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The Room with the Tassels
C A R O L Y N W E L L S





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ASTOn, LTNtox AND
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Copyright, 1918,
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America
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:
WITH LOVE AND HOMAGE
This Book is Dedicated
to
HATTIE BELLE JOHNSTON





chapter
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
CONTENTS
WANTED: A HAUNTED House
THE OLD Montgomery PLACE
BLACK ASPENs .
THE Story of THE House
Eve's ExPERIENCE .
AT Four O'CLOCK .
THE MYSTERY -
BY WHAT MEANS
CoNFLICTING THEORIES .
WAS IT SUPERNATURALP
THE HEIR SPEAKs OUT .
THE PROFESSOR's ExPERIENCE
PENNINGTON WISE
ZIZI -
TRACY's StoRY -
WHAT HAPPENED to ZIzI
STEBBINs Owns UP
ANother CoNFESSION .
pace
II
26
4 I
56
71
IOI
117
I31
I46
I61
176
I92
207
222
237
252
267





THE ROOM WITH THE TASSELS





THE ROOM
WITH THE TASSELS
CHAPTER I
Wanted: A Haunted House
it herself, and heard it, too!”
The air of finality in the gaze levelled
at Braye defied contradiction, so he merely smiled
at the girl who was doing the talking. But, talking
or silent, Eve Carnforth was well worth smiling at.
Her red hair was of that thin, silky, flat-lying sort,
that spells temper, but looks lovely, and her white,
delicate skin, perhaps the least bit hand-painted,—
showed temperament while her eyes, of the colour
called beryl, -whatever that is, showed all sorts
of things.
Then from her canna-hued lips fell more wisdom.
“And Professor Hardwick believes it, too, and
he's—”
“A college professor,” broke in Landon, “don’t
try to gild his refinement! But really, Eve, you
mustn't believe in spooks,—it isn't done—”
-- Bº: I know it's so, for Mrs. Fairbanks saw
II


I2 The Room with the Tassels
“Oh, but it is! You've no idea how many peo-
ple, scientific and talented people, are leaning to-
ward spiritualism just now. Why, Sir Oliver Lodge
says that after the war great and powerful assist-
ance will be given by spirit helpers in matters of
reconstruction and great problems of science.”
Milly Landon's laugh rang out, and she politely
clapped a little, fat hand over her mouth to stifle it.
Milly Landon was an inveterate giggler, but
don't let that prejudice you against her. She was
the nicest, dearest dumpling of a little woman who
ever giggled her way through life. And as hostess
on this present Sunday afternoon occasion, she sat,
one foot tucked under her, on the davenport in her
long, narrow parlour, on one of New York's East
Seventieth streets.
It was a parlour like thousands of others in the
city, and the quartette of people talking there were
much like the people talking in those other parlours,
that Sunday afternoon. Their only superiority lay
in the fact that they constitute part of the personnel
of this absorbing tale, and the other people do
not.
Milly and her very satisfactory husband, Wynne
Landon, were affably entertaining Rudolph Braye
and the herein-before described Eve Carnforth, two
pleasing callers, and the talk had turned on psycho-
logical matters and then, by inevitable stages, to the
supernatural and spiritualism.
“It is all coming in again,” Eve declared, ear-


Wanted: A Haunted House I3
nestly. “You know it was taken very seriously
about thirty or forty years ago, and then because
of fake mediums and fraudulent séances, it fell
into disrepute. But now, it's being taken up in ear-
nest, and I, for one, am terribly interested.”
“But it's so old-fashioned, Eve,” and Milly
looked at her guest in disdain.
“It's gammon and spinach, that's what it is,”
declared Landon, “very rubbishy gammon and a
poor quality of spinach!”
“Queen Victoria didn't think so,” Eve informed
them. “She may have been old-fashioned, but she
believed thoroughly in the spiritual reappearance of
her friends who died, and especially took comfort
in the communion and visitation of her dead hus-
band.”
“It's this way, I think,” offered Braye; “it seems
to me it's like that old ‘Lady or the Tiger’ story,
you believe or not, according to your character or
disposition. You know, it depended on your own
nature, whether you think the Lady came out of the
door, or the Tiger. And so with spooks, if you
want to believe in them, you do.”
“Don’t say spooks, please,” begged Eve; “say
phantasms, or even ghosts.”
“Is that the usage in the best mediumistic cir-
cles?” and Braye smiled. “Well, I think I could
more easily believe in a spook than a phantasm.
The latter sounds so unreal, but a good honest
Injun spook seems sort of plausible.”


I4 The Room with the Tassels
“They're all unreal,” began Landon, but Eve in-
terrupted. “They're not unreal, Wynne; they're
immaterial, of course, but that isn't being unreal.
You have a real soul, haven't you, although it is im-
material? and I suppose you don't call your mind
material, even if your brain is.”
“Now you're quibbling, Eve,” and Landon grew
a bit more serious. “When I say unreal, I mean
imperceptible to the senses. I hold that a departed
spirit cannot return to earth and be seen, heard, or
felt by mortal human beings. All the stories of
such things to the contrary notwithstanding. If
you or any one else has power to show me a visible
spook, -I beg pardon, phantasm, I'll be glad to
see it, but I'm from Missouri. I wouldn't be a bit
afraid of it, but I'd have to be jolly well convinced
of its integrity. No faked-up spectres would go
down with me!”
“But how can you know?” asked Milly. “I’d
be scared to death of one, I'm sure, but if Wynne
wants to see one, I do. Let's all go to a séance, or
whatever they call the things. Shall us?”
“No, indeed!” cried Eve. “Professional
séances are always fakes. And I don't aspire to
see one. If we could get some messages from the
beyond, that would satisfy me.”
“Get messages how?” asked Braye.
“Oh, by a Ouija board, or some such way.”
“Ouija!” derided Landon; “that's the biggest
fraud of all!”


Wanted: A Haunted House I5
“Only in the hands of frauds. If we tried it
here by ourselves and if we all trusted each other
not to stoop to deception of any sort that would be
a fair test.” -
“I’d like that,” and Milly giggled in pleased anti-
cipation. “That wouldn't frighten me, and I’d
promise to play fair.”
“There'd be no reason for not playing fair,” said
Eve, seriously. “We’re not a pack of silly children
who want to trick one another. If we could get
together some evening and have an earnest, serious
test, I’d agree. But not if there's to be the least
suspicion of anybody trying trickery.”
At this point two more callers arrived, and Milly
jumped up to greet them.
“Mr. Brucel ” she exclaimed, “how nice to see
you! And Vernie, my goodness, how you've
grown!”
“Indeed, yes,” and Vernie Reid, a most lively
and energetic sub-deb of sixteen, darted from one
to another, greeting all with interest.
“Hello, Cousin Rudolph, what are you doing
here? Mooning after Miss Carnworth, I spose.
Dear Mrs. Landon, let me sit here by you. I want
to show you my graduating gifts.”
“Oh, yes, you've just had commencement,
haven't you?”
“Yes, and Uncle Gifford gave me this heavenly
wrist-watch, and my respected Cousin Rudolph,
over there, sent me this pendant. Isn't it stunning?
***
* *


I6 The Room with the Tassels
Oh, I had beautiful presents. I'd like to graduate
every year!”
“Aren't you going to school any more at all?”
“Dunno yet. Uncle Gifford says I am, I say
I'm not. It remains to be seen. Though I don't
mind confiding to you that I usually get my own
way. And, too, out in Chicago, you know, we're
not such terrible highbrows. Something tells me
my schooldays are over. I think Uncle Gif needs
the pleasure of my society at home. And, too, I
want to get acquainted with Cousin Rudolph. Until
this week I haven't seen him for years.”
“He isn't your cousin, Vernie.”
“Same as. He's a son of Uncle Gif's half-
brother, and I'm a daughter of Uncle's own sister,
so it sort of evens up. Anyway, I like Cousin
Rudolph, because he's such a good-looking young
man, and he's promised to take me round New York
some. That's why I'm so jealous of Miss Carn-
forth or any other girl.”
Vernie was so pretty that her chatter amused
the whole crowd. She was brown-haired and
brown-eyed, and somewhat of a browned com-
plexion, by reason of much tennis and outdoor life
at the school from which she had just been grad-
uated. And after a summer spent among the East-
ern resorts, she and her Uncle were to return to
their Chicago home, where they had lived all of
Vernie's orphaned life. Gifford Bruce idolized the
girl and though often short and crabbed in his


Wanted: A Haunted House 17
manner to others, he was never cross or stern to his
dead sister's child.
“What were you talking about when we came
in?” Vernie asked, smiling at Milly. “You were
all so in earnest, it must have been something im-
portant.”
“Of ghosts,” answered Braye, looking at the
pretty child. “Do you enjoy them?”
“Oh, don't Il" cried Vernie. “Why, at school
we just ate 'em up! Table tippings and all such
things, as soon as lights were out!”
“We don't mean that sort,” said Eve. “We
were talking seriously.”
“Count me out, then,” laughed Vernie. “Our
ghosts weren't a bit real. I did most of 'em my-
self, jogging the table, when the others didn't know
it!”
Eve's scarlet lips came together in a narrow line,
but the others laughed at the Vernie as she
babbled on.
“Yes, and we tried the Ouija board. I can make
it say anything I want to.”
“Good for you, Kiddie,” cried Braye, “I be-
lieve I like your notion of these things better than
the ideas of the psychologists. It sounds a lot more
fun!”
“And comes nearer the truth,” declared Mr.
Bruce. “I’ve looked up these matters and I've
read all the best and most authoritative books on
the subjects. There are many writers more diffuse


18 The Room with the Tassels
and circumstantial, but Andrew Lang sums up the
whole situation in his able way. He says there are
no ghosts, but there are hallucinations. And that
explains all.”
“It doesn't to me,” and Eve's beryl eyes took on
a mystic, faraway look. “I, too, have read a lot
of books—”
“Scientific or psychic?” interrupted Mr. Bruce,
acidly.
“Psychical and Theosophic xy
“Rubbish! The Theosophic bunch have been in
the discard for years.”
“That's what I say,” put in Milly, “the whole
business is old-fashioned.”
“It isn't a question of fashion,” and Gifford
Bruce spoke assuredly; “the subject is one that
recurs in waves, as many such things do. Why,
there have been ghosts and haunted houses in peo-
ple's imagination ever since there has been man and
a house for him to live in. Some are spoken of
in the Bible, the primitive Australians had legions
of ghosts, the awful Dyaks record them, and there
is scarce a castle or palace of the middle ages that
hasn't its Woman in White, or a Little Gray Lady
or the Man in Black. And in an old Egyptian
papyrus, there's an account of a defunct lady who
insisted on haunting her husband to his great dis-
taste.”
“My goodness, Uncle Gif, you do know a lot
about it!” and Vernie went over and sat on the


Wanted: A Haunted House I9
arm of his chair. “Tell us more. I like this sort
of ghost stories better than the fool stunts we did
at school.”
“I’m not telling ghost stories, child, I'm only
declaring that ghost stories are merely stories, and
in no case a true relation of happenings. Lang in-
vestigated thousands of cases, and in ten out of
every eleven, he states, fraud was proved.”
“Quite so,” said Eve, “and it is that eleventh
case that interests the real thinker, the true
inquirer.”
“But the eleventh case was simply not proven,
it never has been shown that it was really a ghostly
visitation.”
“But they do say, Uncle Gifford,” observed
Braye, “that the very fact of the frauds being per-
petrated proves that there was something to imitate.
If no spirit had ever returned to earth and made
itself manifest, no one would have thought of pre-
tending that one did.”
“Nonsense and super-nonsense! Why, Ru-
dolph, perpetual motion is not a real thing, but
how many times has it been pretended ! You don't
remember the Keeley Motor, but that deceived thou-
sands into believing that perpetual motion was at
last discovered, but it wasn't; and that fraud
doesn't prove that perpetual motion, without ade-
quate cause, exists.”
“Here comes Professor Hardwick,” exclaimed
Milly, “splendid to have him come just now! Sit


2O The Room with the Tassels
down, Professor, and get right into the game. You
know all these people, except this angel child, Miss
Vernie Reid.”
“I am an angel,” declared Vernie, “but I'm no
child! I've just graduated with honours and di-
plomas and lots of presents. Now, I'm out in the
great world, and glory, but I love it! But don't
mind me, Professor, go right on and tell us all you
know about ghosts and ghostesses.”
“Bless my soul! . I don't know anything about
them.”
“Well, do you believe in ghosts?”
“What do you mean by ghosts? How do you
define a ghost?”
“Ah, there's the rub,” said Landon. “These
people are all talking at cross purposes. Mr. Bruce
means a scarecrow phantom rigged up in sheets,
Miss Carnforth means a supernatural being of
some sort, but I take a ghost, in the proper
sense, to mean the visible soul of some one who
has died.”
“What do you mean by visible soul? Disem-
bodied?”
“No,” considered Landon, “I suppose I mean
clothed in a body, that is an apparent body.”
“And raiment?” asked the old Professor.
“Yes, certainly. I never heard of a nude
spook!”
“Then your visible soul is concealed by a body
of flesh, and clothes, of fabric, or, at least, appar-


Wanted: A Haunted House 2I
ently so. The soul, I take it, would show but low
visibility.”
“Good, Hardwick!” cried Mr. Bruce. “Give
them a jolt, they need it, talking such rubbish!”
“Rubbish, Bruce? What do you mean by rub-
bish?”
“Why, all this ghost gabble—”
“How do you know it's rubbish? Have you
personally disproved it? Do you mean intentional
rubbish? Are they talking deceptively, or are they
themselves deceived P’’ -
“By the Lord Harry, Hardwick, I had forgotten
you were such a stickler for words! I must choose
my diction carefully. Do you, then, believe that so-
called supernatural appearances are caused by psy-
chical influences or are hallucinations of the senses?
There, I think I've put it clearly.”
“Fairly so. But I can't answer clearly. I never
express an opinion on a grave question xx
Milly's hand flew up to her mouth to repress an
involuntary giggle. “A grave question!” she ex-
ploded. “It surely is.”
The Professor looked at her thoughtfully. “It
is,” he went on, “and it is no laughing matter. As
I was saying, I never state an opinion without being
sure of my facts. Now, I've had no experience,
personally, with supernatural matters, and so am
unfit to discuss them. But, I admit I should be
very glad to have some such experience. Yes, I
certainly should.”


22 The Room with the Tassels
“Really,” and Eve Carnforth looked interested.
“I can arrange it for you, Professor Hardwick.”
“No, no, my dear lady, I do not mean that I
want to go to a séance, where the so-called medium
throws flowers and things out of a cabinet, or toots
trumpets and bangs cymbals! No, thank you, I've
seen such often.”
“What would you choose as an experience?”
asked Landon.
“I’d like to go to a house that is reputed haunted,
and in circumstances that preclude all possibility of
fraud, see the haunting spirits or hear them, for
myself.”
“Me, too!” cried Vernie. “Oh, I do think that
would be the rippingest fun! If you ever do it,
Professor, mayn't I go with you?”
“I’ll go along,” said Eve. “Wouldn't that be
a splendid proof To have such a scientific and
open-minded man as the Professor, and a few
others who are in earnest and anxious to learn.
You couldn't go, Mr. Bruce. You are too scep-
tical.”
“I’m just the one you need,” he laughed. “A
balance wheel to keep you enthusiasts straight.
But haunted houses are not to be found on every
bush in America. If we were in England now, or
Scotland.”
“They do have some over here,” Landon as-
serted. “I read of one recently, and I’ve heard of
others.” -


Wanted: A Haunted House 23
“Let's find one,” suggested Eve, “and spend our
summer vacation in it! Wouldn't that be a lark?”
“Oh, do!” exclaimed Vernie. “I’d just love
it! May I go, Uncle Gifford? Oh, please let me.”
“Only if I go myself, child. The spooks,—I beg
their pardon, phantasms, might carry you off. I'll
have to go along to rescue you.”
“Phantasms don't carry people off,” said Eve,
contemptuously. “And though I'd like to consider
this plan, I'd only do so, if we were all in earnest
as investigators, whatever our opinions may be.”
“Come on, let's go,” said Landon. “I think it
a great little old scheme. Make up a party, you
know, but every one who joins must promise to be
earnest and honest. Must promise to do nothing to
fool or mislead the others, but keep a fair and open
mind for any developments. Of course, there won't
be any developments, but we can have a jolly time
and we can have wild discussions.”
“Wynne would rather have a discussion than
eat,” said his wife. “I’ll go, and I'll be the house-
keeper and chaperon of the crowd, if, as Wynne
says, there'll be no developments. I'd love the out-
ing, and I think this a splendid party to belong to.
And let's take Norma Cameron. She's a sensitive,
or whatever you call it, and she'll help you out,
Eve.”
“Why make the party any larger?” asked Eve,
a little petulantly. “The crowd here now seems
just right and congenial and all that.”


24 The Room with the Tassels
“Why lug in Norma?” said Braye, smiling. “I
don't know said Norma, but I agree with Eve that
the party here is just sort of complete.”
“Yes, I will take Norma. The poor child never
gets an outing, and she'd just love this chance.”
“You talk as if we were going to a summer
resort,” said Landon. “In the first place, Milly,
I doubt if we can find a properly haunted house in
a pleasant locality, that is for rent.”
“Of course we can't,” declared Mr. Bruce.
“The whole scheme is idiotic. But if you can
work it out, Landon, I'll go along, and take this
little piece of property.” He looked smilingly at
the eager-eyed Vernie. “She's due for some fun
after her school work, and if she likes this stunt,
let's try to put it over.” -
“How would you set out to find a house?” asked
Braye. -
“Advertise,” said Landon, promptly. “I know
a firm of real estate agents, that I’ll bet could
manage it in short order. Say we try it?”
“I’m going to take Norma,” .insisted Milly.
“Mayn't I, Wynne?”
“Take anything or anybody you wish, my cher-
ished one. But then, oughtn't we to have another
man?”
“Yes,” said Milly, decidedly. “I hate a bunch
of hens, without plenty of menfolks about. Who
knows a nice, good-natured, all round adaptable
dinner man?”


Wanted: A Haunted House 25
“I know just the chap,” said Braye, “but he's a
minister. Or, at least, he used to be. But he's an
awfully good fellow, and most agreeable parlour
company.”
“What's his name?” asked Landon.
“Tracy. I met him first in Chicago, some years
ago, and I’ve always liked him.”
“All right, if Milly asks Norma, you ask your
friend, but it's a case of first catch your house!”
“It’s got to be a nice house, and fairly comfort-
able,” Milly stipulated, “ or I won't go.”
“It’s got to have a well-authenticated ghost, or I
won't go,” laughed Braye. “I don't believe in the
things, but I'd like to have a chance to hear their
clanking chains, or whatever they perform on.”
“I’ll go just for the fun of the thing,” said
Vernie, “and if we do catch a ghost, so much the
better!”


CHAPTER II
The Old Montgomery Place
T the Fisher and Hibbard Real Estate and
Country House Agency, Wayne Landon had
a spirited interview with their Mr. Fisher, and
finally induced that somewhat unwilling gentleman
to advertise for a haunted house.
“It’s a purely business matter,” Landon argued,
“and if you're any sort of a live agency you ought
to do your best to get for your clients any such
peculiar domiciles as they may desire.”
“I understand that,” patiently explained Mr.
Fisher, “but it's such a crazy thing to do. How
would a dignified firm like ours look advertising for
a house warranted haunted?”
“Don’t use your own firm name, then. Have
answers sent to a fictitious address. Oh, you can
manage it, Fisher. I don't mean you can surely
get one, but you can manage to try. And if the
house is pleasant and attractive, it doesn't matter,
between you and me, if there isn't any ghost, after
all. But I want a bona fide story. I mean, I don't
want a house that the owner pretends is haunted,
just so he can rent it. It must be a well-known
legend or ghost story connected with the place.”
26


The Old Montgomery Place 27
“There are plenty of such,” and Fisher laughed.
“I’ve struck them occasionally, and because of that
well-authenticated story, known to all the neigh-
bours, I couldn't rent them. To have one asked for
is a new experience here.”
“Well, I've told you the whole state of the case.
You see why we want it, and though the ghost part
is the primary factor with some of us, my wife
and I care more about a pleasant setting for a
month's house party.”
Landon's personality went far toward gaining his
end, and Mr. Fisher promised to do what he could.
As a lawyer of fine standing, and a man of ample
means, Wynne Landon was a desirable man to
please, and the order was taken.
And when, a few weeks later, word came that a
possible opportunity had offered, Landon telephoned
for Braye to go with him, and they went to inves-
tigate it at once.
“It's this way,” said Mr. Fisher to the listening
men. “There's a big house up in Vermont, in
the Green Mountain region, not so very far from
Manchester. But it's a lonely locality, quite high
up, and near a lake.”
“Sounds fine so far,” commented Landon; “go
on.”
“A man named Stebbins is the owner. I haven't
seen him, but here's his letter. Read it, you'll get
the idea better than I can tell you.” So they
read:


28 The Room with the Tassels
“FISHER AND HIBBARD:
“Dear sirs:
“I’ve got a house, and it sure is haunted. It's
up here in the mountains, and it's a good house, and
a big one, but in some disrepair. Leastways, things
is old-fashioned, and not, as you may say, up to
date. But nothing ornery. All high-toned and
proper, only old and somewhat wore out. It's the
old Montgomery mansion, built along about 1700
and something. But it's been added to since, and
it's a sort of mixed up architecture. About forty
rooms into it, I should judge, though I ain't never
counted them. And most of them haunted. But
they ain't no use going into particulars unless some-
body really wants to rent it. I've tried nineteen
years, and nobody'll take it, cause it's so lonesome
like. It's called Black Aspens, mostly I guess,
cause the thick groves of aspen trees all around look
black at night, and Lord knows it's a fit place for
ghosts. Anyway it's haunted and I can swear to
that. But the story of the haunt I won't set down
until I hear from you again. But you can take my
affydavy it's a real haunt and there's a real reason
for it.
“Yours truly,
“ELIJAH STEBBINs.”
“Sounds good to me; what do you think, Ru-
dolph?” said Landon. -
“All right, if it's genuine. Some of us ought


The Old Montgomery Place 29
to go up there and size it up before the whole crowd
goes. Think so?”
“Yes, unless we can get a photograph, or some
sort of a plan of the place. And, you know, Braye,
I don't care such a lot about a ghost, if we can get
a good intelligent crowd of people together. That's
the only sort of vacation I care for. I wouldn't
give a picayune for a month in a big summer hotel,
or a little summer boarding-house, where you may
meet good talkers and you may not. But with Eve
Carnforth and Norma Cameron and the Professor
and, pardon the bouquet, you, I foresee some good
old chin-chins. And, add to this, picturesque, even
wild mountain scenery, I somehow think we're in
for a good time.”
“I agree. Wish Uncle Gif and Vernie weren't
going, though. He's a dictatorial old chap, though
a good sport, and as to Vernie, I don't think it's the
right place for a flapper.”
“Oh, it won't hurt the kiddie. She's a mighty
sensible little piece and she's ready to eat up experi-
ences. She may as well be with her own people.”
“That's just it. She's lived nearly all her life
alone with Uncle, and he isn't enough people for
her. She ought to have a woman to look after her,
now she's out of school.”
“Well, what's the matter with Milly? For this
trip at least. Milly loves the little girl, and will
have a good influence over her.”
“That's right as rain, but I'm not sure Eve


30 The Room with the Tassels
Carnforth is desirable company for Vernie.”
“Oh, Eve isn't a bad sort. And with her strict
Uncle, and you and Milly and me to look after the
child, Eve can’t do much to counteract.”
“She probably won't do anything. It's all right,
Wynne. Now shall we decide to take this Mont-
gomery place?”
“Oh, no, we can’t decide positively. I'm pretty
sure we shall take it, but I think we ought to call
a confab of the whole bunch to discuss it.”
Méantime, Eve Carnforth was talking it over
with Milly Landon.
“I adore the plan,” Eve said, “except your in-
sistence on taking Norma Cameron. I don't like
her, Milly, and you know it.”
“Now, Eve, cunnin’ little cherub child, don't let
the greeny-weeny-eyed monster claim you for his
own! You know perfly well,” Milly giggled, “that
you don't want Norma along, because you think she
will attract Friend Braye.”
“Why, Milly Landon! What nonsense! I don't
care two cents for Rudolph Braye 35
“Oh, I don't mean romantically, but I do know
you want to be top of the psychic heap, up there, and
you think little Norma will get ahead of you in
phantasmagoria, or whatever you call it.”
“No, it isn't that; but Norma does think she
knows it all, and she puts on such airs about her &
clairvoyance, and calls herself a sensitive and all
that.”


The Old Montgomery Place 3I
“Well, let her. You can hold your own; and,
too, Eve, if we carry out this scheme, I think we
ought all to pull together, and help each other. And
we can't do that, if there's antagonism or rivalry.
Now, can we? And if you're in earnest, as you've
always insisted you are, you ought to be glad of
any help Norma can give. She feels that way about
you. When I asked her to go, she was delighted
that you were to be in the party, because, she said,
you were so interested and so well up in all these
things we're going to discover.” -
“I suppose I am silly. I may as well confess I'm
not sure of Norma. She wouldn't be above pre-
tending she heard or saw things, even if she
didn't.”
“Fiddlesticks! There won't be any pretending!
Or, if there is, it'll be discovered right straight off.
Why, Wynne is terribly in earnest,-about having
it all fair and square, I mean,—and so is the Pro-
fessor, and I'd like to see any one fool Gifford
Brucel And little Vernie is a real wideawake.
There won't be anything doing that that child
doesn't know, if it's fraud or foolery! Don't you
believe it, my dear. Norma Cameron won't pull
any wool over anybody's eyes in our party. No,
siree!”
The crowd came together that night to discuss
the house that had been offered, and to come to a
decision.


32 The Room with the Tassels
Norma Cameron was present, and her manner
and appearance were so exactly opposite to those
of Eve Carnforth, that it was small wonder the
girls were not congenial.
Norma was blonde, and had what her friends
called a seraphic countenance and her enemies, a
doll-face. For Norma had enemies. She was
prominent in war relief work and public charities
of many kinds, and it is seldom possible for such
a one to go through the world entirely peaceably.
But all conceded that her doll-face was a very pretty
one, and few who criticized it, would not have been
glad to wear it.
Her golden hair was softly curly, and her sky
blue eyes big and expressive. But her complexion
was her greatest beauty; soft as a rose petal, the
pink and white were so delicately blended as to
make a new observer suspect art's assistance. A
second glance, however, removed all such suspicion,
for no hare's foot could ever have produced that
degree of perfection. Her softly rounded chin, and
creamy throat were exquisitely moulded, and her
usual expression was gentle and amiable.
But Norma was no namby-pamby character, and
her eyes could turn to deep violet, and her pink
cheeks flush rosily if she ran up against unjustice
or meanness. That was why her career of philan-
thropy was not always a serene path, for she never
hesitated to speak her mind and her mind was of
a positive type.


The Old Montgomery Place 33
Always outspoken, though, was Norma. No
slyness or deceit marked her procedure, never did
she say behind any one's back what she would not
say to his face.
And this was the principal reason why Norma
and Eve could never hit it off. For Eve frequently
carried tales, and sometimes denied them later.
Milly, however, was friends with both girls, and
secretly hoped that if they could all get away to-
gether, the two warring natures might react on each
other for good. Then, too, both were immensely
interested in psychics, and if they were rivals in
this field, so much better chance for all concerned,
to find out the things they were to look for.
“I think,” said Norma, at the confab, “it would
be better for two of the crowd, say, Mr. and Mrs.
Landon, to go up first and look at the house. It
sounds fine, but it may be impossible. So, why get
us all up there, only to come home again?”
“I don't think so,” said Eve, promptly, while
Milly giggled to hear the two begin to disagree at
once. “I think it would be a lot more fun for us
all to go and see it for the first time together.
Then, if it isn't livable, we can all come back, but
we shall have had a sort of picnic out of it, at
least.”
“Yes, I think that, too!” put in Vernie, who was
beside herself with joy at the outlook. “Oh, what
a gorgeous party it will be! Do we go in the train,
or motors or what?”


34 The Room with the Tassels
“Hush, Vernie,” said her Uncle, “we haven't
decided to go at all, yet. Where is this place,
Landon?”
“The post-office is East Dryden. The house is
about a mile further up the mountain. I fancy it's
a picturesque sort of a place, though with few mod-
ern appointments. Fisher got a little more data,
somehow, and he says it's a hodge-podge old pile,
as to architecture, as it's been rebuilt, or added to
several times. But I don't care about all that, I
mean, if we don't like the appointments we needn't
stay. What I want is the ghost story. Shall we
send to Stebbins for that before we take the place,
or go on a wild goose chase entirely?”
“Oh, let's start off without knowing anything
about it,” and old Mr. Bruce's eyes twinkled like a
boy's at thought of an escapade.
“Good for you, Uncle!” and Vernie shouted
with glee. “I didn't know you were such an old
top, did you, Cousin Rudolph?”
“Well, I've known him longer than you have,
Flapper, and I’m not so surprised at his wanting
a sporting proposition. But, I say, Milly, if we're
going to take Tracy, you people ought to see him
and give him the once over first. Maybe you won't
like him at all.”
“Oh, your friends are sure to be our friends,
Rudolph,” said Landon, “but telephone him to run.
up here, can't you? It's only fair to let him in on
the planning.”


The Old Montgomery Place 35
Tracy came, and he made good at once. His
ministerial air was softened by a charming smile and
a certain chivalry of address that pleased the women
and satisfied the men.
“What about servants?” he asked, after the main
details had been explained to him.
“That's what I'm thinking about,” said Milly.
“I don't want to take our servants, they'd be scared
to death in such a place, and, too, we can't go
ghost hunting under Charles' nose! He'd sniff
at us!”
“Right you are!” agreed Landon. “Charles is
one estimable and valuable butler, but he's no sort
to take on the picnic we’re out for.”
“Don’t let's take any servants,” suggested Eve,
“but get some up there. Natives, you know.”
“That would be better,” said Mr. Bruce. “Then,
they'll be used to the place, and can tell us of the
legends and traditions, you see.”
“You’re poking fun,” said Eve, reproachfully,
“but it's true, all the same. Do we go in
motors?”
“I think so,” said Landon. “Two big cars
would take us all, and we can leave our luggage to
be sent up if we stay.”
“Of course we'll stay,” asserted Milly. “I love
that old house already, and if there's no ghost at
all, I'll be just as well pleased, and I'll stay the
month out, with whoever wants to stay with me.”
“I’ll stand by you,” said Norma, “and I'll own


36 The Room with the Tassels
up that I don't really expect any spectral manifesta-
tions up there, anyway.”
“It matters little what you expect,” and Pro-
fessor Hardwick looked at her thoughtfully.
“We're going investigating, not expecting.”
“Don’t you expect anything, Proff" asked
Vernie, gaily.
“What do you mean by expect, child? Do you
mean wish or think?”
“Gracious, goodness, Professor! I never know
what I mean by the words I use, and I never
care!”
Professor Hardwick's hobby was the use of
words, and rarely did he fail to question it, if a
word was misused or uncertainly used in his pres-
ence. But he smiled benignly on the pretty child,
and didn't bother her further.
Finally, the men drew together to make up the
budget of necessary expenses and the women talked
clothes.
“Smocks all round,” said Norma, who loved the
unconventional in dress.
“Not for me!” said Eve, who didn't.
Milly giggled. “Let every one wear just what
she chooses,” she settled it. “I’m at my best in
white linen in the summer time, but what about
laundry? Well, I shall leave two sets of things
packed, and then send for whichever I want.”
Norma, uninterested in clothes, edged over
toward the men. Though a friend of the Landons


38 The Room with the Tassels
cried Vernie, coming over to them. “My mission
is to keep you serious people joyed up. Mr. Tracy,
your profession won't interfere with your having a
jolly time, will it? No, I see it won't, by that
twinkly little smile.”
“You may count on me,” said the clergyman
a bit stiffly, but with a cordial glance at the
girl.
“And I can wind Professor Hardwick round my
finger,” Vernie went on, “for a companion on a
gay lark, I don't know any one better than a dry-
as-dust old college professor!”
The object of this encomium received it with a
benignant smile, but Gifford Bruce reproved his
saucy niece.
“I’ll leave you at home, miss, if you talk imper-
tinences,” he declared.
“Not much you won't, my bestest, belovedest
Uncle! Why, I'm the leading lady of this troupe.
And I expect the spectre will appear to me first of
all. That's my motto: 'Spect the Spectrel How's
that? Then the rest of you can inspect the
spectrel" -
“Verniel don't be so excruciatingly funny,”
begged Braye, while Milly Landon giggled at the
pretty child, whose charm and sweetness took all
rudeness from her foolery.
“Perhaps we ought to call in an inspector to
inspect the spectre,” contributed Landon.
“There, there, Wynne,” said Braye, “we’ll take


CHAPTER III
Black Aspens
HOUGH mid-July, it was a chilly dusk
through which the two motor cars ascended
the last stretch of mountain road toward the
old Montgomery mansion. The sun set early be-
hind the Green Mountains and the house, half-way
up an eastern slope, appeared faintly through the
shadows.
To the right, tall forest trees waved their topmost
branches with an eerie, soughing sound, or stood,
menacingly silent, in black, sullen majesty. Be-
neath them a tangled underbrush gave forth faint,
rustling hints of some wild life or suddenly ceased
to a grim stillness.
Then the road lay through a thick grove of
aspens, close, black and shivering as they stood, sen-
tinel like and fearsome, only dimly outlined against
the dark, clouded sky. Once in the grove, the
shadows were dense, and the quivering sounds
seemed intensified to a muttered protest against
intrusion. A strange bird gave forth a few rau-
cous notes, and then the dread silence returned.
A quick, damp chill foreboded still water and the
road followed the margin of a small lake or pond,
-
4I


42 The Room with the Tassels
sinister in its inky depths, which mirrored the still
blacker aspen trees.
Suddenly, in a small clearing, they came upon the
house. In the uncertain light it seemed enormous,
shapeless and beyond all words repelling. It seemed
to have a personality, defiant and forbidding, that
warned of mystery and disaster. Aspen trees, tall
and gaunt, grew so close that their whispering leaves
brushed the windows, and crowded in protecting,
huddled clumps to ward off trespassers.
No lights showed through the deep caverns of the
windows, but one faint gleam flickered above the
entrance door.
“Whew!” cried Landon, jumping from his seat
with a thud on the stone terrace, “I won't go
through that woods again! I'll go home in an aero-
plane,—and I’m ready to go now!”
“So am I,’” said Milly, in a quivering, tearful.
voice. “Oh, Wynne, why did we ever come?”
“Now, now,” cheered Braye, “keep your heads,
it's all right. Only these confounded shadows make
it impossible to know just where we're at. Here's
the house, and by jinks, it's built of marble!”
“Of course,” said the Professor, who was curi-
ously feeling of the old ivy-grown stone, “this is
the marble country, you know. Vermont marble
was plenty enough when this house was put up.”
“Let's get in,” begged Vernie. “It isn't as
much fun as I thought it would be.”
They went, in a close group, up a short flight of


Black Aspens - 43
broad marble steps and reached a wide portico, in
the centre of which was a spacious vestibule in-
dented into the building, and which stood within
the main wall. Though the walls of the house were
of marble, those of this vestibule were of panelled
mahogany, and the entrance doorway was flanked
on either side by large bronze columns, which stood
half within and half without the mahogany wall.
“Some house!” exclaimed Tracy, in admiration
of the beautiful details, which though worn and
blackened by time, were of antique grandeur.
“These bronze doors must have come from Italy.
They're marvellous. I'm glad I came.”
“Oh, do get in, Wynne,” wailed Milly. “You
can examine the house to-morrow. I wish we hadn't
come!”
Landon was about to make search for knocker
or bell, when one of the big bronze doors swung
open, and a man peered out.
“You folks here?” he said, a bit unnecessarily.
“Bring another lamp, Hester.”
“Yes, we're here,” Landon assured him, “and we
want to get in out of the wet!”
“Rainin’?” and the man stepped out of the door
to look, blocking all ingress.
“No! that's a figure of speech!” Landon's
nerves were on edge. “Open that door, the
other one,—let us in l’”
“Go on in, who's henderin' you?” and the indif-
ferent host stepped out of the way.


Black Aspens 45
Stebbins, on the other hand, was apparently of
keen perceptions and average intellect. His small
blue eyes roved from one face to another, and
though he looked sullen and disagreeable of dis-
position, he gave the effect of one ready to do his
duty.
“All right,” he said, as if without interest, “I’ll
set in the kitchen and wait. Hester here, she'll take
the ladies to their rooms, and then after you get
your supper, I'll tell you all you ask me. But I
rented this place to you, I didn't agree to be a sign-
board and Farmers' Almanac.”
“All right, old chap,” and Landon smiled faintly,
“but don't you get away till I see you. Now, girls,
want to select your rooms?”
“Y-Yes,” began Eve, bravely, and then a glance
up the dark staircase made her shudder.
“What we want is light, and plenty of it,”
broke in Braye. “Here you, Hester, I'll relieve
you of that lamp you're holding, and you hop it,
and get more, six more, twelve more—hear
me?”
“We haven't that many in the house.” Dull-eyed
the woman looked at him with that sublime
stolidity only achieved by born New Eng-
landers.
“Oh, you haven't! Well, bring all you have and
to-morrow you manage to raise a lot more. How
many have you, all told?”
“Four, I think.”


46 The Room with the Tassels
“Four! For a party of nine! Well, have you
candles?” -
“Half a dozen.”
“And three candlesticks, I suppose! Bring them
in, and if you're shy of candlesticks, bring old
bottles, or anything.”
“Good for you, Braye, didn't know you had so
much generalship,” and Gifford Bruce clapped his
nephew on the shoulder. “I’m glad I don't believe
in ghosts, for every last one of you people are
shaking in your shoes this minute! What's the
matter with you? Nothing has happened.”
“It was that awful ride through the woods,” said
Vernie, cuddling into her uncle's arm. “I l-like it,
—I like it all,—but, the local colour is so—so
dark l’”
“That's it, Kiddie,” said Braye, “the local colour
is about the murkiest I ever struck. But here are
our lights, hooray!”
Hester brought two more small hand lamps, and
after another trip to the kitchen brought six candles
and six battered but usable candlesticks.
A candle was given to each of the four women,
and Norma politely selected the oldest and most
broken holder.
“Land sake!” exclaimed Stebbins, coming in,
“you goin' to use that candlstick? That's the very
one the murderin' woman used l’”
With a scream, Norma dropped it and no one
moved to pick it up.


Black Aspens 47
“Get out, Stebbins!” roared Landon, “you queer
the whole business.”
“I’ll take this one,” and Mr. Bruce picked up the
old brass affair; “I’m not afraid of such things.
Here, Miss Cameron, take mine, it's new and com-
monplace, I assure you.”
White-faced and trembling, Norma took the cheap
crockery thing, and shortly they all followed Hester
up the stairs to the shadows of the floor above.
The place was silent as the grave. Hester's slip-
pered feet made no sound, and a voluntary scraping
of Tracy's shoes stopped as soon as he realized its
enormous sound in those empty halls. A multitude
of doors led to rooms in all directions, there seemed
to be no plan or symmetry of any sort. The candle
flames flickered, the small lamps burned with a pale
sickly light.
Hester paused midway of the main corridor.
“What rooms you want?” she asked, uninter-
estedly.
“Give me a cheerful one,” wailed Milly. “Oh,
Wynne, let us take a little, cozy one.”
“Of course you shall,” said Braye, kindly.
“Hester, which is the pleasantest room in the
house? Give that to Mr. and Mrs. Landon! And
then we'll put all you girls near them. The rest
of us will camp anywhere.”
“Let's all pretty much camp anywhere till to-
morrow,” suggested the Professor. “I’d like to
select my room by daylight.”


48 The Room with the Tassels
“I’ve made up some of the rooms, and some I
ain’t,” volunteered Hester.
“Then, for Heaven's sake, show us the made-up
rooms, and get out!” burst forth Landon. “I wish
we'd brought our maids, Milly; that woman affects
me like fever and ague.”
But after a time they were assigned to various
more or less inhabitable bedrooms, and as quickly
as possible, all reappeared in the great hall below,
ready for supper.
The dining room, toward the back of the house,
was not half bad, after all the available lights had
been commandeered for the table.
“You knew there were no electrics,” said Braye
to Eve, who was bewailing the fact.
“Of course I did, and I thought candles would
be lovely and picturesque and all that; and kerosene
gives a good soft light, but—well, somehow, do
you know what I thought as we came through that
dreadful wood?”
“What?”
“Only one sentence rang through my mind,-
and that was, The Powers of Darkness!”
“That isn't a sentence,” objected the Professor,
a little querulously, and everybody laughed. Also,
everybody blessed the occasion for laughter.
But Eve went on. “I don't care if it's a sen-
tence or a syllogism, or what it is! It just º
my ears. And I tell you this whole place is under-
the Powers of Darkness—”


Black Aspens 49
“Do hush, Eve,” pleaded Milly. “I was just
beginning to pull myself together, and now you've
upset me again!”
“But Milly, xx
“Let up, Eve! For the love of Mike, let up!
You're enough to give anybody the creeps.”
Landon glared at her.
“It’s only a question of light,” Tracy broke in, in
his pleasant way. “Now, we've light enough for
the moment, and to-morrow we'll make this the
house of a thousand candles and a hundred lamps,
and a few lanterns if you like. Incidentally, Friend
Hester makes first-rate doughnuts.”
“Aren't they bully!” chimed in Vernie. “I’ve
eaten six, and here goes for another.”
“Lucky they're small,” said her uncle. “But
seven doughnuts are enough to make you see the
ghost of old Montgomery himself!”
“And all the Green Mountain boys,” added
Tracy, who was determined to keep conversation
away from fearsome subjects.
By the time they had finished the meal, every one
felt more at ease, Landon had recovered his poise,
and Milly her cheerfulness.
“Now, then,” the Professor asked, as they left
the table, “shall we explore the house to-night --
“Lord, no!” cried Braye. “Leave it lay till
daylight. Also, don't quiz old Stebbins as to who's
who in Black Aspens! Let's turn on the Victrola
and dance, or let's play poker or sing glees, or any-


50 The Room with the Tassels
thing that's a proper parlour trick. But nothing, I
insist, pertaining to our mission up here. That'll
keep.”
“As you like,” and now Landon could smile.
“And you mollycoddles may pursue those light-
minded pleasures. But I'm going to have it out
with Steb, because I want to know some several
Laws for Beginners. But, don't let me interfere
with your plans. Go ahead, and have play “Hide
and Seek All Over the House,' if you choose. That
used to be my favourite indoor game.”
“Oh!” squealed Vernie, “what an awful sug-
gestion! In this house!”
“I move we hear the story of the house to-night.
—right now,” said Eve.
Milly clasped her hands over her ears, instead
of, as usual, over her mouth, and cried, “No! I
forbid it! Don't let 'em, will you, Wynne?”
“Seems to me,” remarked Mr. Stebbins, “you
folks don't know your own minds! You want a
ha’nted house, then when you git it, you're too
scared to hear the story of the ha'nt.”
“I’m not scared,” asserted Norma, “but some-
how, a ha'nt sounds so much worse than a haunt.
Doesn't it, now?”
“It sure does,” agreed Braye. “A ha'nt is con-
crete, while a haunt is abstract.”
“Good!” and Hardwick nodded approval.
“Now, I suggest that we look around a bit, get
the general lay of the house and then all go to


Black Aspens 5I
bed early. A good night's sleep will put our nerves
and muscles in condition again. I'm delighted with
the place, and I foresee a first-class vacation ahead
of us.”
“I wish it was behind us, and we were just start-
ing for home,” murmured Milly, but Eve repri-
manded her.
“Don’t be a spoilsport! I like the place too, Pro-
fessor, and I'm going to investigate a little. What
room is this?”
Eve's graceful figure crossed the great square
hall, where they were all standing about, and paused
at the closed door of a room just at the right hand
as one entered the house.
“Why, it's locked!” she exclaimed. “That
won't do, Mr. Stebbins! This whole domain is
ours, now, you know. Open this door, please.”
Eve wore the light gray skirt of her travelling
costume, and a thin sheer white silk blouse, whose
V’d neck fell away from her long, slender throat.
Her hand on the door knob, she suddenly turned her
strange beryl eyes toward Stebbins, her face turn-
ing whiter and her thin lips redder as she gazed.
“This is the room—isn’t it?” she breathed, and
her hand slowly fell from the knob and hung loosely
at her side.
“Yes, ma'am,” replied Stebbins, stolidly.
“How'd you know?”
“How could I help knowing!” and Eve's voice
rang out like a clarion. “I see it! I see it all!”


52 The Room with the Tassels
She rushed across the hall and fell trembling on a
settee. Tracy flew to her side, and took her
hand.
“There, there, Miss Carnforth, brace up! We're
all right here. Nothing can hurt you.”
“Beats all how she knew l’ muttered Stebbins.
“You see that's the room »
A cry from Milly stirred Landon to action.
“Drop it, Stebbins,” he said, and took a step
toward him. “None of that to-night. We do want
your haunted house, but the long journey up here,
and your confounded negligence in the matter of
lights and servants and general good will, has got
on the ladies' nerves. Beat it now, to the kitchen,
or wherever your quarters are, but you stay here
to-night and be ready to report in the morning.
You hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” and shrugging his shoulders, the man
disappeared among the shadows in the back of the
hall.
The great main hall was so large that the lights
they had were all insufficient for illumination.
There seemed to be innumerable doors and openings
of side corridors, also a second staircase, far behind
the main one. -
“Here's a good-looking room, let's go in here,”
said Tracy, stepping through some old, faded
draperies to the room on the left of the hall as
one entered the house.
Hardwick followed, and the others with lamps


Black Aspens 53.
and candles pushed in. It was a large, dignified
apartment, evidently a parlour or ballroom of the
old mansion. The furniture was of old, carved
rosewood, its upholstery worn, but fairly decent.
Oil portraits were on the walls and massive orna-
ments of imitation bronze stood about, showing
white here and there where the coating was chipped
off.
Yellowish onyx vases graced the mantels, and the
windows were hung with heavy rep curtains which,
however, veiled no lighter ones.
“Ghastly!” cried Norma.
“What do you mean by ghastly?” began the
Professor, and Tracy laughed.
“She didn't mean it at all, Professor,” he said,
“Miss Cameron meant to say hideous. Now, don't
ask me what I mean by hideous, just look at the
interior decorations here and draw your own con-
clusions as to my meaning. But though not to be
called aesthetic, this furniture is fairly comfy. The
springs of this sofa are intact, come sit by my side,
little darling.” This last to Vernie, who was wide-
eyed and alert, lapping up these strange, new im-
pressions.
“All right,” and she flung herself down beside
him. “You’re a real comfort, Mr. Tracy, you're
so, so—unministeriall”
“Thank you, my child. One needn't carry one's
pulpit voice into social life.”
“Oh, I don't mean you do or say anything that
--


54 The Room with the Tassels
a man of your calling oughtn't to, but you're so nice
about it.”
“I think so too,” chattered Milly, “I do think
a clergyman with a sense of humour makes a fine
combination.”
The mental atmosphere gradually lightened and
when Landon suggested they all retire, it was a
composed and merry hearted group that obeyed the
Summons.
When twelve sonorous strokes boomed from the
tall clock in the upper hall, the men beneath the roof
of Black Aspens were all sleeping more or less
soundly.
Milly, with only occasional little quivering shud-
ders, slumbered in Landon's arms. Vernie slept
with the sound dreamless sleep of youth.
But Eve and Norma were wide awake, and un-
able to close their eyes.
In adjoining rooms, the communicating door
ajar, they could hear one another toss restlessly,
but they said no words.
Norma's blue eyes were wide open, her thoughts
rambling over the strange surroundings in which
she found herself, and her mind leaping forward,
speculating on what might happen.
Eve, her long, glittering eyes half closed, listened
for any sound; her nerves alert, her thoughts dart-
ing from material things to the supernatural, every
muscle tense with a nameless apprehension.
More hours were rung out by the old clock, and


Black Aspens 55
at last dawn began to creep in at the deep narrow
windows of the old house.
With a shrug and a stretch Vernie awoke.
Drowsily, in the half light she tried to make out
her surroundings, and then, suddenly remembering
where she was, she dove her head under her blanket,
in a quick rush of fear. Then curiosity conquered,
and she came to the surface again, and looked about.
The light, growing gradually stronger, showed the
appointments of the room, the ugly old four-poster
bedstead, of light wood, apple or hickory, the
heavy rep lambrequins, that seemed to be a feature
of the house, and the scantily appointed dresser, on
which, the night before, she had set her extinguished
candle.
Shadows still lurked in the corners of the room,
still hung round the draperies and furniture, yet
through the gloom Vernie saw something that made
her eyes stare and her flesh creep. Clenching her
hands till her sharp nails bit into her palms, she gave
a shriek that rang through the silent house.


CHAPTER IV
The Story of the House
ROM their nearby rooms Eve and Norma
F rushed to Vernie's room.
The child was huddled beneath the bed
clothes and at their entrance shot her head out, cry-
ing wildly, “Look! look! the old candlestick!”
Milly came running, in dressing-gown and slip-
pers, and from distant regions came the voices of
the men.
“What's the matter?” asked Gifford Bruce.
“Wasn't that Vernie's voice?”
“Yes, Uncle Gif,” Vernie called out. “Oh, did
you do it?”
“Do what?” and in his hastily donned bath robe,
old Mr. Bruce appeared.
“Why,” and Vernie was calm now, “there's that
old candlestick, the one the the murderer used—
on my dresserl Last night I had a little china
one!”
“What are you talking about—a murderer!
Wake up, child!”
“I’m not asleep. But I see, now. You had this
old one, Uncle Gif, and, you know you said you
were going to fool us if you could, and so you
sneaked it in here to pretend the haunt did it!”
56


The Story of the House 57
“What! What nonsense! I did nothing of the
sort 1"
“Who did, then? You know you had this one
last night.”
“I certainly did. Wonder what's in my room
now.”
Mr. Bruce ran back to his room and returned
with the little china candlestick Vernie had carried
to her room the night before. They had certainly
been exchanged during the night.
Everybody stared at the two candles, so worthless
in themselves, but so inexplicably transferred, if, as
he declared, Gifford Bruce had not exchanged them.
“Of course I didn't do it,” he repeated, angrily.
“I did say, in fun, that I meant to trick you, but
when I saw how nervous and wrought up all you
women were last night, I wouldn't dream of doing
such a thing! Why, Vernie, I think too much of
you, dear, to add to your fear or discomfort in any
way.”
At last everybody concluded it was the work of
some one of their number, and there were varying
opinions as to the identity of the perpetrator of
what must have been meant for a joke.
But at breakfast time the matter was discussed
very seriously and each avowed in all honour that
he or she knew nothing of it.
“I can speak not only for myself,” said Pro-
fessor Hardwick, gravely, “but for Mr. Tracy and
Mr. Braye. They would have had to pass my door


58 The Room with the Tassels
to move around the halls, and I was awake all night,
looking and listening, and I know they did not leave
their rooms.”
“I speak for myself,” said Gifford Bruce,
haughtily. “I declare on my oath that I did not
leave my bed. Somebody exchanged those candles,
—but it was not I.”
The Landons spoke for each other, and no one,
of course, could suspect Wynne or Milly. And
naturally, the two girls, Eve and Norma, would not
go to Mr. Bruce's room to play a trick like that.
“I don't mind now,” said Vernie, “when it's all
light and cheerful and you're all around me, and the
breakfast is so good and all. I think it's the begin-
ning of these experiences we came up here to look
for. Why are you all so surprised? Because I
had the first party?”
The merry-eyed girl was unafraid now, but Hard-
wick shook his head.
“I don't like it,” he said. “We can't investigate
if there's a trickster among us. You didn't do it
yourself, did you, Vernie?”
“No, Professor,” and the pure truthful gaze of
the brown eyes left no room for disbelief. “Hon-
est, I didn't. But,” she laughed mischievously, “if
I had, I should say I hadn't!”
“Vernie! This won't do!” and Eve glared at
her, “You little minx, I believe you did do it!”
“Don’t you look at me like that, Eve Carnforth!
Stop it! You scare me.” Vernie fairly cowered


The Story of the House 59
before Eve's basilisk eyes. “I believe you did it!”
“There, there, girls,” broke in Tracy, with his
gentle smile, “don’t get to hair-pulling. If we've
all finished breakfast, let's now hear the story of the
house, and then we can tell if its patron ghost is
the sort given to exchanging bedroom furniture o'
nights.”
“Yes,” agreed Norma, “I’m crazy to hear the
story. Where's Mr. Stebbins, does anybody
know?”
“I’ll dig him up,” Landon assured them.
“Where shall we congregate?”
“In the drawing room,” said Milly, “that's the
only room I'm not afraid of.”
“I’m fearfully afraid of that!” said Tracy, in
mock terror. “Those rep lambrequins get on my
nerves!”
“Aren't they awful!” and Norma laughed.
“They don't frighten me, but they jar my aesthetics
terribly.”
“No,” said Elijah Stebbins, firmly, as the con-
clave began, “not in that there parlour. Here in
the hall. You folks want this house, you want the
story of this house, now you sit here to hear it.”
“Very well,” said Braye, agreeably. “Just as
you say, Mr. Stebbins. Now begin at the begin-
ning, but don't drool too long a spiel.”
The whole party grouped themselves in the great
hall, and for the first time began to take in the


The Story of the House 61
Now some says, he was jest naturally took sick and
some says, that she give him slow poison. But, be
that as it may, one night, she give him prussic acid,
and he died. She threw a shawl over her head,
and ran screamin' to the village for the doctor. I
s'pose remorse got her, for she confessed, and said
‘I killed him " I killed him! At four o'clock I
killed him!”
“She went crazy, they say, then and there. Well,
the doctor he said he'd come right away, but she ran
home first. And he followed 's fast 's he could,
and—when he come, here was the woman,—and she
was a washin' the dead man's lips, she said, to get
the smell of the bitter ammonds off, you know,
prussic acid is for all the world the smell of bitter
almonds. The doctor, he found the man was
really dead, and he was for havin' her arrested, but
she was so plumb crazy, he decided to take her to
an asylum instead.
“He had to go off to get help, and he left her,
here alone in this house with the body. They was
in that room,” Stebbins pointed to the room with the
locked door, at the right hand of the hall as one
entered, “the room with the tassels, it's called.”
“Why is it called that?” broke in Eve, whose
piercing eyes were fairly glittering with excitement,
“what sort of tassels?”
“Great heavy tassels on the curtains and lamba-
quins, ma'am,_want to see it?”
“Not now,” ordained Landon, “the story first.”


The Story of the House 63
story's been common talk around these parts a
many years, and I ain't one to add to nor take
from it.”
“Go on,” commanded Landon, briefly.
“They put her away, in a loonytic asylum, and
she died in it. They never found hide nor hair of
the dead man, and the place fell to some kin that
lived down Pennsylvania way. They come up here
for a while, I b'lieve, but the ha'nt scared 'em off.
It's been sold some several times and at last it fell
to my father's family. Now it's mine, and it's a
white elephant to me. I can't sell or rent it, and
so you folks may well believe I jumped at the chance
to have you take it for a spell.”
“We haven't heard about the haunt yet,” said
Norma. She spoke quietly, but her lips quivered a
little, and her fingers were nervously picking at her
handkerchief.
“That,” and Stebbins looked even more sombre
than he had, “that's my own experience, so I can
give it to you first hand.
“I come here to live, 'bout ten years ago, and I
was plucky enough to hoot at ghost stories and tales
o' ha'nts.
“So I set out to sleep in that—that room with the
tassels, out o' sheer bravado. But I got enough
of it.”
The man's head fell on his breast and he paused
in his narrative.
“Go on,” said Landon, less brusquely than before.


64 The Room with the Tassels
Milly stirred nervously. “Don’t let him tell the
rest, Wynne,” she said.
“Oh, yes, dear. Remember, this is what we're
here for.”
Most of the men shifted their positions; Hard-
wick leaned forward, both hands on his knees. Gif-
ford Bruce sat with one arm flung carelessly over
his chair back, a slight smile on his face.
Braye was beside Norma, and watched alter-
nately her face and Eve's, while Tracy was holding
Vernie's hand, and his gentle calm kept the volatile
child quiet.
“It see it all so plainly,–that first night ->
Stebbins said, slowly. “First night! Land! there
never was another! Not for me. I’d sooner 'a'
died than slep' in that room again!”
“See a ghost?” asked Bruce, flippantly.
“Yes, sir,” and Stebbins looked straight at him.
“I seen a ghost. I'm a sound sleeper, I am, and I
went to sleep quiet and ca’m as a baby. I woke as
the big clock there was a strikin' four. It was that
what woke me—I hope.”
“Is there—is there a bed in that room?” asked
the Professor.
“Lord, yes, it was them folkses bedroom. In
them days, people most always slep' downstairs. I
come awake suddenly, and the room was full of an
icy chill. Not just coldness, but a damp chill—like
undertakers’ iceboxes.”
Vernie shuddered and Tracy held her hand more


The Story of the House 65
firmly. Landon slipped his arm round Milly, and
Eve and Norma glanced at each other.
Gifford Bruce replaced his sneering smile, which
had somehow disappeared.
“It was winter, and plumb dark at four o'clock
in the morning, but the room was full of an un-
earthly light, a sort of frosty, white glow, like you
see in a graveyard sometimes.
“And comin' toward me was a tall, gaunt figure,
with a shawl over its head, a white, misty shape,
that had a sort of a halting step but was comin'
straight and sure toward that bed I was lyin' on. I
tried to scream, I tried to move, but I couldn't, I
was paralyzed. On and on came the thing—halt-
ing at every step, but gettin' nearer and nearer.
As she-oh, I knew it was that woman—”
“I thought it was a man who was mur-
dered,” put in Mr. Bruce, in his most sardonic
tones.
“So it was, sir,” Stebbins spoke mildly, “but it
was the murderess doin’ the ha'ntin'. I s'pose she
can't rest quiet in her grave for remorse and
that. She came nearer and—and I saw her face—
and—”
“Well?”
“And it was a skull! A grinning skull. And
her long bony hand held a glass—a glass of poison
—for me.”
“Er—did you take it?” This from Bruce.
“No, sir. I swooned away, or whatever you may


66 The Room with the Tassels
call it. I lost all consciousness, and when I come
to, the thing was gone.”
“Ever see her again?” inquired Mr. Bruce, con-
versationally.
“No, sir,” and Stebbins eyed him uninterestedly.
It was impossible to annoy the story teller. “No,
I never seen her.”
“Heard her?” asked Braye.
“Yes; many's the time. But—I ain't never slept
in that room since.”
“I should say not!” cried Eve. “But I will!
I'll brave the phantasm. I'd be glad to see her.
I'm not afraid.”
“You needn't be,” said Mr. Bruce, with a short
laugh. “You won't see anything, Miss Carnforth.
I'd be willing to try it, too.”
“What other manifestations have you experi-
enced?” asked Braye. “What have you heard?”
“Mostly groans—”
“And hollow laughter,” interrupted Bruce.
“Those are the regulation sounds, I believe.”
“Oh, hush!” cried Eve. “Mr. Bruce, you drive
me frantic! I wish you hadn't come!”
“I don’t,” declared Bruce. “I think it's most
interesting. And do I understand, Mr. Stebbins,
that this charming lady of large size and hard heart,
carried usually that candlestick that I made use of
last night?”
At last Stebbins resented Bruce's chaff.
“So the story goes, sir,” he said, curtly. “And


The Story of the House 67
many's the time I’ve known that candlestick to be
moved during the night, by no mortal hand.”
“Look here, Uncle Gif,” said Braye, good-
naturedly, “you don't want to get yourself dis-
liked, do you? Now, let up on your quizzing, and
let's get down to business. We set out for a
haunted house. I, for one, think we've got all we
came after, and then some! If the ha'nt began
moving her candlestick around the first night, what
may she not do next? You didn't do it, did you,
Uncle?”
“I’ve told you I didn’t, Rudolph, and I again
repeat my word. But it was scarcely necessary for
me to do it, when such a capable spook, I mean,
phantasm is regularly in attendance.”
“Now, I’ve told you the tale,” and Stebbins rose,
and shook himself as if he had done his duty. “I
ain't nowise responsible for your believin' it. What
I’ve told you is true, so far's my own experience
goes; and what I've told you hearsay, is the old
story that's been told up in these parts by one gen-
eration after another, since old Montgomery's day.
Now do you want to see the room with the tassels?”
“I don't!” cried Milly, “I can't stand any more.”
“You needn't, dear,” said Landon; “suppose you
go out on the terrace and walk about in the sunlight.
You go with her, Vernie, you can see the room,
later on.”
“I’ll go too,” and Tracy tactfully offered his es-
cort. “The tassels will keep. Come on, Braye?”


68 The Room with the Tassels
“No; I'll see the show through. You can look
after the ladies, Tracy.”
So the others crowded round Stebbins, as he pre-
pared to unlock the door of the fatal room.
“”Tain't no great sight,” he said, almost apolo-
getically. “But it's the ha'nted room.”
Slowly he turned the key and they all filed in.
The room was dark, save for what light came in
from the hall. All blinds were closed, and over
the windows hung heavy curtains of rep that had
once been red but was now a dull, nondescript
colour. There were more of these heavy, long cur-
tains, evidently concealing alcoves or cupboards,
and over each curtain was a “lambrequin" edged
with thick twisted woolen fringe, and at intervals,
tassels, enormous, weighty tassels, such as were
once used in church pulpits and other old-fashioned
upholstery. Such quantities of these there were,
that it is small wonder the room received its name.
And the tassels had a sinister air. Motionless
they hung, dingy, faded, but still of an individuality
that seemed to say, “we have seen unholy deed,—
we cry out mutely for vengeance!”
“It was them tassels that scared me most,” Steb-
bins said, in an awed tone. “I mean before—she
come. They sort of swayed,—when they wasn't no
draught nor anything.”
“I don't wonder!” said Braye, “they're the
ghostliest things I ever saw But the whole room
is awful! It—oh I say! put up a window!”


The Story of the House 69
“I can't,” said Stebbins simply. “These here
windows ain't been up for years and years. The
springs is all rusted and won't work.”
“There's something in the room!” cried Eve,
hysterically, “I mean—something—besides us—
something alive!”
“No, ma'am,” said Stebbins, solemnly, “what's
in here ain't alive, ma'am. I ain't been in here my-
self, since that night I slep’ here, and I wouldn't be
now, only to show you folks the room. I sort of
feel 's if I’d shifted the responsibility to you folks
now. I don’t seem to feel the same fear of the
ha’nt, like I was here alone.”
“Don’t say ha'nt! Stop it!” and Eve almost
shrieked at him.
“Yes, ma'am. Ghost, ma'am. But ha'nt it is,
and ha’nt it will be, till the crack o' doom. Air ye
all satisfied with your bargain?”
No one answered, for every one was conscious of
a subtle presence and each glanced fearfully, fur-
tively about, nerves shaken, wills enfeebled, vitality
low.
“What is it?” whispered Eve.
“Imagination!” declared Mr. Bruce, but he
shook his shoulders as he spoke, as if ridding him-
self of an incubus.
There was a chilliness that was not like honest
cold, there was a stillness that was not an ordinary
silence, and there was an impelling desire in every
heart to get out of that room and never return.


7o The Room with the Tassels
But all were game, and when at last Stebbins said,
“Seen enough?” they almost tumbled over one an-
other in a burst of relief at the thought of exit.
The great hall seemed cheerful by contrast, and
Landon, in a voice he strove to make matter-of-fact,
said, “Thank you, Stebbins, you have certainly
given us what we asked for.”
“Yes, sir. Did you notice it, sir?”
“What?”
“The smell—the odour—in that room?”
“I did,” said Eve, “I noticed the odour of
prussic acid.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Stebbins, “that's what I
meant.”


*
CHAPTER V
Eve's Experience
HE investigators had investigated for a week.
| They were now having tea in the great hall,
to whose shadowy distances and shabby ap-
pointments they had become somewhat accustomed.
Kept up to the mark by the Landons, old Jed
Thorpe had developed positive talents as a butler,
and with plenty of lamps and candles, and a couple
of willing, if ignorant maids, the household machin-
ery ran fairly smoothly. Supplies were procured in
East Dryden or sent up from New York markets
and by day the party was usually a gay-hearted,
merry-mannered country house group.
Every day at tea-time, they recounted any indi-
vidual experiences that might seem mysterious, and
discussed them.
“It's this way,” Professor Hardwick summed
up; “the determining factor is the dark. Ghosts
and haunted houses are all very well at night, but
daylight dispels them as a sound breaks silence.”
“What about my experience when I slept in the
Room with the Tassels,” growled Gifford Bruce.
Braye laughed. “You queered yourself, Uncle
Gif, when you announced before we started, that
you were not bound to good faith. Your ghost
stories are discounted before you tell 'em!”
71


Eve's Experience 73
we had not connected four o'clock with the story of
this house, Mr. Tracy would not have those hallu-
cinations at that time.”
“Perhaps so,” the clergyman looked thoughtful.
“But it seems vivid and real at the time. Then, in
the later morning, it is merely a hazy memory.”
“You know Mr. Stebbins said that every one
who died in this house always died at four
o'clock.”
“I know he said so,” and Braye looked quizzical.
“Oh, come now, don't doubt honest old Steb-
bins!” and Eve frowned. “We must believe his
tales or we'll never get anywhere. I’m going over
to East Dryden to see him to-morrow, I want a few
more details. And, it seems to me, we're getting
nowhere, with our imaginations and hallucina-
tions. Now, to-night, I'm going to sleep in the
Room with the Tassels. I've no fear of it, and I
have a deep and great curiosity.”
“Oh, let me sleep there with you! Mayn't I,
Eve? Oh, please let me!” Vernie danced about
in her eagnerness, and knelt before Eve, pleading.
“No, Vernie, I forbid it,” said her uncle, de-
cidedly. “If Miss Carnforth wants to do this
thing, I have nothing to say, but you must not, my
child. I know you people don't believe me, but
I surely saw an apparition the night I slept there,
and it was no human trickster. Neither was it hal-
lucination. I was as wideawake as I am now—”
“We know the rest, Uncle Gif,” and Braye


74 The Room with the Tassels
laughingly interrupted the recital. “Stalking ghost,
hollow groans, and—were there clanking chains?”
“There were not, but in its shrouded hand the
spectre held a glass—”
“Of prussic acid, of which you smelt the strong
odour ! Yes, I know, but it won't go down, old
chap—”
“The prussic acid won't?” and Landon chuckled.
“Nor the tale either,” said the Professor. “It’s
too true. The shawled woman filled the specifica-
tions too accurately to seem convincing.”
“You're a nice crowd,” grumbled Mr. Bruce.
“Come up here for experiences and then hoot at
the first real thing that happens.”
“All your own fault,” retorted Norma. “If you
hadn't advertised your propensity for fooling us,
your word would have carried weight.”
“All right, let somebody else sleep in that room,
then. But not Miss Carnforth. Let one of the
men try it.”
“Thank you, none for me,” said Braye. “I de-
test shawled women waking me up at four o'clock,
to take my poison!”
“I’ll beg off, too,” said Tracy. “I wake at four
every morning anyway, with those aspen boughs
shivering against my windows. I'd trim them off,
but that doesn't seem like playing the game.”
“Wynne shan't sleep there, and that settles that,”
and Milly's grasp on her husband's coat sleeve was
evidently sufficiently detaining.


Eve's Experience 75
“That leaves only me, of the men,” asserted the
Professor. “I’m quite willing to sleep in that
room. Indeed, I want to. I’ve only been waiting
till I felt sure of the house, the servants and—
excuse me, the members of our own party! Now,
I've discovered that the servants' quarters can be
securely locked off, so that they cannot get in this
part of the house; I've found that the outside doors
and the windows can be fastened against all possi-
bility of outside intrusion; and, I shall stipulate that
our party shall so congregate in a few rooms, that
no one can—ahem,-haunt my slumbers without
some one else knowing it. I'll ask you three young
ladies to sleep in one room and allow me to lock
you in. Or two adjoining rooms, to which I may
hold all keys. Mr. Tracy, Mr. Bruce and Mr.
Braye, I shall arrange similarly, while the Landons
must also consent to be imprisoned by me. This
is the only way I can make a fair test. Will you
all agree?”
“Splendid!” cried Eve, “of course we will. But,
Professor, let me try it first. If you should have a
weird experience, it might scare me off, but now I
am brave enough. Oh, please, do that! Let me
lock you all in your rooms, and let me sleep in the
Room with the Tassels to-night! Oh, please say
yes, all of you! I must, I must try it!” The girl
looked like a seeress, as, with glittering eyes and
flushed cheeks she plead her cause.
“Why, of course, if you want to, Miss Carn-


76 The Room with the Tassels
forth,” said the Professor, looking at her admir-
ingly. “I’ll be glad to have the benefit of your
experience before testing myself. And there is
positively no danger. As I've said, the locks, bolts,
and bars are absolutely safe against outside intru-
sion, or visits from the servants. Though we know
they are not to be suspected. And as you are not
afraid of the supernatural, I can see no argument
against your plan.”
“Suppose I go with you,” suggested Norma, her
large blue eyes questioning Eve Carnforth's excited
face.
“No, Norma, not this time. I prefer to be alone.
I'll lock you and Vernie in your room; I'll lock
Milly and Wynne in their room; I'll lock you four
men in two rooms, and then, I'll know—I'll know
that whatever I see or hear is not a fraud or trick
of anybody. And I think you can trust me to tell
you the truth in the morning.”
“If there's anything to tell,” supplemented
Braye. “I think, Eve, as to ghosts, you're cutting
off your source of supply.”
“Then we'll merely prove nothing. But I'm de-
termined to try.”
Again Vernie begged to be allowed to share Eve's
experiences, but neither Mr. Bruce, nor Eve herself
would consider the child's request.
“Every one of us,” the Professor said, musingly,
“has told of hearing mysterious sounds and of see-
ing mysterious shadows, but, except for Bruce's


Eve's Experience 77
graphic details!—all our observations have been
vague and uncertain. They may well have been
merely imagination. But Miss Carnforth is not
imaginative, I mean, not so, to the exclusion of a
fair judgment of what her senses experience.
Therefore I shall feel, if she sees nothing to-night,
that I shall see nothing when I sleep in that room
to-morrow night.”
“I am especially well adapted for the test,” Eve
said, though in no way proudly, “for I have a pre-
monition that the phantasm will appear to me more
readily than to some others. Remember, I knew
that was the haunted room before we had been told.
I knew it before we entered the house that first
night. It was revealed to me, as other things have
been even during our stay here. You must realize
that I am a sensitive, and so better fitted for these
visitations than a more phlegmatic or practical
person.”
“What else has been revealed to you, Eve?”
asked Braye.
“Perhaps revealed isn't just the word, Rudolph,
but I've seen more than most of you, I've heard
voices, rustling as of wings, and other inex-
plicable sounds, that I know were audible only to
me.”
“Lord, Eve, you give me the creeps! Finished
your tea? Come out for a walk then. Let's
get off these subjects, if only for half an
hour.”


78 The Room with the Tassels
That night, Eve Carnforth carried out her plans
to the letter.
Gifford Bruce, and his nephew Braye in one
room; the Professor and Tracy in another, were
locked in by Eve, amid much gaiety of cere-
mony.
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” Braye declared.
“Tracy, look after the Professor, that he doesn't
jump out of the window, and you, Professor, watch
Tracy!”
“They can't jump out the windows,” said Eve,
practically, “they're too high. And if they could,
they couldn't get in the tasseled room. Those
windows won't open. And, too, I know the Pro-
fessor won't let Mr. Tracy out of his sight, or vice
versa. Rudolph, you tie your uncle, if he shows
signs of roving.”
Eve's strong nerves gave no sign of tension as
she completed all her precautionary arrangements.
She locked the doors that shut off the servants’
quarters; she locked the Landons in their room, she
locked the door of the room that Norma and Vernie
occupied, and at last, with various gay messages
shouted at her through the closed portals, she went
downstairs to keep her lonely vigil.
She did not undress, for she had no intention of
sleeping that night. A kimono, and her hair com-
fortably in a long braid were her only concessions
to relaxation.
She lay down on the hard old bed, and gazed


8O The Room with the Tassels
physical nature refused further strain, and Eve slept.
A light, fitful sleep, interspersed with waking mo–
ments and with sudden swift dreams. But she kept
fast hold of her perceptive faculties. If she slept
and woke, she knew it. She heard the aspens’
sounds, the hours struck by the great hall clock, and
the sound of her own quick, short breathing.
Nothing else. -
Until, just as the clock tolled the last stroke o
four, she heard a low grating sound. Was some
one at the door? She was glad she had taken out
the key.
The candle still burned, but its tiny light rather
accentuated than lifted the gloom of the shadowy
TOOIn.
Slowly and noiselessly the door swung open, in-
ward, into the room. Eve tried to sit up in bed,
but could not. She felt paralyzed, not so much
frightened, as numbed with physical dread.
And then, with a slow gliding motion, something
entered,—something tall, gaunt and robed in long,
pale-coloured draperies. It was unreal, shadowy in
its aspect, it was only dimly visible in the gloom, but
it gave the impression of a frightened, furtive per-
sonality that hesitated to move, yet was impelled to.
A soft moan, as of despair, came from the figure,
and it put out a long white hand and pinched out
the candle flame. Then, with another sigh, Eve
could feel, in the utter black darkness that the thing
was coming to her side.


Eve's Experience 8I
With all her might she tried to cry out, but her
vocal cords were dumb, she made no sound. But
she felt, with all her senses, she felt the apparition
draw nearer. At her bedside it paused, she knew
this, by a sort of sixth sense, for she heard or saw
nothing.
Then, she was conscious of a faint odour of
prussic acid, its pungent bitterness unmistakable,
though slight.
And then, a tiny flame, as of a wick without a
candle, flashed for a second, disappeared, and Eve
almost fainted. She did not entirely lose con-
sciousness, but her brain reeled, her head seemed to
spin round and her ears rang with a strange buzz-
ing, for in the instant's gleam of that weird light,
she had seen the face of the phantom, and—it was
the face of a skull! It was the ghastly countenance
of a death's head
Half conscious, but listening with abnormal sense,
she thought she descried the closing of the door, but
could hear no key turn.
The knowledge that she was alone, gave her new
life. She sprang up, lighted the candle, lighted
the lamp, and looked about. All was as she had
arranged it. The door was locked, the key, un-
touched, upon the table. Nothing was disturbed,
but Eve Carnforth knew that her experience, what-
ever its explanation, had not been a dream.
When her senses had reeled, she had not lost
entire control of them through her physical fear, she


82 The Room with the Tassels
had kept her mental balance, and she knew that
what her brain had registered had actually occurred.
Alert, she lay for a long time thinking it over.
She felt sure there would be no return of the
spectre, she felt sure it had been a spectre, and
she was conscious of a feeling of curiosity rather
than fright.
At last she rose, and unlocking the door, went
out into the great hall. By the light of her lamp,
she looked it over. The carved bronze doors be-
tween the enormous bronze columns, were so elab-
orately locked and bolted as to give almost the
effect of a fortress.
The windows were fastened and some were
barred. But all these details had been looked after
in advance; Eve gazed at them now, in an idle quest
for some hint of hitherto unsuspected ingress.
But there was none, and now the clock was strik-
ing five.
She went slowly upstairs, unlocked the various
doors, without opening them, and then went to her
own bedroom.
“What about it?” cried Norma, eagerly, run-
ning to Eve's room.
“A big story,” Eve returned, wearily. “But I'll
tell it to you all at once. I'm going to get some
sleep. Wake me at eight, will you, Norma?”
Disappointed, but helpless, as Eve closed her door
upon the would-be visitor, Norma went back and
told Milly, who was waiting and listening.


Eve's Experience 83
“I don't like it,” Norma said, “for by eight
o'clock she can cook up a story to scare us all! I
think two ought to sleep in that room at once.”
“Go to bed,” said Milly, sleepily. “And don't
you suspect Eve Carnforth of making up a yarn or
even dressing up the truth! She isn't that sort.”
As to Eve's veracity, opinions were divided.
She told the whole story, directly after breakfast,
to the whole group, the servants being well out of
earshot.
She told it simply and straightforwardly, just as
it had happened to her. Her sincerity and accurate
statements stood a fire of questions, a volley of sar-
castic comments and a few assertions of unbelief.
Professor Hardwick believed implicitly all she
said, and encouraged her to dilate upon her experi-
ences. But in nowise did she add to them, she
merely repeated or emphasized the various points
without deviation from her first narrative.
Norma and Braye went for a walk, and frankly
discussed it.
“Of course, Eve colours it without meaning to,”
declared Braye; “it couldn't have happened, you
know. We were all locked in, and Lord knows
none of us could have put that stunt over even if
we had wanted to.”
“Of course not; that locking in business was
unnecessary, but it does prove that no human agency
was at work. That leaves only Eve's imagination
—or—the real thing.”


Eve's Experience 85
“Hello, people,” and Vernie ran round a corner,
followed more slowly by Tracy. “We’ve had a
great little old climb! Hundreds of thousands of
feet up the mounting side,-wasn't it, Mr. Tracy?”
“Thar or tharabouts,” agreed Tracy, smiling at
the pretty child.
“And Mr. Tracy is the delightfullest man! He
told me all the names of the wild flowers, weeds,
rather, there weren't any flowers. And oh, isn't
it exciting about Eve's ghost! I'm going to bally-
rag Uncle Gif till he lets me sleep in that room.
He'll have to give in at last!”
“Don’t, Vernie,” begged Braye. “What pos-
sesses all you girls! I wish we'd never started this
racket! But you mustn't do it, Kiddie, unless, that
is, you go with somebody else. But not alone.”
“Why, Cousin Rudolph, what are you afraid off
Are you a mollycoddle?”
“No, child, I'm afraid for you. A shock like
that, even an imaginary fright, might upset your
reason and ->
“Fiddle-de-dee! my reason is deeper rooted than
that! Come on, Mr. Tracy, I'll race you to that
big hemlock tree!”
The two started off, Vernie's flying legs gaining
ground at first, over Tracy's steady well-trained
running step.


At Four o’Clock 87
Professor Hardwick was open-minded, but ex-
ceedingly alert of observation and ready to suspect
anybody who would give him the slightest reason to
do so. Nobody did, however, and the weird sounds
continued at intervals. The other men were non-
committal, saying they hadn't yet sufficient data to
base conclusions on.
Milly was nervous and hysterical, but controlled
her feelings at Landon's plea, and awaited develop-
ments with the rest. Vernie was merely an excited
child, gay with youthful spirits and ready to believe
or disbelieve whatever the others did.
Soon after Eve's experience, which no one, unless
Gifford Bruce, doubted, Professor Hardwick slept
in the haunted room. He had no results of interest
to report. He said he had lain awake for a few
hours and then fell asleep not to waken until day-
light. If the Shawled Woman prowled about, he
did not see or hear her. This was disappointing,
but Tracy tried with little better success. In the
morning, after a wakeful but uneventful night, the
clergyman found the old battered brass candlestick
in the room. AT--
It had not been there the night before, and he
had locked the door as the others had done. This
was inexplicable, but of slight interest compared to
a real haunting.
“You might have made up a ghost story,” Braye
reproached him, “as Uncle Gifford did, and as Miss
Carnforth—didn't!”


88 The Room with the Tassels
The last word was distinctly teasing and Eve
frowned gaily at him, but did not defend her-
self. She knew her experience had occurred
just as she had told it, and, deeply mystified,
she was earnestly and eagerly awaiting more
light.
One day Braye found it necessary to go down
to New York for a couple of days on some business
matters. Before leaving, he made Vernie promise
she would not sleep alone in the haunted room while
he was gone.
“I forbid it, child,” he said. “Uncle Gif is so
easy-going that I've no doubt you could wheedle
permission out of him, but I beg of you not to.
You're too young to risk a nerve shock of that sort.
If you want to try it with Miss Carnforth or Miss
Cameron, all right, but not alone. Promise me,
Flapper, and I'll bring you a pretty present from
town day after to-morrow.”
Vernie laughingly gave the required promise, but
it did not weigh heavily on her conscience, for no
sooner had Braye really gone, than she confided to
Mr. Tracy her indecision regarding the keeping of
her word. *
“Of course you'll keep your promise,” and Tracy
regarded her seriously. “Nice people consider a
spoken word inviolable. I know you, Vernie; you
like to talk at random, but I think you've an honour-
able nature.”
So Vernie said nothing more to him, but she con-


At Four o’Clock 89
fided in Eve Carnforth her intention of sleeping in
the Tasseled Room that very night.
Eve did not discourage her, and promised to tell
11O One.
The plan was easily carried out. As it was
understood no one was sleeping in the haunted
room, no special precautions were taken, save the
usual locking up against outside intruders. And
after the great locks and bolts were fastened on
doors and windows, it would have been a clever
burglar indeed who could have effected an entrance
to Black Aspens.
The evening had been pleasantly spent. Some
trials of the Ouija board, a favourite diversion, had
produced no interesting results, and rather early
they all retired.
At midnight, Vernie softly rose, and went down-
stairs alone in the darkness. A night lamp in the
upper hall gave a faint glimmer below stairs, but
after the girl turned into the great hall the dark
was almost impenetrable.
Feeling her way, she came to the door of the
room, softly entered it and walked in. Passing her
hands along the walls and the familiar furnishings
she found the bed and lay down upon it. Her heart
beat fast with excitement but not with fear. She
felt thrills of hope that the ghost would appear and
thrills of apprehension lest it should !
She had left the door to the hall open, and though
it could scarcely be called light, there was a miti-


90 The Room with the Tassels
gation of the darkness near the door. A not un-
pleasant drowsiness overcame her, and she half
slept, waking every time the clock struck in the
hall.
At three, she smiled to herself, realizing that she
was there, in the Room with the Tassels, and felt
no fear. “I hope something comes at four, --
she thought sleepily, and closed her eyes again.
One—two—three—four—boomed the hall clock.
Vernie opened her eyes, only half conscious, and
yet able to discern a strange chill in the air. Be-
tween her and the open door stood a tall gaunt
shape, merely a shadow, for it was too dark to
discern details. Her calm forsook her; she shiv-
ered violently, unable to control her muscles. Her
teeth chattered, her knees knocked together, and
her hair seemed to rise from her head.
Yet she could make no sound. Vainly she tried
to scream, to shriek, -but her dry throat was con-
stricted as with an iron band.
Her eyes burned in their sockets, yet she was
powerless to shut them. They seemed suddenly to
possess an uncanny ability to pierce the darkness,
and she saw the shape draw slowly nearer to her.
Clutching the bedclothing, she tried to draw it
over her head, but her paralyzed arms refused to
move. Nearer, slowly nearer, the thing came, and
horror reached its climax at sight of the face be-
neath the sheltering shawl. It was the face of a
skull! The hollow eye-sockets glared at her, and


At Four o’Clock 9I
lifting a deathlike hand, with long white fingers,
the spectre told off one, two, three, four ! on the
digits. There was no sound, but a final pointing
of the fearsome index finger at the stricken girl,
seemed a death warrant for herself.
The thing disappeared. Slowly, silently, as it
had come, so it went. From nowhere to nowhere,
—it evolved from the darkness and to the darkness
returned.
Vernie didn't faint, but she suffered excruciat-
ingly; her head was on fire, her flesh crept and
quivered, she was bathed in a cold perspiration, and
her heart beat madly, wildly, as if it would burst.
The vision, though gone, remained etched on her
brain, and she knew that until that faded she could
not move or speak.
It seemed to her hours, but at last the tension
lessened a little. The first move was agony, but
by degrees she changed her position a trifle and
moistened her dry lips. -
With the first faint glimmer of dawn, she dragged
herself upstairs and crept into bed beside Eve Carn-
forth.
“Tell me,” begged Eve, and Vernie told her.
“It was a warning,” said the child, solemnly.
“It means I shall die at four o'clock some morn-
ing.”
“Nonsense, Kiddie! Now you've come through
so bravely, and have such an experience to tell, don't
spoil it all by such croaking.”


92 The Room with the Tassels
“But it's true, Eve. I could see that awful
thing's face, and it counted four, and then beckoned,
—sort of shook its finger, you know, and pointed
at me. And—oh, I hardly noticed at the time, but
it carried a glass in its hand—it seemed to have two
glasses—”
“Oh, come now, dearie, you're romancing. How
could it have two glasses, when it was shaking its
hand at you?”
“But it did, Eve. It had two little glasses, both
in the same hand. I remember distinctly. Oh,
every bit of it is printed on my brain forever! I
wish I hadn't done it! Rudolph told me not tol”
A flood of tears came and Vernie gave way to
great racking sobs, as she buried her face in the
pillow.
“Yes, he was right, too, Vernie; but you know,
he only wanted you not to try it because he feared
it would upset your nerves. Now if you're going
to square yourself with Mr. Braye, you can only do
it, by not letting your nerves be upset. So brace up
and control them. Cry, dear, cry all you can.
That's a relief, and will do you a heap of good.
Then we'll talk it over, and by breakfast time you'll
be ready to tell them all about it, and you'll be the
heroine of the whole crowd. It's wonderful,
Vernie, what you've got to tell, and you must be
careful to tell it truly and not exaggerate or forget
anything. Cry away, honey, here's a fresh hand-
kerchief.”


94 The Room with the Tassels
That night Vernie herself got out the Ouija board
and asked Eve to help her try it.
“No,” was the reply. “I’m too broken up.
And, too, the people don't believe me. Get your
uncle or Mr. Tracy or some truthful and honour-
able person to help you.”
It embittered Eve that her earnestness and her
implicit belief in the supernatural made it more
difficult for the others to look upon her as entirely
disingenuous. She resented this, and was a little
morose in consequence. Norma Cameron, herself
an avowed ‘sensitive,' had had no spiritistic visi-
tant in the haunted room, and Eve thought Norma
had doubted her word.
At last after trying all the others that she
wanted, Vernie persuaded good-natured Mr. Tracy
to move Ouija with her, and the two sat down
with the board between them.
Few and flippant messages were forthcoming,
until, just as Vernie had laughingly declared she
would throw the old thing out of the window, a
startling sentence formed itself from the erratic
dartings of the heart-shaped toy, and Vernie
turned pale.
“Stop it!” ordered Tracy, “I refuse to touch
it again!”
He removed his hands and sat back, but Vernie,
glaring at the letters, held it a moment longer.
“To-morrow! it says to-morrow!” she cried.
“Oh, Eve, I told you so!”


At Four o’Clock 95
“What, Vernie? What is it, dear?” and Eve
Carnforth came over to the excited child.
“Ouija, Eve! Ouija said that to-morrow at
four, two of us are to die! Oh, Eve, you know
every death in this house has occurred at four
o'clock in the morning! Mr. Stebbins said so.
And now, two of us are to die to-morrow!”
“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Tracy, “don’t listen to
that rubbish! The Ouija ran off its track. May-
be Vernie pushed it, maybe I did.”
“Now, Mr. Tracy, I didn't push it, and you
needn't try to make anybody think you did! You
never'd push it to say a thing like that! Why, it
spelled it all out as plain as day! Uncle Gifford,
do you hear! Two of us to die to-morrow!”
Vernie's voice rose to a hysterical shriek.
“Hush, Verniel Hush, child. I'll take you
away from here to-morrow. We ought never to
have brought you,” and Gifford Bruce glowered at
the others as he clasped the sobbing child in his
arms, and took her from the room.
“You're right,” agreed Mr. Tracy, “and Braye
was right. He said a fright or shock would up-
set that child's nerves completely. But she must
have pushed the board herself. It flew round like
lightning, and spelled out the message, just as she
said. I tried to steer it off, but she urged against
me. I felt her doing so. I don't mean she made
up the message to create a sensation, but I think
the ghost last night affected her as a warning, and


96 The Room with the Tassels
her mind is so full of it, that she unconsciously.
or subconsciously worked up that “message.” At
any rate, I’ve had about enough of this, if she's to
be here. It isn't right to frighten a child so, and
Vernie is little more than a child.”
“That's so,” said Norma, thoughtfully. “I’ve
had enough, too. If the rest of you want to stay
on, I'll go down to New York to-morrow, and take
Vernie to stay with me for a while. We'll go to
the seashore, and I’ll see to it that she has no
psychic or supernatural experiences.”
“Why, Norma,” and Eve looked surprised,
“I thought you were so interested in these
things.”
“So I am, but not to the extent of so affecting
the nervous system of a sweet, innocent child, that
it may result in permanent injury.”
“She's all right,” said Gifford Bruce, returning,
alone. “It’s hysteria. I think I'll take her back
to town to-morrow or next day. There's some-
thing uncanny up here, that's certain. I didn't
take any stock in the experiences of you people,
but I can't disbelieve Vernie's story.”
The party broke up and all went to their rooms.
There was no volunteer to sleep in the haunted
room that night, and every one felt a shivering
dread of what might happen at four o'clock the
next morning.
Not one admitted it, but every one secretly
shuddered at thought of Ouija's message.


At Four o’Clock 97
And when, as the hall clock rung out its four
strokes the next morning, and nothing unto-
ward happened, every one drew a long breath and
soon went to sleep again, relieved, as of a heavy
burden.
Gaily they gathered at breakfast, daylight and
good cheer reviving their spirits.
“But Ouija is henceforth taboo,” said Mr.
Tracy, shaking his finger at the now laughing
Vernie.
“For little girls, anyway,” supplemented Eve.
“Little girls are taboo, also,” declared Gifford
Bruce. “I can't get off to-day, for I want to
see Rudolph on his return, but to-morrow, I pack
up my Vernie child and take her back to our own
little old Chicago on the lake. These Aspens are
too black for us!”
“Now, Uncle, I don't want to go,” and Vernie
pouted prettily. “And sumpum tells me I won't
go,” she added with a roguish glance at her uncle,
whom she usually twisted round her rosy little
finger.
But he gave her a grave smile in return, and the
subject was dropped for the moment.
Soon after noon, Braye came up from the city,
and listened, frowning, to the tales that were told
him.
“You promised me, Vernie,” he said, reproach-
fully.
“I know it, Cousin Rudolph, but you see, I've


98 The Room with the Tassels
never kept a promise in my whole life, and I didn't
want to break my record!”
“Naughty Flapper! I won't give you the pres-
ent I brought for you.”
“Oh, yes you will,” and so wheedlesome was the
lovely face, and so persuasive the soft voice, that
Vernie, after a short argument, seized upon a small
jeweller's packet and unwrapped a pretty little ring.
“Angel Cousin,” she observed, “you're just
about the nicest cousin I possess, beside being the
only one!”
“Doubtful compliment!” laughed Braye. “Any
way, you're the prettiest and naughtiest cousin I
own! As a punishment for your disobedience I
challenge you to a round with old Ouija to-night!
I'll bet I can make it say something more cheerful
than you wormed out of it last evening.”
“All right, we'll try it,” and Vernie danced gaily
away to tease her uncle not to take her home.
A little later, Milly, as housekeeper, discovered
some serious shortage in the commissariat depart-
ment, and Braye offered to drive her over to East
Dryden, marketing.
They started off, Milly calling back to Eve to
preside at the tea-table, if she didn't return in time.
“All right,” agreed Eve, though Vernie vocifer-
ously announced her intention of playing hostess in
Milly's absence.
The shoppers had not returned when old Thorpe
brought in the tea-tray.


At Four o’Clock 99
“You can pour, Eve, and I'll pass the cakies,”
said Vernie, who was in high spirits, for she had
partially persuaded her uncle to remain longer at
Black Aspens. He was just phrasing certain
strong stipulations on which his permission was to
be based, when the tea things arrived.
They were, as usual, in the hall, for though they
sometimes suggested the plan of having tea out of
doors, there was no cheerful terrace, or pleasant
porch. The hall, though sombre and vast, had be-
come more or less homelike by virtue of usage, so
there they took their tea.
Mr. Tracy, always graceful in social matters,
helped pass the cups and plates, for no one liked
to have the old Thorpes about unnecessarily.
“No tea for me, please,” declared Norma; “I
think it upsets my nerves, »
“And that is not the thing to do in this house,”
laughed Landon. “This is mighty good tea,
though, didn't know anybody could brew it as
well as Milly. Congratulations, Eve.”
“Thank you,” and Eve's long lashes swept up-
ward as she gave him a coquettish glance.
“Referring to that matter of which we were
talking, Hardwick,” Gifford Bruce began, “I >>
Even as he spoke, the clock chimed four, and, as
always, they paused to count the long, slow strokes.
Then Bruce began again: “I think, myself yx
A strange change passed over his face. His jaw
fell, his eyes stared, and then, his teacup fell from
2, 2007 A


IOO The Room with the Tassels
his hand, and he slumped down in an awful—a ter-
rifying heap!
Landon sprang to his assistance, Norma ran to
him, while Tracy, with a quick glance at Vernie,
flew to the child's side.
“What is it?” he cried to her, “what's the
matter, Vernie?” He slipped an arm round her,
just as, with a wild look and a ringing shriek, the
girl's head fell back and her eyes closed.
“Oh,” cried Eve, “what has happened?”
“I don't know,” and Tracy's voice shook.
“Help me, Miss Carnforth—let us lay her on this
sofa.”
Between them they carried the girl, for she was
past muscular effort, and as they placed her gently
on the sofa her eyes fluttered, she gave a gasping
sigh, and fell back, inert.
“Oh,” cried Eve, “she isn't—she isn't—oh, it's
just four o'clock!”
Landon ran to Vernie's side and felt of her heart.
“She is dead,” he said, solemnly, his face white,
his voice shaking; “and Gifford Bruce is dead, too.
It is four o'clock!”


IO2 The Room with the Tassels
The brusque words had the effect of rousin
Norma, and she forced herself to rise. -
“What can I do?” she whispered.
“Do!” cried Eve, “there's everything to do!
Some one telephone for a doctor!”
“I—can't,” Norma moaned. “You do that,
Professor, won't you?”
“Oh, I can't!” and Hardwick fell limply into a
chair. “I—I'm all upset—”
“Of course you are, Professor,” said Tracy,
kindly. “I’ll telephone, Miss Carnforth. Do you
know the village doctor's name? Of course, it's
too late—” he glanced at the two still forms, “but
a physician must be summoned.”
“No, I don't know any name, call Thorpe, or
Hester.”
Tracy rang a bell and Thorpe came shuffling in.
At sight of the tragedy, he turned and ran,
screaming. Hester came, and proved the more use-
ful of the two. Her stolidity was helpful, and she
told the doctor's name and number. -
“Dead, ain't they?” she said, with a grieved in-
tonation that robbed her words of curtness. “What
happened to 'em 2 ”
The simple question roused them all. What had
happened? What had killed two strong, well, able-
bodied people at the same moment, and that the
very moment said to be fatal in that dread
house?
-“I believe,” said the Professor, dropping his face


IO4 The Room with the Tassels
ten in every line of her face,—Norma so fragile,
and shaken by the awful scenes about her.
“I don't know what to think,” Eve replied,
slowly. “There's only one thing certain, Vernie
received a warning of death, and Vernie is dead.
Mr. Bruce received no definite warning, that I know
of, but he may have had one. You know, he said
he was visited by the phantom, but we wouldn't be-
lieve him.”
“That's so!” and Tracy looked up in surprise.
“We never quite believed Mr. Bruce's statements,
because he scorned all talk of spirit manifestations.
If he really did see the ghost that night that he said
he did—”
“Of course he did,” declared Eve. “I believed
him all the time. I can always tell when any one
is speaking the truth. It's part of my sensitive
nature.”
Wynne Landon stalked about the hall like a man
in torment. “What shall I do with Milly?” he
groaned. “She and Braye will be back soon,_any
minute now. She mustn't see these ->
“They ought to be placed in some other room,”
said Eve, gently.
“One mustn't touch a dead body before—”
began Professor Hardwick, but Tracy interrupted
him. “That's in case of murder, Professor,” he
said; “this is a different matter. Whatever caused
these deaths, it wasn't by the hand of another hu-
man being. If it was fright or nervous apprehen-


The Mystery IO5
sion, those are to be classed among natural causes.
I think we are wholly justified in moving the
bodies.”
After some discussion, Landon and the Professor
agreed with Tracy, and with the help of Thorpe
and Hester, the stricken forms were carried out of
the hall, where the group so often forgathered.
“It is better,” said Eve, “for we need this hall
continually, and if we don't move them at once, the
doctor may forbid it, when he comes.”
By common consent, the body of Gifford Bruce
was laid in the drawing room, on a large sofa, and
Vernie's slender figure was reverently placed on the
bed in the Room with the Tassels.
“No spirit shape can frighten her now,” said
Norma, weeping bitterly, as Thorpe and Hester car-
ried the dead girl in. Then both doors were closed,
shutting off the silent figures, and those who were
left felt a vague sense of relief.
“Now we can break it to Milly more gently,”
said Eve. “Clear away that broken cup, Hester,
and make some fresh tea, I’m sure we all
need it.”
On the great rug the damp spot remained where
the spilled tea had fallen, and Eve ordered a smaller
rug placed over it.
Braye and Milly came in laughing.
“We've bought out the whole of East Dryden!”
Milly exclaimed, “and what do you think? We
found some fresh lobsters, still alive and kicking,


106 The Room with the Tassels
and we commandeered them at once. What's the
matter with you people? You look solemn as
owls!”
“Come up to your room, Milly, to take off your
wraps,” and Landon took her arm to lead her away.
“Nonsense, Wynne, I'll throw them off down
here. I'm thirsty for tea.”
“No; come on, dear. Come with me.”
Awed at his tone, Milly went with him, and they
disappeared up the staircase.
Then Professor Hardwick told Braye what had
happened. The others had begged the Professor to
do this, and in a very few words the tale was told.
“It can't bel” and Braye rose and walked up and
down the hall. “I wish I had been here! Oh, for-
give me, all of you, I know you did all you could,—
but—restoratives—”
“We did,” said Eve, “I ran for sal volatile and
such things, but you don't understand,-it was in-
stantaneous, wasn't it, Mr. Tracy?”
“It was,” replied Tracy, gravely. “Mr. Bruce
was speaking, naturally and normally. He paused
when the clock struck,--we 'most always do, you
know, it's a sort of habit.”
“We have to, really,” said Norma. “That
clock strikes so loudly, one can't go on talking.”
“And then,” began the Professor, “he was talk-
ing to me, you know, and I was looking straight
at him, his face changed in an instant, his fingers
spread, as if galvanized, his teacup fell from his


The Mystery IO7
hand, and in a moment, he was gone! Yes, dead
in a second, I should say.”
“And—Vernie?” Braye spoke with difficulty.
“I chanced to be looking at Vernie,” said Mr.
Tracy. “The outcry concerning Mr. Bruce made
us all look toward him, and then, a sudden sound
from Vernie drew my attention to her. She gasped,
and her face looked queer, sort of drawn and
gray,+so I sprang to her side, and held her up, lest
she fall. She was standing, looking at Mr. Bruce,
of course. I felt her sway, her head fell back, and
then Miss Carnforth came to my assistance, and we
laid her quickly down on the sofa. In an instant,
the child was dead. It is incredible that it should
have been a case of sudden fright that proved fatal,
and yet, what other theory is there? It couldn't be
heart disease in a child of sixteen!”
“No,” mused Braye, “and yet, what could it
have been? I won't subscribe to any supernatural
theory now! It's too absurdl”
“It's the only thing that isn't absurdl” contra-
dicted Eve. “Remember, Rudolph, Vernie had the
warning ºx
“Warning be hanged!” cried Braye, explosively.
“But think,” went on Eve, gently, “the phantom
told Vernie she would die at four o'clock—”
“Four o'clock in the morning, Vernie said! If
I had thought of four in the afternoon, I wouldn't
have gone out!”
“Nobody knows that the message said four in


The Mystery IO9
first made examination of the body of Gifford
Bruce. It did not take long. There was no ap-
parent cause for death. No symptoms were pres-
ent of any fatal disease, nor, so far as he could see,
of any poison or wound of any sort.
“I cannot say what an autopsy may divulge,”
declared the frightened practitioner, “but from this
superficial examination, I find no cause of dis-
solution.”
Then he crossed the hall, to the Room with the
Tassels.
Braye followed him in, Eve also. The Professor
and Tracy stood in the doorway, but Norma re-
mained in the hall, her face buried in some sofa
cushions.
“No apparent cause,” the Doctor repeated.
“This child was in perfect health; I should say
fright might have killed her, but it doesn't seem
credible. I know of no cause of any sort, that
could bring about death in an instant of time, as
you report.”
“Maybe not an instant,” corrected the Professor,
carefully. “As I look back, I should judge there
was at least a half a minute between Mr. Bruce's
first symptom of unease, and his falling to the
floor.”
“So with Vernie,” said Eve, thoughtfully. “I
saw Mr. Tracy go quickly toward her; I followed
immediately, and I'm sure there was nearly a half
minute, but not more, before she gasped and died.”


I IO The Room with the Tassels
“It's hard to judge time on such occasions,” said
the Doctor, looking sharply at Eve.
“I know it, but I was very conscious of it all,
almost clairvoyantly so, and I can assure you it
was not longer than a half minute in either case,
between the state of usual health and death itself.
Is there any cause or agent that will work as quickly
as that?”
“I know of none,” replied Doctor Wayburn,
positively.
“There is none,” Eve assured him. “These
deaths were caused by supernatural means, they
were the vengeance of certain Powers of Dark-
ness.”
“Oh, come now, Eve,” expostulated Braye,
“don’t get off that stuff to the Doctor. Keep that
for our own circle. You know these fatalities
couldn't have been caused by a ghost!”
“What, then?”
“I don't know. Fright, perhaps, or over-appre-
hension because of the warnings. Auto-suggestion,
if you like, and so indirectly the result of the spooks,
but not the direct work of a disembodied spirit.”
“It was, all the same!” and Eve left the room
and went to sit by Norma.
But the girls were not in sympathy. Their con-
versation resulted in disagreement, and, at last, in
Norma's bursting into tears and running upstairs.
She sought Milly, and found her prostrated by
Landon's news. But she was trying to be brave,


II2 The Room with the Tassels
as well? And if so, why couldn't they kill people,
if they want to?”
“You sound logical, Milly, but it's absurd.”
“No, it isn't. You and Eve believe in good
spirits and in their power to do good. Why not,
then, in bad spirits and their power to do evil?”
“Let up, Milly,” begged Landon, who stood near
by. “She's been going on like that, Norma, ever
since I told her. Can't you explain to her ->
“Explain what?”
“Lord! I don't know! But make her see how
impossible it is that the ghost of that woman who
killed her husband here so long ago, should have
any reason to do away with two modern present-
day people!”
“But I want to think so, Wynne,” and Milly's
eyes stared with a peculiar light. “I'd rather think
they were killed by that ghost than by a person,
wouldn't you?”
“What do you mean, Milly? Murdered?”
“Yes, Eve. That's what it must have been, if
not spirits. They had no mortal disease, either of
them.”
“Don’t mention that before any one else,” ad-
monished Eve, very seriously. “There are other
explanations, Milly. Many deaths have been
brought about by sudden fright or by continuous
apprehension of imaginary danger. Vernie had
been warned twice. True, I didn't think of four in
the afternoon, but doubtless she did, and maybe,


The Mystery II3
seeing the sudden attack of Mr. Bruce, so startled
her that she thought of the four o'clock doom and
gave way herself.”
“She might give way to the extent of fainting,
or a fit of hysterics,” admitted Milly, “but not to
the extent of dropping dead! It's unthinkable,_
it's unbelievable—”
“It's almost unbelievable that they should be
dead,” Eve said, softly, “but as to how they died,
let's not speculate, dear. I suppose we must have
a doctor up from New York,+what do you think,
Mr. Landon?”
“Eh 2–oh, I don't know, I'm sure I don't
know.”
“But you'll have to take charge, won't you?”
asked Eve. “You two are really the heads of this
house **
“All I want is to get away,” moaned Milly.
“When can we go, Wynne?”
“I don't know, dear. Say, Eve, won't you take
Milly down to-night? I can't leave, of course, but .
I daren't keep her here, lest she go to pieces. You
take her home, there's a train in about an hour.”
“Oh, I can't. I want to stay here. Send Norma,
—no, she's no good, perhaps Mr. Tracy will take
Milly down. He's awfully kind, and ready to do
anything.”
As Milly declared herself now willing, the three
went downstairs. They found the others in the
hall, the Doctor still there, and the tea things still


I I4. The Room with the Tassels
about. Eve gave Milly some tea, and took some
herself.
“I’ll have to call in the coroner,” Doctor Way-
burn was saying; “it isn't apparently a murder, and
yet it's a mysterious death, they both are. Yes,
the county physician must be summoned.”
The Doctor had gotten over the first panic of
surprise, and began to feel a sense of importance.
Such a case had never come near him before, and
the whole affair gave him a pleasant feeling of re-
sponsibility and foreshadowed his prominence in the
public eye.
The suggestion of a coroner was resented by all
who listened, but the Doctor's word was law in the
case, so they unwillingly consented.
“I think I'd better go down to New York to-
night,” said Braye. “There are so many things to
see to, so many people to notify, the reporters to
look after, and—undertaking arrangements to be
made. Unless you want to go, Wynne?”
“No,” said Landon, “it’s better for you, Ru-
dolph. But I wish you'd take Milly. Take her to
her mother's and let her get out of this atmosphere.
Will you go, Milly?”
“I did want to, Wynne, when I was upstairs.
But, now, with people all about, if Norma will
stay here, too, I'd rather stay with you. When are
you going down, Wynne?”
“I don't know, dear. We'll have to see how
things turn out. Well, you go ahead, Rudolph,
i


CHAPTER VIII
By What Means
HE night was full of restlessness. Tracy
and Professor Hardwick, in their adjoining
rooms, were the only ones in the wing that
had the night before also housed Braye and Gifford
Bruce.
“Shall we leave the door between open?” Tracy
asked, more out of consideration for the Professor's
nerves than his own.
“Yes, if you will. And don't go to bed yet. I
can't sleep, I know, and I must discuss this thing
with somebody, or go mad!”
“All right, sir,” and Tracy took off his coat and
donned an old-fashioned dressing-gown.
Hardwick Smiled. “That's the first ministerial
garb I've seen you wear,” he said. “I'd pick that
up for a dominie's negligé every time!”
“I’m rather attached to the old dud,” and Tracy
patted it affectionately. “Queer, how one comes to
love a worn garment. No, I don't wear clerical
togs when off on a vacation. I used to, till some
one told me it cast a restraint over the others, and
I hate to feel I'm doing that.”
“You’d never do that, my friend. You've a
natural tact that ought to carry you far toward
II6


By What Means 117
general popularity. But, tell me, as man to man,
how do you size up this awful mystery?”
“I don't know, Professor. At times my mind's
a blank, and then, I get a hint or, well, I can't
call it a suspicion,--but a thought, say, in one direc-
tion, and it's so fearfully absurd, I discard it at
once. Then comes another idea, only to be dis-
missed like the first. What do you think?”
“I am a complete convert to the supernatural.
You know, Sir Oliver Lodge and many other scien-
tists only believed after they had had undeniable
personal experience. Now, here were warnings,
definite, positive prophecies, and they were fulfilled.
What more can any one ask?”
Tracy mused over this. “I know that,” he said,
at last, “but I can't quite swallow it whole, like
that. Do you mean there was no physical cause?
Such as fright, expectant attention, zy
“Expectant attention is a fine phrase, much like
auto-suggestion. They are all right as far as they
go, but they can't go to the extent of killing people.
Then again, suggest even a theory, even a possible
means of the death of those two by any human
agency. Murder is out of the question,-suicide
even more so. And they had no desire to end their
lives. A young girl, happily looking forward to
gaiety and pleasure, a man in the prime of life,
hale, rich, prosperous—no, they had no wish to
die!”
“True enough; but I can't quite see it. Why did


II8 The Room with the Tassels
the spirits want to kill them? if spirits did kill
them?”
“For interfering with this haunted house,_in a
frivolous and flippant way. I've always heard that
departed souls bitterly resent scoffing, or merely
curious investigation.”
“But why choose those two? Or Vernie, any-
way? Perhaps Mr. Bruce was needlessly sarcastic
and sceptical.”
“So was the child wn
“Oh, but in such an innocent, harmless way!
However, Professor, I've nothing to offer in place
of your argument. My creed does not admit of my
subscribing to your theory, but I confess I'm unable
to suggest any other. As you say, it couldn't have
been suicide, and there's no possibility of foul play.”
The two men talked on, or sat in silent thought,
far into the night. The clock struck twelve before
they at last retired, leaving open their communica-
tion door, and securely locking their hall doors.
Less than an hour later, a slender white-robed
figure tiptoed from one of the bedrooms and looked
over the banisters. Peering down through the
darkness, the dim outline of old Thorpe's form
was visible. He was huddled in his chair, his head
fallen forward on the table. Softly returning to
her room for a wrap, Eve again stealthily came to
the staircase, and sat down on the uppermost step.
Later still, another door silently opened, and a
pair of surprised blue eyes saw Eve sitting there.


By What Means II9
Suppressing a startled exclamation, Norma scurried
back to her room, but Eve did not hear her.
Milly was wakeful and restless. Several times
she declared she heard sounds, but when Wynne
wanted to go and investigate, she refused to let him
do so.
The house surely seemed haunted. The aspens
brushed against the windows with their eternal
soughing, their leaves whispering, hissing creepy
secrets, and their branches tapping eerily on the
panes. The halls were full of shadows, vague, in-
distinct, fading to nothingness.
At four o'clock the great clock tolled the hour,
and every one in the house heard it. No one was
asleep, every heart was beating fast, every eye wide
open, every nerve tense.
But nothing happened; no shriek rent the silence,
no unusual or terrifying sound was heard.
Relieved, some went to sleep again, some tossed
restlessly on their pillows until rising time.
At breakfast all looked haggard and worn. The
day was cool and pleasant, the dining room bright
with sunshine, and old Hester's viands most appe-
tizing.
Thorpe had closed the doors of the rooms given
over to the presence of death, and as the various
members of the party came down the staircase quick
apprehensive glances were followed by a look of
relief.
Elijah Stebbins came while breakfast was in prog-


120 The Room with the Tassels
ress, and at Milly's invitation took a seat at the
board.
“Well,” he said heavily, “you folks wanted
spooks, I hope you're satisfied.”
“Don’t use that tone, Mr. Stebbins,” Landon
reproved him. “A dreadful thing has happened.
I cannot think it is by supernatural causes nor can
I see any other explanation. But that is no reason
for you to speak flippantly of our investigations of .
your so-called haunted house.”
“No offence meant,” and Stebbins cringed.
“But I'm thinkin' you folks had better go away
from here, or there's no tellin' what might happen.”
“Do you know anything about the mystery?”
Professor Hardwick shot out the question so sud-
denly that Stebbins jumped.
“No, sir, of course I don’t, sir! How could I?”
“Then why do you warn us off the premises?”
“I don't exactly do that, but I'd think you'd
reason for yourselves that what happens once can
happen ag’in.”
The dogged look on the man's face seemed por-
tentous of evil, and Milly began to cry.
“Oh, take me home, Wynne,” she begged; “I
don't want to stay here!”
“Come with me, Milly,” said Eve, and rising, she
led Milly from the room.
It was shortly after that the coroner arrived.
“I don't want to see that man,” said Stebbins,
“him and me ain't good friends,” and rising quickly,


I22 The Room with the Tassels
but Norma, and she kept her own counsel, but she
also kept a watchful eye on Eve.
Even before he went to look at the bodies of the
two victims of the tragedy, Doctor Crawford asked
some questions.
His slowness was maddening to the alert minds
of his listeners, but he methodically arrived at the
facts of the case.
“I am told by my colleague, Doctor Wayburn,”
he said, “that there is no mark or sign on the
remains to indicate the cause of death. There will,
of course, be need of autopsies, but for that I will
await Doctor Wayburn's return. He will be here
shortly. Meantime, I will inquire concerning this
strange information I have received, hinting at a
belief in—ahem—in spiritualism, by some of the
people here present. Is such belief held, may I
ask?”
“Perhaps belief is too strong a word,” the Pro-
fessor volunteered, as no one else spoke, “but I may
tell you that we came here to this house for the
purpose of investigating the truth of the story that
the house is haunted.”
“And have you made such investigations?”
“We have tried to do so. The results have been
mysterious, startling and now, tragic,+but I can-
not say we have proved anything, except that super-
natural influences have most assuredly been at
work.”
“I am not willing to accept such an explanation


By What Means I23
of two sudden deaths,” Crawford said, in his dig-
nified way, “at any rate, not without a most exhaus-
tive investigation into the possibility of their having
been brought about by natural agencies. Let me
take up first the case of Mr. Bruce. Was this
gentleman in robust health?”
“Entirely so,” said Landon, “so far as we know.
It is not inconceivable that he had some heart
trouble or other malady that was not noticeable, but
of that I cannot say positively. It seems to me,
Doctor, you would better look at him, you might
note some symptom that would enlighten you.”
Crawford shuddered perceptibly, but tried to hide
his disinclination. Though accustomed to gruesome
sights, his dread of the supernatural was such that
he feared the proposed examination. However,
ashamed of his hesitation, he rose, and asked to be
shown the body of Gifford Bruce.
Landon started to officiate, but Milly's detaining
hand held him back; the Professor made no move,
but Eve and Tracy started simultaneously to rise.
“I’ll go,” said Eve, a little officiously, and Tracy
sat down again.
She led the way to the big drawing room, where
the remains of Gifford Bruce lay, and stood by while
Doctor Crawford looked down at the still, white
face.
A long time they stood there, no word being
spoken. Then Eve said softly, “Don’t let your dis-
belief in supernatural powers blind you to their


124 The Room with the Tassels
possible reality. There are many matters yet un-
known and spiritism is one of them. Remember
that we who are here gathered are sensitives and
psychics. We are prepared for and expect experi-
ences not vouchsafed to less clairvoyant natures,-
though we did not look for this! But I beg of you,
sir, to realize that there are things of which you
have no cognizance, that yet are real and effective.”
Doctor Crawford looked at the speaker. In the
partially darkened room, Eve's strange eyes glit-
tered with an uncanny light. Her face was pale,
and her red hair like a flame aureole. She took a
slow step nearer to the doctor, and he recoiled, as
from a vampire.
“You are afraid!” she said, and her tone was
exultant. “Do not be afraid, the phantasms will
not hurt you if you do your duty. Unless you do
your duty ” she stretched her hand toward him,
and again he drew away, “the phantasms will haunt
you—haunt you—haunt you!”
Her voice fell to the merest whisper, but it
thrilled through the room like a clarion note to the
shocked ears of the listening man. -
Against his will her eyes held his; against his will,
without his volition, he whispered, “What is my
duty?”
“To declare, to declare in accordance with your
own conviction, in proof of your own belief, that
these two deaths were the direct result of a super-
natural power. What power, you know not, but


By What Means I25
you do know—remember, you do know, that no
mortal hand brought the tragedy about, either the
hands of the victims themselves or of any one else.”
Fascinated, frightened, Crawford stared at this
strange woman. He had never before encountered
such a face, such a sinuous, serpentine form, a per-
sonality that seemed to sway his very being, that
seemed to dominate and control his whole will
power, his whole brain power.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Eve went on, “don’t
think for a moment, I am advising you wrongly, or
with intent to deceive. Only, I see you know noth-
ing of occult phenomena, and moreover, you are
even ignorant of your own ignorance of them.
Therefore, seeing, too, your quick appreciation and
perceptive faculty, I warn you not to ignore or for-
get the fact that these things exist, that unseen
powers hold sway over us all, and they must be reck-
oned with.”
The flattery was subtle. More than the words,
Eve's glance implied a keen apprehension on the
part of the doctor, which, as he didn't possess it,
seemed a desirable thing to him, and he gladly as-
sumed that he had it.
“And now,” Eve said, as they left the room, “do
you want to go to the other room—the Room with
the Tassels?”
“No-please, not now,” and Crawford shud-
dered, for he had heard much of that room. Also,
he was desirous of getting back to more normal


I28 The Room with the Tassels
his car to East Dryden. We went to the markets
and did some other shopping at the stores.”
“And when you returned it was—all over?”
Doctor Crawford looked gravely at her.
“Yes,” said Milly, “we were both away, and oh,
I am so glad! I couldn't have stood it!”
She broke down and sobbed in her husband's
arms, but Crawford went on asking questions.
“The autopsy will show,” he said, “but I will ask
if any of you can show cause to suspect that a
poison of any sort could have been administered to
the victims of this disaster.”
“Not possibly,” said Professor Hardwick. “We
were at tea, and had all been served from the same
teapot and from the same plates of cakes. I can
affirm this, for I’ve thought over every moment of
the occasion. Mr. Bruce had taken part of his tea,
and had eaten part of his cake, xx
“Are you sure of this?” the coroner interrupted.
“I am sure that he sat next to me, that he was
talking to me, and that he received his tea at the
same time I did. We sat stirring our cups, and
nibbling our cake as we discussed a matter in which
we were both interested. Less than a half minute
before that man died, he was as well as he had ever
been. The scene is perfectly before my eyes. He
held his cup and saucer in one hand, his spoon in
the other, when I saw his eyes open queerly, his
face change to a clayey gray, and his fingers relaxed,
letting his cup fall to the floor. I set down my cup


130 The Room with the Tassels
Every one present affirmed that they had partaken
of the tea and the cakes, and declared they were
both harmless and just such as they had had served
every afternoon since their arrival.
“That settles that point, at any rate,” and the
coroner nodded his head. “There can be no ques-
tion of poison after what you've told me. Unless,
either or both of them took poison themselves or
gave it to the other intentionally.”


CHAPTER IX
Conflicting Theories
less guarded terms.
“It's murder,” Thorpe declared flatly. “No
spooks ever killed off those two people in a minute,
just like that!”
“Murder, your grandmother!” snorted Stebbins.
“Who done it, and how? I ask you that! Those
folks came up here to hunt ghosts, and I should say
they found 'em, good and plenty! You know's
well's I do, this house has always been ha'nted,
ever since that woman killed her husband in
that very room where the little girl's lyin' now. I
wouldn't go in that there room for a fortune, I
wouldn't!”
“Now Eli, don't be foolish,” and Thorpe shook
his head. “How could a spook kill two folks at
onct, right out in the open, as you may say?”
“For that matter, how could anybody murder
two people at once? Nobody was around but their
own crowd, and that lot of people ain't for mur-
derin’ each other! I know that!”
“It was spooks,” declared Hester, with an air of
settling the matter; “I’ve smelled 'em of late. That
I. the kitchen the discussion was going on in
131


I32 The Room with the Tassels
smell of bitter almonds is been in the air a heap,
and I ain't had none for flavourin' or anything.
Land, I’d never flavour a cake with that! I put
vanilla even in my “Angel Food.’”
“I’ve smelled it too,” spoke up Nannie, a helper
of the older woman's; “when I’ve been a-dustin'
round in that there ha'nted room, I've smelled it
—not strong, you know, but jest a faint whiff,
now'n then. I skittled out ’s fast's I could, I kin
tell you!”
“Nope, you're all wrong,” insisted old Thorpe.
“”Tain't spooks, it's murder. That's what it is.”
“Who done it, then?” demanded his wife.
“That I dunno. But I have my spicions. How,
—I dunno, either. But that's neither here nor
there. Murder's been done, but I'll bet that mut-
ton-headed Crawford ain't got brains enough to
see it.”
“He ain't got brains enough to go in when it
rains,” agreed Stebbins, “but you're 'way off,
Thorpe, a surmisin' murder. Why, jest fºr in-
stance, now, how could it 'a' been done?”
“Now how can I tell that!” Thorpe spoke with
fine scorn. “I don't know all the goin's on of
them hifalutin folks, but if you'd heard 'em talkin'
's much as I have, you'd know that they're up to
lots of things such as us ignorant people don't
know nothin’ about.”
“They do talk awful hiſalutin,” corroborated
Hester. “I’ve heard 'em say things that hadn't no


Conflicting Theories I33
meanin’ whatsoever to me, and yet they was plain
English too.”
“Well, if you ask me,” and Thorpe looked im-
portant, “I’d jest say keep your eye on one of them
women.”
“You mean that red-headed varmint, I know,”
said his wife. “Well, she's a handful, all right, but
I don't believe she'd go so far's to kill anybody.”
“You don’t, don't you? Well, she'd go just so
far as there was any goin' at all,—an' then she'd
go right on. Oh, I kin read character,” and Thorpe
plumed himself so evidently on his mental powers
that Stebbins snorted outright.
“You’re, a hummer, you are! I spose you're
clairvoyant, yourself! Well, let me advise you to
keep your trap shut about Miss—that lady you re-
ferred to. This is my house, and those are my
tenants, and I won't stand any talk from you about
'em.”
“That's right, Thorpe,” admonished his wife.
“Mr. Stebbins, he's right. An' he's right about the
ghosts, too. Why, I happen to know that the spooks
warned that little Reid girl she'd die at four o'clock,
and die she did, jest at four! Can you beat it?
Spooks? Why, of course it was spooks! What
else?”
“Yes, and the message was that two of 'em ’d
die, and two of 'em did,” added Stebbins. “How
could any mortal human bein’ bring that about? I
ask you?”


134 The Room with the Tassels
“Land! I don't know! I told you I didn't.
But,” and Thorpe wagged his head positively, “it
wasn't spooks.”
The same questions were being discussed in the
hall by the ones more intimately interested.
Doctor Wayburn had arrived, and he and Craw-
ford were shut in the drawing room endeavouring
to wrest from the unknown, the secret of Gifford
Bruce's death.
The little group, still gathered in the hall, were
talking earnestly of the immediate future.
“It's so pathetic,” Norma was saying, “that
there are so few to mourn for poor little Vernie.
That child had actually no relatives but her uncle
and Mr. Braye.”
“Wynne is a sort of a cousin, too,” put in Milly,
“and indeed, Norma, I feel as sorry as if Vernie
had been my own sister.”
“Oh, I don't mean that, of course, we all feel
that way. But, she was so alone in the world.
Mr. Braye is terribly broken up. He loved
her—”
“Not only loved her,” said Eve, “but he was
ambitious for her. He wanted her put in care of
a capable woman this fall, and brought up properly.
Mr. Bruce was no sort of a guardian for the child—
I mean he was all right, of course, as a legal guar-
dian, but he was no man to have charge of her
social and home life.”
“He knew that,” said Landon, “he told me he


Conflicting Theories I35
meant to have Vernie properly chaperoned and all
that, this winter. She was a dear kiddie.”
“Oh, she was,” and Norma wept afresh.
“I am a complete convert to spiritualism, now,”
said the Professor, gravely. “I’ve thought over
these things very deeply, I've considered every pos-
sible aspect of the case, and there is no explanation
of those two mysterious deaths, except supernormal
forces. It is no use to shirk the supposition of
murder, indeed we must consider it very carefully,
but it is out of the question. Nobody could have
compassed those two deaths in an instant of time,
however secret or subtle the methods. Do you all
agree?”
“Of course,” said Eve, positively, and Tracy
added, “That is undeniable, Professor, foul play
was impossible. But, moreover, there was no one
here present but our own party. I can't let the
implication pass that it could have been in the heart
of any one of us—”
“Nonsense!” interrupted Hardwick, “that's ab-
surd, Mr. Tracy. When I speak of murder, it is in
the abstract, and because it is right that we should
consider the matter from every angle. We must
even think of suicide, and of yy
“Suicide is as absurd as murder,” said Landon,
indignantly. “But what other atrocity had you
in mind?”
“Don’t lose your temper, please,” the Professor
said, mildly. “I am obliged to preserve an imper-


136 The Room with the Tassels
sonal attitude, or I can't think at all! The other
thought is, that one of the victims killed himself
and the other one.”
“Please, Professor,” said Eve, “at least confine
yourself to rational common sense. But since you
raise this absurd theory, let's settle it once and for
all. Could Mr. Bruce have willingly killed himself
and Vernie?” she asked of them all.
“No!” replied Landon. “Mr. Bruce was fond
of life and he adored that child! Cut that out!”
“Then,” pursued Eve, “could Vernie have killed
herself and her uncle?”
“Rubbish!” cried Landon, “don’t say such
things, Eve. Professor, are you answered?”
“And remember,” put in Tracy, “the two were
the width of this hall apart. What means could
have been employed?”
“What means were employed, anyway?” said
Norma. “Oh, what did kill those people?”
“The utter absence of any material means proves
the fact that it was supernatural,” declared the Pro-
fessor. “I only mentioned those other theories to
prove their absurdity. Now, as I say, I am a con-
vert to spiritualism in all its form and phases. How
can one help being after this? And I, for one,
desire to stay here for a time and I feel sure that
the departed spirits of our friends will communicate
with us.”
Milly shuddered at the idea, but Eve's wonderful
eyes glowed with a sudden anticipation.


Conflicting Theories I37
“Oh, Professor Hardwick!” she exclaimed,
“how splendid! Will you really stay here a while?
Will you, Milly? I can't stay unless you and
Wynne do. Will you stay, Norma? and you, Mr.
Tracy?”
“Oh, I can't!” Milly moaned. “I needn't,
need I, Wynne?”
“No; darling, not if you don't want to. I can't
see, Eve, why you wish to stay here. It gives me
the horrors to think of it. And if you really expect
spiritual communications from Vernie or Mr. Bruce,
you can receive them just as well anywhere else.”
“Not just as well,” demurred the Professor.
“The conditions here are ideal for investigations.
We haven't taken it up seriously, you know.”
“But, Miss Carnforth, can't you ask some other
friends to come, if the Landons prefer to return to
New York? I don't doubt you know the right
ones, who could chaperon you, and also take an
interest in our work.”
“Yes,” began Eve, thoughtfully, and then Steb-
bins came into the room.
“The doctors through yet?” he asked; “what
they found out?”
“No, they're not through yet,” answered Lan-
don. “Sit down, Stebbins, and talk a little bit. I
wish you'd tell us of anything you know of your
own experience, not hearsay, mind you, that has
happened in this house, that can truly be called
supernatural.”


Conflicting Theories I39
with fear. “Now I leave it to you folks. Ain't
you smelled prussic acid around?”
“I have,” said Norma. “And I,” added the
Professor. “I know it was not brought here by
any of our party—”
“Nor not by the cook,” said Stebbins.
“Hester, she's leery of that bitter almond fla-
vourin’ and she don't never use it. Well, don't that
smell prove somethin’?”
“It isn't actual proof,” and Tracy looked thought-
ful. “But it is an inexplicable odour to hang round
an old house.”
“”Tain't inexplicable if it's due to the ha'nt,”
urged Stebbins. “And that's what it is due to.
Why, that smell's been said to be round here ever
since the time of the Montgomery murder.”
“What's wrong between you and Doctor Craw-
ford?” asked Eve, suddenly. “You say yourself
you aren't good friends.”
“No, ma'am, we ain’t. It's a sort o' feud of
long standin'. They ain't no special reason, jest a
conglomeration of little things. But one thing is
'cause he makes fun of the spooks here. He don't
take no stock in such things, and nobody can make
him. Thorpe, now, he don't neither. He sticks
to it Mr. Bruce and Miss Vernie was murdered.”
“By what means, does he think?” asked Eve,
quickly.
“Well, that he don't know. But murder he says
it was, and that he sticks to, like a puppy to a root.”


Conflicting Theories I4I
tale-bearin’ to the village.’ Ain't that right, Mr.
Stebbins?”
“Just so,” said Stebbins, calmly. “Them's just
about my very words. You told me, Mr. Landon,
that you were a crowd of spook-hunters, and so it
was up to me to spare you all the annoyance I
could. An' well I know how the villagers gossip
about this here house, if they get a chance. So,
with the Thorpes at the head of things and a couple
of good close-mouthed girls for helpers, I 'llowed
you'd not be troubled. And you ain't been, up to
now. But this thing can't be kept quiet no longer.
Of course, a thing like this is more or less public
property, and I can tell you, there'll be plenty of
curious villagers up here to the inquest and all
that.”
“Inquest!” cried Eve, “what do you mean?”
“Jest that, ma'am. That dunder-headed coro-
ner, or county physician as he really is, he's set on
havin’ an inquest,-says he's got to. Well, I don't
know much about law, but if they can ketch and
hang a ha'nt, let 'em do it, say I' "
The arrival on the scene of the two doctors cut
short further discussion. “There is a strange con-
dition of things,” Crawford began, addressing him-
self to Wynne Landon. “We find decisive, though
very slight evidence that Mr. Bruce died from
poison.”
A hush followed, as his stunned hearers thought
over the grave significance of this statement.


I42 The Room with the Tassels
“Poison?” repeated Landon, dazedly. “What
sort of poison? Who administered it?”
“As I said,” resumed the coroner, “it’s a strange
case. The poison found is the minutest quantity
of a very powerful drug, known among the pro-
fession as strychnine hydrochlorate. This is so
deadly that a half grain will kill a man instantly,
or in a few seconds. But my colleague and I have
agreed that since it is impossible for this to have
been administered at the moment of Mr. Bruce's
death, it must be that he had taken it in cumulative
doses, and the result culminated in his sudden
death.”
“Why would he take it?” cried Milly.
“Where could he get it?” asked the Professor.
“Such a drug is not available to the general public,
is it?”
“It is not, sir, but whoever gave it to him, must
have procured it somehow. Those questions are
for the future. We are just learning the facts.
The results of our tests prove positively the pres-
ence of that particular poison. There is no doubt
of that.”
“But wait,” and Eve fixed her compelling eyes
on the coroner's face. “Remember, Doctor Craw-
ford, though you may not believe in the occult,
other and wiser minds do. I wish to remind you,
therefore, that we who believe these deaths were
caused by supernatural agency, believe also that the
powers that compassed the deaths are able to make


Conflicting Theories I43
the deaths seem attributable to natural causes,
whether poison or anything else.”
“Eve!” exclaimed Milly, “that is going too
far ! ”
“Not at all!” said the Professor. “Miss Carn-
forth is quite right; and indeed, logic must prove
that if a phantasm can take away a human life it
can also produce effects that resemble conditions
brought about by human means.”
“I repeat,” the coroner interrupted, “these
things are beside the question. We are conducting
an autopsy, not an inquest, at present. I am giving
you my report as a medical man, not as a member
of the police force. Those other matters will be
considered later. We have completed our exam-
inations in the one case, we will now proceed to
the case of the other victim.”
“They killed each other,” Thorpe broke in, nod-
ding his head in the positive manner he affected.
“Leastwise, one of 'em killed both; and of course,
Miss Vernie, she wasn't no murderer!”
“Wait till you are called upon to testify, my
man,” and Crawford glowered at the forwardness
of the old butler.
“There'll be testifyin' on both sides,” vol-
unteered Stebbins, speaking a little belliger-
ently.
Crawford turned on him, and it was easily seen
that enmity existed between these two. “You,
'Lijah Stebbins, keep quiet,” he admonished,


I44 The Room with the Tassels
“there's them that says you know too much about
these doings, anyhow.”
“What do you mean by that?” Stebbins' eyes
glowed with anger.
“Nothing now, and maybe nothing at any time.
But you'd better lie low. You might be unduly
suspected of ha'nting your own house!”
To the surprise of all present, Stebbins turned a
chalky white, and whimpered a little, as he said,
“I don't know what you mean,—I ain't done any-
thing.”
“See's you don't!” advised Crawford, enigmati-
cally, and then the two doctors started to go on their
second gruesome errand.
“This door's locked,” announced Doctor Way-
burn, trying to gain entrance to the Room with the
Tassels.
“I have the key,” said Eve Carnforth, slowly,
and, with a white face, she offered it to the men.
“What are you doing with it?” asked Landon,
in amazement.
“I d-don't know,” and Eve showed great nerv-
ousness. “I think I feared some one would go in
there.”
The others looked at her curiously, for the white
face was pallid and the scarlet line of her lips was
thin and straight.
An exclamation from Doctor Wayburn claimed
their attention, and speaking from the doorway of
the Room with the Tassels, he said:


Conflicting Theories I45
“There is no body here.”
“What!” cried several at once, and crowded to
the door.
“Absolutely none,” repeated the doctor, and Pro-
fessor Hardwick pushed his way past the two medi-
cal men and entered the room.
“It's gone!” he said, reappearing, “Vernie's
body is gone!”
“Impossible!” cried Landon, “what do you
mean? Why, we've all been right here all the
morning! How could it be gone?”
“See for yourself,” and Hardwick stepped aside.
There was no denying the fact. Scrutiny of the
whole room showed no presence of the cold, still
form that had been reverently laid on that bed.
Everybody entered and peered around, fruitlessly.
They shook the heavy hangings and looked behind
them, but to no avail.
Vernie's body had utterly disappeared!


- CHAPTER X
Was It Supernatural?
ATE that afternoon Braye returned from New
L York. He looked weary and exhausted, as
if under hard and continuous strain.
Norma and Eve had both been watching for him
from different windows and met on the stairs in
their sudden rush to meet him in the hall.
It was easily apparent that both girls desired to
see him first and tell him the further awful develop-
ment of the disappearance of Vernie's body.
“What!” he exclaimed, “more horrors! Wait
a minute, till I get off this dust coat.”
Before Eve or Norma could say more, the others,
hearing Braye, came trooping to the hall, and all
began to talk at once.
“I can't understand and Braye wearily
passed his hand across his brow, “tell me all that
happened after I left last evening.”
“Nothing especial,” said Tracy, quietly. “We
all went to bed early, at least, we went to our rooms.
Professor Hardwick and I sat up half the night,
talking. But we left Thorpe on guard in the hall
here, and of course, it never occurred to any of us
there was need of further precaution.”
“Nor was there,” said Eve, fixing her great eyes
»
146


Was It Supernatural? I47
on Braye. “Nobody could possibly come in from
outside and take that child away. The house is too
securely locked for that, as we all know.”
“Why should any one want to?” queried Braye,
his face blank with amazement.
“No one did want to, no one did do it,” re-
turned Eve. “You must admit, Rudolph, that the
whole thing is supernatural,—that—”
“No, Eve, I can't do that.” Braye spoke posi-
tively. “When I'm up here with you psychists,
and in this atmosphere of mystery, and Lord
knows ‘Black Aspens’ is mysterious!—I get
swayed over toward spiritualism, but when I go
down to the city and talk with rational, hard-headed
men, I realize there's nothing in this poppycock!”
“Oh, you do!” and Eve's penetrating glance
seemed to bore into his very soul, “then, pray, how
do you explain the fact that Vernie—isn't there?”
“I don't know, Eve, I don't know. But some
fiend in human shape must have managed to get into
the house—”
“And get out again?” said Tracy, “and carry
the body with him, when Thorpe sat right here in
the hall—”
“Where was Thorpe?” asked Braye, suddenly.
“In a chair there, by that table,” and Eve indi-
cated a position well back in the great hall.
“Then he couldn't see the doors of both
rooms—” began Braye, but Professor Hardwick
interrupted: “Nonsense, man, both doors were


Was It Supernatural? I49
proceed along his own lines. He can't convict a
murderer if there is one,—and if there is one, we
all want him convicted, don't we?”
“Of course,” said Landon, “but suppose they
pitch on an innocent man?”
“It's all supposition,” declared Braye. “I never
heard of such a moil! I can't see how it can be
murder, or body-snatching, yet I can't stand for
ghost-work, either. Say it's murder, where's a
motive, for anybody?”
“I think you ought to know, Rudolph,” Eve said,
slowly, “that that Crawford person asked who
would inherit Mr. Bruce's money, and—”
“And we owned up that you were the next of
kin, old chap,” put in Landon, smiling grimly.
“Any remarks?”
“Don’t be flippant, Wynne,” said Braye, seri-
ously, “ of course, I've thought of that. I can't
very well be charged with the murder, as I wasn't
here at the time, but I do feel deeply embarrassed
at the thought that I am, without a doubt, the next
heir. That can, I suppose, draw suspicion on me,
as I may be said to have motive. But I am not
afraid of that, for there's no possible way I could
have turned the trick. But, if it was murder, if
there's the slightest indication of foul play, I'm
ready to devote all of Uncle Gifford's money, if
need be, in bringing the criminal to justice.”
“Of course, there's no sense in tacking the crime
on you," Braye,” and Landon sighed. “If it was


150 The Room with the Tassels
a crime, and if anybody here committed it, they'll
more likely suspect me, for I'm the next heir after
you, and if I could despatch two intervening heirs,
I could also bump you off, I suppose.”
“Don’t talk like that, Wynne,” implored Milly.
“It's not like you, and I 22
“I’m only preparing you, Milly, dear, for what
may come. That mutton-headed coroner can't rest
till he fastens murder on somebody, and it might
as well be me.”
“I want to go home, Wynne,—I want to go back
to New York,” and Milly began to cry.
“You may, dear, just as soon as you like. But
I must stay and see what happens up here. For me
to run away would be, to say the least, suspi-
cious.”
“Talk sense, Wynne,” broke in Braye; “I wasn't
here, you know, when those two people died. Tell
me again, just where were you all?”
“Mr. Bruce and Professor Hardwick sat in those
two chairs, confabbing,” Wynne explained; “I was
passing things round, so was Mr. Tracy. Eve was
running the tea things, Vernie was jumping about
here and there, and Norma, where were you,
Norma 2 ”
“I was near Mr. Bruce and the Professor, listen-
ing to their talk,” she returned. “I was greatly
interested. Mr. Landon had just given me a cup of
tea, and I was sipping it as I listened. There was
nothing wrong about the tea, of that I'm certain,”


Was It Supernatural? I5I
“Of course there wasn't,” agreed Braye, who had
heard the scene rehearsed many times. “There's
nothing wrong anywhere, that I can see, except that
a dreadful thing has happened, and we must find
out all we can about it. I've been to see Uncle
Gif's business friends, he has a few in New York,
and they're flabbergasted, of course. One of them.
a Mr. Jennings, is sure it's a desperate murder,
cleverly contrived by some people in Chicago, who
are enemies of Uncle's, and who, he says, are dia-
bolically ingenious enough to have brought it about.
He holds that Vernie's death was accidental,—I
mean that they only intended to kill Uncle Gifford.
I can't believe in this talk, for how could it have
been brought about? But Jennings thinks it was
through the servants, and that they're really ene-
mies in disguise.”
“Why, they're all natives of this section,” ex-
claimed the Professor, “how could they be im-
plicated?”
“I told Jennings that, but he thinks they've been
bought over, or—oh, Lord, I don't know what he
thinks! I don't know what to think myself!
There's no solution!”
“Don’t think now, Rudolph,” and Eve came over
to his side, and took his hand in hers. “You’re
all tired out, and I don't wonder. Let's have tea,
—we mustn't dread tea because of its associations,
—if we do that, we'll all collapse.”
With a determined air, Eve went away to order


152 The Room with the Tassels
tea served as usual, though Milly had declared she
never wanted to have it in that hall again.
But Eve's idea found favour with the rest, and
they gratefully accepted the refreshment, which,
until that awful afternoon, had been such a pleasant
function.
“We must settle some things,” Braye said, look-
ing at Landon. “I arranged to send the bodies to
Chicago, of course, I didn't know—”
“Isn't it terrible!” exclaimed Norma. “What
shall you do now?”
“I think I'll send Uncle Gif's body, at once, and
hope to find Vernie's later. It must be found—”
Braye looked about wildly. “I wish I had been
here last night! Oh, forgive me, I'm not casting
any hint of blame on you others, but, -well, you
know I wasn't here when—when it happened, either,
and I can't sense it all as you do. Professor Hard-
wick, what do you think about it all?”
“I’m an old man, Braye, and I’ve had wide ex-
perience, also, I'm a hard one to convince without
strong and definite proof, but I'll state now, once
for all, that I'm a complete convert to spiritism and
I believe, I know, these deaths of our friends
were the acts of an inimical spirit, a phantasm, in- -
censed at our curiosity concerning the occult, and
our frivolous attitude toward the whole subject.”
“You really believe that, Professor?”
“I really do, Braye, and moreover I am con-
vinced that the disappearance of of little Vernie,
/


Was It Supernatural? I53
is the work of the evil spirit. What else can
explain it?”
“Nothing that I know of, but I can't swallow
the idea of a disembodied spirit making off with a
real, material body! I wish I'd been here! Didn't
anybody see or hear anything?” -
“No,” declared Landon, but Norma gave a quick
glance at Eve, who returned it with a defiant toss
of her Titian-coloured head.
“Why do you look at me like that, Norma?”
she asked, shortly.
“Why do I?” Norma repeated in a soft signifi-
cant tone. “I think you know, Eve.”
“Well, I for one, shall stay up here for a time,
and see how matters go on,” said Braye, with
sudden determination. “Who else wants to
stay?” .
“I do,” said Professor Hardwick, “I think we've
by no means seen the last of the manifestations, and
though I feel there is a danger, I am ready to
brave it for the sake of investigating further.”
“I don't want to stay,” and Milly shook with
nervous apprehension. “Can't we go home,
Wynne?”
“Very soon, darling. You can go at once, and
I'll follow as soon as things are adjusted up here.
I think none of us ought to seem to run away.”
“Certainly not,” Tracy agreed, promptly. “The
whole affair is so astounding, I can scarcely get my
wits together, but I see clearly, no one must leave


154. The Room with the Tassels
this house, until we are all exonerated from sus-
picion.”
“Not even me?” asked Milly, tearfully.
“That's for you and Mr. Landon to decide,”
returned Tracy, gently. “I’m not dictating, not
even advising, but I have strong opinions on the
subject. What say, Braye?”
“I quite agree with you, Tracy. But, I'm sure
if Mrs. Landon prefers to go down to New York
and stay at her mother's no one could possibly
object.”
“But I don't!” Milly surprised them all by say-
ing, “if you put it that way,+if it's cowardly to
go away, I don't want to go. I want to stay, if
Wynne does, and if Eve and Norma stay.”
“That's my brave girl,” and Landon smiled at
his wife; “I’ll guarantee that Milly won't make
any trouble, either. Once she's awake to a duty,
she's bold as a lion. Now, see here, if Crawford
stirs up suspicion of any of us, we'll have to deal
with him pretty roughly, I fear. He's a pig-headed
sort, and he will move heaven and earth to gain his
point. Moreover, we can't expect him to subscribe
to spook theories, any more than those men Ru-
dolph talked to in New York. One has to go
through some such experiences as we have, to be-
lieve in them. You, Professor, would never have
been convinced by hearsay evidence, would you?”
“No, sir, I would not! It took these otherwise
inexplicable happenings to prove to me that there


156 The Room with the Tassels
doubtless Vernie was too, but it was not done by
human agency.”
“Well, there we go, reasoning round in a circle,”
murmured Norma; “I think our talk is useless,
when we surmise and speculate about it all. Let
us decide on our immediate plans. Shall you send
Mr. Bruce's body to Chicago, and stay here your-
self, Rudolph?”
“Yes, as I look at it now. I can't see anything
else to do.”
Nor was there anything else to do.
For Doctor Crawford persisted in treating the
case as a criminal one, and requested that all con-
cerned remain at Black Aspens for the present, with
a hint that unless they did so, the request might be-
come a command.
“Then you think the two people were mur-
dered?” asked Landon of the county physician.
“I don't say that, for sure; but when a man
drops dead, and a trace of poison is found in his
stomach, it looks mighty like an intention of death
on some one's part, maybe the man himself.
There's a show of suicide, you know.”
“But Gifford Bruce never would commit sui-
cide!”
“If only those committed suicide who are ex-
pected to do so, there'd be mighty few of them.
Now, I hold that poison was taken into Mr. Bruce's
stomach while he was eating that cake, or whatever
he did eat.”


Was It Supernatural? I57
“We agree to that,” Landon spoke slowly, “but
some of us think the poison was put in by super-
natural means.”
“Now, ain't that nonsense, for reasonable,
rational men!” and Crawford's fine scorn nettled
Landon.
“Professor Hardwick doesn't think it nonsense,”
he returned.
The two were alone, Crawford having asked an
interview with the man who had rented the house.
“Professor!” and Crawford fairly snorted.
“For fool theories, commend me to a college pro-
fessor. They can't see two inches either side of
their noses!”
“We have had reason to believe in spiritual
manifestations,” went on Braye.
“Yes, and who gave you those reasons? Who
rented this house to you folks, for the sole purpose
of supplying you with a ha'nted house! Who knew
that ghosts must be forthcoming, if you folks was
to be satisfied? Who performed ghost doings him-
self, in order that you might not be disappointed?”
“What are you implying? That Mr.—that the
owner tricked us?”
“That's for you to find out. You came up here
to investigate, as I understand it. Well, why don't
you investigate? You swallow all them ghosts and
ha’ntings, and never look around to see who's fool-
ing you!”
“But, Doctor Crawford, what you insinuate is


158 The Room with the Tassels
not possible. All the strange things we have seen
or heard have occurred at night, or, yes, occa-
sionally in the daytime, but always when Mr. Steb-
bins was at his home in East Dryden.”
“How do you know he was?”
“Why, he has never been to the house at all,
except two or three times on commonplace errands,
since we've been here. The supernatural manifes-
tations we have observed had no more to do with
him than they had with you!”
“That's as may be. Only I advise you to inves-
tigate with a little common sense and not too much
blind faith in your spook visitors. Now, Mr. Lan-
don, I take it you're boss around here.”
“I’m responsible for the house rent, if that's
what you mean.”
“Well, that'll do. Now, sir, there's got to be an
inquest. I expected, of course, to hold it on the
two bodies, but since one's gone, we'll have to do
what we can without it. I don't deny that this case
is beyond all my experience. I’ve sent for a detec-
tive from New York, and I'll get all the other help
I need. But I'm all at sea, myself, and I make no
secret of that.”
“I thought you suspected Eli Stebbins.”
“Not of murder! No, sir! Me'n Eli, we ain't
good friends, haven't been for years, and I wouldn't
put it past him to play ghost to scare you city people,
but murder! Land, no, I wouldn't ever accuse Eli
Stebbins of goin' that far!”
º
*.


Was It Supernatural? I59
“Have you any definite suspect?”
“I don't say as I have, and I don't say as I ain’t.
Truth is, I'm all afloat. I don't know which way to
turn. Every thing's so awful unbelievable,_as you
might say. Now, there's them two Thorpes. Good,
steady-going New England people, they are, and
yet, if I had any reason to suspect 'em, I can see
myself doing so. But, land, there ain't a shred of
evidence that way. Why, they wasn't even in the
room when the two of 'em died l’’
“Wait a minute, Doctor Crawford. Nobody
was in the room at the time of those two deaths, but
our own party. You don't suspect one of us, do
you?”
“No, Mr. Landon, I don't. You ain't a gay
crowd, nor yet a fast or a common crowd. You're
all high-toned, quiet, law-abiding citizens,—as I
size you up. To be sure, decent citizens have com-
mitted murder, but I can't connect up any one of
you with crime in this case. I know Mr. Braye
will inherit the money that old Mr. Bruce left, and
I know that you're related there, too, but I haven't
seen one iota of reason to suspect any one of your
crowd. If I do, I'll let you know mighty quick!
Nor can I hang it on the Thorpes; nor yet on those
girls they have in to help. And that's what the in-
quest's for. To bring out, if possible, some evi-
dence against somebody, so's we can get a start.”
“I fear you can't get that evidence, Doctor, for
if there were any we would have found it ourselves.


160 The Room with the Tassels
You have my good wishes, for if it is a case of
murder, committed by a living, human villain, we
most assuredly want him apprehended.”
“He will be, Mr. Landon, take it from me, he
will be!” -


CHAPTER XI
The Heir Speaks Out
nightmare to the people most interested.
But at last the inquest was over, the body
of Gifford Bruce had been sent to Chicago for
burial, and a strange quiet had settled down upon
the household at Black Aspens.
No new facts had transpired at the inquest.
Though the police tried hard to fasten the crime
on some individual, there was no definite evidence
against any one. All those who had been present
at the mysterious death hour, told their stories
straightforwardly and unshakably. All agreed as
to the circumstances, all remembered and related the
story of the Ouija board, which foretold the death
of two of the party at four o'clock.
“Who was pushing that board?” the coroner
asked.
“Miss Reid and myself,” Tracy spoke up. “We
had been playing with it for some time, and having
had only uninteresting and trifling results we were
about to lay the thing aside, when the message came
that two of us would die the next day at four
o'clock. Miss Reid seemed frightened, but I
thought at the time she had spelled out the message,
r | WHE days that followed were like an awful
I61


I62 The Room with the Tassels
herself, to get up a little excitement. However, I
took the board away from her at once, feeling that
she was carrying a jest too far. I think now, that
she was innocent in the matter—”
“Well, I don't,” said the coroner. “If that girl
made up that message, she had a reason. Probably
she was responsible for both deaths.”
“Impossible!” cried Tracy, shocked at this
theory. “Why, she was but a child, she had no
thought of suicide or—or murder! If she faked
the message, it was merely in fun, and because she
had tried all evening to get some message of inter-
est. It is quite possible she made up the message,
but it is not possible that she did it otherwise than
as a jest.”
“A gruesome jest!”
“As it turned out, yes, indeed. But either it
was in jest,-or—the message was from a super-
natural source.”
Tracy's eyes were deeply sorrowful, and his face
expressed a sort of awed wonder, that made many
who were present, think that after all there might
be something in these occult beliefs.
But not so the coroner. He refused to consider
the Ouija message with any serious interest, and
continued to ply his witnesses with questions both
pertinent and wide of the mark.
Elijah Stebbins was put through a grilling in-
quiry. His manner was that of a guilty man, but
no proof of crime could be found in connection with


The Heir Speaks Out I63
him. The day and hour of the two deaths, he was
proved to have been at his home in East Dryden,
beyond all doubt. Even granting that the Thorpes,
one or both, were in his employ, there was no
reason to suspect them. If they had put poison in
the cakes or in the tea, it must have been done in
the kitchen, and therefore would have affected the
whole supply. Suspicion must fall, if anywhere,
on the members of the house party who were pres-
ent at the hour of four o'clock on the fatal day.
But these, as has been said, gave so clear a state-
ment of the actual happenings at that hour, that
there was no loophole for suspicion to enter. More-
over, the fact that the deaths occurred simultane-
ously, and just at the foretold hour, seemed to pre-
clude all possibility of any human means being
employed. It did look like a supernatural occur-
rence and many who would have scorned such a
belief, were inevitably led to agree that no other
theory could explain it.
Yet the coroner and his jury were unwilling to
admit this, and the verdict was the one most fre-
quently heard of, murder by a person or persons
unknown.
Indeed, what else could it have been? A coro-
ner's jury can't accuse a nameless ghost of two
murders, by poison. They pinned their faith to
that poison, discovered in the stomach of the body
of Gifford Bruce. They assumed that Miss Reid
died from the effects of the same poison, but how


The Heir Speaks Out I65
bued many of them, more or less, with her occult
views.
“There's something in what that red-headed
woman says,” one reporter opined to his fellow.
“She puts it mighty convincing, if you ask me.”
“Yes, and why?” jeered his friend, “because
she's the man behind the ghost!”
“What! Miss Carnforth! Guilty? Never!”
“I’m not so sure. You know as well as I do,
that spook talk is all rubbish, but she's so bent and
determined to stuff it down everybody's neck, I
think she's hiding her own hand in the matter.”
“You do! Well, you'd better think again, be-
fore you let out any such yarn as that! Why, she's
a queen, that woman is!”
“Oho! She's subjugated you, has she? Well,
look out that she doesn't convert you to spookism,
you'd lose your job!”
Other curious people journeyed up to Black
Aspens for the pleasure of looking at the house
where the mystery was staged. If allowed to
enter they walked about, open-mouthed in admira-
tion or wonder.
“Stunning hall!” exclaimed one young man, a
budding architect, who examined the old house with
interest. “Look at those bronze columns! I never
saw such a pair.”
“I’ve heard the first Montgomery brought those
from Italy or somewhere, and put up a house behind
» xx
em,” volunteered another sightseer. “Ain't it


The Heir Speaks Out 167
“I’ve gotten all over my hysterical, foolish fears,
and I want to stay. I have a good reason, and if
I hadn't, I'd be willing to stay to keep house for
the rest of you.”
“Let's consider it settled, then,” said Landon,
“that we stay a couple of weeks longer. The astute
detective, Mr. Peterson, thinks he can round up the
villains who did the awful things, and if he can, I'm
ready to appear against them.”
“We're all ready to do that,” agreed Mr. Tracy,
“and I'll stay a week or so, but I want to get away
by the middle of August.”
“That's nearly two weeks hence,” observed
Norma, “I’d like to go home about that time, too.
And all that's to be discovered, which, I suppose,
will be nothing, ought to be found out in that time.”
“It wouldn't surprise me to have some further
spiritual manifestations,” the Professor stated, with
a deeply thoughtful air. “I don't know why there
wouldn't be such.”
“Not with fatal results, I hope,” and Mr. Tracy
shuddered.
“I hope not, too,” and the Professor looked
grave. “But if we receive another warning, I
shall go home at once.”
“I don't think we will,” Eve said, “I think there
was a reason for the wrath of the phantasms, and
now that wrath is appeased. We must not provoke
it further.”
“You know,” Norma added, “the two who—
-
º


I68 The Room with the Tassels
who died, were scoffers at the idea of spiritual
visitations.”
“Uncle Gif was,” said Braye, “but little Vernie
wasn't.”
“Oh, yes, she was,” corrected Eve. “She made
fun of our beliefs all along. And if she really made
the Ouija write that message in a spirit of bravado,
it's small wonder that the vengeance reached her
as well as Mr. Bruce, who openly jeered at it
all.”
“I can't think it,” mused Tracy, “that sweet, lov-
able child,—full of mischief, of course, but simple,
harmless mischief, ”
“But, Mr. Tracy,” Norma looked and spoke posi-
tively, “it’s easier to think of a supernatural spirit
wanting to harm the child, than a living person!
What possible cause could a human being have to
wish harm to little Vernie Reid?”
“That's true, Miss Cameron. But it's inexplic-
able, however you look at it.”
“At the same time,” Braye argued, “we must
give both sides a chance. If there is any trick or
scheme that a man might have used to bring about
those deaths at that moment, I can't conceive of
any, but if there should have been such,--we must,
of course, give all possible assistance to Mr. Peter-
son in his search.”
“I’m more than willing,” said Tracy, “I’m
anxious to help him for, as you say, Braye, if there's
a human mind capable of devising means to commit
|


The Heir Speaks Out 169
such a crime, it surely ought to be within the prov-
ince of some other human mind to discover it.”
“Suppose we start out on that basis,” suggested
Braye. “I mean, assume that a live person did
the deed, and it's up to us to find him. Then if we
can't do it, fall back on our occult theories.”
“I know where I'd look first,” said Landon,
grimly.
“Where?”
“Toward Eli Stebbins. I've always thought he
or the Thorpes, or all of them together, know more
than we suspect they do. Why, think a minute.
Do you remember the first queer, inexplicable thing
that happened up here?”
“I do,” Eve spoke up. “It was the night we
arrived. That battered old candlestick moved itself
from Mr. Bruce's room to Vernie's.”
“Yes, Eve, that's what I have in mind. Well, I
thought then, and I think now, that Stebbins moved
that thing himself.”
“Why?” asked several voices at once.
“I thought I saw him sneaking across the hall
that night. And as you know, none of us would
have done it, and I don't think Mr. Bruce did. I
thought that at first, but since Mr. Bruce's death, I
know he never played any tricks on us.”
“Oh, that doesn't follow,” objected Hardwick.
“I always suspected Bruce would trick us if he
could, but when it came to his own death, I've no
notion that he compassed that!”


The Heir Speaks Out 171
fessor's irascible arguments, all were as nothing to
the practical, hard-headed detective.
“No, ma'am,” he said to Eve; “it ain't that I
doubt your word, but those things don't go down.
I've seen criminals before, try to get out by blaming
ghosts, but they couldn't put it over.”
“Are you implying that one of us may be
guilty!” cried Eve, really incensed at the thought.
“I’m not implying anything, ma'am. I'm inves-
tigating. When I find out anything, I'll accuse, I
won't imply.”
The man's personality was not unpleasant. Of a
commonplace type, he went about his business cheer-
fully, and in a practical, common sense fashion.
He examined the great hall, where the deaths had
occurred, for a possible secret entrance.
“Nothing doing,” was his sum-up of this investi-
gation. “That mahogany wall of the vestibule is
as solid as a rock, and nobody could get through
those bronze doors when they're locked and fastened
with those bolts!”
“Are you assuming that some one entered and
killed the victims, as we all sat round drinking
tea?” exclaimed the Professor, irascibly.
“Not just that, sir,” returned Peterson, gravely.
“But somebody might have entered in the night,
say, and secreted himself, ->
“And then appeared to poison the cake when we
weren't looking!” jeered Landon.
“Well,” and the detective looked a little sheep-


172 The Room with the Tassels
ish, “I got to consider all points, you know. And
there don't seem to be any clues—of any sort.”
“No,” said Braye, “no dropped handkerchief or
broken cuff-link. Those would be a help, wouldn't
they?”
“And then,” Landon went on, “usually, there's
somebody who had a quarrel with the victim, and
so, can be duly suspected. But there's nothing of
that sort in this case.”
“Nobody at odds with Mr. Bruce, wasn't there?”
asked the detective, hopefully.
“Nobody,” declared Landon. “Now you may
as well know all there is to know, Peterson. Mr.
Braye here, is the heir to Mr. Bruce's large fortune.
After him, I inherit. If these facts are of the na-
ture of straws to show you which way the wind
blows, make the most of them. But do it openly.
If you suspect Mr. Braye or myself, even in the
slightest degree, tell us so. Don't work behind our
backs. We're ready and willing to help you.
That's so, Braye?”
“Rather, Wynnel Moreover, if there's any way
to use it, the fortune of Uncle Bruce is at the dis-
posal of anybody who can bring the criminal to jus-
tice. I don't want the money, at least, I can't
enjoy it, and don't want it, considering the way it
has come to me. I shall endow a hospital or some-
thing with it. For, truly,–I may be foolish, but I
can't seem to see myself living luxuriously on money
that has come to me as this has. I don't wonder


The Heir Speaks Out I73
that to an outsider, it might look very much as
if I had removed these two people in order that I
might acquire riches, or, it would have looked so,
if I had been here at the time. I doubt if the most
fertile imagination can invent a way I could have
been the criminal when I was in East Dryden shop-
ping with Mrs. Landon.”
“Also, Mr. Peterson,” Landon resumed, “re-
member that I am the next to inherit, and if I could
have compassed the taking off of these two, I could
doubtless have later despatched Mr. Braye, and so
have come into the fortune myself.”
“Wynne,” pleaded Milly, “don’t say those
things! They're too absurdl”
“Not that, Milly dear. Mr. Peterson might eas-
ily take up some such line of deduction, and while
I'm willing he should do so, and proceed in any
way he chooses, I repeat that I want him to do it
openly, and not try to convict Rudolph or myself,
-behind our backs. When I proffer him my help, it
is in a real and sincere offer of assistance, and I
want him to be equally frank and outspoken.”
“I guess you're pretty safe in your attitude,” said
Peterson, smiling. “Criminals don't speak right
out in meeting, like that. And I don't suspect you
gentlemen, if you are heirs to the property. I think
there's others to be suspected, and I promise you,
sir, if I'm led toward any of your party here, I'll
tell you what I'm up to.”
“That's enough, Peterson, I trust you to keep


174 The Room with the Tassels
your word, and you may rely on us to help in any
way we can.”
And so life at Black Aspens settled down to its
former routine, at least in matters of daily household
affairs. But the actuating principle of the psychic
investigators had changed. Those who thoroughly
believed in occultism, sought expectantly for fur-
ther proofs. Those who were still uncertain,
awaited developments. And those who had little
or no belief in the supernatural sought some clues
or hints that might point to a human criminal.
Dan Peterson was among these last. A good,
able-minded detective, though not of the transcen-
dental type found in story-books, he worked dili-
gently at his problem, which seemed to him a harder
one than he had ever before tackled.
His suspicions were all toward the servants of
the house, and with these he included Elijah Steb-
bins.
Nor was he illogical in his thoughts. Stebbins
was acting queerly. He was frightened at ques-
tions, and was difficult to get hold of for an inter-
view. He answered at random, frequently contra-
dicted himself, and showed a positive terror of his
own house, since the tragedies there.
“If he killed those two people with his own
hands, he couldn't act any different,” Peterson said
to Landon, whom he frequently consulted. “But
I can't imagine any way to connect him up with it.
He was home in East Dryden when they died, and


The Heir Speaks Out I75
that's certain. Now, if he could have made old
Thorpe act as his tool—but, Lord, why would he do
it, anyhow! It's too absurd to think Stebbins would
want to take those two lives! He wanted you peo-
ple should be scared, that I'm sure of. He did all
he could to scare you, -that I know. But as to
killing any of you, I'm sure he didn't. Howsum-
ever, somebody committed those murders, and I’m
going to find out who!”


178 The Room with the Tassels
the frightened man, and he uttered a faint terror-
ized scream.
Slowly the spectre raised a long, white-draped
arm, and Hardwick saw a small glass tumbler in
front of his face. Only for an instant, and then
the phantom faded away, and vanished into space.
Again the Professor called out, and hurrying
footsteps were heard in the hall.
Mr. Tracy was away in Boston, and Rudolph
Braye had gone to New York, so the only other
man in the house was Landon, who came hastily
to the Professor's door in his dressing-gown and
slippers.
“What is it,” he asked, “did you call? Are you
ill?”
“The-the ghost
with difficulty.
“Nonsense!” said Landon, “you've been dream-
ing. Where's a ghost? I just came along the cor-
ridor, and I didn't see any.”
“Don’t tell me I didn't see it,” babbled the Pro-
fessor. “I did, Wynne, as plain as I see you now.”
Landon had brought his own bedroom candle,
and by its scant light he scanned the old man's face.
“You’re all scared up, Professor,” he said,
kindly. “Guess I'll give you a nightcap, and send
you back to sleep again, it's only four or so.”
“I know it, Wynne, it was just four when that—
that thing came. I wasn't asleep, I haven't been
for an hour or more. Just at four o'clock,-the
” the old man articulated


The Professor's Experience I79
hall clock was striking, I saw that awful thing
come stalking in-and-and it had a death's head
under that white shawl ->
“Hold on, there, Professor, if that's so, there
must be somebody who did the stalking! I'm going
to make search.”
Landon called Thorpe, and together the two went
over the whole house, searching in every nook and
cranny that could possibly conceal an intruder. But
none was found. Every door and window was se-
curely fastened, and as Landon had often observed,
not a mouse could get into Black Aspens, once it
was locked up for the night.
“Nothing doing, Professor,” he reported cheer-
fully, after the search. “We lighted up the whole
place, and we scoured for burglars or ghost-pre-
tenders, but nothing human has entered this house
to-night. Nor was your spook any of ourselves,
for Milly has rounded up the girls, and I've made
sure that the doors that shut off the servants' quar-
ters have not been opened. Now, what have you
to say?”
“Only that I saw the thing,” the Professor had
pulled himself together, “and I'm not prepared to
say whether I think it was a phantom or a person
pretending to be one. You're sure about the serv-
ants?”
“Absolutely, they couldn't get through.”
“What about Stebbins? Could he have been
concealed in the house all night?”


18O The Room with the Tassels
“No; and if he had, how could he have got out?
All the doors and windows are locked on the inside,
just as they've been all night. He couldn't lock
them behind him.”
“Thorpe could let him in and out, if he wanted
“Into the back part of the house. But Thorpe
himself can't get into the main house, the rooms
that we use, after I lock the doors between. Come,
now, Professor, you know all that as well as I do.
Either you dreamed your ghost, or it's the real
thing, this time. Take your choice.”
Landon was so cheerful and took the thing so
lightly, that Hardwick began to feel more at ease,
and recounted his story in further detail. “It was
the real thing,” he concluded. “I wish Rudolph
or Mr. Tracy had been here. They sleep in this
wing, and they would have come to me more quickly
than you did, Wynne.”
“I came the moment I heard you call, at least, as
soon as I could slip into a bathrobe.”
“I know you did, and it wouldn't have mattered.
That thing didn't walk away down the corridor, you
know, it just faded away,+vanished into the air. I
could see it—”
“How could you, with no light?”
“I don't know how I did. It wasn't exactly
luminous, and yet it gave out a very faint glow,
enough for me to see it, anyhow. Oh, I shall never
forget its awful grin l’”
to


The Professor's Experience I81
Professor Hardwick told his tale to Eve and
Norma later in the day, and in the afternoon the
men returned. Mr. Tracy said he had been to
Boston, to see the trustees of a church that had
called him to its pastorate, and Braye had been in
New York looking after some of his late uncle's
business affairs.
Both men were deeply interested in the story of
the ghost, for as they said, Professor Hardwick
was not one to imagine or to think himself awake
when he was dreaming.
They listened attentively, and Tracy summed it up
by saying, “Well, if Professor Hardwick saw that,
it makes me feel like believing in the super-
natural.”
“Me, too,” agreed Braye. “I don't take much
stock in the stories of the girls, for Eve is a vision-
ary creature, and Norma is very imaginative. But
when a rational, scientific man sees things, I believe
the things are there to be seen! At least, I'm will-
ing to believe. I would feel more certain if I saw
it myself, and yet,_to tell the truth I’ve no desire
to see it. I'll take other people's words for it.
How about you, Tracy?”
“I don't believe I’m psychic, or sensitive, or what-
ever you call it,” and the clergyman smiled. “You
know I slept in the Room with the Tassels, but no
ghostly visitor favoured me.”
“It may come to you yet,” said Hardwick, turn-
ing grave eyes on Tracy, “ or you, either, Rudolph.


The Professor's Experience 183
here, if this is the eleventh case, that is not the
result of fraud, and it certainly looks like it, why,
then, we have something worth investigating.”
“Not at the cost of any more lives,” said Braye,
sternly. “If it is the eleventh case, and if it is
going right on being an eleventh case, I've had
enough of it! Perhaps that apparition of a glass
in the spectre's hand, foretells tragedy to you,
Professor.”
Braye spoke gloomily, rather than as an alarmist,
but the Professor turned white. “I’ve thought of
that,” he said, in a low voice. “That's why I want
to be sure the phantom was a real one. If it was
fraud, I have no fear, but if it was really the dis-
embodied spirit of that shawled woman, appearing
in her own materialized skeleton, I, too, have had
about enough investigating!”
“What do you think, Norma?” Braye asked of
the girl, as, later in the afternoon, they were walk-
ing round along the wild path that was the only
approach to the great portals of Black Aspens.
“I don't know, Rudolph, but I'm beginning to
think there is a human hand and brain back of it
all. I’m a sensitive, and that's one reason why
these things don't appeal to me as supernatural.
I've had more or less experience with supernormal
matters and I've never known anything like the
things that have happened and are happening up
liere.”


The Professor's Experience 185
It was nearly dusk, but they could see quite clearly
the hollow eye-sockets and the awful teeth of the
fleshless face.
Norma clung to Braye, almost fainting. He
slipped an arm round her saying, “Brace up,
Norma, dearest, be brave. This is our chance. Let
us dash right in, and see if it is still there. Stay
here, if you prefer, but I must go!”
He hastened toward the house, and Norma kept
pace with him. She felt imbued with his spirit of
courage and bravery, and together they hurried
and burst in at the front door, which was never
locked save at night.
Without stopping, Braye rushed into the Room
with the Tassels. But there was no one there, and
no sign of any occupant, either human or super-
natural.
There was no one in the hall, and further search
showed no one in the drawing room. Nor could
anything unusual be found in the house.
Most of the people were in their rooms. Eve
was partly ill with a headache, and Milly was look-
ing after her.
The men appeared as Braye and Norma called
out, and soon all had gathered to hear the strange
new story.
“I shouldn't believe it, if you hadn't both seen
it,” said the Professor, “but I can't think you were
both under the spell of imagination.”
“I want to go home,” Milly said, plaintively, “I,


I88 The Room with the Tassels
own hands, and played spooks themselves, what was
the use?”
“How did you get into the house at night, when
it was so securely locked?” asked Peterson.
“I managed it, but I won't tell you how,” said
Stebbins, doggedly.
“With Thorpe's help,” suggested Peterson, “or
—oh, by Jinks!” he whistled; “I think I begin to
see a glimmer of a gleam of light on this mystery!
Yes, I sure do! Excuse me, and I’ll fly over to the
house and do a little questioning. Officer, keep
friend Stebbins safe against my return.”
--
Arrived at Black Aspens, Peterson asked for
Rudolph Braye, and was closeted with him for a
secret session, from which Braye came forth look-
ing greatly worried and perturbed.
Peterson went away, and Braye sought the
others. He found them listening to a letter which
Professor Hardwick had just received and which
the old man was reading aloud.
“It's from Mr. Wise,” he said to Braye, as the
latter came in hearing. “He’s a detective, and he
writes to me, asking permission to take up this
case.”
“What a strange thing to do!” exclaimed Braye.
“Yes,” agreed Hardwick, “and he seems to be
a strange man. Listen; ‘If I succeed in finding
a true solution to the mystery, you may pay me
whatever you deem the matter worth, if I do not,


190 The Room with the Tassels
powers, and I want to see what a big, really clever
detective can dig up in the way of clues or evidence
or whatever they work by.”
“Oh, cut out Wise,” urged Braye. “We don't
want any more detectives than we are ourselves.
And Peterson is pretty busy just now, too.”
It was after the confab broke up that Milly went
to Braye.
“Why don't you want Mr. Wise to come?” she
said, without preamble.
“Why, oh, why just 'cause I don't,” he stam-
mered, in an embarrassed way.
“You can't fool me, Rudolph,” she said, with an
agonized look on her pretty face. “You are afraid
he'll suspect Wynne,—aren't you?”
“Don’t, Milly,” urged Braye, “don’t say such
things!”
“You are! I know from the way you try to
put me off. Oh, Braye, he didn't do it! He hadn't
any hand in any of the queer doings, had he, Ru-
dolph? Tell me you know he hadn't!”
“Of course, Milly, of course.”
“But, listen, Rudolph, I heard some of the things
that Peterson man said to you, I listened at the
door, I couldn't help it.”
“Milly! I'm ashamed of you!”
“I don't care! I'm not ashamed. But, I heard
him say that he thinks Wynne is in league with Mr.
Stebbins and that the two of them brought about
all the mysterious doings—”


CHAPTER XIII
Pennington Wise
W M 7 HEN Mary Pennington married a man
named Wise, it was not at all an unusual
impulse that prompted her to name her
first born son after her own family name, and so
Pennington Wise came into being.
Then, of course, it followed, as the night the day,
that his school chums should call him Penny Wise,
which name stuck to him through life. Whether
this significant name was the cause of his becoming
a detective is not definitely known, but a detective
he did grow up to be, and a good one, too. Eccen-
tric, of course, what worthwhile detective is not?
But clear cut of brain, mind and intelligence. And
always on the lookout for an interesting case, for
he would engage in no others.
Wherefore, his persistence in desiring to investi-
gate the strange mysteries of Black Aspens won the
day against Milly's endeavours to prevent his com-
ing. She had done all she could, and most of the
house party had aided her efforts, but Professor
Hardwick had become imbued with the idea that
there was human agency at work, and that his belief
in spiritual visitation, honest though it had been,
192


Pennington Wise I93
was doomed to a speedy death, unless further proof
could be shown.
Norma, too, was rather inclined to welcome a
specialist in the solving of mysterious problems, and
in conference with the Professor agreed to do all
she could to help the Wise man in his work.
Norma was still of the opinion that the two tragic
deaths were the work of evil spirits, but if it were
not so, she wanted to know it.
But the principal reason why Pennington Wise
came to Black Aspens was his own determination to
do so. He had never heard of such an unusual and
weird mystery, and it whetted his curiosity by its
strange and almost unbelievable details.
The opposing party gave in gracefully, when they
found his advent was inevitable. All but Milly, that
is. She spent her time alternately crying her heart
out in Wynne's arms, and bracing herself up for a
calm and indifferent attitude before the new investi-
gator.
“Keep a stiff upper lip,” Braye advised her.
“Remember not to give out any information, Milly.
Let him find out all he can, but don't help
him.”
“All right, Rudolph; and, anyway, I know
Wynne is innocent, xx
“Of course he is! That goes without saying.
But if he is suspected, say, if Stebbins or Thorpe
or anybody else puts Wise up to suspicion, it may
mean a bad quarter of an hour for all of us. So,


194 The Room with the Tassels
just be quiet, dignified, pleasant-mannered and all
that, but don't say anything definite. For it might
be misconstrued and misunderstood, and make
trouble. At least, that's the course I'm going to
pursue, and I think it's the best plan.”
“Oh, I know it is,” Milly agreed. “In fact,
that's just about what Wynne told me; he thinks
if I try to help, I’ll only make mistakes, so he, too,
told me to keep quiet. Eve is awfully angry, be-
cause that man is coming. She's not saying so, but
I know her! And, Rudolph, she's afraid of some-
thing. I don't know what, exactly, but she's fear-
fully afraid of developments.”
“We all are, Milly. If the detective pins it on
any human being, that means trouble, and if he
decides it's spooks, after all,—I think I'll be more
afraid of them than ever!”
“I can't be any more afraid of them than I
am!” Milly shuddered. “Oh, Rudolph, how I
wish we had never come up here!”
“We all wish that, Milly, but as we're in for it
now, we must see it through.”
Pennington Wise arrived the next afternoon. He
came into the hall like an army with banners. A
tall, well set-up man, of about thirty-three or four,
thick chestnut hair, worn á la brosse, clear blue
eyes, a clean-cut, fine-featured face, and a manner
that proclaimed generalship and efficiency to the last
degree.
“Here I am,” he announced, setting down several


196 The Room with the Tassels
Miss Cameron, both deeply interested in the solution
of the mysteries that confront us. Since intro-
ductions are in order, may I inquire further con-
cerning the young lady, or child,—who accom-
panied you?”
“Zizif She's part of my working outfit. In
fact, one of my principal bits of paraphernalia. I
always use her on mysterious cases. Don't look on
her as an individual, please, she's a property,+in
the theatrical sense, I mean.”
“But her standing in the household?” asked
Milly, “does she belong with the servants, or in
here with us?”
“She'll look after that herself,” and Penny Wise
smiled. “Pay no more attention to her than you
would to my umbrella or walking stick. Now
we know each others' names, let's proceed to the
case itself. Who is going to tell me all about
it?”
“Which of us would you rather have do so?”
asked Eve, her long, glittering eyes fixed on the
detective's face.
He glanced at her quickly, and then let his gaze
continue to rest on her beautiful, sibylline coun-
tenance.
“Not you,” he said, “you are too—well, I sup-
pose the word I must use is temperamental, but it's
a word I hate.”
“Why?” asked the Professor, “what do you
mean by temperamental?”


I98 The Room with the Tassels
and there, the detective listened to the history of
his new case.
At last, the account having been brought up to
date, Wise nodded his head, and sat silent for a
moment. It was not the melodramatic silence of
one affecting superiority, but the more impressive
quietude of a mind really in deep thought.
Then Wise said, simply, “I’ve heard nothing yet
to make me assume any supernatural agency. "We
you, Ziziº”
“No,” came a soft, thin voice from the shadowy
depths of the rear hall.
Milly jumped. “Has she been there all the
time?” she said.
“She's always there,” returned Wise, in a mat-
ter-of-fact way. “Now I'm ready to declare that
the deaths of your two friends are positively not due
to spiritistic wills, but are dastardly murders, clev-
erly accomplished by human hands and human
brains.”
“How?” gasped Eve Carnforth. She was lean-
ing forward, her beryl eyes dilated and staring, her
hands clenched, her slender form trembling with
excitement.
“That I do not know yet, do you, Zizi’”
“No,” came tranquilly from the distance.
“Let that girl come here,” cried Milly, pettishly.
“It gets on my nerves to have her speaking from
way back there!”
“Come here, Zizi,” directed Penny Wise, and the
|


Pennington Wise I99
slim young figure glided toward them. She was a
mere slip of a girl, a wisp of humanity, in a flimsy
frock of thin black stuff, with a touch of coral-
tinted chiffon in bodice and sash. The skirt was
short, and her black silk stockings and high-heeled
pumps gave her a chic air. Her black hair was
drawn smoothly back, in the prevailing mode, and
though she had an air of world-knowledge, she was
inconspicuous in effect.
Without a glance at the people, personally, she sat
down in a chair, a little apart, yet in full view of all.
Wise paid no attention to her, and went on,
thoughtfully. “No, there is no evidence pointing to
the occult, but innumerable straws to show which
way the camel's back is to be broken.”
“Mr. Wise,” said Eve, determinedly, “I don't
think it is fair for you to hear the story only from
Mr. Tracy. I think he is opposed to a belief in
psychics and so unintentionally colours his narra-
tive to lead away from such theories.”
“That may be so,” said Tracy, himself, looking
thoughtfully at Eve; “and I agree it would be
fairer to hear the story, or parts of it, retold by
Miss Carnforth or some one who fully believes in
spiritism.”
“Right,” said Wise; “go ahead, Miss Carnforth,
tell me anything that seems to you different in
meaning from what Mr. Tracy has described.”
Quite willing, Eve told of the ghostly visitant that
had appeared to her the night she slept in the


202 The Room with the Tassels
“There are others in this house beside you peo-
ple,” Wise returned; “and I tell you frankly, I'm
not ready yet to suspect any one or even imagine
who the criminal may be. I only state positively
that disembodied spirits are not responsible for
those two tragic deaths. Also, may I ask you to
remember, that I’ve only just arrived, that I’ve had
a tiresome journey, that I’d like rest and refresh-
ment, and that there are more days coming for my
further work.”
“Why, bless my soul!” exclaimed the Professor,
“that's all true! Do you know, Mr. Wise, it seems
as if you'd always been here, it seems as if you were
already one of us.”
“Thank you, sir, that's a pleasant compliment to
my personality, anyway. And now, if you please,
Mrs. Landon, may I be shown to my room?”
“Certainly,” said Milly, and she rang for
Thorpe, as Landon rose to escort the guest him-
Self.
“Where's that girl?” said Norma, looking round
after the detective had gone off, “what became of
Her?”
But there was no sight of the little black-robed
figure.
“Oh, let her alone,” said Eve, “she slid out to
the kitchen, I think. Hester will look after her.
That man said to pay no more attention to her than
to his hand luggage. She'll look out for herself,
I've no doubt.. Isn't she awful, anyway?”


Pennington Wise 2O3
“I think she's pretty,” said Norma, “in a weird,
elfin sort of way.”
“She knows it all,” said Braye. “I never saw
such an effect of old head on young shoulders in my
life. But what a funny way to treat her.”
“She's a spy,” declared Eve, “that's what she is,
a spy! With her silent, gliding ways, and her sly,
Soft voice! I hate her!”
“Now, now, Evie, don't be unjust 1” and Braye
smiled at her. “She is a bit your style and tem-
perament, but don't be jealous!”
“Nonsense!” and Eve laughed back at him,
“why, she isn't a bit like me! She has black hair
and eyes—”
“I didn't notice,” said Braye, “but she impressed
me as being like you in lines and motions.”
“A pocket edition,” laughed Tracy. “Miss
Carnforth would make two of that little shrimp,
and Miss Carnforth is a sylph, herself.”
The party broke up into smaller groups, and
Braye and Norma sauntered off for their usual
afternoon stroll.
Eve watched them go, her eyes moodily staring.
“Won't I do?” said Tracy's quiet voice, and Eve
pulled herself together and smiled at him.
“You’re the one I want most,” she declared gaily,
unwilling to be thought disappointed. “Let’s walk
down by the lake.”
The walk by the lake was always shaded, but as


2O4. The Room with the Tassels
the day was murky it was gloomier than ever.
“You like this place?” asked Tracy, with a
glance at the black grove of aspens, and their dark
reflection in the still water of the deep pool.
“Yes, I do; or, I did, until that man came up
here. There's no use in pursuing our investiga-
tions with him around.”
“All the more use,” declared Tracy. “If any
supernatural things happen it will refute his cock-
sure decisions.”
“Yes, it would. Oh, I do wish a ghost would
appear to him, and scare him out of his wits!”
“He has plenty of wits, Miss Carnforth, and he'd
take some scaring, I think. But if a real phantasm
came, he'd know it, and he'd acknowledge it, I'm
sure. He strikes me as an honourable man, and a
decent, straightforward sort.”
“If he is,” and Eve ruminated, “perhaps he can
help us to investigate—”
“That's what he's here for.”
“I mean investigate our beliefs. If he could be
convinced, as we are, of the existence of phantoms,
and of their visitations, he'd be a splendid help,
wouldn't he? Perhaps I am in wrong in disliking
him.”
“You’re certainly premature. Why, not one man
out of a thousand does believe in the occult. And
not one in a million detectives, I daresay.”
Meantime, Braye and Norma were talking in like
Weln.


Pennington Wise 2O5
“I do believe it was a spirit that killed our dear
Vernie, and Mr. Bruce,” Norma declared, “but if
Mr. Wise can prove the contrary, we want him
to do so, don't we, Rudolph?”
“Of course, Norma, we all feel that way. I,
especially, for as heir to Uncle Gif's money, I'm in
a peculiar position. But if anybody can get at the
truth, this Wise person can. He's a live wire, I
can see that.”
“Shall we help him, Rudolph, or hold back and
let him work alone?”
“Help him, of course! Why not? But, be
careful that it is help we offer him, and not merely
stupid interference.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing particular; but some of us are inclined
to be a bit officious, and—oh, I don't know, Norma,
—I don't want to say anything—even to you. Let's
talk of pleasanter subjects.”
“What, for instance?”
“You, for instance! You're enchanting to-day,
in that pale blue gown. It makes you look like an
angel.”
“Do they wear pale blue?”
“I don't know what they wear, and shan’t care
until you really are one, and then, I hope I'll be one,
too. But you look like an angel, because of your
angelic face. It's like a roseleaf washed in sun-
light—”
“Now, Rudolph, don't try to be poetical! You


2O6 The Room with the Tassels
can't hit it off! A washed face is remindful of a
soap advertisement, not an angel!”
“Rogue! You love to make fun of me! But I
don't mind. Oh, Norma, I don't care what you say
to me, if you'll only say yes. Won't you, dearest?”
“Bad boy! Behave yourself! I told you not to
ask any question until we get away from this place.
I won't listen to love talk at Black Aspens! It's
out of the picture!”
“But will you, as soon as we get back to New
York? Will you, Norma—darling?”
“Wait till then, and we'll see,” was all the answer
he could get.


CHAPTER XIV
Zizi
& c. HERE is she?” Milly asked of Hester,
as, more out of curiosity than hospital-
ity she went to the kitchen.
“Well! Mis’ Landon, I never see such a thing
in all my born days! She slid out here like she was
on roller-skates! “Hester?' she says, smilin', and
with that she settled herself for good and all, 'sif
she'd been born an' brought up here! She slid to
the cupboard, and picked out the tea caddy, and took
down a little teapot, and in a jiffy, she’d snatched
up the b'ilin’ teakettle, and was settin' at that there
table, drinkin’ her tea! I got her out some cakes,
and by then she was a-cuttin' bread an' butter!
Never 've I seen her like!”
“Did she trouble you?”
“Land, no, ma'am! She waits on herself, but
so quick, you'd think she was a witch!”
“Where is she now P”
“Well, ma'am, she finished her tea, and then she
fair scooted up the back stairs. I heard her dart
into one or two rooms, and then she took the little
South gable room for hers. I could hear her step-
ping about, putting her things away, I make no
doubt. She looked in here again, a minute, and
207


Zizi 209
he commented, looking at the finely curving stair-
case, and its elaborate balusters. “Living rooms
nowadays are all very well, but these great entrance
halls are finer places to congregate. You spend
much of your time here, I'm sure. The worst part
is, they're difficult to light properly, by daylight,
I mean. And, you've no electrics here, have you?”
“No,” replied Landon, “only kerosene and
candles. You see, the place has been unoccupied
for years.”
“Haunted houses are apt to be, 27
“Reputed haunted houses,” corrected the Pro-
fessor.
“There are no others,” and Wise grinned. “All
reputed haunted houses have nothing to haunt them
but their repute. I mean, the story of their ghost
is all the ghost they have.”
“But I saw the ghost here,” and Eve spoke with
a quiet dignity that defied contradiction.
“Of course you did,” Wise assented. “The
ghost came purposely to be seen.”
“Did you ever see one, Mr. Wise?”
“I never did, Miss Carnforth, I never hope to
see one! But I can tell you anyhow, I'd rather see
than be one.”
“Oh, of course, if you're going to take that
tone,” and Eve turned away, decidedly offended.
“Sorry!” and Wise flashed a smile at her.
“But, you see, a detective can't afford to believe in
ghosts. We make our living solving mysteries, and


Zizi 2II
“If you're trying to find a secret entrance into
the house, Mr. Wise,” Landon said, “you are wast-
ing your time. I am more or less architecturally
inclined, and I’ve tapped and sounded and measured
and calculated,—and I can assure you there's noth-
ing of the sort.”
“Good work! That saves me some trouble, I'm
sure. Marvellous work on these doors, eh? And
the bronze columns,—from abroad, I take it.”
“Yes; ” Professor Hardwick said, slapping his
hand against one of the fluted bronze pillars, “I ad-
mire these columns more than the doors even,
They're unique, I don't wonder their owner “built
a house behind them.’ I doubt if their match is in
America.”
“And the locks and bolts are as ponderous as the
doors,” commented the detective. “Eh, Zizip’
“They are like that all over the house,” said the
girl, in a casual tone. “Even the kitchen quarters
are as securely fastened and bolted. And up-
stairs, any doors that give on balconies are strongly
guarded. I have never seen a house more care-
fully looked after in the matter of barricades.”
The girl spoke slowly, as if on the witness stand.
Then suddenly her black eyes twinkled, and she
turned sharply toward Eve, saying, “Oh, do you
do that, too?”
“Do what?” cried Eve, angrily. “What do
you mean?”
“Scribble notes, and pass 'em to somebody. I


2I2 The Room with the Tassels
do, too. It's a habit I can't seem to break myself
Of.”
“I didn't!” and Eve's face flushed and her eyes
glittered with a smouldering fire.
“Oh, tra la la,” trilled Zizi, and nonchalantly
turned away.
“Now for the Room with the Tassels,” said
Wise, and led the way to the fateful room.
“Ghastly, ghostly and grisly!” he declared after
a quick survey, “but no entrance except by door
or windows.”
“And they were locked every time the room was
slept in by any of our party,” announced the Pro-
fessor, positively.
“That makes it easier,” Smiled Wise. “You see,
I feared secret panels and that sort of thing, not
uncommon in old houses. But you've found
none?”
“None,” asseverated Landon. “If your theory
of a human “ghost’ is right, you've got to accou?”
for the forcing of the big bolts of those front do:
Or xx i.’
“Or suspect some of your household,” conclude
Wise, practically. “Well, I haven't suspected any
one as yet; I'm just absorbing facts, on which to
base my theories. Now, for the drawing room.”
The long sombre, old-fashioned room received
scant examination.
“Nothing doing, Zizip" said Wise, briefly.
“Only a Bad Taste Exhibition,” the girl re-


Zizi 2I3
marked, making a wry face at the ornate decora-
tions and appointments. Then, with her peculiar,
gliding motion, she slid across the hall again, and
examined the knob and lock on the door of the
Room with the Tassels.
“Fascinating room,” she said, with a glance
round it. “But horrible,” and her thin shoulders
shrugged. “Those tassels are enough to make a hen
cross the road!”
Milly giggled, and for the first time since the day
of the tragedies.
Dinner was rather pleasant than otherwise. The
detective, laying aside all thought or talk of his
purpose there, was entertaining and even merry.
He spoke somewhat of himself, and it transpired
that he was an artist,-an illustrator of current
magazine stories.
“And Zizi is my model,” he informed them,
“that is, when I want a thin, scarecrow type. I
"on't use her for the average peach heroine. Look
Ziz, don't eat too much of that potato puff
, see, if she puts on a bit of flesh, she runs
.aight back to the movie studios.”
“Ah, a film star?” said Braye.
“Not a star,” and Wise shook his head. “But
a good little actress for a brat part.”
Zizi flashed an amused smile from her black eyes
and partook again of the forbidden potato puff.
“Zizi! For the love of Mike!” expostulated
Wise.


214 The Room with the Tassels
“The love of Mike is the root of all evil,” said
Zizi, saucily; “but then, everything is.”
“Is what?” asked Eve, interested against her
will in this strange child.
“Is the root of all evil,” was the calm reply.
“Whew this must be an evil old world!” ex-
claimed Braye.
“And isn't it?” Zizi flashed back, her big eyes
sparkling like liquid jet.
“Are you a pessimist, little one?” asked the Pro-
fessor, studying the clever, eerie face.
“Nay, nay, Pauline,” and the small, pointed
chin was raised a bit. “Not so, but far other-
wise.”
“Then why do you think the world is evil?”
“Ah, sir, when one spends one's life between a
Moving Picture Studio and a popular artist's studio,
one learns much that one had better left un-
learnt.”
The child face suddenly looked ages old, and then,
as suddenly broke into a gay smile: “Don’t ask me
these things,” she said, “ask Penny Wise. I'm only
his Pound Foolish.” -
“You'll put on another foolish pound if you eat
any more of that dessert,” growled Wise, scowling
at her.
“All right, I won't,” and the slender little fingers
laid down the teaspoon Zizi was using. Then, in
an audible aside, she added, “Hester will give me
more, later,” and chuckled like a naughty child.


216 The Room with the Tassels
“Sure, oh, Wise Guy. Now, who did do it?”
“Well, who did?”
“We don't know yet, and we mustn't theorize
without data, you know.”
“Rats! I always theorize without data. And
I’ve never failed to corral the data.”
“You're a deuce of a deducer, you are!”
“And you're a She Sherlock, I suppose! Well,
oh, Mine of Wisdom, go ahead. Spill it to me.”
“Can't now. I've lost my place! But, after a
few more interviews with some few more interested
parties, I may, perhaps, possibly, maybe, oh,
Penny, look back at the house from here! Did
you ever see such a weird, wild spook-pit!”
Black Aspens did indeed look repellent. No one
was in sight, and the grove of black, waving trees,
mirrored in the deep black shadows of the lake gave
it all a doomed effect that the dull, leaden sky
intensified.
The grim old house seemed the right abode for
evil spirits or uneasy wraiths, and Zizi, fascinated
by the still scene continued to gaze backward until
a turn of the road hid it from view.
Then she became silent, and would vouchsafe no
answer to Wise's questions or make any remarks of
her own.
During the interview between the detective and
Elijah Stebbins, she said almost nothing, her big
eyes staring at the owner of Black Aspens, until the
old man writhed in discomfort.


Zizi 217
“How did you get in P” she shot at him, as he
frankly admitted his harmless tricks to give his
tenants their desired interest in his house.
“I was in, miss,” Stebbins said, nervously twist-
ing his fingers; “I staid there the first night, and
'twas then I moved the old candlestick.”
“I don't mean that,” and Zizi's eyes seemed to
bore through to his very brain, “I mean the night
you played ghost.”
“Why, I—that is, they left a window
open—”
“They did not!” Zizi shot at him, “and you
know it! How did you get in?”
But old Stebbins persisted in his story of entrance
by an overlooked window.
“There's heaps of windows in that house,” he
declared. “Land, I could get in any time I wanted
to.”
“Sure you could,” retorted Zizi, “but not through
a window !”
"“How, then?” said Stebbins.
“That's what I asked you. I know.”
“You know! How do you know?”
“Your mama told my mama and my mama told
me!” Zizi's mocking laughter so incensed the old
man that he shook with fury.
“You don't know!” he cried, “’cause there's
nothin’ to know! Land! All them folks up there
has hunted the place for secret entrances, and I
ruther think you have too,” and he nodded at Wise.


Zizi 219
Indeed, she carried on the main part of the con-
versation, which was exactly what Wise had meant
for her to do.
She charmed Peterson with her bright, alert air
and her pleasant, quick-witted way of putting things.
Together they went over the known details, and
then she cleverly drew from Peterson his deductions
and decisions.
At first, inclined to resent the advent of this all-
wise detective, he now began to think that if they
could work together, he would shine by reflected
glory, that is, if the new chap succeeded in solving
the mystery, which to him was inexplicable.
“I can't suspect the Thorpes or Mr. Stebbins,”
Peterson finally declared: “I did think I could, but
though Eli did cut up some tricks, they were harm-
less and merely in fun. And, too, he has absolute
alibis for all the spook appearances after a certain
date. And that's the date when that Miss Carn-
forth saw a ghost. As near as I can make out, that
ghost was Stebbins himself, but no spooks after
that was Stebbins' doings. Now, I give you that
straight and simple, Mr. Wise, but it took me a long
time to ferret it out. I suspected it, but I've had
hard work to get Stebbins to admit his tricks, and
also to check up his alibis after that particular
night.”
“These perfectly attested alibis are sometimes
manufactured very carefully,” said Zizi, fixing her
black eyes on Peterson.


226 The Room with the Tassels
“Queer, that spook should appear to him,” said
Wise, after Mr. Tracy had gone.
“He told me some time ago,” said Norma, remi-
niscently, “that he often heard strange sounds at
four in the morning. He said they were like faint
moans and rustlings and sometimes a soft step along
the halls.”
“Did he ever see anything before?” asked Zizi.
“I don't think so. He was not very communi-
cative about it, anyway. I think he was nervous
on the subject.”
“I know he was,” Eve spoke scornfully. “He
was afraid, I'm positive. No one ought to have
joined this party who was afraid.”
“We only asked him to fill in, you know,” said
Milly, rather apologizing for the minister's timidity.
“And goodness knows, I'm afraid! Or I should
be, if Wynne weren't always with me. If that
thing appeared to me, well!”
Milly could find no words to express her horror,
and Landon looked at her anxiously.
“It won't,” said Zizi, reassuringly, “it won't,
Mrs. Landon.”
“How do you know?” said Eve, a bit abruptly.
“Your mama told my mama and my mama told
me,” returned Zizi, who could put such graphic
impudence into the silly phrase, that it was impos-
sible not to be amused at it. Oh, do you do that,
too?” she added, as Eve bit her lip in annoyance.
“So do I! It's such a hard habit to break, ain't it?
>


Tracy's Story 229
“You said everything came around toward
Landon.”
“There's motive there. You see, after Mr.
Braye, Mr. Landon inherits all the Bruce fortune,
and that’s millions.”
“What's the matter with Braye being the mur-
derer? He inherits first.”
“That's just it. If Mr. Braye wanted to kill his
relatives to get the fortune, he wouldn't do it up
here, where he's so liable to be suspected. He'd
invent some subtler way, or some less suspicious
scheme. But Mr. Landon could do it up here, and
feel sure the suspicion would fall on Mr. Braye.
Then, you see, Mr. Braye gets the money, and later
on, Mr. Landon puts him out, too. In some awfully
clever way, that can't be traced to him, d'y' see?
And, too, Mr. Braye has declared he'll give all the
money, if necessary, to discovering the criminal, if
there is one. And he said, he'd give what was left
to build a hospital. No, he doesn't want the money
that came to him in such an awful way, leastwise,
not if it throws suspicion on him. He's going to be
cleared, or he's not going to use the money for him-
self. Miss Carnforth told me all that, I’ve talked
a lot with her.”
“You’ve talked with all of them, haven't you?”
“Yes, indeed. I've babbled on, and most often
they tell me a lot that they don't realize. Mrs. Lan-
don, now, she's struggling hard not to suspect her
own husband, but Miss Carnforth has said a few


23o The Room with the Tassels
things that scare Mrs. Landon 'most to death. Oh,
Penny, it's a fearful case! We must fix it up, we
must l”
“We will, Zizi. There's so much evidence not
to be denied, that we must ferret out what it really
means. I’m getting a glimmer, but your help is
invaluable. That was a stroke of genius for you
not to tell of your ghost! Weren't you fright-
ened?”
“Not a bit. All I wanted to do, was to find out
who it was. But I didn't dare grab at it, for I knew
it would get away. I hope it will come again. I'll
try to make it speak, and maybe I'll get a line on
the voice.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I couldn't tell. The draperies were long and
full, and the skull-mask covered the face.”
“Didn't you see the hand?”
“It was lost in the draped shawl. But I'm sure
I'll have another visit, and then I'll get more
information. You think I did well, oh, Wise
Guy?”
“I do indeed!” and the approving smile that was
Zizi's most welcome reward lighted up the detec-
tive's face.
Zizi pursued her plan of talking to the various
people separately. She gleaned much this way and
with her powers of lightning calculation, she put
two and two together with astounding results.


Tracy's Story 233
“All right, I know the rest. You've helped me
a little—”
“Do you suspect anybody? Does Mr. Wise?
Tell me, child. I can doubtless be of help, if I
know what to do.”
“No, Professor, you can't help. It's very awful,
but it will soon be clear to all. Heaven help that
poor Miss Carnforth.”
“Nonsense! Eve didn't do it! Of that I'm
certain.”
“So am I. Of course, Miss Carnforth didn't do
it. The tea was all right when she fixed Mr. Bruce's
cup.”
“Then who tampered with it? Not Vernie!”
But Zizi had run away. She had a way of mak-
ing sudden exits and entrances, and one never knew
where she was or when she would appear.
That night Zizi declared that she hoped the ghost
would visit her. She said this openly, as the whole
crowd were preparing to go to their rooms for the
night.
“Perhaps it will,” said Wise, looking at her,
thoughtfully. “If it called on Mr. Tracy last
night, it may be here again to-night, and you may
be favoured. Are you not afraid?”
“Not of the ghost,” said Zizi, “but I am afraid
that some of you people may play a trick just to
scare me. Will you double up, so I can feel sure
there's nothing of that sort?”


Tracy's Story 235
intruder could be, the girl lay motionless, but breath-
ing deeply as if asleep.
Her eyes, almost closed, yet took in every move-
ment of her silent visitor.
It was no white-robed ghost, but a tall figure, clad
in a long black cloak, and wearing a black mask.
With a swift stride, that betokened a man, the
figure approached the bed, having first softly closed
the door that led to the hall.
Watching covertly for the next development, Zizi
was all unprepared for what really happened.
The man, with a sudden, swift gesture, took the
girl's chin in one strong hand, and opened her
mouth, while with the other he thrust in a thick soft
cloth, saturated with chloroform.
Not enough to make her lose her senses entirely,
it partially stupefied her, and the choking cloth pre-
vented all speech.
Whipping off the long dark cloak he wore, the
man flung it round Zizi, as he lifted the slender form
from the bed.
Vainly trying to emit a shriek, or utter a groan,
Zizi fell, half-conscious, back in the arms that sup-
ported her.
After an unknown interval, a draught of cool air
on her face brought her back to a dim consciousness,
and she realized she was out of doors. A struggle
of her arms and legs resulted in a firmer grasp of
the strong arms that carried her, and she quit mov-
ing, to think. She had been kidnapped, taken from


236 The Room with the Tassels
her bed, and had been carried out of doors, but she
had no knowledge of who her captor was nor by
what means they had left the house. Her brain
was furiously wide awake, but she made no move,
lest more chloroform be administered, and she lose
her regained consciousness.
On the shore of the black lake the man stopped,
and set her on her feet. Her mouth, still filled with
the soft cloth, was strained and painful, but the
first attempt to raise her hand resulted in its being
clutched by the strong hand of the man who swayed
her destiny.
So slender and light was she, that he handled her
as one might a child, and in his strong grasp she
was as powerless as an infant.
Working quickly and deftly, he tied a strong rope
round her ankles and to it attached what was only
too evidently a bag of stones or bricks.
Then, without a word, he flung her into the deep,
dark waters of the lake, and with one backward
glance, he walked away.


238 The Room with the Tassels
“If he'd only spoken, drat him!'” she muttered,
“and yet it must have been that wretch! I know
it was, but how can I prove it? Oh, I wish it
wasn't so dark! And I’m so wet!”
She got up now, and tried to wring the water
from the cloak that she still clutched round her.
Beside that she had on her nightdress, and a thin
silk kimono, both of which were wetly clinging to
her slim little body.
Throwing the still soaking wet cloak about her,
and shivering as it sopped against her, she went
toward the house.
It stood, still and sombre, a black thing amid
blacker shadows. The aspen branches soughed
eerily, but no other sound broke the silence. The
great doors were closed, the windows all shut, and
no sign of life was visible.
Zizi hesitated. Should she whistle beneath
Penny Wise's window, or
The alternative she thought of seemed to her best,
and she drew her wet draperies about her and
scuttled off at a smart pace toward the village.
Barefooted as she was, she chose grassy ground
whenever possible, but her feet were sadly cut and
bruised before she reached her destination.
This was the house of Dan Peterson, and a ring
at his doorbell, brought the sound of a hastily flung-
up window, and a sharp “Who's there?”
“Me,” said Zizi, truthfully, “please let me in.”
Not quite certain of the identity of his caller, but


What Happened to Zizi 239
touched by the pleading little voice, Peterson came
downstairs, followed by his wife.
A few words of explanation resulted in Zizi's
being put into warm, dry clothes, and tucked into
bed by Mrs. Peterson, who admonished her to
“sleep like a baby till mornin'.'
Which, nothing loth, Zizi did.
Morning at Black Aspens brought a shock of
surprise.
It was Hester who first discovered the absence of
Zizi from the Room with the Tassels.
Hester had been fond of the child from the be-
ginning, and in spite of her fifteen years, and her
even older world-knowledge, Zizi was a child, in
many ways. Hester mothered her whenever pos-
sible, though Zizi's natural efficiency made little
assistance really necessary. But Hester loved to
wait on her, and so, this morning, when, going into
the room with a can of hot water, she found no
sleepy little occupant of the great bed, she ran
straight upstairs to Miss Carnforth's room.
“Where's that child?” she demanded as Eve
opened the door to her loud knock.
“What child? Who?”
“Zizi. She's gone! Sperrited away! What
have you done with her?”
“Hush, Hester! You act craz
“And crazy I am, if any harm's come to that
girl! Where is she?”
»


What Happened to Zizi 243
the group, every member of which turned to see
her. Peterson was with her, and the two came
forward.
Zizi was garbed in clothes that Mr. Peterson had
lent her, and though too large, she had pinned up
the plain black dress until it looked neither gro-
tesque nor unbecoming.
“Yes, I'm here,” she announced, “but only be-
cause a bag o' bones can't be sunk by a bag o'
bricks! Your Shawled Woman,—only he didn't
have his shawl over his head, carried me off about
as easy as he might have sneaked off a doll-baby!
Then,-shall I tell 'em all, Pen?”
“Yes, child, tell it all, just as it happened.”
“Well, he stuffed a bale of cotton into my mouth,
which same was soaked with chloroform, so, natu-
rally I couldn't yell; likewise, I didn't know just
where I was at for a few minutes.”
“Who was he?” exclaimed Braye, “what did he
1ook like?”
“Was it the skull face?” asked Eve.
“Nixy on the bone face!” returned Zizi, “he
was a plain clothes man in civilian dress, with a
black mask over his patrician features.”
“Don’t you know who it was?” and Eve's voice
was intense and strained.
“Not positively,” Zizi answered. “Well, he
picked me up like I was a feather, and how he got
out of the house I've no idea, but I felt a breeze of
night air, and there was I by the bank of the lake,


What Happened to Zizi 249
“But, if so, how could he kill Mr. Bruce and
Vernie? Oh, it's too ridiculous! Those two
deaths were not occasioned by any crazy man from
East Dryden! It's impossible.”
“Come out for a little stroll, Norma,” said Braye
to her, seeing how nervously excited the girl was.
“A breath of fresh air will do you good, and we
can do nothing here.”
They went out into the pleasant August sunshine,
and strolled toward the lake.
“Not that way,” begged Norma. “It’s too hor-
rible. Oh, Rudolph, who do you suppose tried to
drown that poor little Zizi’”
“Nobody, Norma. She made up that yarn.”
“Oh, no, Rudolph, I don't think so!”
“Yes, she did. That Wise is trying to get at his
discoveries in the theatrical fashion all detectives
love to use, and that movie actress is part of his
stock in trade. She fell in the lake, all right, I
daresay, but the tale about the bogey man is ficti-
tious, be sure of that.”
“But how did she get out of the house, and leave
all the doors locked behind her?”
“Perhaps, as the Professor suggested, Wise
knows of the secret entrance, if there is one, and
of course, Zizi does too. Or, that little monkey
could have scrambled down from the second-story
window, she's as agile as a cat! Anyway, Norma,
she wasn't pitched in the lake by the same villain
that did for Uncle Gif and Vernie.”


What Happened to Zizi 25I
undiscovered, should be all hushed up, you know,
and if nobody should really accuse—you know who
—wouldn't your life be in danger?”
“Hush, Norma, I won't listen to such talk! Has
Eve put you up to all this?”
“She and I have talked it over, yes. She is so
anxious for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes; you know Eve—cares a great deal for
you.”
“Hush, dear, you're not yourself to-day. And
I don't wonder. The awful times we're going
through are enough to upset your nerves. But
never speak of Eve Carnforth and me in that tone!
You know, Norma, I love you and you only. I
want you for my own, my darling, and when we
get away from these awful scenes, I shall woo and
win you!”


Stebbins Owns Up 253
and means. Now, you were a tricksy Puck,
weren't you, when you moved the old battered
candlestick that first night? And it did no harm,
that I admit. It roused their curiosity, and started
the spook ball rolling. Then, as a ghost, you ap-
peared to Mr. Bruce, didn't you?”
“Well, I—did,” Stebbins grudgingly confessed,
forced by the compelling black eyes, “I just wrop
a shawl over my head, and spooked in. But no-
body believed his yarn about it.”
“No; they thought Mr. Bruce made up the story,
because he had said he would trick them if he could.”
“Yep, I know that,” agreed Stebbins, eagerly.
“Then once again, I played spook, and that time,
Miss Carnforth was a sleepin' in that ha'nted room.
You see, I expected it would be one o' the men, and
when I see a woman—”
“You were more scared than she was!” Zizi
leaned eagerly forward, almost spilling off her
chair, in her interested attention.
“I believe I was,” said Stebbins, solemnly.
“Anyways, I went out, vowin’ never to do any
more spook work,+and I never did.”
“All that tallies with my discoveries so far,”
Zizi nodded, “now what I'm after, is the way you
got in.”
“That's a secret,” and Stebbins squirmed
uneasily.
“A secret entrance, you mean?”
“Yes 'm. And how to get into it is a secret that


Stebbins Owns Up 255
“This here's my house,” he said, with an air of
importance, “and so far's I'm responsible for queer
goin's on, I'll confess. And after that, you, Mr.
Detective, can find out who carried on the hocus-
pocus.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stebbins,” said Pennington
Wise, gravely. “Suppose we ask all the members
of the household to be present at your revela-
tions.”
“Not the Thorpes, or them servant maids, if you
please. They ain't none of 'em implicated, and
why let 'em know what's goin' on ?”
“That's right,” said Zizi. “Whatever we learn
may not be entirely given to the public. Just call
the rest of the party, Pen.”
As it happened, the men were all in the hall talk-
ing with Wise when Stebbins arrived, so Zizi went
in search of the women. They were congregated
in Milly's room, and as they came downstairs, the
detective noted their expressions, a favourite
method with him of gaining information.
Milly's round little face was so red and swollen
with weeping, that it excited only compassion in
any observer. Norma, too, was sad and fright-
ened-looking, but Eve was in a defiant mood, and
her scarlet lips were curved in a disdainful smile.
“As we're all at one in our search for the crim-
inal,” Wise began, tactfully, “I think it best that
we should hear, all together, Mr. Stebbins' explana-
tion of how this house may be entered from outside,


256 The Room with the Tassels
though apparently locked and bolted against intru-
sion.”
“I should think, Mr. Wise,” said Eve, scorn-
fully, “that if there were such a possibility, your
detective genius ought to have discovered it.”
“He couldn't,” said Stebbins, simply. “It ain't
a means that any one could discover.”
“Then how did the criminal find it out?” de-
manded Eve.
“He must have seen me come in by it,” Stebbins
replied. “Nobody could ever suspect the real
way.”
“Oh, come now,” said Zizi, “Mr. Wise does
know. He is not at all vain glorious, or he would
tell you himself. But he prefers to let Mr. Stebbins
tell.”
“Is that so, Mr. Wise?” asked Professor Hard-
wick, eagerly. “If you have discovered the secret
entrance, I wish you would say so. I feel chagrined
that my own reasoning powers have given me no
hint.”
“I have satisfied myself of the means and the
location of the entrance,” Wise returned, “but I
have not examined the place definitely enough to
find the hidden spring that must be there.”
“You know that much!” cried Stebbins, in
amazement.
“Yes, largely by elimination. There are no
hollow walls, no false locks, no sliding panels,
it seems to me there is no logical hidden entrance,


258 The Room with the Tassels
column was made in two half sections, one in the
hall and one outside. These, again, were divided
horizontally, about seven feet above the floor, and
the joint concealed by a decorative wreath of
bronze oak boughs.
The column was hollow, and one half the shaft
revolved within the other, which, in turn, revolved
over the first, so that by successive movements of
the two, one could pass right through the vestibule
wall, and close the opening after him, leaving no
trace of his entry or exit. The vestibule wall, of
mahogany, concealed the longitudinal joint in the
column when closed. The doors were hinged to
this wooden wall, and were opened and closed, and
locked, quite independently of the columns. Ow-
ing to perfectly adjusted ball bearings, and a thor-
oughly oiled condition, the mechanism worked easily
and soundlessly.
“The whole contraption was brought from
Italy,” Stebbins informed them, “by the original
Montgomery. I don't think he ever used it for
any wrong doings, though they do say, soldiers was
smuggled through in war times, and contraband
smuggling went on, too. But those is only rumours
and probably exaggerated.”
“You exaggerated the ghost stories, too, didn't
you, Mr. Stebbins?” asked Wise.
“I didn't need to, sir. Those yarns of the
Shawled Woman, have been told and retold so many
years now, they've grown way beyond their first


Stebbins Owns Up 26I
after that night when you appeared to me! You
know a ghost appeared to Vernie after that. Can
we believe that was not the work of the same
malignant—”
“Malignant is not the word to apply to Mr.
Stebbins,” Pennington Wise interrupted her, “and
it is up to us, to me, to find who took his place as
haunter of this house. Also, who it was that re-
moved the body of Vernie Reid, doubtless through
the revolving column, and—who kidnapped and
tried to drown Zizi.”
“Those are secondary problems,” said Braye,
thoughtfully gazing at the detective. “But they
must be solved, too, of course. What I'm more
anxious about, however, is to learn how any one
could compass the murders, if murders they
were.”
“Of course they were,” said Hardwick. “Now
that I know as much as I do know, I'm sure we'll
learn all. Mr. Wise, I'm of a detective bent, my-
self, and you may count on me to help you all I
can. You needn't laugh >>
“My dear Professor Hardwick, I assure you I've
no thought of laughing, or of belittling the help you
offer. I’m truly glad of your assistance and it is
my habit to be frank with my clients, so we need
have no reservations, on either side. The assurance
we have received that an intruder could and did
enter the house, gives us new directions in which
to look and new theories to pursue. I'm sure you


262 The Room with the Tassels
will all agree with me that the body of Miss Reid
was carried out through the secret column, and not
removed by supernatural means.”
“Without doubt,” said Rudolph Braye, but Eve
Carnforth looked a denial.
“I can't agree,” she said, “that the discovery of
a secret entrance disproves all possibility of the
presence of supernatural agencies. I think no
human intruder can be held responsible for all we
have been through. How do you account for two
deaths occurring at the very moment they were fore-
told P’’
Her question was evidently addressed to Wise,
and he replied, “I think, Miss Carnforth, that those
two deaths were murders, cleverly accomplished by
human wills, and it is my immediate duty to prove
this. Therefore, I am now going to endeavour to
recover the missing body of the unfortunate girl
who was killed.”
“What! Vernie's body!” and Eve gasped.
“Yes. And not wishing to do anything to which
you may not all agree, I announce frankly that I
am going to have the lake dragged.”
“The lake!” cried Wynne Landon, “why, man,
it is miles long!”
“But I think that the same person who tried to
drown Zizi is responsible for the disappearance of
Miss Reid's body, and I feel sure that if we look in
that same part of the lake we will find what we
are after.”


264. The Room with the Tassels
taken away through the revolving column, what else
could have been done with it? To bury it would
have been to risk discovery. And Zizi's experi-
ence—”
“Are you sure, Mr. Wise, that Zizi's experience
was truthfully related? May she not have been
hysterically nervous, and imagined the whole thing?
I’ve heard of such cases.”
“Who put you up to that idea, Miss Carnforth?’”
said Wise, very quietly, and Eve flushed and turned
aside, remaining silent.
Pennington Wise's theory proved the true one.
The men employed to drag the lake at Black
Aspens succeeded in finding the body of Vernie
Reid. A bag of bricks had been tied to the ankles,
in the same manner as described by Zizi, and the
little form had been sunk in almost the same place
that Zizi had been flung into the water.
Reverent hands carried the body to the house, and
later it was examined by a skilled physician from
New York City.
He reported that death had ensued upon the girl's
arm being scratched with some sharp implement,
which had been previously dipped in a powerful
poison. -
As this was the same physician who had passed
the final judgment on the cause of Mr. Bruce's
death, his report was listened to with confidence and
belief.


CHAPTER XVIII
Another Confession
ENNINGTON WISE and Zizi sat in the hall
P talking. It was part of Wise's policy never to
hold secret conclaves with his little assistant,
for, he said that the people who employed him were
entitled to all his suspicions or deductions as they
took shape and grew in his mind. Professor Hard-
wick joined them as Wise was saying, “What first
turned your attention to the Room with the Tassels,
Zizº Why did you move into that room to sleep?”
“Because the lock was oiled,” Zizi replied, her
black eyes glistening. “The first time I got a
chance I looked at all the locks in the house, and
only two were freshly oiled, and they had been well
looked after, I can tell you.”
“What did that prove to you?” Hardwick asked.
“That somebody was haunting the Room with
the Tassels who had to open the door to get in. No
ghost would need to turn a knob-and open the door.
They splash right through walls or anything, or they
ought to, if they know their business! But this
lock, as well as the knob, was oiled, and, as you
know, the door was opened though locked on the
inside. Clever fingers can turn a key from the
other side, if they have a certain implement, used
267


Another Confession 269
“No; ” repeated Wise, “John Tracy is a no-
torious criminal, known as Smug Johnny by his
friends, and also by the police. I have just had
returns from some inquiries I sent to Chicago, and
I learn that this double-dyed villain is wanted on
several counts, but never before has he been accused
of murder.”
“And did he kill Mr. Bruce and Vernie?” cried
Eve, her hands clenched in excitement and her long
eyes narrowed with fear.
“He did, I am positive. We have yet to prove
it, but I have evidence enoug xx
“Where is he?” said Hardwick, abruptly.
“Under strict surveillance,” returned Wise.
“My men are at his heels day and night. He
can't get away.”
“He stole me,” said Zizi; “you see I had my eye
on him, 'cause of his oiled door. Then when he
came, I thought he was only going to scare me, but
he stuffed that old chloroform in my mouth so quick,
I couldn't even yell out. If I hadn't had some
experience in swimming pools and movie thrillers,
I’d been down at the bottom of that horrid old lake
this minute!”
“But I can't understand,” and Eve looked
puzzled; “why would Mr. Tracy kill those people,
and how did he do it? Mr. Wise, you're crazy!
It's an impossible theory!”
Others had gathered in the hall, now, and Pen-
nington Wise told them all of his recent advices


270 The Room with the Tassels
from Chicago, that proved the supposed clergyman
a fraud and a villain.
Milly showed the greatest relief. “Oh,” she
cried, “I’m glad you've found out who it was, any-
way! But it doesn't seem as if Mr. Tracy could
be a bad man—are you sure, Mr. Wise?”
“Yes, Mrs. Landon, there is no doubt at all.
Now, let us reconstruct the scene of those two
deaths. Where was Mr. Tracy sitting?”
“Right here, where I am now,” said Norma,
thinking back. “Vernie was over there, near the
front door. Mr. Bruce was across the hall by
Professor Hardwick, and Eve was in the middle of
the room by the tea-table.”
“Will you be so kind, Miss Carnforth, as to
think very carefully,” said Wise, “and see if you
recollect Mr. Tracy's presence near you as you were
fixing the various cups of tea. Did he have the
slightest opportunity to add anything to the cup
that was afterward handed to Mr. Bruce?”
Excited, almost hysterical, Eve obeyed the detec-
tive's command, and said, after a moment's thought,
“Yes, he did. I remember he passed near me, and
Vernie stood at my side also. They had a bit of
good-natured banter as to which should take the
cup I had just poured out, and Vernie won, and she
laughingly carried it to Mr. Bruce. I remember it
distinctly.”
“Then, doubtless, at that moment, Tracy dropped
the small amount of poison necessary in the cup,


Another Confession 27I
sure that it would be given to Mr. Bruce. Had
Vernie given it to any one else, he would have inter-
cepted it. He is a man of suave manners, you
know.”
“Yes,” said Norma, “particularly so, and very
graceful about any social matters. He always as-
sisted in passing the tea things.”
“Go on,” said Penny Wise; “what happened as
Mr. Bruce took his first sip of tea?”
“He changed countenance at once,” said Hard-
wick. “I was talking to him, and a queer pallor
came over his face and then it turned fiery red. He
dropped his cup and—”
“One moment,” said Wise; “what became of
that broken cup?”
“I’ve no idea,” said the Professor, helplessly
looking about him.
“I wasn't home,” began Milly, “Mr. Braye and
I had gone to East Dryden 2x
“The tray was taken out as usual,” interposed
Eve, but Norma said, quietly, “I picked up the
broken bits and laid them on the tray.”
“Call in the servant who took away that tray,”
said Wise, shortly.
Old Thorpe was called in, and told his story.
“I came in for the tray,” he said, and seein’—
what I did see—I was fair knocked out. I did
as usual, and picked up the tray to carry it to the
kitchen. Mr. Tracy was by the tray at the time,
and he was pourin’ hot water into the teacups. I


274 The Room with the Tassels
sprang toward the girl she was unharmed, and as
he put his arm round her, he scratched her arm with
a sharp pointed instrument, which had been dipped
in the awful poison that we have learned of. It is
said to be similar to that with which the barbarians
of South America tip their arrows. But the least
scratch is instantly fatal, and proved so in Vernie's
case. The instrument he used, we have reason to
think, was a steel pen.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Professor
Hardwick.
“Because Zizi found a few new ones in Tracy's
room, that had not been used for writing purposes.
There were five in a small paper parcel. We have
found that he bought these at a shop in the village,
buying six at the time. This is merely a shred of
evidence, but the fact that Zizi found the pens be-
came known to Mr. Tracy, in fact he caught her
searching his room. It was this that made him try
to do away with the child.”
“Tracy? Do away with Zizi!” exclaimed
Braye. “Why, he was gone away from here,
then.”
“No. He had left the house, but he was lurking
about, and after all had retired that night, he came
through the revolving column, and kidnapped Zizi,
and threw her into the lake, as he had previously
thrown in the body of Vernie Reid. That, he did,
lest the scratch on her arm be discovered by the
doctors, and he be suspected.”


Another Confession 275
“Then it was Tracy who discovered the secret
of the revolving column,” said Braye, thoughtfully.
“You take a great deal for granted, Mr. Wise.”
“I take nothing for granted, save what the facts
prove, Mr. Braye. That Tracy used the revolving
column is positive. Do you not all remember the
night when Professor Hardwick saw the apparition
of the Shawled Woman? On that night Mr. Tracy
was supposed to be in Boston. As a matter of
fact, he was not, he had left the house, saying he
was going to Boston but he remained in hiding near
the house, played ghost, and then went on his way.”
“I was in New York that night,” said Braye,
musingly. “But, look here, Mr. Wise, one after-
noon, about dusk, Miss Cameron and I distinctly
saw the apparition of the Shawled Woman in the
Room with the Tassels when we ourselves were out
of doors. We saw it through the window, don't
you remember, Norma?”
“I do, >>
“Then that was Mr. Tracy's doings also,” de-
clared Wise. “How simple for him to get the
paraphernalia from the column, where it was always
in readiness, make his appearance to frighten you
two, and then return the shawl and so forth before
you could enter and catch him.”
“It would have been possible,” agreed Braye, and
then Hardwick began.
“There were many other strange things to be
accounted for, such as moanings and rustlings in


276 The Room with the Tassels
the morning at four o'clock, and also occasional
odours of prussic acid, without apparent reason.”
“Lay them all to Tracy,” said Wise, “you won't
be far out. Now, who was running that Ouija
board the night it said the two people would die
at four o'clock?”
“Vernie and Mr. Tracy,” said Norma, “but
when it said that, Mr. Tracy took his hands off
and said he would have no more to do with it. He
said he believed Vernie pushed it to those letters.”
“He was a good actor,” said Wise, looking grave
and sighing; “he fooled you all, it would seem.”
“He certainly fooled me, good and plenty,” said
Braye, angrily. “You say you have him in cus-
tody, Mr. Wise?”
“I did not say that, but I have him under such
surveillance that he cannot get away. There are
some other matters to be discussed. Granting
Tracy's guilt, what do you ascribe as a motive?”
There was a profound silence. What could have
been the motive for a perfect stranger to kill with
deliberation two people who had never injured him
in any way, and from whose death he could expect
no pecuniary advantage?
“Look here,” said Wynne Landon, suddenly,
“Mr. Tracy went away from here because the
spectre appeared to him. How do you account for
that?”
“Mr. Tracy said so,” returned Wise, “but that
story of his ghostly vision was made up out of the


Another Confession 277
whole cloth, which was all of the ‘cloth’ with
which he ever had to do.”
“He made up that yarn, then, as an excuse to
get away?” said Hardwick. -
“He did just that,” replied Wise. “But what
has any one to suggest as Mr. Tracy's motive for
the crimes he committed?”
“Plain homicidal mania,” offered Hardwick, at
last, as no one else spoke.
“No,” said Wise, “John Tracy is not of that
type. Such people are abnormal, they have special
physical characteristics, and they are easily recog-
nized, once suspicion is attached to them. Tracy is
a quiet, even debonair character, he is even-tem-
pered, gentle-mannered and though deeply clever
he hides it under a mask of kindliness and con-
sideration. Victims of what is called homicidal
mania are not at all like this. They are difficult to
get along with, they do queer, inexplicable things,
and most of all, they show in their faces the traits
that lead them to their villainous deeds. You all
know Tracy is not of this type. Therefore you
must look further for his motive.”
“Did he receive any bequest from Mr. Bruce's
will?” asked Hardwick, wonderingly.
“Certainly not,” asserted Landon. “He didn't
know Mr. Bruce until we came up here, and that
would have been no motive for his killing Vernie.
Nor can there be any personal motive, Mr. Wise,
for that. Shall we not have to ascribe it to some


28o The Room with the Tassels
“there will be much for you to bear, and you must
be brave to bear it.”
Eve looked at her wonderingly, and seeing deep
compassion in the black eyes, she ceased questioning
and closed her own eyes.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes and
rose from her couch. “Thank you, Zizi,” she
said, “I am all right now. I am going back to
join the others. Will you come, Norma P" -
Dazedly, as one in a dream, Norma rose, and the
three went down stairs. Apparently little had been
said of importance since they left. There was a
tense silence, and Pennington Wise said, “I find I
must speak out and tell you the truth. I had hoped
for a confession but I see no signs of it.
“I was not, strictly speaking, employed by any
one of you. I asked to be allowed to investigate
this case because it seemed to me the most remark-
able one I had ever heard of. I wrote to Professor
Hardwick for information concerning it, and finally
I arranged to come up here. I brought Zizi, be-
cause she is invaluable to me in collecting evidence.
Her quick wit, and her dainty personality can com-
pass effects that I can not. I feel, therefore, that
it is to Professor Hardwick that I should make my
direct report. But as you are all interested, I will
ask any of you who choose to do so, to remain and
listen. The others may be excused.”
“Of course, we'll all stay!” exclaimed Landon.
“We're all quite as much interested as Professor