve anything. Then I decided to throw pretense to the
winds and strike at the heart of things.
"Edith, you know something about that place up there


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 157
that is terrifying you. I can see it. You could have
prevented what happened tonight by telling me what
it was and that thought is driving you half mad at the
moment. Won't you"
"Only you could have really prevented it from hap-
pening—by going away. Please do it in the morning—
before—before anything else dreadful happens!"
She started to turn away but I grasped her shoulders
and held her facing me. The soft skin of her shoulders
was icy cold.
"Look at me!"
Reluctantly she turned her gaze up to meet mine.
"Now tell me what there is about Burnleigh Manor
that you fear."
Twice she started to speak and failed. Then in a
voice just above a whisper she spoke.
"In telling you I would sign the death warrant for
my father and for you. I want to tell you—of all peo-
ple I should want you to"
Then, as if carried to us on the wind from some far-
away spot, came the twice repeated call of an owl to its
mate. She stiffened in my grasp and I felt a shiver pass
over her. Holding her still tighter I tried to make my
voice stern.
"Now, tell me! Tell me what that call means!"
Her eyes wandered about the room and I noticed that
they dwelt longest on the windows and the fireplace.
"There is nothing to tell—nothing. I know nothing!"
"There are no real owls here at this time of year.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The doctor came down a few steps and stood as if lis-
tening for something. Behind him I saw Burnleigh.
"Did you hear that, Mr. Riker?"
"Hear what, that you did not, doctor?"
He had the grace to flush but with it came a wicked
little gleam in his eyes. He held no love for me ap-
parently.
"That owl call, of course."
"I think I remember hearing something like it. What
of it?"
Then in a mysterious—the word pious almost fits—
manner reminiscent of old stage villains, he literally
hissed,
"That is the ghost of the Manor!"
I laughed—not at the thought of the ghost—but at
the picture of the learned man of medicine discussing
such things with a voice that trembled.
"Well, you can come on down without being afraid,
doctor. I am not the ghost and I will do my best to
protect you."
He stamped down indignantly and somewhat ridicu-
lously. Burnleigh followed a bit sheepishly, and behind
159


160 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
him came Lowry with a twinkle in his eye as it met mine
that I understood.
For the next fifteen or twenty minutes Burnleigh and
the doctor discussed Hooper's condition. I discovered
that Lord Cecil had more than a smattering of medical
knowledge. Lowry had plead weariness and had gone
off to bed. I lit a cigarette and turning a chair sat with
my back to the fire and watched the changing expres-
sions on the faces of the two deep in their medical dis-
cussion.
Finally the doctor rose and we went to the door with
him. I could not resist one dig at the ferret-like little
fellow before he got away.
"I take it that you believe in ghosts, doctor?"
He glared at me indignantly.
"Nonsense and poppy cock!"
"Poppy cock is the expression I believe, but I thought
you informed me a moment ago that I heard the"
"—the call that is supposed to be the ghost of the
Manor."
"Oh, I see. Have you any theories explaining the
matter?"
"If I have, I keep them to myself, sir."
Gloom had started the car, and the little man climbed
in beside him. The car lurched through the gates
(Gloom was not a good driver) and disappeared into
the night. Burnleigh called out a good night that was
not answered and we turned back into the room.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 161
"I am weary and shaken up a bit, Riker. I think I
will turn in."
I was not averse to it myself, so I locked the front
door and followed him up the stairs. Leaving my door
open I sat on the edge of my bed to think over the
tangled events of the evening. Why had I not told her
my real feelings? They might have seemed rather
ridiculous in view of our short acquaintance, but things
like that had happened suddenly before. There had
been one moment when it seemed as if she had wanted
me to—would have understood everything I would say.
Perhaps I had mistaken her distress for other emotions.
At least
Someone had just closed the front door very softly.
I had just locked it and left the key in it. That meant
the person closing it was going out—going out this time
of night! Who? Burnleigh should be in bed by now,
in fact I could hear his deep breathing through the ad-
joining dressing room. Gloom had not returned and
would sleep over the garage when he did. Lowry was to
sit up with Hooper until three when he would call me
for relief. That left Edith Lowry alone in a position
free to go—and she had been partly prepared for retir-
ing when I had talked to her. It would bear investi-
gating.
Fumbling about on my dresser in the dark I found
the little automatic and jammed it into my jacket pocket.
Then as noiselessly as possible I slipped down the stairs


162 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
until I stood by the light switch. With the revolver in
readiness and my back to the wall I snapped the lights
on. The living room was empty, but the key was gone
from the lock in the front door. I tried the door and
found I was locked in. As quickly as I could I made
my way to the back door and found it was also locked
with no key in evidence. For a moment I thought of
rousing the household for another key and then I real-
ized that if it were Edith Lowry out there in the night,
it would better be kept between ourselves. Stepping to
one of the casement windows I unlatched it and slipped
through it to the soft ground below. Pushing it to,
but leaving a crack to reopen it when I returned I made
my way out onto the drive.
The great iron gates were closed so it was not likely
that anyone had made their way out to the road. Peer-
ing through the dark tunnel of trees that covered the
drive in the direction of the Manor I strained my eyes
for some sign of a moving figure. I thought I glimpsed
something quite a distance up and started off in pursuit.
I kept to the soft ground at the side of the roadway
so that my footsteps would not be heard and as an added
precaution I turned up the collar of my jacket to pre-
vent any white from my collar or shirt showing through
the darkness. I had not gone far before I was certain
that there was someone just ahead of me. That someone
was a woman and the swing of the figure as it hurried
along told me it was Edith Lowry.
I could have hurried to her side or called to her, but


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 163
that would have ended her progress toward the Manor.
In letting her complete her errand I might learn what it
was that she would not tell me. Surely the errand that
would make her dress and go out at this hour would be
interesting.
Without hesitating or looking back she left the woods
and struck out directly across the terraces toward the
Manor. This made it difficult for me for if she glanced
back she would certainly see me following her. The
light of the new moon was bright enough for that. So I
decided on and took a different course, running along
the edge of the woods careful to keep in their shadow.
This would bring me to the land side of the Manor be-
fore she reached it across the terraces.
She was always in view and as I ran along I watched
her progress with the result that I had one or two pain-
ful stumbles. As a matter of fact I reached the Manor
quite a little ahead and crept along the front wall, in its
shadow, to a point as near to the front door as I dared.
Here I stood motionless, waiting to see what course she
would take.
As she approached the next to the last terrace I no-
ticed she was not making for the Manor at all, but
rather was following a course that would bring her to
the edge of the cliffs. The edge of the cliffs! My blood
ran cold in my veins and all of the puzzling emotions
she aroused in me crystallized into one strong desire.
She must not be allowed to reach the edge of those cliffs!
Forgetting the moonlight—forgetting the owl that


164 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
hooted at people who came to this forsaken spot in the
night—forgetting all of the elaborate warnings I dashed
off the terrace with its protecting shadow and ran like
mad to head her off. I had covered about half the dis-
tance to the spot she seemed to be heading for when
she apparently saw me, for she waved one arm high
above her head and quickened her steps.
Then I suddenly realized what it all meant! She was
heading for the clump of trees in which Hooper had
been struck down. She had waved at me not because
she recognized me, but because she had mistaken me for
someone else—the someone that she was coming to meet.
Quickly I veered so that the trees would come between
us, and then in the shadow of them I halted to collect
my thoughts. Far below the waves beat against the
rocks and they seemed to be pounding into my brain the
phrase, "she is meeting him—she is meeting him!"
In the next few moments my brain raced through a
dozen lines of new thought. Suppose she came here to
meet a man she loved—a man whom she could meet no-
where else? If Hooper had come upon him suddenly as
he waited for her might he not strike out in self defense?
But the buckets he had carried, and the fact that he had
disappeared so mysteriously, and the owl's calls! When
she had heard the last she had trembled in fear, not as
a girl would tremble at the call of her lover—or had
I been mistaken? Then the letter beside Hooper's body.
That was sinister and not the result of any clandestine
tryst.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 165
One thing I did know. In a moment she would be in
this small clump of trees and waiting to meet her, or on
his way here at any moment, was the person who signed
himself "the spirit of Burnleigh Manor." Speculation was
futile and fruitless. I could hide here in the deep shadow
and listen. If it were truly a sweetheart tryst I could
steal away without shameless eavesdropping. If it were
not, and what I heard led me to believe I had stumbled
on the thing that held her in a grip of fear, then I could
settle this whole affair once and for all. Strangely, as
I waited I prayed that it was the latter. Rather close
grips with this strange person from the Manor, than the
knowledge that her heart was in someone else's hands.
Further thought ended abruptly.
From a spot not many feet way—in fact I could have
sworn it came from the very spot I had found Hooper—
the soft hoot of an owl wandered off across the silence of
the night. It was answered on the far side of the woods
from me and then I heard Edith Lowry's voice low and
tense.
"Don't you think it reckless to dash along the cliff
that way?"
There was the low murmur of a man's voice, too low
for me to catch any of it.
"But I just saw you running—ohl"
The murmur came again and I tried moving closer
along the edge of the wood to see if I could catch the
words. Edith's voice came again, still hushed, but with
a new note of alarm.


166 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"No! No! I was mistaken! There was no one. It
could not have been him for I locked everyone in the
Lodge! Please, please, listen to me a moment!"
I could not hear any of the man's conversation. His
voice was deep and soft and for some reason did not
carry in my direction. I knew what he had said by her
reply. Hearing that she had seen someone running along
the cliff he knew that they were being watched by that
someone. Guessing that it was me he had evidently
threatened to come after me and she had then tried to
quiet him by telling him she was mistaken. I decided to
bring the matter to a head by a face to face encounter,
and cautiously feeling my way I entered the wood.
Her voice, slightly raised and agitated came to me
again.
"I warn you I shall shout a warning to him!"
Then a murmured reply.
"I will, but only if you will come with me. What are
you doing? No! Not that—please! Please! Not
again!"
There was a stifled scream as if someone had choked
it off by putting their hand across her mouth, the sounds
of a scuffle, and then silence. It was over in a second
but I was on my way through the wood in earnest, stumb-
ling, crashing through branches that cut my face, and
making a noise like a bull elephant in the African jungle.
Suddenly from my right I heard Edith Lowry's voice
raised in an agonized cry.
"Look out! For God's sake run!"


168 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Then from the woods behind me came that dread
sound, clear and strong—the hoot of an owl. I turned
in the moonlight and without thinking, emptied the rest
of my magazine at a hopeless range and with no aim
whatever, in the general direction of the wood.
So far I was not a match for the Spirit of Burnleigh
Manor.


CHAPTER NINETEEN''
When I reached the Lodge I went directly to Hooper's
room and found Lowry sitting beside the bed reading.
He glanced at me with a worried look.
"Did you hear what sounded like shooting a moment
ago?"
"I did, in fact, I did the shooting."
He rose quickly to his feet.
"What!"
"Step out into the hall a moment where we can talk,
and bring that basin and bandage with you."
Lighting the light in the hall I took off my jacket and
ripping the sleeve from my shirt I exposed a nasty, but
entirely flesh wound. While Lowry washed it and bound
it up I went over the events in the wood. Before I had
finished his hands were trembling.
"It could not have been my daughter, Mr. Riker."
"I hope to Heaven it was not, but"
He looked at me for a second and then putting his
arm over my shoulders drew toward the stairs.
"I cannot rest until I know and I understand your
feeling, too. Come, we will see."
There was nothing to do for Hooper, so together we
went down into the living room and then to the door of
169


170 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
Edith Lowry's room. Here he knocked. There was no
response and his second knocking had something frantic
about it. This time there was an answer—a sleepy voice
called to him.
"Yes? Who is there?"
Lowry passed a hand across his brow.
"It is I, Edith. Go back to sleep. I just wanted to
be sure you were all right."
Then the sleepy voice answered again.
"Very well, daddy."
But I was not satisfied. If she had escaped from who-
ever had mishandled her there in the wood, she hardly
had had time to get back to her room.
"I'll believe it when I see it, Lowry, and not before.
That might be anyone in there."
"Nonsense, I know her"
"Please! This is no time to guess at things!"
I wanted above all things to see Edith Lowry safe and
sound. He understood.
"Edith, will you come out a moment?"
"Yes, father. Someone else is with you?"
"Mr. Riker."
"Just a moment."
We stood without moving or speaking until the door
of her room opened, and there in that same negligee,
sleepy and adorable looking, stood the girl I had seen
running across the terraces toward that wood! I stood
stupidly staring and she was the first to speak.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 171
"You have been hurt, Mr. Riker?"
"Only a surface cut, thanks to you!"
"Thanks to me?"
Captain Lowry seemed troubled by something and he
spoke to her severely:
"Edith, have you been out of the house since you went
to your room?"
She avoided my eyes and smiled at him.
"Why, you dear old goose, do I look it?"
He smiled and patted her cheek, but I noticed she had
not answered his question. Then she turned to me.
"Step into the light here, Mr. Riker and let me see if I
cannot improve on that crude looking bandage."
Lowry spoke up.
"Thanks. I did the bandaging."
"Hush! How did you get this cut?"
Lowry was making his way up to Hooper's room again,
and her dark head was bent over my arm. When I spoke
it was close to her ear.
"Don't let us pretend together. You were wonderful
tonight and I owe my life to you."
She straightened up quickly.
"I guess my father's bandage is all right after all, but
I am sure I do not know what you are talking about."
"You mean you were not on the edge of the cliffs to-
night?"
She was looking at her hands. So was I and they
were not too steady.


172 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"What is it that you and father are harping on?"
"Well, for instance, did you ever see that knife
before?"
I indicated the odd oriental looking thing that I had
laid on the table when I came in. She did not look and
I touched her on the arm.
"Over there on the table, Miss Lowry."
She gave it a hasty glance and I saw her shudder.
"What a horrible looking thing!"
I took her hands in mine and spoke softly.
"Edith, I cannot understand your attitude, but I am
willing to assume that you know best about it. However,
before anything else happens that may not be so—so
minor, I want you to know something."
Her hands struggled loose from mine and she turned
away as if weary and reluctant.
"Not tonight—please. Wait until we are both less
—less upset."
"Then you were in that wood tonight?"
"I was in my bed tonight, and I am going back there
with your permission."
But as she turned and started for her door I saw a
red bruise across her mouth and one lip was slightly
swollen! She could not bring herself to be honest with
me even now, but two things that satisfied me were that
she was safe again and that she had—at a risk to her-
self—called out a warning to me.


CHAPTER TWENTY
The morning was a bit hectic. Lowry and I had our
breakfast in comparative silence. About the middle of it
Burnleigh came down and it seemed as if the entire
household was suffering from a definite lack of sleep.
Every one was rather glum and irritable. Perhaps it was
just the overdose of the Manor to which we had all been
exposed.
Hooper was still lying on the bed immobile and for all
the World like a corpse. It was gruesome and frighten-
ing so that we looked forward to the visit of even our pint
size nasty doctor with almost pleasure.
After breakfast I started my packing and had left with
the first load of my belongings stored in the back of the
Rolls before the doctor arrived. I left my things in the
hall and with a grim sort of humor wondered how much
of them would be left when I returned with the rest.
Back at the Lodge I found Burnleigh's bags piled by
the door. He had been sincere in his declaration of stay-
ing up there with me. Upstairs I heard voices in Hoop-
er's room and went on up to hear the verdict. The doctor
was sitting beside his bed and the dressing had been
removed from the wound.
Burnleigh turned as I entered.
173


174 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"The doctor says he is still a very sick man—danger-
ously sick—and has asked if I want to call in a spe-
cialist."
"Is there anything a specialist can do with a concus-
sion except rest the patient and guard against complica-
tions?"
The doctor glanced at me with his usual sour ex-
pression.
"Nothing."
"Then why the question?"
"It is customary to ask, Mr. Riker."
"Well, now that that is over, what are Hooper's
chances?"
"Fair. He must be kept quiet—absolutely quiet, and
when he finally regains consciousness he must not be al-
lowed to talk or become excited in any way."
That was bad news to me for there were many things
I wanted very badly to know from Hooper. What had
he been about to find in the wood? What had he seen
just before he was struck down? Could he identify his
assailant? Why did he whisper that warning against the
Master's bedroom with what he thought was his last
breath? What did he know or suspect about that spe-
cial room? All these must remain unanswered until this
shriveled bit of medical knowledge permitted them to be
asked. Suppose he had reasons of his own for wanting
them unanswered? Suppose he kept Hooper under an
opiate—but all this was utterly ridiculous. I was getting
so that I suspected every living soul of being involved.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 177
that escaped my examination, both visual and tapping,
but supper time caught me without the slightest reward
for my efforts. I still had the book cases to examine,
however, and I intended to remove every book and check
the wall behind as soon as he had finished supper.
On our way back to the Lodge we had our first oppor-
tunity to think about what lay ahead. Both of us were
a bit keyed up at the thought of coming so closely to grips
with the place and no matter how phlegmatic or well bal-
anced a person may be, the idea of sleeping in a house
shunned by so many people because of the queer stories
told about it—and especially in a room against which
you have been specifically warned—gives an excusable
thrill.
Perhaps we lingered unnecessarily long over our sup-
per, but at last there was nothing to do but go back. I
had left the lights burning in the Manor when we left to
check the reliability of the unit, and the old place was
quite a sight as we came out of the wood and saw it high
above its terraces. I could imagine its old time glory—
the days of the gay and lively parties—the homecoming
Christmas holidays—in fact it was at the moment difficult
to believe the things I had already learned of its peculi-
arity. Then came the first greeting of the evening.
We had crossed the first terrace and started up the
second when faintly from somwhere about the Manor
came that familiar sound, the hoot of an owl. As the
last note died away the house was plunged in darkness.
Burnleigh stopped short.


178 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Gad, Riker, the lights are gone!"
It had jolted me somewhat, but it had annoyed me a
great deal more.
"It's not necessary to throw a fit over that. Either the
unit has broken down or else some kind soul has pulled
out the master switch."
"Suppose we wait until morning to find out?"
"Not a chancel"
"Then why not go back to the Lodge for the others?"
I shook myself free of his restraining hand.
"You can go back if you wish, but I am going to have
a talk with this certain party that is supplying all the
thrills."
I continued up the terraces until I stood before the
front door. Burnleigh had followed reluctantly and was
now standing at my side.
"I think this is fool-hardy of you Riker, for we haven't
even a flashlight!"
Actually I did want to go back. The automatic in my
pocket had just one shell left in it if I had counted right
after my little engagement of last night in the wood. If
I had not counted right I had an empty gun—and no
light. However, my natural stubbornness would not per-
mit me to make a move that might, by the greatest
stretch of the imagination, be twisted into the least sem-
blance of a retreat.
I felt about in my pockets and drew out three or four
matches. Unlocking the padlock as quietly as possible,
I opened the door and went in a few paces. There was


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 179
not a sound except Burnleigh's breathing at my side.
After a second or two had passed in this manner I lighted
a match and held it at arm's length from my side. There
was no response to this, so I assumed we were alone in the
hall and made my way boldly to the oil lamp on the
table.
When it had ceased its sputtering and settled down to
a steady light, the first thing that it illuminated for me
was a sheet of paper lying close to its base. Burnleigh
saw it about the same moment and we bent down together
to read.
"There is really no need for a postscript to my
first note, but it is with real regret that I see you
have not heeded it. I shall give you one half hour
to change your minds. I am also returning Mr.
Riker's flashlight. He left it behind last night—in
the excitement!"
Burnleigh tried a weak sort of smile.
"Apparently we have a sort of—of armistice for the
present."
I think I managed a grin. As a matter of fact I was
quite sincere about it for it was a relief to know just when
the fire works could be expected to start. I answered
him in a voice calculated to reach anyone who might be
listening on the shadowy balconies.
"We can get a lot done in a half hour!"


»
4


CHAPTER TWENT Y-0 N E
After our examination of the note showed us that it was
written on the same paper with the crest of Robert Burn-
leigh, but in a hand that defied any identification, I
picked up the flashlight and leaving Burnleigh standing
in the hall went down to the cellar to examine my light-
ing outfit. No damage seemed to have been done, some-
one had simply pulled out the master switch. Today,
my greater experience would have led to a minute exami-
nation of the handle of that switch for finger prints. All
that I did that night, however, was throw it back and
breathe a sigh of relief when the pilot light glowed tell-
ing me that upstairs was once more bright.
I had unconsciously carried the letter down in my
hand, and turning it over I scribbled this message and
left it hanging on the handle:
"Pull this out again and I will know where to find
you!"
When I reached the hall again Burnleigh was pacing up
and down.
"Well, my boy, shall we sit and talk a while before
we—we go to bed?"
The old chap had plenty of courage. We sat and
181


182 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
talked about anything and everything to keep our morale
up, but the main object of attention for me was the
progress of the minute hand about the face of my wrist
watch. Something about the place made it difficult to
keep up any sort of conversation and gradually we found
ourselves lapsing into silence. During one of these
pauses Burnleigh suddenly leaned forward in his chair.
"Did you hear that?"
I glanced at my watch and saw that our half hour was
up. Every old house has its creaks and cracklings and
so far I had heard nothing unusual, but I sat rigid at
his question with that intent feeling of listening when
it seems as if one's ears were actually stretching out feel-
ers to catch the least whisp of sound. Then I did hear
someone gently tapping at the front door.
I reached in my pocket for the little automatic, and
with that in one hand and the flashlight in the other I
approached the door. Turning the handle slowly and as
silently as possible I threw it open quickly. There was
no one there—but—someone came in! I could hear
someone walk past me, but I could not see them!
They were slow footsteps as if made by someone
carrying a heavy load and they were going in the direc-
tion of the stairs on my left. Burnleigh had risen and
stood straining his eyes in the very direction that I
thought I heard them going so I knew it was not my
imagination. They reached the stairs and started to go
up—slowly and evenly. When they had reached a point
about half way up I shook off the peculiar feeling of


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 183
dread that had kept me rooted to the spot by the doors,
and I ran across the hall. Taking the steps two at a
time I finally felt I was walking beside our invisible visi-
tor. I reached out my arms but there was nothing there
but air. The footsteps led me to the landing. Here they
turned left down the hallway toward the Master's bed-
room, and Burnleigh called out from the hall below.
"Riker! Come back! It is trying to separate us!
Don't let it lead you away from me!"
I did stop, but I heard those slow shuffling footsteps
go up to the door of my bedroom and without hesitation
go on through my closed door! Old Hooper had warned
me against that room and my ghostly friend had made
directly for it. I had a strong feeling that my slumbers
were not to go undisturbed.
I joined Burnleigh again. He was pale and trem-
bling. I was not too steady, but I tried to reassure him.
"Of course there is some simple explanation for that."
"My brother never found it, Riker."
"On the contrary I think he did. I think he knew all
about it. I think Hooper does too and before the night
is out perhaps I will myself!"
Burnleigh shook his head slowly and the glances he
kept sending about the place had a haunted quality about
them.
"What was it you told me on the boat that Edward
said when he heard those footsteps?"
Burnleigh's voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"He said—'why can't she rest?'"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 185
Burnleigh leaped to his feet and stood listening. From
somewhere in the house came a slow rhythmic sound as if
someone were attempting to batter down a stone wall
with a heavy hammer. It was so muffled that a true de-
scription was difficult but it certainly sounded like steel
on stone. I grasped Burnleigh by the hand.
"Come on, let's locate that sound!"
He looked at me appealingly.
"I simply cannot tonight. The sound that you hear,
Riker, is a confirmation of the old legend."
"What old legend?"
"The one that tells of a tortured and imprisoned soul
that constantly attempts to batter its way to freedom
from this ghastly wreck of a place."
"And I suppose you believe that rot?"
"It is not a question of belief, but there certainly will
be no sleep for us here tonight. I cannot stay in this
hideous place any longer!"
He swayed where he stood and but for my arm would
probably have fallen. His voice came in a whisper be-
tween clenched teeth.
"Won't you take me back to the Lodge?"
So Burnleigh Manor won the first real encounter. We
slept that night in the Lodge.
As I closed and locked the door through which our in-
visible friend had entered I could still hear the steady,
tireless beat of that mysterious hammer in the hands of
our unknown workman.





CHAPTER TWENT Y-T W 0
Lord Burnleigh was not at all well the next morning.
The incident of the night before was too much for nerves
already taut. I remained with him for some time after
breakfast, due to the fact that he seemed very anxious
that I should wait until he felt better before going back
to the Manor. Any argument merely made him worse
so I gave in. When I finally did get away from his room
it was on the excuse that I wished to see how Hooper
was coming on.
I did want to see Hooper, but what I wanted desper-
ately more than that was to talk to him. His room was
still darkened and he still lay stretched out frightfully im-
mobile. His color was better, however, and everyone was
more hopeful. I was startled by a voice at my back.
"I thought I told everyone that the patient was not
to be disturbed!"
I turned and saw the little doctor, his eyes fairly blaz-
ing. I had heard no car draw up and no footsteps be-
hind me.
"I have not disturbed your patient. I have more or
less right to, however, on matters of importance."
I wanted him to know that I was determined.
"How important?"
187


188 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Very important."
"What about?"
His insolence was superb.
"That happens to be my business."
"How the devil can I tell whether it is important
enough to risk my patient's health—if it is your business?
You do not seem to realize how sick he has been since—
since his fall."
The emphasis on "fall" was inescapable.
"There is no telling when he will be able to listen, let
alone talk, but I'll let you know as soon as I can. Now
if"
I walked out of the room when he began his exami-
nation and out of the Lodge. The sun was warm and the
day pleasant and I decided to take the remainder of the
morning walking about the grounds. I also did a bit of
thinking.
Luncheon was cooked and served by two domestics
that had just arrived. Edith Lowry had not been in
evidence all morning, the report being that she was con-
fined to her bed with a bad headache. Her rest cure was
short for the new domestics finished the meal, heard one
or two rumors about the place from someone who never
admitted telling them, and promptly went back to the
city. After lunch Lowry and I strolled down the walk
and out on the drive.
He was smoking his pipe and looked the picture of a
commonplace, trustworthy army officer. I had a sudden
impulse and followed it.


190 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
and still I was entirely baffled. The walls and woodwork
were of a soundness that should have delighted the heart
of the most fastidious of architects.
Someone had given the impression of walking across
this hall and up the stairs without doing it. The answer
was simple. They had walked through a passage some-
where, duplicating the sounds. But if the acoustics of
this hidden place were good enough to transmit the
sound out so realistically I could not understand why
they did not respond to my test soundings.
I gave up the walls and the floor and turned my at-
tention to the staircase. This was naturally more diffi-
cult as I could no longer rely on sound to guide me. I
had crawled three quarters of the way up when a voice
from the doorway stopped me.
"Looking for something?"
The doctor stood leaning against the door frame with
a broad but humorless smile. I must have been an amus-
ing sight, sprawled at full length, poking my nose into
every corner and suspicious looking crevice.
"No, my dear doctor. Just studying English archi-
tecture."
"At close range."
"Oh, quite."
If he had ever annoyed me he certainly did now!
"Hooper may be able to talk to you for a moment in
the morning. I expect him to be conscious then."
Even that did not appease my feeling.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 191
"Thanks for walking all the way up here to tell me
that."
The sarcasm went over his head entirely.
"No trouble. Needed the exercise. Now I will leave
you to your—your studies. You are certainly a close
student, Mr. Riker."
With a laugh that had a nasty sound to it he left. I
turned on Lowry with a tart remark about his not letting
me know we had a visitor.
"You know, Mr. Riker, you do look a bit funny
crawling about up there."
If the purpose of my search were known to him, would
I still seem so amusing? Then I was chagrined to find
the afternoon gone with nothing accomplished. I had
wanted to inspect the library bookcases also—and the
bedroom. Now there was no time. The bedroom drew
me and I decided that before I went back I would take
at least a hurried glimpse about it.
It certainly was just an ordinary looking room. Who-
ever had built into Burnleigh Manor its secrets had made
a craftsman-like job of it. Perhaps my best course was
to wait for a bit of carelessness on the part of whoever
it was behind it all, and if I were to get an accidental
clue there could be no better place than this room.
Hooper had warned me against it and the footsteps had
gone into it. I closed the door on it with the firm re-
solve that I would sleep that night where all "the other
Lord Burnleighs had slept."


192 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
On the way back I cautioned Lowry again against
talking.
I took Burnleigh's supper to him myself. As dark-
ness fell his nervousness seemed to increase. I kept the
conversation in general channels but I could see that he
was not attentive.
"I am frightfully glad we are not up there tonight,
Riker. It was a foolish thing to think about. I am
going to try and get a good night's rest and hope you
will do likewise. Tomorrow we can talk to Hooper."
I avoided committing myself and after chatting a little
longer I left him on the pretense of a walk. On the way
out I had collected by hat, my flashlight and my gun—
which I had reloaded. Encountering no one as I went
out I turned directly toward the Manor. There was no
one able enough, or trustworthy enough, to assist me in
the task I had set for myself this night, so it was up to
me to go it alone. Not even to Lowry would I dare
impart the information necessary to make him a helper.
I would have liked to follow the edge of the woods to
the shore side of the house and so come upon it unob-
served, but I had an instinctive feeling that the moment
I left the Lodge the news of my coming was known. I
was not surprised therefore, when, on stepping from the
woods into the clear to hear that confounded hoot of an
owl.
I kept boldly on, however, let myself in the front
doors, and settled down for a few moments in the arm
chair after lighting the lights. As an afterthought I


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 193
also lighted the oil lamp, for which I was later very
grateful. Then placing the revolver where it would be
handy to me on the table, I sat waiting for the first move
of my mysterious host, or failing that, for the approach
of bed time.


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The place was cold—a musty cold that we had been
unable to dispel. As I sat there in my lonely vigil I
kept assuring myself that it was this causing the in-
voluntary shivers to run up and down my spinal chord
every now and then. Unfelt draughts sighed through
the old hall. A creak from a stair tread, or a sudden
sound from some distant part of the house would bring
me up erect and tense in my chair. I could appreciate
the night after night solitude of Edward. The only
miracle was that he had not gone insane before he had.
I began to suspect I was somewhat of a plain variety
of fool. Analyzing things truthfully the only two reasons
for my being here were vanity at my inability to fathom
the house and stubborness. For lack of anything better
I concentrated my attention on the cobwebs that had
been spun about the chandelier directly over my head,
but this only seemed to make my sense of hearing keener.
Perhaps I sat in this uninviting atmosphere for an hour
before I heard the sound that I had been subconciously
waiting to hear.
Against the stout panels of the front door I heard once
more the soft tapping of the ghostly knuckles. Listen-
ing carefully I realized that it was impossible to say
195


198 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
would give me an inkling into the workings and identity
of this nocturnal visitor. It had led me to the spot
against which I had been warned. That was probably
for a good reason. We had to meet soon. Closing the
door again I sat down on the bed.
It was quiet enough now—too awfully quiet. I began
to imagine I could feel someone looking at me. It was
a creepy, unpleasant feeling to be spied upon from some-
where without being able to locate the spot. Then the
thought occurred to me that I must look utterly rid-
iculous sitting on the edge of the bed holding a pair of
shoes in one hand and gazing off at nothing. I decided
to make a bluff at being nonchalant and unaffected by
the demonstration so far.
Deliberately I placed my shoes under the bed. This
gave me an excuse to look there carefully. Then I took
off my coat and vest and going to the wardrobe closet
(the only one in the room) I opened the door and hung
them up. The closet seemed harmless enough but I left
the door open. Next came the collar and tie which I
tossed on the dresser. Assuring myself that the door to
Lady Burnleigh's room was locked I pulled down the
blankets with as careless a gesture as I could muster
under the circumstances and actually stretched out on
my back as if to sleep.
My gun I placed under the pillow in a handy position.
My flashlight went on the table beside the head of the
bed. Then I lay back listening. Not a sound, even the
creakings seemed to have stopped. Just the distant


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 199
rumble of the surf. Perhaps a half hour passed this
way.
I was actually studying every detail of the room and
one thing fascinated me. There was a raised, rather
grotesque fresco around the top of the walls about a
foot from the ceiling. A large and ornate shield, then a
sort of wavy band leading to a coronet, more wavy band
and then another shield, and so on all about the room.
I remembered reading a long time ago about a diabolical
room in which the victim was studied through just such
a raised fresco. If that was the case here, it was cleverly
hidden for I examined each part of this one in turn.
My imagination was reaching that stage of activity
that makes of any place a torture chamber. I imagined
I felt someone standing behind my bed. I knew it was
against the wall between the boarded up windows, but
suppose there was a sliding panel there—and someone
had opened it and was standing there now waiting to
brain me if I moved? I could feel the slow movement
as they raised their arm for the blow. In a second it
would come—and then from below me I heard a sound
that brought me sitting straight upright in bed! The
same sound of a steel hammer on stone! The tortured
soul at work on its prison.
Immediately I sensed a blessed revulsion of feeling,
the sanity that puts us back on balance again. What
utter bosh! Prisoned soul indeed. Even in that moment
of clarifying sanity, however, from some dim spot in my
memory came a legend of supposedly unfortunate beings


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 201
That put it in the wall furthest from the hall, or some-
where beyond—perhaps on the outside of the house
altogether! I tiptoed in my stocking feet to the wall
and pressed my ear against it. In that way I could hear
very distinctly. Someone was unquestionably hammer-
ing away at stones not very far away from where I stood.
I decided on a rather foolish test to determine the near-
ness of the eerie worker.
Just after one of the blows I knocked on the wall.
There was absolute silence for a second. I had stopped
the hammering with a gentle tap, so it could not be very
far away. Then I felt, rather than heard, a rustling
movement on the other side of the wall from where I had
my ear pressed. Someone was standing on the opposite
side listening, like myself. I knew that at that moment
the mystery of Burnleigh Manor was separated from me
by only the thickness of a stone wall!


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I stood there, tense, listening, until my nerves would
not permit inactivity another second. The wall fascinated
me. There must be a way to reach that rustling some-
thing on the other side. My fingers searched desperately
for a suspicious roughness, and my eyes strained for the
least sign of a crack. I had moved about three feet
from where my ear had been pressed when from above
me, apparently from the room I had just left, came the
dull thud of something falling—a pause and then the
same sound again—then silence. My ghost had trans-
ferred its activity to the second floor, so to the second
floor I went. The humor of a humdrum architect play-
ing tag upstairs and down, with a supposed ghost in a
supposedly haunted house did not occur to me at the
moment and would have had little appeal if it had.
As I approached the door I could see that the lights
were still on in the bedroom. Peering around the corner
and finding the room empty I made my way to the bed
at once, for I had carelessly left my gun under the pillow.
It was still there and not a thing had been disturbed in
the room as far as I could determine. I looked around
for what I had heard and found nothing. I know now
203


204 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
that my powers of observation were not up to average
that night, but I think I can be excused.
Sitting on the edge of the bed I listened for the next
sound in this wild goose chase and tried to think. The
place was absolutely quiet now. After making sure that
it was a perfectly sound wall at the head of my bed I
decided to husband my energy and stretched out on it.
I even pulled a blanket over me against the chill of the
room. At least I could rest until the performance was
continued. I could start tearing down those walls, and
might as well make up my mind to do it, but I still hoped
I could figure it out without that destruction.
So I remained for an hour or so, stiff from the tension,
every sense strained to the breaking point. I realized
in that period of inactivity how weary I actually was—
especially nervously and mentally. To keep my mind
occupied I tried counting the number of shields in the
fresco, then the coronets and back to the shields again.
It was a fatal mistake on my part, for the rythm of
counting together with the reaction of my weariness,
allowed me to doze off even in this weird place.
Perhaps it was only a moment, perhaps it was an
hour—but all that I remember is that I was suddenly
awake, very much awake, and that my room was now in
darkness. I had left the lights burning when I stretched
out and now they were out! I had a wild desire to leap
out of bed which I choked back with a more sensible
restraint.
I could feel the hair on the back of my neck like so


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 205
many pin pricks—and along my arms. My upper lip
was damp with perspiration and so was my forehead.
Then I heard a stealthy movement about in the center
of the room—again—there was no question about it, I
was not alone!
Now was the time for action! It was a blessed relief
to know that no wall seperated me from that sound in the
darkness. My hand slid cautiously and silently under
the pillow for that efficient little automatic. It was gone!
That something in the room had leaned over me and
taken it from under my head while I had dozed! Per-
haps it had been that which awakened me.
I was in a nice jam now. No gun—my legs tangled
in a blanket—and then I thought of my light. If this
was going to be a hand to hand struggle I at least was
to see who or what it was with which I was dealing.
After all that was the most important thing of all—the
one thing we most wanted to know—and I was here to
see. I reached out my hand carefully again, and I found
that the light was gone too! I must have become
panicky then and jerked my hand back too quickly, for
it struck the lamp with a noisy jangle.
From the other side of the room the answer to that
sound was a sarcastic laugh—eerie and unreal in the
darkness—and I felt a sudden cold and damp current of
air, as if a door to a cellar had been opened. Then from
the inkiness of the room came a voice.
"You will find your light in the library. The gun I
think is safer with me. Had my visit been left with me


206 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
you would not have had any further use for either.
Next time—if you are so foolish and stubborn to let
there be a next time—it will be quite different—oh, quite
different."
Again that mirthless laugh, followed by a soft metallic
click and then silence. I lay there frozen with fear.
While I had slept like a stupid fool, the Spirit of Burn-
leigh Manor had stood above me with my gun in its hand.
The one who had struck Hooper down had had me en-
tirely at his mercy and then with a sarcastic laugh had
gone, for even in the darkness I knew that I was alone.
I was living because it "had not been left" with who-
ever had visited me.
Then all other thoughts were swept from my mind by
a sudden overwhelming realization! The voice that had
spoken to me out of the darkness had been Burnleigh's!
I had never heard him laugh but I knew instinctively that
eerie one would be identical with his. No question about
it—every intonation, every pronounciation had been the
same. I was simply staggered by the thought. I could
not doubt what I had heard even though common sense
cried out against it!
I had an abrupt desire to get out of the place—to get
away from it and the bewildering thoughts of the last
few moments. I kicked the blankets from my legs and
sat up. At the same instant the lights were turned on in
the room leaving me almost blinded.
When my eyes had accustomed themselves to the glare,
I saw that my shoes were lying side by side at my feet


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 207
ready to step into. On the foot of my bed was my coat
neatly folded, and on top of it lay my collar and tie. On
the table beside me lay a key. I slipped into my things
and went to the door. It was locked! Locked and the
key placed on the table. My gun had been taken, my
clothes arranged in the neatest sort of invitation to get
out quickly, and then whoever had done it had vanished
from the room, locking the door and leaving the key on
the inside of the room. The heart breaking thought was
that I was as far from the secret as ever—except that I
now knew who could tell me!
I unlocked the door, literally ran down the stairs and
out into the cool night air. I did not stop until I reached
the edge of the cliffs. Glancing at my watch I found it
was four in the morning.
There I stayed until the sun came up over the horizon
in the cold dawn. With the slow sighing sound of the
surf below me and the sharp, biting wind from the sea
in my face I sat and juggled the pieces of this crazy
puzzle until some of them seemed to click into place.
In those dreary hours on the edge of the cliffs that had
looked down on pirate ships with their bloody decks I
thought out a course of action that finally led me to the
heart of the whole thing.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It will be easier for you sitting quietly by your fire-
side to fit the pieces into a logical pattern, than it was for
me in that forbidding place, nerves on edge, with the
black bulk of the Manor at my back. I was still partly
stunned by the fact that the voice had been Burnleigh's.
I ran back over the whole thing, the past history of the
place—the story of the man who had died by his own
hand, driven mad by years of the same sort of experiences
I had just had—and the disappearance of his lovely wife
and younger brother that still remained unexplained. I
asked myself why I was here at all, and the answer was
because the malign influence of the place had become
active after a rest of years—or so I had been told. By
whom? By the man whose voice had come out of the
darkness to me an hour or so ago.
What purpose could he have in bringing me miles
across the ocean and threatening my life because I did
his bidding? Was he another Doctor Jekyl and Mr.
Hyde? He certainly had impressed me at one time as
being eccentric.
Against that line of thought I had the word of the
caretaker and his daughter. They, too, had seen evi-
209


210 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
dences of whatever cursed the Manor—or at least they
told me they had? Were they in on it too?
It was possible that Cecil Burnleigh was behind the
whole thing. He could have driven his brother mad with
his weird manifestations. He could have actually killed
him and faked the suicide, trumping up the whole story
he told me. Then, wishing to come back after a safe
interval of time to reap the harvest of his crime, he had
brought me back with him to add a dramatic touch and
semblance of truth to his role of the neglected and
innocent brother. A murderer is supposed to always
return to the scene of his crime and perhaps he was
afraid to come alone. This would explain Edith Lowry's
attitude also. She had probably found him out and lived
in hourly terror of what he might do. He was at our
side most of the time and if she breathed a word of his
secret he could strike her father and me down before we
realized what had happened. That might explain the
fear that lay deep in her eyes.
Yet when we had heard the footsteps in the hall he had
been at my side and if he had been feigning the dread
and fear that was on his face at the time he was an
actor of no mean skill. All other events had occurred
at times when I had no idea of his whereabouts, however.
I realized about here that I would get nowhere in my
search for the truth unless I examined each detail in
turn.
First had come the attack on Hooper and the note
left by his body. These were tangible facts that I knew


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 211
something about. There was no doubt in my mind that
the old fellow had been struck down because he had
found something out, and something it was important
that no one should know. It was possible Burnleigh
had done this but—two owls had signalled back and
forth that night. He must have an accomplice. I tried
to complete what Hooper had started to say that night,
but it was no use.
Then the knocking at the front door of the ghostly
knuckles. I do not believe in wandering spirits any
more than any other healthy, normal person, but there
had been no one there when the door was opened.
Could Burnleigh have produced the effect by tapping on
the table or floor?
Next after the knocking came the footsteps, the tramp-
ing of the unseen something across the hall and up the
stairs, or had they, too, only sounded as if they had gone
up and actually originated in the room? Had they been
Burnleigh's feet on the floor? Then why had he cried
out not to follow them?
The incident of the bedroom bore a strong resemblance
to that of the library. Someone could enter the bed-
room without worrying about locks and doors just as
they could the library. It was dangerous ground for the
imagination and I held mine in check, but the voice—
the laugh—the cold clammy air had been real.
Then one seemingly small detail began to loom up
larger in my mind—that soft metallic click that had shut
off the cold draught and the feeling that someone was in


212 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
the room with me. I realized that in that moment, had
I been able to light the room, I would have seen the
opening that led to the heart of the whole mystery. I
tried desperately to recall the direction from which the
sound had come. Under the circumstances I think I
can be forgiven for not remembering. If there really was
a passage in the wall, and it led near the stairs, con-
necting the library with the bedroom, the whole thing
was cleared up. If such a passage existed, the hammer
and chisel would show it up before another dawn.
I decided to do three things at once—talk to Hooper—
start tearing into the walls of the Manor—and com-
municate with Scotland Yard. The latter I had no
theoretical right to do, but things had passed the theo-
retical state. With Burnleigh involved I wanted some
protection. The fact that it did not occur to me to pack
up my things and get out was probably due to the fact
that I was too incensed at the treatment I had received
and also to a subconscious realization that I could never
get away from the place alive until I had made it safe.
No one was stirring at the Lodge when I returned so
I went quietly to my room, changed and shaved. I felt
refreshed although I knew the lack of sleep would tell
on me before the day was out. There was no indication
of anyone being about when I had finished either, so I
tiptoed to Hooper's room and opened the door.
He lay back on his pillows, pale and waxen. He was
either asleep or still unconscious, and I had turned and
was about to go when I heard a whisper behind me. I


214 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
one of yours. I heard that warning you whispered to me
in the woods and because of it I knew that it would pay
me to investigate."
"You are all right, sir? Unharmed?"
"Absolutely, except for a strong desire to ask you some
questions."
His hand on my wrist trembled.
"I—I hoped you would come."
"First of all, you found something interesting in that
wood just before you were struck down, didn't you?"
"Yes sir. In another moment I think I would
have"
But my mind was tortured by Burnleigh's voice in
that dark room.
"Did you see the person who hit you?"
"No, sir. All I could see"
His eyes were lighting up again.
"Hooper, if you do not confine yourself to yes and no,
I'll have to go. You forget you are still a sick man."
"Very well."
He lay back, but I knew he was straining for the next
question.
"In the time you were with Edward Burnleigh, did
you ever hear tapping at the front door?"
He gave me a surprised glance.
"Why—yes sir."
"When you opened the door—was there always some-
one there?"
"Of course, sir."





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I turned back to Hooper. Standing that way, looking
into her eyes, was not the best thing in the World for
the resolutions I had made with myself for certain
further unpleasant duties.
"You will be a lot better before the day is out, old
man. Do me the favor of keeping the matters we were
discussing to yourself, please."
"Thank you, sir."
Edith Lowry had resumed her place in the doorway.
"If you will excuse me, Miss Lowry, I will run in to
town for a little phone call I wish to make."
Her eyes searched mine and she made no move to let
me pass.
"Phone call? I didn't know that you"
She faltered and stopped. Instinctively she had
guessed the party whom I intended to call. Perhaps she
had feared that right along for some reason as inex-
plicable as those for other of her thoughts. It gave me
a pleasant feeling to think that before the day was out I
might lift that mysterious burden off her shoulders. At
least I intended to have a go at Burnleigh.
"You are right, my dear, in thinking that I know no
other girl in England but yourself. My call is to go

219


220 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
through to that famous place of yours—Scotland Yard."
I heard a gasp from the bed and she stepped quickly
to my side.
"Mr. Riker—please—please do not do that!"
"Why not?"
"Because there is no—because you must not!"
"Again, may I ask why not?"
"Lord Cecil would not like that, I know."
There it was! Her first thought of what Lord Cecil
would like.
"How do you know that?"
"I just do, that is all."
"But I believe he left things in my hands?"
"But the scandal, Mr. Riker. Oh, please wait!"
"I am sorry, but I have quite made up my mind. Au
revoir, Hooper."
"Perhaps it is"
I finished it for her.
"Exactly, Miss Lowry. Perhaps, and now if you will
excuse me"
I went down into the kitchen and finding a pot of
coffee boiling on the stove, I poured myself a cup and
snatched a roll. I wanted to avoid breakfast because
there was a chance that Burnleigh would come down for
it. I was not ready for him yet—in fact I probably
would never be ready for that encounter. We had been
companions in a way and what I had found out did
not agree with any of my memories of him.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 221
Letting myself out the back way I almost tripped over
Gloom sitting on the back steps.
"Good morning, sir."
"Good morning, Gloom."
"I do not know whether I ever told you, sir, but the
name is Glome."
The man had no sense of humor whatever.
"Get the car out. I want to run into town."
"Ah—Lord Cecil said"
Perhaps he had laid careful plans to keep me a prisoner
here. There was no time like the present to find out.
"Never mind what Lord Cecil said and get that car
out at once!"
With a sour look he made for the garage. So that
there would be no funny business in the garage I fol-
lowed him. A moment later I was sending it skimming
over the road to King's Lynn.
There was a sort of fog blowing in from the sea that
was cold and very wet. Everything looked unusually
dreary and depressing, but then I was shy a lot of sleep
and that can make a big difference in the way things
look.
I got Scotland Yard easily enough but from there on
my troubles began. The first complication was that
no one wanted their assistance except myself—and who
on earth was I? Nothing to them of course in comparison
to the owner, Lord Burnleigh, and why could I not assure
them he wished them to look into matters?


222 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
I explained these things as patiently and well as I
knew how. Then followed an interval of time devoted
to thinking things over. Unfortunately some overly ef-
ficient person took advantage of it to look through their
files and found the past record of the place That
finished it. It was a closed case for them. They could
not chase down that old rumor again. Politely enough,
but quite firmly they referred me to the local police who
could, if they wished, get in touch with the Yard.
I spent the equivalent of a dollar and thirty cents on
the call with the net result of being politely told to go
chase myself. One thing I had done was to tell them
who and where I was. That might help.
On the way back I came quite close to falling asleep
at the wheel. Luckily it occurred on the highway and
not on that narrow little road along the cliff. When I
reached the gates I swung briskly through and continued
right on up the drive—through the wood—around the
grass grown loop to the very door of the Manor.
The door was standing open just as I had left it the
night before and the lights were still burning in the hall.
I left them on for the fog was even thicker up here and
the old house was dismal enough on the sunniest of days.
That was due to the boarding on the windows, of course,
and I should order that off today. There was no further
use of that precaution.
I went on into the library and switched on the lights
there. I also lighted the oil lamp. Slowly but surely
I was learning to "do as the Romans do." Then I closed


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 223
the library door and coming back to the table I sat in the
big chair there and surveyed my surroundings. It was
here that the ill-fated Edward had sat and studied. It
was from that table that the two books had been stolen
—the one about Egyptian architecture and the one about
wills. Who would want books like that—especially in a
house full of treasures for the collector?
There was a deathly stillness about the place when
you were in this room. The sound of the sea seemed
more muffled than in any other spot. It was like a tomb.
Cheerful thought, and yet that was what the place was
supposed to be—the tomb of a tortured spirt. A spirit
that moved shoes and took guns and flashlights!
That brought me to the purpose of my visit. I got up
and went to the spot where I had pressed my ear the
night before. Behind that spot someone had also stood
listening. Now to find out how and where it was done.
Hooper had said a panel. The possibilities of a panel
in the rough plaster were small, but I examined every
square inch. The bookcases were more logical.
The lack of sleep was making itself felt in a headache
and an almost irresistible drowsiness. In the hopes of
easing both I lighted a cigarette and reached for the
books to remove them from the shelf. As I withdrew the
first hand full I heard the hollow thud of a door being
closed somewhere about the house. The sound rever-
berated and echoed through the old place and then there
was an interval of silence.
Then I heard a step that sounded in the hall. It was


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 227
it so quickly when I had been in the room for some time
without doing so.
"Odd that I did not see it, but then you should know
where you put it."
"/ put it? Suppose you tell me what on earth you are
getting at? I just this moment came in and have not
been within ten feet of that spot. At that, how would I
get your flash?"
There was no further use of beating about the bush.
I might just as well come out in the open and fight it
out.
"I don't know what the game is, Burnleigh. As a
matter of fact I don't care. This much I do know—no
one is going to scare me away from this rotten place
until whoever is behind it gets what is coming to them.
So far it has been serious enough—one man attacked
and dangerously injured—a girl frightened half to death
and walking about in a spell—now I have been tacitly
told I am next. Believe me, when they touch me they
have something more on their hands than just another
English victim!"
"But my dear chap, I"
"Wait until I finish. I just gave you the situation in
the abstract and my feelings. To get right down to facts,
I happen to know that you came into the room upstairs
while I was fool enough to doze off, took my gun and did
a lot of other nice friendly little tricks, and then after
bidding me good night and Godspeed in no uncertain


228 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
tones, you faded into the wall in a way I intend to find
if I have to resort to wringing your neck to get it!"
He half rose from his chair literally sputtering protests
of innocence.
"Now, don't lie about it. I know your voice when I
hear it even in the dark. Why squirm out of it now?
If you had wanted to keep your identity a secret why the
devil didn't you disguise it?"
He was thoroughly frightened now—in fact there was
a real terror in his eyes.
"You heard—my voice—here—last night?"
His evident fright gave me confidence.
"That is what I said—your voice—your inflection—
your every mannerism. I can even remember your words
in case your memory will not carry you back that far.
Now then"
But he wasn't listening to me. He shook as if with
a chill, and his eyes were fixed in an unseeing stare. He
had shrunk deep into the chair and looked years older.
I felt a twinge of pity even under the circumstances.
"Then Hooper must have been right. He said that he
saw him in the window—in the wood—but he was young
—young and he must be old unless—unless"
He made an effort to rise and failed. He was so
evidently on the verge of some sort of a collapse I stood
watching him in wonder.
"For God's sake don't stand there staring at me that
way, Riker! Help me—help me! Don't let me go too!


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 229
Tell me there are no ghosts—tell me that quickly—tell
me"
"What sort of drool are you talking now, Burnleigh?
If you think you can fool me by"
He was on his knees by the table now trembling as if
with the ague. Grasping the edge for support he turned
a dead white face up to me and his eyes burned with a
dangerous light.
"Fool youl Have you any idea what you have told
me just now? You have told me that my younger
brother was in that room with you last night. A man
who was never seen after he left this place one night.
He and I spoke exactly alike even to the small faults in
diction! He has been dead for sixteen years or else he
is as old a man as I am. Hooper saw him as he was
sixteen years ago. Hooper swears he saw him and now
you tell me that he spoke to you—spoke to you in the
house where I believe he was murdered!"
I was deeply impressed but not entirely convinced.
"Then you mean to tell me that instead of it"
"Please, please! Get out—go away—leave me alone
with this. I'll go on alone—alone until I meet him"
He tried to rise, and then with what seemed to be the
last bit of his energy he sprawled across the table and
lay grotesquely twisted and terribly still.
So we had another invalid. After we had put him to
bed he lay there limp and silent, barely breathing. Once
more we dispatched Gloom for the doctor and once more


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 233
soul of the legend, trying to break out of its tomb."
I could see him turn toward me in surprise even
through the gloom in the hall.
"But Mr. Riker, you certainly don't put any faith—
in"
I finished it for him.
"Ghosts? Well now, actually why not? What was
the man whom you saw at the Lodge that night—the one
that vanished without using door or windows?"
"That can be explained without recourse to the super-
natural."
It was a relief to stand in that cool, dark hall with the
tapping of that ghostly hammer in the distance and hear
someone sane enough to frankly repudiate such nonsense.
"Certainly it can and so can this. That is what we
have come for but I feel that I should tell you one thing
before we go any farther."
"Yes?"
I had wanted to tell him of my suspicion that his
daughter was in some way connected with the peculiar
happennings at the Manor but I had hesitated and now
I felt that in telling him I might lose my last support.
However, in all fairness, there was nothing else that I
could do.
"What I am about to say is purely suspicion, Lowry,
and I want you to take it as such. From the very
beginning I have felt that Edith is involved in this thing
in some way, against her will. Whatever her connection
is, it is so strong that I have been unable to induce her


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 235
established the fact that he was not within reach of my
arm. The sound of the hammer blows had ceased the
instant I had heard the call.
I snapped on my flashlight and located Lowry about
eight feet behind me. His jaw was set and he was
crouched as if to meet an onslaught. I eased his tension
by speaking out loud,
"Well, there is no use sneaking about any longer. Our
friend has been properly warned of our approach."
Lowry's calm collected voice was a comfort.
"How the devil did they know? We didn't make a
sound that I could hear or show a light."
"They?"
"A man doesn't signal to himself, Mr. Riker."
I think this was the first time that I actually took
conscious cognizance of the fact that there were two
people to combat and yet I had had most positive proof
of the dual part in evidence that had occurred before.
I went back to the light switch and snapped it on. I
also took the precaution of lighting the oil lamp as well.
Then I unwrapped my sledge hammer and picked up
the lamp.
"We might just as well go to work now, without worry-
ing about noise. There are two of us and I imagine we
are a match for those two grave diggers."
Lowry smiled at me grimly and unwrapped his bar.
"Have you a gun, sir?"
"No."
"That is rather foolish of you. Here, take mine."


236 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
He held out a business-like revolver which had prob-
ably been his piece in the army.
"Why should I take yours?"
"Never could hit a battleship with one of them but I
am a bit handy with a bar like this."
He demonstrated very convincingly with the iron bar,
so I tucked the revolver in my side pocket and started for
the stairs, carrying the light in my left hand.
"I think we will take a look at the master's bedroom
first."
"Why the bedroom?"
"Because I happen to know that there is something
worth looking for there."
We went up the stairs in silence. I felt a sort of relief
when I had passed up the first few steps, for the near-
ness of that owl's call to my side puzzled me. From
where Lowry stood it might have sounded as if it had
come from anywhere. But I knew the one who had
given it had been near me at the time without my being
aware of it. Before the night was out I hoped to know
a good deal more about that, among other things.
We entered the bedroom and found it just as I had left
it the night before except that the lights had been put
out. I moved the table from the head of the bed to the
center of the room, and then placed the oil lamp on it.
For at least a half hour after that Lowry and I examined
every inch of the walls, pressing this, that and the other
things, without avail. We even gave the closet a care-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 237
ful examination. Then we decided we had lost enough
time.
"No use searching for the needle any longer. It is
time for the sledge hammer now."
Lowry straightened up and looked at the wall with a
wry face.
"You are going to find it hard going, sir, and isn't it a
shame to wreck the old place?"
"The old place" awoke no fond feelings in my bosom,
in fact it was going to be a pleasure to take some healthy
"wacks" at it. Then Hooper's remarks came back to me
and gave me an idea that seemed to hold promise of
accomplishing a lot. I drew Lowry away from the walls,
for in here they seemed surely to have ears, and whis-
pered to him.
"Listen to me closely. I have reason to believe that
from here a passage in the wall goes down into the library.
Now, if our friend is in there and we begin to break
through, he will slip out into the library, down the hall
and out into the great outdoors. You stay here, talk as
if I were with you and smash that wall while I wait
down there in the dark to welcome him when he comes
out. If you hear a shout drop everything and come
down, for to tell the truth, I am still not sure of what
my waiting arms will receive."
Lowry's eyes were bright with excitement, but he
shook his head and leaning close to my ear, whispered,
"It would be better if you reversed it, sir. Your
i


238 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
voice is the only one they would expect to hear giving
directions up here. I'll flatten myself against the wall
down there and drop this on the first head that comes
out."
He raised the iron bar. So we agreed to break up as
soon as I gave the signal, he to steal silently down the
stairs and wait in the dark library, while I battered my
way through the wall.
Starting from the corner furthest from the door I
swung the sledge against the wall, spacing each blow a
few inches to the left of the previous one. At the same
time I would remark every moment or two to Lowry
about something, so that the parting would not be
noticeable if anyone were listening to us. It certainly
is a creepy feeling, not knowing whether you are seen
or heard and not knowing whether there is anyone to see
or hear you on the other side of such a mysterious wall.
I had gone perhaps halfway across when the heavy
thud of the hammer was suddenly answered by a hol-
low reverberation from within the wall. I continued on
as if it had not been noticed but Lowry and I both stif-
fened with the realization that we had located a section
that at least was not like the rest. What had refused
to answer to my knuckles had given up its secret to the
heavier impact of the hammer. I gave him the signal to
go and he slipped through the door like a ghost him-
self, and was gone.


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I continued my tapping long enough for him to reach
the floor below making casual remarks from time to
time to the now empty room. When I was sure that he
had time to get into place I braced myself and with all
the power I could command, I swung the sledge against
the spot that had sounded so hollow. The percussion
seemed to rumble and roll all about me as if the room
were a great drum. Again and again I sent it crashing
against the wall, listening each time for Lowry's call.
Plaster fell about me to the floor. For a space of about
four feet in diameter I had bared the bricks and piece
by piece, I was breaking and chipping them. The per-
spiration streamed down my fact but it was a glorious
feeling to be in action, striking back. Everything I had
was going into the blows of the sledge and suddenly one
brick gave way and crashed down behind the wall some-
where, ricocheted off something and then went tumbling
down, down, down through the wall and wound up with
a thud far below. With that thud the lights went out. I
had touched a sore spot and was to be punished by being
plunged into darkness and probably attacked while I was
rendered helpless by not being able to see. - I had for-
stalled them this time! Feeble as it was, the oil lamp
239


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 241
sounded miles away and seemed to come to me from out
of the wall itself.
"Riker—Riker! I've got—Oh!"
Then the house was silent again. I made a dash for
the door, sped down the hall and took the stairs two at
a time. The lights had been turned out in the hall also
and except for the meagre light of my flashlight I was
dashing through absolute darkness. I brought up with
a crash against the library door. It was closed but not
locked. With the expectation of being riddled the next
instant I tried to push it open. Someone seemed to be
holding it from the inside. Placing my shoulder against
it I put all my strength to the task, and at last something
moved, gave way and the door flew open. My light
showed me an empty room—and then the spot from it
found Lowry's body twisted against the bookcase just
inside the door. He was on his back, one arm flung over
his head, his feet and legs drawn up under him and the
iron bar was lying a few feet from his relaxed fingers as
if it had been dropped in his fall. His body had blocked
my entrance. Blood was flowing from a gash on his right
temple. Each breath was a groan and his lips were
twisted as if with pain far in excess of that which the
cut in his head could produce. I spoke to him but re-
ceived no answer.
Forgetting the open door at my back I knelt at his
side and with my handkerchief wiped away the blood in
an effort to see how badly he was injured. I tried lifting
him but he was too heavily built for me to manage, espe-


242 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
dally in the meagre light that came from my flashlight
lying on the floor. Making a crude bandage of my hand-
kerchief I fastened it tightly around his head.
I was almost through when from a point a few feet
behind me a flash was turned on and I realized that I
was helpless. My own light was lying on the floor be-
side Lowry just out of my reach, my gun was in my
pocket and a move in that direction would probably be
fatal, so I crouched motionless in the flood of light wait-
ing for the report that should send me to my ancestors.
After what seemed an age (it was probably only a
second) I heard the voice that had spoken to me last
night in the dark bedroom, except now it seemed to
tremble a little with excitement or—with delight.
"Be good enough to do what I say. I have a con-
vincing reason in my right hand and it is only about a
foot from your head. I could hardly miss."
I could feel that cold muzzle pointing somewhere in the
region of the back of my neck. I wanted to turn and
tackle the speaker but I knew to do so meant instant
death. The voice went on,
"Put your hands over your head—higher—now stand
up. Good! Now turn, slowly, and face my light. If you
make the slightest—Rikerl Thank God, you're all
right! What has happened? What have they done to
poor old Lowry?"
I picked up my own light and convinced myself that
it was really Burnleigh. Pale and shaking from head to
foot he stood blinking at my light. He was such a pa-


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 243
thetic sight it never occurred to me that he might be act-
ing the part. I went to the library table and lighted the
oil lamp there. While we lifted Lowry and placed him in
the chair I told Burnleigh briefly what had occurred as
far as I knew. He did not speak until I was •finished
with my recital.
"Glome told me that you and Lowry had gone out.
I worried about it until I could stand it no longer and
then started walking out here. Just as I cleared the
woods I heard a succession of what sounded like shots,
followed by another burst a little later, and then Miss
Lowry came running across the terraces and passed me
with the entreaty that I hurry to the Manor—that some-
thing dreadful had happened there."
So she had been hovering about—and now she was
running away!
"Where is she now?"
"I think she continued along toward the Lodge."
Lowry stirred in his chair and seemed to be trying to
say something. I bent over his moving lips and picked
up a word here and there.
"Panel is part of the bookcase—that is why we couldn't
find it before—it slid back after—after—the shots.
Someone came out—silent—I reached out—terribly dark
—caught an arm. We struggled for a moment then
they—they hit me. Dirty way of—of fighting"
I put my hand on his forehead.
"Never mind that, old man, you are all right now."
He moved his head away from my hand impatiently.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 245
have already told you it was a woman, have I not? There
is only one woman within miles of here and that is my
daughter. Mr. Riker told me he was convinced she was
involved in this in some way and now I know he was
right. I am going to ask you not to be too hard on her.
This place has probably driven her crazy as it will all
of us if we stay much longer."
I tried to make it easier for him although I was quite
convinced who it was that had struggled with him in
the dark. I was equally convinced that she had no idea
it had been her own father.
"Don't jump to conclusions, Lowry—we aren't sure it
was a woman as yet. The dark is deceiving."
"I had my hands on her for a second and I know. This
is certainly a woman's hair and it is hair that I recog-
nize."
Then Burnleigh spoke in a voice just barely audible.
"There was one other woman with hair just like that
and she lived here long ago."
I looked at him quickly. He was standing rigid,
holding on to the table so tightly that his knuckles showed
white through the skin of his hand and his eyes had the
look of a man who was seeing far beyond the present.
Then from the wall—from somewhere behind the
bookcase—came the most unexpected sound of all—the
sound of hammer blows on stone. This time they came
feverishly, rapidly, as if the one swinging the hammer
was working desperately against time, frantically trying
to break through that hidden stone wall.


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 249
stantly ducked. At the same second from within the
wall and to the right of me, there were two spurts of
flame and two deafening reports. A splinter of wood
from the bookcase struck my left cheek. The shots had
been fired not many feet from where my right temple
would have been but for Burnleigh's shout. I had
drawn back just at the right instant.
Snatching the gun from my pocket I stepped through
the opening cautiously and turned to the right. Who-
ever had fired the shots was gone now for I was alone in
an extremely narrow passage. The bookcase formed the
door which we had succeeded in opening to its fullest
extent and which closed off the passage except to the
right. Burnleigh crowded in behind me and I called out
hasty directions to Lowry to stand guard on the room
side of our new-found door. Together Burnleigh and I
swung the bookcase section partly closed and found be-
hind it a stair with precariously narrow treads which
led up and away into the darkness, apparently to the bed-
room above. The whole affair had a distinctly home-
made look to it and whoever had built it had simply taken
advantage of the peculiar construction of the massive
old walls of the place.
To the right there seemed to be a narrow passage with
a steeply declining floor which looked as if it might lead
to the cellar. About thirty feet down in this direction, a
glance gave me the explanation of the mysterious hammer
blows; an open electric light bulb lay on the floor at the
end of an extension cord running past my feet, and beside


250 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
it lay a sledge, very much like the one I had been using
and the floor of the passage was cluttered with broken
masonry. In the left wall of the passage there was a
jagged hole. There was no trace of the laborer himself
but with full knowledge that he must be lurking in the
shadows beyond the circle of light from the bulb on the
floor, we made our way cautiously down the passage.
The floor was slippery and it was with difficulty that we
kept our footing. About eight feet from the opening I
stopped and whispered to Burnleigh.
"That opening is large enough for a man to squeeze
through. There is a possibility that he might be beyond
it, waiting for us to pass. You wait here and keep your
eye on the hole while I crawl underneath it and see where
this passage leads to."
"Be careful! Remember what I told you about the
cliff being honeycombed by pirates in the olden days.
This wall is probably built directly over some such place
and Heaven alone knows where you might wind up."
I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled cau-
tiously past the opening in the wall without making any
sound that could be heard on the other side. As soon
as I had reached the end of the passage I could come
back and investigate the jagged hole. My flashlight
made an excellent target out of me but the light was now
at my back anyway so I simply had to trust to luck.
The opening was sufficiently far behind me now to
permit standing up again and my flash picked out a
short flight of steps just ahead. As I went down these I


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A stop watch might have shown something interesting
in the way of time for my run from that clump of trees
to the door of the Manor. Burnleigh was down in that
passage waiting for me to return and while I was sure
I had found where the mysterious laborer of the Manor
had escaped, you could be sure of nothing in this place
and it was no time for a man to be left alone.
I sped down the hall to the library and swung through
the door. Lowry was at his post and his jaw dropped
in amazement at seeing me enter from the door instead
of returning down the passage as he expected me to do.
His face was white and tense.
"How the dev"
"Never mind that now, Lowry. I'll explain later. Is
everythinng all right?"
"Haven't heard a sound after you called."
"After I what?"
"After you called out something I couldn't hear."
I had not called, so it must have been Burnleigh. Per-
haps he had called out for helpl
"Lowry we are going to reverse things. You run as
fast as you can to the clump of trees by the edge of the
cliff out there—where Hooper got hurt—and keep under
253


254 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
cover. Keep your eyes on the ground in the center and
drop anybody that comes out."
"But I"
"For God's sake do what I say quickly. Use your
head. I'm going in here after Burnleigh."
I squeezed through the book-case door again and
started down the crude passage that had been built be-
tween the walls. When I reached the stairs that led
down to the old tunnel of the pirates I called out to
Burnleigh. No answer!
"Burnleigh—are you all right?"
Still no answer. When I reached a spot about ten
feet from the newly made hole in the wall of the tunnel
I halted. Perhaps Burnleigh had gone on down the
passage after me and was now on the ground above. In
that case he was safe.
Something about that jagged opening in the stones of
the tunnel wall fascinated me. If Burnleigh had passed
it then there was nothing beyond it. I could find out
by going back, but I was consumed by a desire to see
what lay beyond it. If the ghostly worker had labored
so long to open it there must be something worth seeing
—but if he were in there
Then I was chilled to the bone, for I heard a sound as
if someone had stumbled over an empty box followed by
a whispered imprecation and it had come to me through
that opening! What was I to do now? Lowry was
beyond call up there in the wood. Burnleigh was—per-
haps he was in there!


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 257
light, but my hand was slippery with blood. Then my
heart sank and I lay hugging the ground, convinced that
my moments were numbered, for from the darkness of
that passage, over the soft footfall came the call of an
owl! It was answered immediately from within the
hole. We were cornered like rats in a hole—Burnleigh,
an old man in an uneven struggle beyond the wall, and
me with an empty gun and a shot ripped arm.
For a second I was tempted to make a desperate dash
for freedom and safety down the other end of the
tunnel, where that door opened into the wood. The re-
vulsion from the instantaneous flash of cowardice of my
thought brought my courage back. If it was to be a
hopeless fight, at least it would be a good one!
Gripping my flash in my left hand I extended it as
far from the body as I could and turned it on. In its
brilliant beam, actually dazzling after the utter darkness
of the last few moments, stood Edith Lowry!
Her face was dead white—her lips drawn into a thin
tight line—and her eyes were unnaturally bright and
wide. She did not flinch before the light but came slowly
on toward me.
"Who is that with the flashlight?"
I could hardly answer her.
"Riker, and I have a gun in my other hand. Please do
not"
"Put your gun away, Mr. Riker. I will handle matters
my own way from now on. There have been enough
guns."


264 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
trance through the wall and the stairs down to this place,
and in later years used it for a hiding place for his
treasures. This room was used by the old pirates to
hide their loot and at one time it had an opening in the
roof through which they lowered it. It was all in the
book."
That explained the construction of the roof and you
could see where the opening had been.
"He lived down here in the dark—searching—search-
ing all the time. We used the owl call to identify our-
selves to each other. Then the solitude and the darkness
drove him mad. He threatened to kill my father if I
did not help him. He meant to kill Hooper, I think. My
life was one long nightmare. I did not dare tell and I
thought I could hold everyone off until he found what
he was looking for and left the Manor. He wanted to
kill Mr. Riker, but I told him if he harmed anyone else
I would tell at once. Then he threatened me. He was
insane—hopelessly so—I—I was frantic."
She was trembling again and my arm tightened about
her to reassure her. Burnleigh's voice cut in on us.
"Riker! Under that image there—on that long case
—is a piece of paper. Will you—will you—look at it?"


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 267
them against the cold of the earth and leave them in
peace. As I had sealed this their room, seal it again
and keep faith with the dead. Life takes on the
darkness of the tomb for him who has lost the light
of love. Edward B."
In the moment or two we stood there in silence it
seemed to me that the passions and hopes of these people
long since dead eddied and swirled about us like wisps
of smoke. The Manor had yielded its secret at last and
with it the bitter sweet story of the parents of the boy
at my feet. What was it he had said? "—bury the three
of us together and let it go at that"
I motioned to Lowry and he slipped quietly through
the opening to the tunnel beyond. Then without a word
I lifted Edith in my arms and careful to keep most of
her weight on my good left arm I passed her through to
her father. Then I turned back to Burnleigh.
"Go ahead if you wish to, Riker. I am going to stay
here a bit longer."
I did not like the look in his eyes.
"Things will look a lot different in the sunlight and
you are hurt, too. Let me help you."
I forced him toward the opening.
"I think I should like to have them all sleep together,
Riker, and their story with them."
"Lowry and I will see to that later."
And once more we made our way up that ancient old
tunnel of the buccaneers to the library. When we reached
the hall, Lowry met us and with a peculiar look on his
face.
s


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A soft wind was blowing in from the sea, and with it
came the sun-drenched, full blossomed odor of Summer.
The long sleek Rolls made its way slowly along the road
that skirted the cliffs, its chauffeur speculating on the
condition of the clay road in the event of rain. On the
back seat, robes about their knees even in the heat of the
day, sat two white haired old men. Their heads nodded
with the lurching of the car as if they were dozing, but
their eyes were wide awake and fixed keenly on the bend
in the road ahead of them.
"I still say I don't like the idea of your coming back,
Lord Cecil."
"Hooper, as you grow older you get fussier and
fussier. If it were not for the fact that I can never find
anything unless you are about I'd consider pensioning
you."
"It isn't fussines, sir, it is a moral issue with me of a
sort."
"Moral?"
One lurch of the car was more violent than the others
and from the front seat came a respectful,
"Sorry, sir."
269


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 271
Hooper sank back into his corner sulkily.
"We will probably see an American flag hanging out
of every blooming window."
"Well, what of that? You haven't owned a British
one, let alone having enough pride to hang it out."
"Yes, but I"
"Never mind—never mind! I am too weary to talk
any more."
The car halted at the big wrought iron gates. The
halt was a mere formality for they stood wide open. Be-
yond them stood the Lodge—surrounded by banks of
gorgeous flowers—and topped by fresh paint that made
it glisten.
From the door of the Lodge came a man with white
hair and a close-clipped white moustache. True, he
leaned a bit heavily on a cane but his back was proudly
straight and his teeth flashed in a smile.
"How do you do, Lord Cecil? My daughter has pre-
pared some tea and biscuits for you after your long"
But Burnleigh was half out of the car.
"Lowry! Bless my heart and soul! What"
Then catching himself and with a sly twinkle in his
eye he bowed toward the man with the white mous-
tache.
"That was very thoughtful of you, Lowry. I make it
a practice never to eat at night, but the tea will taste
delicious."
From the interior of the car came Hooper's voice.
"But it isn't night, sir? It's broad day"
Lowry and Burnleigh laughed heartily.


272 MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR
"Yes, Hooper, it is daylight, and we will eat shortly.
You see, Lowry, he is getting so old that his memory
will not carry him back to that night we"
From the car came Hooper's voice again.
"Old? I say! Why I am only a year older than"
The car wound its way up the drive through the wood,
Burnleigh, Lowry and Hooper across the back seat. At
the edge of the wood Burnleigh leaned forward with a
gasp.
"Oh—just as it was—how could he know about those
reds in that bed there—and the yellows there—Hooper!
There is Burnleigh Manor as it was—years ago—even to
the color of the lawn!"
"Every lawn is the same color. What else could the
fellow"
"Every lawn is not the same color. Your eyes are get-
ting too old to tell the difference, that's all."
"Old? My eyes are not one bit"
"Never mind—never mind, Hooper. We are not in-
terested."
The gravel crunched under the wheels as the car came
to a stop at the great front doors. A man was waiting
to open the door and beside him stood a little girl about
seven years old, scrubbed and starched to the last degree.
She dropped a little curtsy and spoke to the three men.
"Welcome to Burnleigh Manor. Mother and father
said to tell you that the lock has not been changed and
I have a key to give to Lord Cecil, which they hope he
will always keep."


MYSTERY OF BURNLEIGH MANOR 273
Burnleigh got out and took it from her, blowing his
nose with peculiar intensity at the same time. She
glanced at him shyly and all signs of party manners left.
"Are you really and truly an English Lord?"
From the door of the Manor came a burst of laughter.
Burnleigh glanced up.
"Riker! It is gorgeous—simply gorgeous! What will
you sell it back to me for?"
From the interior of the car came Hooper's voice.
"Mr. Riker!—Lord Cecil! I thought you told me it
was an American millionaire?"
Burnleigh turned back with a smile.
"I did and it was the truth. Now are you satisfied
with the sale?"
"Of course, but only because of his English—er—edu-
cation."
"And now, Hooper, for the big surprise. Meet Mrs.
Riker—the present Lady Burnleigh!"
From the depths of the back seat came a snort, but
the voice that followed it was a bit breathless.
"Surprise? Any poor fool would have known that he
was"
"Never mind—never mind Hooper, we are not in-
terested. Get out and see to the baggage or you will be
fussing all the rest of the day at the way it was handled.
Edith, take me in and show me what you have done with
the inside."
THE END





The Editors of the Mystery League in introducing in
the following pages Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning,
collaborators in The Invisible Host, their next selec-
tion, do so with an assured belief that in these two young
American authors they have discovered writers who in
years to come will rank with the recognized leaders in
this field of fiction.
What would you do if you had been invited by tele-
gram to a party to be given in your honor and signed
"your host," only to find, when you had arrived at a
penthouse nineteen stories above the city's streets, that
you were in the presence of seven acquaintances whom
you disliked intensely—your arrival being followed by an
announcement from the radio in the room that the entire
group would be dead by morning unless you were able
to outwit your unseen host.
Coupled with this most ingenious plot is a high stand-
ard of craftsmanship that makes its suspense grip the
reader from the initial page—and your editors doubt that
once begun it will be possible for any reader to lay the
book down.
You are strongly urged to reserve this book at your
United Cigar Store or Whelan Drug Store now, so that
you may be sure of obtaining your copy.





THE INVISIBLE HOST
281
And so when he arrived at the party Saturday night,
Dr. Reid was to tell Jason Osgood in an aside why he
had thought Mr. Osgood had sent the telegram. He was
to add that he had thought it a wise precaution on Mr.
Osgood's part to sign himself simply "Your host," so
as not to give the inquisitive an inkling that it was
Jason Osgood who had endowed the chair of economics
and who took a fatherly interest in what was taught
from it.
Dr. Reid was to say all that Saturday night. He
knew it now as he put the telegram into his breast pocket
and rang for his secretary. Dr. Reid easily made up his
mind in advance.
As his secretary flounced through the door, Jason
Osgood, annoyed at having a wire interrupt him at this
time, frowned impatiently, pushed aside his report to
the stockholders and tore open the envelope of the
third telegram.
At the party Saturday night Mr. Osgood was to charge
Peter Daly with sending the telegram. He was to explain
how exasperated he had been upon receiving it—it was
not soothing to be interrupted in his office by cryptic
messages from artistic youngsters of the French Quarter.
Still, Mr. Osgood was to say, he had reflected that it
had been rather important to have financed the Civic
Forum, and he hadn't been surprised that Peter had
planned to celebrate the Osgood Foundation. "Then, of
course," Mr. Osgood was to add, "I wanted to congratu-


282 THE INVISIBLE HOST
late you on having your book dramatized on Broadway.
So I decided to run up for awhile after a meeting in my
office."
That was what Mr. Osgood was to say Saturday night.
Now he read the telegram, and put it aside as he turned
back to his report. Mr. Osgood's office was in the shin-
ing new Bienville Building, but he had not yet had a look
at the penthouse, twenty-two stories above the street. He
remembered that the architects had said it would be the
smartest thing of its kind in town.
Peter Daly had been browsing among the bookshops
along Royal Street, and found his message on the mantel-
piece when he came in. He deposited a newspaper-
wrapped bundle of books on the floor and opened the
fourth telegram.
"It took me three full minutes to decide on the sender,"
Peter was to report at the party Saturday night, "but
after running down the list of my friends I remembered
Sylvia, and I was certain it was she. You see, Sylvia
was always a pal of mine—she used to read my stuff and
say it was good back in the days when I hardly believed
it was good myself, and it seemed just like Sylvia to
want to give me a party during these first days back
home. I suppose I was a little bit silly—seeing one's
first play on Broadway usually does go to one's head."
That was to be Peter's explanation Saturday night.
But now when he read the telegram he simply went out
on his balcony and looked down over the strange dilap-


THE INVISIBLE HOST 283
idated beauty of the old French Quarter and listen to the
chime of bells in the dust-gray cathedral tower.
"Telegram, Miss Sylvia."
"Thanks, Chad." Sylvia Inglesby lifted her sleek
golden head to look at her office boy, and smiled in spite
of herself. "Chad, how often have I told you not to
chew gum in the office?"
"Oh gee, Miss Sylvia, I'm sorry." He fished a slip of
paper from the wastebasket and wrapped up the gum.
"That all right?" he asked as he put the ball back into
the basket.
"Yes, I suppose so. And Chad, tell Miss Worthington
to have those briefs ready by five o'clock. Mr. Lindsay
will be in then."
"Yessum." Chad's head bobbed and he grinned at
her as he went out.
Sylvia smiled after him as she slipped her fingers
under the flap of the fifth telegram. She took a foolish
delight in the adoration of the office boy as being a
typical tribute to how much and yet how little she looked
like a lawyer.
Her face lit again with amusement as she read the
telegram. "Congratulations. . . . Your host."
"But it was so exactly like you, Tim," she was to
whisper at the party Saturday night.
Sylvia was an admirable lawyer, logical and coldly
inspired. There were several of her clients who had be-
come in the course of time her warmest friends, and


284 THE INVISIBLE HOST
perhaps the closest friend she had among them was Tim
Slambn, the politician whose bulbous pugnacious face
belied his very real intellect. Sylvia was fond of Tim.
"But I wondered at the time," Tim was to hear her
say Saturday night, "if it was wise of you to celebrate
with a party. Of course it was a triumph for us both
when we managed to adduce proof that Cosgrave was
legally entitled to run for mayor after all the mud slung
by Osgood's faction. I couldn't help thinking it was good
of you to give me a party."
Sylvia was thinking about that Osgood-Slamon battle
as she tucked away the telegram. She knew her methods
there had smacked considerably of the shyster. She
did not think she would have strained so many points for
anybody but Tim. Good old Tim.
i It was characteristic of Tim Slamon that he never
chewed his cigars. As he came back to his office on his
return from City Hall the blue smoke enwreathed his
head till he looked like one of a race of funny Celtic
genii advancing in a cloud.
Two telegrams lay on his desk. The first proved to be
a message from one of the out of town directors of the
Art Craftsmen's Club thanking Mr. Slamon for his public-
spirited work in getting the Craftsmen's Club an appro-
priation from city funds. Tim read it and put it aside
with, a benign nod. He approved of the Craftsmen's
Club. Not that he had ever had time to learn much
about pictures, pottery and sculpture, but it was run by