LIBRARY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
The 0/rf 
 
 Corner 
 
THE 
 
 GHOST 
 
 GIRL 
 
h 
 
 Edgar Saltus 
 
 BONI AND LlVERIGHT 
 
 Publishers NEW YORK 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Copyright, 1922, by 
 BONI AND LTVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 
 
THE GHOST GiRL 
 
 THE vivid climax to Nelly Chilton's wedding star 
 tled a metropolis long since used to the startling. But 
 the spectacular termination of the beauty's marriage 
 was commonplace by comparison to incidents that su 
 pervened. 
 
 In Bil Sayers' novel, "The Halls of Eblis," many 
 of these incidents are told. The telling is the admirable 
 work of an admirable writer. Events are set forth, 
 not as they did occur, but as they should have occurred, 
 which is the only way to tell a story. In the present 
 document that process has been reversed. 
 
 Among those who stood witness to the events were 
 Jim Bradish and your servant. He and I had been 
 classmates at Harvard, fellow students in foreign uni 
 versities, companions in the proscenia and side-scenes 
 of life. We had travelled, feasted and starved to 
 gether. I may say I knew him, that is if one human 
 being ever does know another. While in Japan a cable 
 caught us. His father was dead. Bradish was a very 
 rich man. 
 
 At the time, I had, or thought I had, enough to go 
 around, a bundle of bonds with which the trustee was 
 diverting himself. When Bradish and I reached New 
 York he was a plutocrat and I was a pauper. I hate 
 the alliteration. More hateful still was the fact. 
 
 I have been about a bit and I know of no place 
 
8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 where poverty is agreeable, or any place anywhere 
 where it is less agreeable than in New York. Along the 
 glittering precinct in which my people had moved, I 
 was like the man who fell from the balloon, simply 
 out of it. But not irremediably. Bradish did the 
 obvious thing. He did not ask, he insisted on being 
 my banker. 
 
 It would, I dare say, seem very fine of me if I had 
 balked. I did nothing of the kind. I drew on him for 
 what little I actually required. In two years I was 
 afloat. A year later he was repaid. I was what is 
 termed a best-seller. Nothing to boast of, quite the 
 contrary. 
 
 Meanwhile the glittering precinct was closed to 
 Bradish also, though, necessarily, not as it was to me. 
 I lacked the money to walk in. He lacked the courage. 
 
 In looking back at it all now, I realise what I did 
 not recognise then. In a previous life he must have 
 done something very evil. What he had done only 
 the keepers of the doors that close behind our birth 
 could tell. But whatever it may have been, he paid 
 for it. I have seen and, what is worse I have seen him 
 see, people shrink back open-mouthed from before 
 him. Karma had plastered his face with a birthmark 
 shaped and coloured like a great scarlet spider. In 
 spite of which he had the gentleness of a giant. After 
 the lovable fashion of a sundial, it was only serene 
 hours of which he took count. In unphilosophic New 
 York that is always a feat. It is one, though, which 
 presently he ceased to perform. 
 
 Meanwhile, I had pitched my tent in that loveliness 
 that Harlem is. The tent was on the top floor of what 
 is agreeably known as a walkup. Bradish hated it. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 9 
 
 But he came there. I told him not to come. I told 
 him I did not want him. I told him I did not want 
 anybody. Idle tears. Up the interminable stairs he 
 stalked and pounded and pounded, threatening to break 
 the door down. When, cursing the interruption, I 
 threw it open, in he would tumble, followed, as often 
 as not, by Mike, one of his many servants, a mechani 
 cian usually bowed to the ground with a hamper of 
 aspic and game, wine and strong waters. 
 
 In those days I was so out of it that I knew nothing 
 except what I invented. But in Bradish's great, white, 
 staring house, there were always men to dinner, to 
 supper, to breakfast, for all I know to the contrary, 
 and the talk of these men, who knew what was going 
 on, and a lot that was not, he retailed to me and it was 
 all so much fresh air. Again and again it supplied a 
 situation, the slang of the day, the prompt retort. 
 
 I can see him now, sitting back, drinking his cigar, 
 drinking, too, his strong waters and, in the orange light 
 of my low lamp, that spider barely visible. Usually 
 a dull brick it was only in moments of excitement that 
 it reddened. It seemed then a living thing. There 
 have been times when I could have sworn I saw it 
 extending and contracting its antennae. There have 
 been others when it seemed about to spring. That, 
 though, was later. 
 
 One night it was in the third year after our return 
 to this country and on a night when it was snowing 
 like the very devil, I heard the usual uproar. It was 
 the only way that he, or anyone else for that matter, 
 could get at me. There was no telephone. I had had 
 the accursed thing removed. Moreover it was idle to 
 ring, in addition to being hazardous. Touch the but- 
 
io THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 ton and you get a shock. I had had a battery put in 
 for that purpose. To lead a profitable life of crime 
 requires silence, solitude and a natural gift for villainy. 
 By this time, that gift and those fortifications aiding, 
 I was afloat, all sales flying, if I may be permitted a 
 stupid jest, one which, together with everything else 
 concerning myself, I throw in to be rid of. This is 
 not a biography, heaven forbid. It is the account of 
 a door, closed and barred, and not mine either. 
 
 On this night, for the first time, I approached it. 
 It was wide open, so wide that all I saw were the vistas 
 beyond. It was not until later that I realised that there 
 was a door there, a door that was to shut itself, shut 
 tighter than a wall. 
 
 The night was vile. There was a wind to blow 
 your head off and I thanked fortune that I had had the 
 forethought, which I often lacked, to larder up before 
 hand, when I heard Bradish hammering and reviling 
 me outside. 
 
 Superbly befurred, in a coat whith even a tenor 
 might have denied himself, but, the coat apart, dressed 
 as he usually was, with that appearance of the thread 
 bare which, in a man of large means, is always superi 
 orly correct, he stamped in, kicking and throwing the 
 snow off on me and, once in my workshop, removing the 
 coat which he dropped on the floor. 
 
 Then, puffing a bit, he greeted me. 
 
 "You live like a bandit." 
 
 On one of my few chairs I sat down and looked at 
 him. 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "More than I can get. More than I deserve if I 
 could get it." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL n 
 
 "Here," I said, "don't run into excesses. The liquor 
 is behind you." 
 
 He waved at me. "You remember the ships crowded 
 in Aulis like white birds?" 
 
 I took it in and handed it back. "But not the face 
 that crowded them there. I never saw the lady and 
 I doubt that anyone else did. It all happened a long 
 time ago and probably never happened at all. Any 
 way, beauty since then has departed. Successively 
 women became handsome, good-looking, pretty. Now 
 they think it smart to be plain." 
 
 It was a long speech and I lit a cigarette. 
 
 He fidgeted about and lit one also. "You would not 
 have said that this afternoon." Informatively he con 
 tinued: "Aphrodite never existed " 
 
 "Good Lord ! I thought it was Helen you were talk 
 ing of." 
 
 "But she exists today." 
 
 "Well, I am sure Swinburne would be glad to know 
 it. What is her present style and title?" 
 
 Negligently he strewed the ashes. "Miss Chilton." 
 
 "Oh!" I said longly, for even in my Harlem fast 
 ness the rumour of her beauty had reached me. "How 
 did you swim into her galley?" 
 
 "Brevoort brought her to see some etchings." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Very well-bred of her. See here! The original 
 Chilton was a patroon, was he not? Or no, he could 
 not have been. A lord of the manor, that's it. There 
 is a Chilton Manor somewhere up the Hudson. Didn't 
 she say anything?" 
 
12 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "It was her mother who did the talking. I asked 
 them to dinner tomorrow. You have got to come." 
 
 Well, why not? I thought, for the turpitude on 
 which I had been engaged was done and I said: "Send 
 a car for me." 
 
 To my knowledge he had six cars, which is only rea 
 sonable, and he may have had more, which is not. 
 None the less he rebuked me. 
 
 "You act like a prima donna." 
 
 But he sent the car and I went. 
 
 The drawing-room, huge, high-ceiled, frescoed, fit 
 ted in yellow and black, was unusually bare, to the foot 
 that is, and I wondered at it. At one end, fronting 
 windows that gave on upper Fifth Avenue, were two 
 rows of chairs. At them also I wondered. 
 
 "A camp-meeting?" I said to Mrs. Trefusis, born 
 a Bradish, who was there with her daughter. The lat 
 ter, a prim debutante who could throw a cartwheel 
 without displaying much of her subsurface garments. 
 
 Additionally were Brevoort, a gay sort of ass; his 
 sister, Hilaria Vaux, who was gayer ; other topnotchers, 
 and Cally, a physician, whom we called Cagliostro a 
 pleasantry which secretely he liked and openly resented. 
 The best of us have our weaknesses. But as yet not the 
 Chiltons. 
 
 Finally they came. 
 
 Bradish introduced me. "This is Chandos Poole." 
 
 Mrs. Chilton gave me her hand. A tall woman, 
 admirably sent out, she had an easy way, which I fan 
 cied could be very repellent, and eyes flat as a snake's. 
 Those eyes darted. 
 
 "I knew your mother." She turned to her daughter. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 13 
 
 "Darling, you have heard me speak of dear Mrs. 
 Poole?" 
 
 Probably the girl never had, though what she re 
 plied and whether she replied, I have forgotten. I was 
 thinking of the ships crowded at Aulis, one of which 
 instantly floated me to Paphos where I stood before 
 Aphrodite when young and a girl. 
 
 Nelly Chilton had the low Greek brow, the ineffable 
 Greek nose, lips lifted at the corners by the upturned 
 comma of the Athenian mouth, buttercup hair, an 
 apple-blossom skin and cornflower eyes. She seemed 
 to have gems about her, not that she needed them or 
 had them, but their glow was there and, with it, a 
 charm that was overwhelming. Many a man would 
 have paid through the nose to be allowed just to stand 
 and look at her. 
 
 Aristotle, asked what beauty is, dodged it and said, 
 "A question for the blind." I am not blind and I 
 knew that I stood before it. It is a rare sensation. 
 Only once had I experienced it quite so amply and that 
 was when considering through fieldglasses a land 
 scape of lilies and tigers. 
 
 But at once we went on and in to what I thought a 
 very ordinary dinner, a sort of pot-au-feu with wings 
 to it. The wings were ortolans, though where and how 
 the caitiff of a chef had obtained them, I afterward 
 forgot to ask. 
 
 The room, a sort of baronial hall, extended up 
 through two storeys. Midway, it was circled by a gal 
 lery from which other rooms abutted and from which 
 arrased tapestries hung. 
 
 I never cared for it, but I preferred it to the dinner 
 which, in addition to being ordinary, was dull. If it had 
 
i 4 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 not been for Cally, it would have been deadly. Occa 
 sionally, Brevoort flared a little and then like a damp 
 pinwheel went out. On one side I had the Trefusis 
 girl. 
 
 Primly she remarked: "Must be jolly to write and 
 do what you like to the heroines. Don't you find it 
 nice and easy?" 
 
 I threw one of my own cartwheels. "Well, hardly. 
 This morning I wrote a line. This afternoon I 
 scratched it out. I am quite exhausted." 
 
 Up a bit, on the opposite side, was Miss Chilton. 
 I saw her laughing at something Cally had said. Any 
 emotion is unbecoming. True beauty is austere. Yet 
 her laughter heightened hers. It did not deform, it 
 humanised. It lifted her from mythology and set her 
 down before you an unspoiled, unaffected girl. 
 
 From her I looked at her mother who was talking 
 to Bradish, no, at him. After the manner of a woman 
 of her monde and her years, she was considerably made 
 up. Behind the paint and the slight contractions at her 
 eyes and mouth, I could see her also, a soul disillu 
 sioned, hungry, fatigued, indomitable a soul common 
 enough, the soul of a woman at odds with fate and 
 determined to outwit it. 
 
 Voicelessly I said to my neighbour, "Is Mrs. Chilton 
 a widow?" 
 
 "He took his hat and umbrella and no one has seen 
 him since." 
 
 Sensible man, I reflected. 
 
 At the moment, from across the table, Brevoort 
 called at Miss Chilton. 
 
 "If you were not yourself, who would you dislike 
 to be?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 15 
 
 "But that is just it," she answered. "We aren't 
 any of us ourselves. We are all of us masked and it is 
 that I dislike. I don't want a disguise, I want to be 
 Me." 
 
 She spoke with little pauses in a husky Mayfair 
 voice that was singularly fetching. At the time that 
 was all I noticed, except that Bradish, who had been 
 literally hanging on her words, looked as though he 
 could jump straight down the throat from which they 
 came. 
 
 That is all I noticed. But there is a Russian saying 
 to the effect that life is a dark room in which we are 
 shut in with an enemy the eternal enemy that we have 
 within us and from whom we have to fight free. 
 Afterward I recalled that saying and wondered whether 
 she knew it and had been translating it for us. Yet 
 how dark that dark room of hers was to become she 
 could not have known. None of us knew. But even 
 then its shadows were groping for her. At the glit 
 tering table, in the great lighted hall, more particularly 
 perhaps in the brilliance of her incredible beauty, no 
 one could see them. Yet, stealthy, ominous, relentless, 
 they were reaching for her, reaching, too, for Bradish, 
 stretching out to cover them both, to shroud them, to 
 hide them away. 
 
 Then, at once, everybody was getting up. 
 
 Now, though, in the drawing-room, the chairs that 
 fronted the windows were occupied by people, very 
 sumptuous all of them, and all convulsed by some pri 
 vate joke. 
 
 For all I knew they might have been the pick of the 
 social basket. Yet, suddenly, pushing back the chairs, 
 there they were clapping and singing, kicking up before 
 
16 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and behind, while one of them, a ravishing little animal, 
 tiptoed out on the bare floor and danced. 
 
 The singing sank. At the piano was a fat lady. 
 Still the girl danced, not acrobatically as I believe the 
 fashion was then, but with what I imagined might be 
 the fabled art of Taglioni. Presently, with a back 
 ward gesture at her spangled skirt, she stopped and 
 bowed. On her forehead, one drop of perspiration 
 glistened. 
 
 I did not see her again for a little and meanwhile 
 a man, with a lot of hair and an affable manner, asked 
 me for my hat, hoped I had not been careless enough 
 to lose it, borrowed Brevoort's handkerchief, a square 
 of folded linen, from which he shook out a shower of 
 orchids that drenched Miss Chilton. 
 
 Then, at once, the other sumptuous people treated 
 us to a farce, of which the fun was so good and so quick 
 that some of us roared and Miss Chilton laughed. 
 
 I could see her at it and I thought she should never 
 do anything else, except smile. For a while there 
 after smile she did, no doubt, and often I dare say, 
 if only for the mere civility of it, but when that little 
 while had passed I never saw her smile again. 
 
 Presently there was a frisk and afterward there was 
 supper. During the frisk, I delighted myself, and I 
 hope the fat lady, by two-stepping with her. Bradish 
 orang-outangoed with the little ballerina. But, good 
 chap that he was, he put me beside her at supper, a 
 real old-fashioned orgy, at which we all drank too 
 much, except the Chiltons and the Trefusis, who long 
 since had gone, the prim debutante showing off to the 
 delighted Rialtians a tiptop cartwheel as she went. 
 
 How young we were then! How young and how 
 mad! 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 17 
 
 II 
 
 BEFORE me, the next evening, were the galleys of 
 my latest crime. However iniquitous the copy, the 
 proofs were worse. They were larded with microscopic 
 felonies which required the eyes of a bug and the pa 
 tience of a philosopher to detect, yes, and with the cer 
 tainty of defeat in the end yet I was attempting to 
 correct them. 
 
 All at once the ink shook all over it. An earthquake 
 had jarred my elbow. There was Bradish again. 
 
 When I opened, there was Cally also. 
 
 With my usual courtesy I greeted them. "Entrez, 
 canailles/ 9 
 
 In mitigation, Bradish gestured. "He picked me 
 up in the street." 
 
 "Misfortunes never come singly," I resignedly re 
 plied. "They come single file and ask for a drink." 
 
 "For two of 'em," said Cally. "I have been dining 
 at Duncan's. After dinner he danced a pas seul." 
 
 "For you?" 
 
 We were then in the workshop where I got out spir 
 its which I knew water would dampen. 
 
 Cally helped himself abundantly. 
 
 "Some time since, Duncan called me in. He could 
 not walk. He could shuffle a bit and even that hurt. 
 Why, he did not know. No one knew. He had had the 
 indicated tests which indicated nothing. He told me 
 all about it, told it endlessly. I said: 'Do as I tell 
 you and in six months you will dance.' Tonight, the 
 six months were up. He danced. He danced on the 
 dinner-table and broke it down. Pass the bottle." 
 
 "What did you prescribe, Cagliostro?" 
 
1 8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "The dentist. I told him to have his teeth out, 
 every one of them." 
 
 "And then robbed him!" I enviously exclaimed. 
 "Lord! If instead of a hackman I were only a physi 
 cian! It is true I have bankrupted a lot of people and 
 I hope to bankrupt more. But I do it in cold ink. You 
 do it in cold blood." 
 
 Cally nodded. "You are having a good time, aren't 
 you?" Philosophically he added, "Well, we all had 
 one last night." 
 
 He turned to Bradish. "In spite of the charm of 
 one of your guests, I have held, and still hold, that 
 beauty is a survival." 
 
 Blandly he turned to me. "Where is your tele 
 phone?" 
 
 "Down stairs, around the corner, two streets up, 
 across the way, at the undertaker's." 
 
 Bradish lit another cigarette. "Did you ever hear 
 of such a chap?" 
 
 "Genius is always eccentric," Cally quite as blandly 
 replied. 
 
 He was bland. With a pointed beard, eyebrows that 
 were a bit upturned and a beak of a nose, he had all the 
 blandness of Mephistopheles. 
 
 At that beard he plucked. Then putting on his hat, 
 out he went. 
 
 The door had not closed before Bradish was at me. 
 
 "The Chiltons are coming to supper. They are at 
 the opera now with Mrs. Amsterdam. I told them to 
 fetch her and that I would fetch you. You will like 
 Mrs. Amsterdam. Or rather she will like you. She is 
 very keen on good-looking young bloods." 
 
 "Go to the devil I" I retorted. "Good Lord! Mrs. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 19 
 
 Amsterdam! I remember her when I was a little 
 shaver. Why, I have sat in her lap." 
 
 "Have you? Well, don't remind her of that if she 
 sits in yours. Now run along and dress." 
 
 I put the proofsheets before him. "While I am 
 at it, here is some rot for you." 
 
 Bradish laughed. "You're the most hospitable chap 
 I ever knew." 
 
 When I returned, he was looking at something else, 
 at a mental vision of Nelly Chilton, I think, for as I 
 entered he gave a sort of start. 
 
 It is years since then, but often I have thought how 
 differently it might have fared with him and how dif 
 ferently it would have fared with her, could his 
 vision have been clairvoyant. Yet, in that, I am 
 probably in error. Probably, whatever the future holds 
 for us is pre-written in our progression. None the less, 
 I cannot but feel that all would have been changed, 
 his life and her life, if for but a moment's space he 
 could have beheld the halls that were waiting for him 
 then. Hung with enigmas, tapestried with tears, Bil 
 Sayers called them the Halls of Eblis, which, I believe, 
 is Arabic for hell. If he could have seen them, and 
 the "if" is enormous, he might have outwitted fate. 
 
 "Comeonski," I said, an invitation which we had 
 acquired in Moscow. 
 
 He got at his watch. Thin as a wafer, it was always 
 wrong. 
 
 "Yes, let's hurry. I hope Cally has not taken the 
 
 car." 
 
 There were cabs in Harlem then, except when you 
 wanted one and below, in the street, the spectacle of 
 Mike hugging himself to keep warm, was comforting. 
 
20 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Home," Bradish told him, "and never mind the 
 speed law." 
 
 Whether or not Mike minded the law is perhaps 
 unimportant, but just as we were approaching that 
 home a fire-engine burst on the avenue like a typhoon. 
 Incidentally a taxi was dodging it and against that taxi 
 another car banged. 
 
 Already Mike had hopped off. Adjacently great 
 doors had opened. Two servants, one with the face of 
 a wooden mask and the other with the tread of a cat, 
 hurried down. From the first taxi two women alighted ; 
 from the second a man. The typhoon had flown afar, 
 chased by another. 
 
 . But now we were all on the sidewalk, Bradish and I, 
 Mike, the servants, the women, the man and two 
 highly abusive mechanicians. How they pacified them 
 selves is not a part of this document. The women, 
 furred to the eyes, were unrecognisable; to me, that 
 is, but not to Bradish, nor yet to the other man whose 
 face appeared to be cut. 
 
 Bradish, meanwhile, was doing the honours of the 
 pavement to the women, whom also the injured man 
 addressed, and I saw one of them give him her hand, 
 while the other affected to be unaware that he was 
 about. 
 
 Bradish called at the wooden mask. "Peters, show 
 the ladies in." He called at the catman. "Gedney, 
 see to their wraps." He turned to the wounded. "You 
 must not bleed to death. Come in with me and we will 
 apply first aid. My name is Bradish. I see you know 
 my guests." 
 
 "They are relatives of mine," lightly the wounded 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 21 
 
 man answered. u My name is Austen. But I have 
 only a scratch. Just as many thanks to you though." 
 
 As he spoke, he held his hat on with one hand and 
 with the other patted his face. 
 
 Without lingering to hear more, I went on and up 
 the steps, beyond which events were lurking, as they 
 do lurk, until they are ready for us, though without 
 waiting until we are ready for them, which only the 
 sage ever is. Yet, as I look back now, I can see that 
 even then they were gathering, prepared to pounce. 
 
 In the yellow and black room I found the Chiltons, 
 found too that I was in no immediate danger. Mrs. 
 Amsterdam was not there. 
 
 "Is he coming in?" Miss Chilton asked. 
 
 Without knowing to whom she referred, I told her 
 of course he was. 
 
 "It is strange," the beauty continued. "I am fated 
 to be in an accident. It is in my horoscope. But it 
 is very wrong to believe in that. The Church forbids 
 it. It is among the secret things and secret things, 
 the Bible teaches, belong only to the Lord." 
 
 In speaking, she crossed herself. 
 
 I was profoundly astonished but I hope I did not 
 show it. 
 
 "None the less," she continued, "when I saw that 
 great mad thing rushing at us, I " 
 
 "The typhoon you mean?" I put in. 
 
 "Typhoon! What typhoon?" Mrs Chilton surpris- 
 edly called at me. 
 
 But Bradish was effecting his entrance, and she 
 turned to him. 
 
 "Sorry about Laura Amsterdam. She threw us 
 
 over." 
 
22 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "The point is," Bradish with some gallantry replied, 
 "that you are here and shortly your relative will be." 
 
 "Relative!" Mrs. Chilton, in the same surprised 
 manner, exclaimed. "What relative?" 
 
 Bradish motioned. "A Mr. Austen who is slowly 
 recovering from a wound that might have been mortal." 
 
 Mrs. Chilton motioned also. The gesture, though 
 slight, contrived to be emphatic. It reduced any re 
 lationship to nothingness. 
 
 "Nonsense! Some of our people were related ages 
 ago. If it comes to that, everybody is related to every 
 body." 
 
 Now though, in the wide doorway, he too appeared. 
 The spaciousness framed him, disclosing the portrait of 
 a man young, tall, virile, abominably good-looking, 
 with an air curiously and attractively insolent. From 
 his face the blood had gone. A strip of court-plaster 
 replaced it. 
 
 "Aunt Mary," he leisurely remarked at Mrs. Chil 
 ton. "If that brute of a taximan of mine jarred you 
 ever so little, you know I regret it." 
 
 What a crammer, I thought. For it was not regret 
 that his face expressed, it was impudence. It was as 
 though he were telling her: "See here now, I am, and 
 shall be, one too many for you." 
 
 But as I am not writing fiction I may admit that 
 that interpretation came to me not then but later when 
 I thought it over. Yet though I still think the inter 
 pretation correct, I know he was wrong. He was not 
 one too many for her. She was one too many for him. 
 Yes, and fate was too many for both. 
 
 Meanwhile we had all gone in to supper. Bradish 
 had Mrs. Chilton at his right, and, at his left, the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 23 
 
 beauty, next to whom Austen succeeded in seating him 
 self. 
 
 I sat next to Mrs. Chilton who thoughtfully and 
 generally remarked: 
 
 "It is too bad about Laura Amsterdam. She would 
 have made the table even." 
 
 But she meant that it was too bad about Austen. 
 Without him the table would have been evener. 
 
 I took that in with some pheasant that had been 
 cooked, with oranges and almonds, in madeira and tea, 
 and though that of course is the only way that a pheas 
 ant could be cooked, yet I felt that the caitiff below 
 stairs was improving. 
 
 While I was savouring it, I glanced over at the 
 beauty who was talking to Austen. At the moment she 
 again suggested Aphrodite and I marvelled at this 
 paradox in flesh and blood who looked like a pagan 
 goddess and talked like a mediaeval saint. Yet though 
 the mythological quality persisted, it seemed subli 
 mated then by something else, by just what I could 
 not immediately determine, but in a moment I did. In 
 her eyes there was a glow, in her voice a caress and it 
 seemed to me that the beauty was in love, profoundly 
 in love I imagined, and I wondered with whom. 
 
 When, finally, I nailed the lucky devil, it was without 
 any applause for my own acumen. 
 
 u You do nothing but eat/' Bradish threw at me. 
 
 "Yes," I threw back. "But I think when I eat and 
 just now I was thinking of an ideal repast which we 
 once enjoyed and which was composed of chrysanthe 
 mum soup and the maxims of Confucius." 
 
 "And dolphin, too," Bradish put in. "Don't forget 
 the dolphin!" 
 
24 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "I never heard of such a thing." Mrs. Chilton re 
 suming her surprised manner, exclaimed. "A dol 
 phin! How was it cooked?" 
 
 "With various sauces and condiments," I told her. 
 "You know the adage Sweet are the juices of diver 
 sity?" 
 
 "No," she determinedly replied. "I do not know the 
 adage and now that I have heard it, I dislike it ex 
 tremely." 
 
 "Yes," said Bradish. "It is very painful." 
 
 But I did not propose to be snubbed and I took it up 
 again. 
 
 "Everything that has to do with eating is painful. 
 Eating takes away your appetite. I have always loved 
 the bishop who said : 'God bless our home and damn our 
 cook/ " 
 
 "But not Mr. Bradish's cook," Mrs. Chilton, with 
 the same determination, retorted. "Last night the 
 dinner was perfect and tonight the supper is plus que 
 parfait Darling!" 
 
 She looked at her daughter and turned to Bradish. 
 "We must be going." 
 
 She added something which I did not hear. Then 
 she repeated it. "Darling!" 
 
 Presently, when they were again furred to the eyes, 
 and we were putting them in Bradish's car, I could 
 not see Mrs. Chilton's face, though I would have 
 given a dollar for the privilege. Unrebuffably Austen 
 got in with them. 
 
 It was some time before I saw him again or the Chil- 
 tons either. When I did see them, a door was closing 
 and beyond was a sphinx. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 25 
 
 III 
 
 IT must have been after two when, again in Harlem, 
 I went up the interminable stairs. On the way I was 
 thinking of that girl and her undreamed-of beauty. 
 As I began at the fifth, I saw what I took to be an old 
 woman huddled on the landing opposite my door. But, 
 as I advanced, she stood up. I saw then she was not 
 old but young and, immediately, as I approached her, 
 I could not help it, I started and nearly slipped. Then 
 I raised my hat. It was Nelly Chilton ! 
 
 Why was she there? How had she come? What 
 did she want? And where had she got a hat and where 
 had she changed her furs? Where, for that matter, 
 had she changed her expression? At supper it had 
 been alluring. Now it was reserved. 
 
 My bewilderment must have been very manifest. 
 In any event, at once she spoke. With an intonation, 
 slightly foreign, she said something. 
 
 I heard, but I did not hear understandingly. That 
 also she must have seen. She spoke again. 
 
 u Couldyou, without inconvenience, loan me a chair?" 
 
 I did get that and inanely I parroted it. 
 
 "A chair?" 
 
 She indicated an adjoining door. "I have lost my 
 key. Until morning I am a vagrant." 
 
 And an exotic, I thought, for already I had recog 
 nised my mistake. 
 
 "You are quite right." 
 
 That is what she said and I started again. 
 
 "About what?" But, rallying, I resumed; "I have 
 five chairs, I have even six, but the sixth is broken. 
 You shall have whatever displeases you least." 
 
26 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 I opened my door, switched the light in the hall and 
 turned to her. 
 
 She entered and followed me into the workshop 
 where I again switched a light. 
 
 As I looked at her then, she sniffed, much as a ter 
 rier will, and catalogued me. 
 
 "You are a literary man." 
 
 "No, I write for the magazines. There is nothing 
 less literary than that. Will you try this chair?" 
 
 As I spoke, I looked again. In feature, in colouring, 
 her resemblance to Nelly Chilton was curious. There 
 it stopped. Similarly dressed and seen across a room, 
 one could not have told them apart. A nearer view 
 differentiated. Nelly Chilton looked like a goddess and 
 talked like a saint. This young woman looked like a 
 princess and, as I presently discovered, talked like a 
 sibyl. The other girl's beauty was pagan. This girl's 
 was noble. Otherwise, except in height and figure, not 
 a pin to choose between them. 
 
 "We are not the same, are we? In the hall I saw 
 you mistook me for her." 
 
 In private life, it was a bit weird. 
 
 Immediately she added: "Miss Chilton and I move 
 in different spheres, but recently I came in contact with 
 her. We both noticed the resemblance. It seemed 
 to amuse her." 
 
 "Well, I'll be shot!" I exclaimed. "Certainly you 
 are very gifted." 
 
 "Unfortunately gifted," she corrected. "Telepathy 
 has its disadvantages." 
 
 "And its compensations." 
 
 "Occasionally, as in the present instance. I know 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 27 
 
 I can say that, for I know also you will not misconstrue 
 it." 
 
 In speaking, she removed a glove. There are hands 
 that are spiritual, hands that are coarse. There are 
 philistine hands and hands that are artistic. I saw 
 her fingers, long, tapering, and I chanced it. 
 
 "You are an artist." 
 
 "My hand is tell-tale, is it not? Yet the tales it tells 
 are not quite true. For the moment, I am associated 
 with a firm of interior decorators. It was there I saw 
 Miss Chilton. But I am intruding. Perhaps you will 
 help me with a chair." 
 
 As she moved toward one, I saw that she was simply 
 and admirably dressed, dressed with an originality that 
 is nowhere on sale. 
 
 "The landing is a bit bleak," I told her. "Why 
 not make a morning of it?" 
 
 Momentarily she seemed to consider it. Then, like 
 a good fellow, she removed her wrap and sat down. 
 
 I gave her my name and she gave me hers. It was 
 Bolton, Aly Bolton. 
 
 At the combination I exclaimed and she said her 
 father was English and her mother Russian. Both 
 were dead. In outline she sketched her life. It was a 
 very cobwebby outline. In exchange I gave her odds 
 and ends from my own career. After which we got 
 back at the beginning. She spoke again of Miss Chil 
 ton and I asked what she thought of her. 
 
 "Only the obvious things. She is a little obvious, 
 is she not? But " 
 
 She had hesitated and it trailed away. 
 
 I prodded her. "But what?" 
 
 Then it appeared she could "see," as that psychic 
 
28 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 term is used, and had "seen" since she was a child, 
 when it perplexed and annoyed her parents. She had 
 a brother who died. Afterward she played with him. 
 Once, when he was in a chair her father sat on him. 
 She screamed and hit her father and he punished her 
 for it. After that, the talent was hid in a bushel. 
 Since then it had diminished. But she could still "see," 
 at least a little. 
 
 So she explained and I asked what she saw in Miss 
 Chilton. 
 
 "In her? It would be hard to say. But, about her, 
 I saw darkness, thick darkness and a light beyond." 
 
 "How did you see that? I mean how does anything 
 of the kind come to you?" 
 
 "Very much as though I were looking through the 
 wrong end of the opera-glass." 
 
 "And how do you interpret darkness?" 
 
 "It's a symbol. It means illness, misfortune, death." 
 
 I sat back. "Yes and, with the light beyond, the 
 symbol is clear. 'Life is death in a land of darkness. 
 Death is life in a land of light.' " 
 
 "Very beautiful," she said, "and probably true. 
 Whose is it?" 
 
 "It is from the song of the singer going out from 
 Amenti." 
 
 "Amenti?" 
 
 "The Egyptian purgatory. There the disembodied 
 were judged. If they had harmed no heart, if they 
 had made no one weep, if they had not talked abun 
 dantly, if they had not been anxious, harpers took up 
 the song, they were free. From the land of darkness 
 they passed to the land of light." 
 
 From my recital of antique sins, she turned. I 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 29 
 
 could see her looking about, noting the absence of arti 
 cles of virtue. Presently she said and I thought ap 
 provingly : 
 
 "You are clockless." 
 
 "Yes, and watchless also. Brain workers should be. 
 Watches and clocks presuppose things to be done, ap 
 pointments to be kept, amusements to be endured. 
 They presuppose punctuality which is the thief of 
 time." 
 
 She was good enough to agree with me. 
 
 From time we passed to space. We talked of every 
 thing in the universe, except Einstein's theory of it, 
 which would have been premature. Altogether we 
 talked for five hours. Never but once before had I 
 talked so long to a woman and on that occasion I kept 
 saying the same thing over and over again. Ulti 
 mately the sun leered in. It leered groggily, as though 
 it had been making a night of it, and, asking her per 
 mission, I left the room, went out and around the cor 
 ner, ferreted about, unearthed a locksmith, brought 
 him back, set him to work and, with the key that he 
 made, returned to her. Her arms were on the table, 
 her head was in them, her hat on a chair. Sleep had 
 sunk her in its deep lagoons. 
 
 In the street I had become a beast of burden, lad- 
 ened with crescents, unsalted butter, fruit, cream. 
 These I took to the kitchenette horrible word! 
 where I made coffee. While the pot was boiling I 
 arranged a tray. To embellish the tray, I took from 
 the back corner of the cupboard's top shelf a Sevres 
 cup that had come down to me wrapped in tissue paper. 
 Other things that had come with it had gone with the 
 diverted bonds. 
 
30 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 On that early morning, with the tray and in evening 
 clothes, I must have looked like a waiter when, rising 
 from those lagoons, she looked up. 
 
 The experience of awaking in the rooms of a stran 
 ger must, I thought, be a novelty to her and I wondered 
 how she would act. Whatever she did would be so 
 much copy. 
 
 But there she routed me. I had put that cup before 
 her. She took it, held it, her head went back. She 
 seemed to be considering the ceiling. But presently, 
 
 U A large room. A man with a white beard. A 
 little boy in blue. The old man is drinking from a cup. 
 The little boy is showing him a wooden horse painted 
 yellow " 
 
 From the ceiling, her eyes turned to me. 
 
 "This is the cup. Who are the people?" 
 
 Dumbfounded, I stared. What else could I do? 
 For, as I told her, the old man was my grandfather 
 and I the little boy. But this intimate demonstration 
 of psychometry, which is the rarest and most curious 
 of gifts, one that enables the gifted to tell from an 
 object where the object has been and what occurred 
 there, this miracle astounded me and I told her that 
 also. 
 
 She took it lightly, with a light smile. Then, at 
 once, she presiding, we fell to. The promenade around 
 the corner and back had converted me into a hyena. I 
 ate enormously, growling a little, as I suppose hyenas 
 do, yet only at my own forgetfulness. I had omitted 
 to fetch flowers. But then, praise God, it was not every 
 day that I breakfasted with a beautiful sibyl. It would 
 have been too disturbing. 
 
 "You live alone?' 5 I asked. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 31 
 
 A few hours before I had thought her face noble 
 and reserved. Over the coffee-pot it projected an in 
 terior radiance, a glow clear and defined as mother- 
 of-pearl. 
 
 "No, not alone," she answered. "I have a friend, 
 Signor Matouchi." 
 
 Some opera-singer, I thought. 
 
 "He has the most ferocious whiskers you ever saw," 
 she added, "and he will be sure to bite me if I do not 
 hurry." 
 
 "Oh!" I said, inanely relieved, for what business 
 was it of mine? "Well, give him my love and perhaps 
 you will let me add a saucer of cream." 
 
 She thanked me, gathered her hat and cloak, took 
 the key, thanked me again. 
 
 I saw her to the door, where I gave her the cream 
 and where I heard Signor Matouchi meow. After 
 which, I went to bed, slept prodigiously and woke from 
 dreams of a mime. 
 
 For days he had haunted me. I had wanted, if pos 
 sible, to produce something less ordinary than ordinary 
 fiction and I had thought of doing a pantomime and of 
 calling it The Chatterbox, though, as I look back now, 
 I think the title came first and the idea of a pantomime 
 came later. What better title, I youthfully reflected, 
 could a dumbshow have? 
 
 The galleys of my last iniquity out of the way, I got 
 at it. Except to the amateur, the getting at anything 
 of the kind is a form of labour hard as a bricklayer's, 
 much more engrossing and far less useful. It held me 
 with invisible threads that were firmer than rope. 
 They bound and gagged me, rendering me, as the 
 
32 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 opiates of creative dreams do render one, unfit for 
 human companionship. 
 
 I did not forget the sibyl. Twice, in the hazards 
 of hall and stairway, I saw and saluted her, but though 
 indulgently she asked me, I did not return her visit. 
 I did not forget Bradish, but I had other fish to fry. 
 There were earthquakes. Hermetically I ignored 
 them. Que diable! When I am not at home, I am 
 out. Only a volcano could have erupted me. 
 
 Meanwhile, I dressed The Chatterbox. March 
 went, April came. There were skies of silk, all the 
 surprises and surrenders of spring, before I got up 
 from it. 
 
 IV 
 
 THAT day, with a dozen violets in the lapel of a coat 
 that still said Savile Row, I went junketing, not on 
 Fifth Avenue, where the ornate used to stroll and 
 where they stroll no longer, but to the east of upper 
 Madison, wondering whether I might not happen on 
 some flat less leprous than the walkup. Yet, as I look 
 back now, I am sure the junket lacked conviction. Mov 
 ing, the French say, is a little death. But in that sense 
 all New Yorkers have their minor deceases and it was 
 in trying to incline my heart that I wandered through 
 thick streets, thin streets, streets of gloating windows, 
 streets of obvious disquiet, streets of unaccountable 
 beings, until finally, entering one that seemed pregnant 
 with obscure calamities, I happened on a house that 
 had a Leah-like air of desertion. 
 
 On it, a sign informed me that an apartment with 
 all conveniences was to let and I was conjecturing these 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 33 
 
 conveniences when, from the entrance, Austen ap 
 peared. 
 
 Instantly he amazed me. 
 
 "I was just thinking of you." 
 
 I stood and looked at him. Soberly and admirably 
 dressed, he was the portrait of Aramis in modern 
 clothes. 
 
 a Are you busy?" he asked. 
 
 Drummers retort slid from me. " 'Ants and people 
 in trade are busy. Never ask a gentleman that.* ' 
 He took it with great good nature. 
 
 "Come in and let me offer you a sherry and bitters." 
 
 I did not want his sherry and bitters. It was the sign 
 and the conjectural conveniences that tempted me and 
 I followed him up two flights to a landing where, 
 through the open door of an empty flat, I beheld a 
 scrubwoman. 
 
 Leah, I told myself. 
 
 Adjacent was a parallel flat into which he showed 
 me and then into a room that had an air careless and 
 insolent, a room that resembled him, except that it was 
 less well-dressed. There was a sideboard, a table cov 
 ered with a drooping green cloth, the usual chairs, a 
 bookcase, a green sofa and a cupboard, wide open, in 
 which coats were hanging, fur coats, motor coats, rain 
 coats, top coats, coats for every season and, it may be, 
 of every colour. He closed the door on them, rang, 
 and at once, as though sprung from a trap, a civil-faced 
 gnome appeared. 
 
 "Shall it be a cocktail? Or would you prefer " 
 
 "A drop of Polly, if you have it," I told him. 
 
 "A bottle of Apollinaris," he said to the gnome who 
 seemed to produce it at once. 
 
34 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Look here, Poole," he continued as the servant dis 
 appeared, "I have been wanting to call on you but I 
 could not discover where you live. You are a member 
 of the Buck, aren't you? I stopped in there yester 
 day, and asked the doorkeeper. Of course, he would 
 not tell me, but I thought, in asking, that I might find 
 you there." 
 
 "The flat next door is to let, is it not?" I appro 
 priately enquired. 
 
 "Yes, or rather no. It was to let but a man I know 
 has taken it. Have a cigarette?" 
 
 We were seated at the table, across which he shoved 
 a case. I helped myself and he got back at me. 
 
 "What I wanted to see you about is Bradish." 
 
 "Hello!" I exclaimed. "How is he? I have not 
 seen him in a hundred years. What's wrong with him." 
 
 "He is too confoundedly rich." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "it is disgusting." 
 
 "He ought not to be roaming around loose. I want 
 him to keep off the grass." 
 
 What grass he meant, I did not know, but the ef 
 frontery of it was beautiful and I said as much. 
 
 "Then why don't you tell him so?" 
 
 "There you are ! If I did, he would be in a position 
 to tell me to go to the devil and I would have to swallow 
 it. You know Mrs. Chilton?" 
 
 I drank the Polly. ^Well enough to bow if she 
 bowed first." 
 
 "Here it is then. She wants to make a match be 
 tween him and her daughter and " 
 
 "I don't see that that is any business of ours." 
 
 "It is my business at any rate and as a friend of 
 his I think it is yours." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 35 
 
 "Well," I said, "perhaps it is your business. You are 
 a relative, aren't you?" 
 
 "A good lot more than that. I have known Miss 
 Chilton ever since she was a little girl. I am about 
 the only man she can turn to and " 
 
 He looked away. 
 
 Everybody likes to be confidential, if they can be so 
 to someone who will accompany them on the harp. 
 But for the harp there must be intimacy. Between 
 Austen and myself there was none and I understood 
 why he looked away. 
 
 "But," he at once resumed, "that is neither here 
 nor there. The point is that Miss Chilton is interested 
 in someone else and it seemed to me that if you would 
 say a word " 
 
 "Good Lord 1" I interrupted. "You speak as though 
 he were persecuting her. That is not Bradish." 
 
 "No. Certainly not. It is her mother. She is doing 
 what she can to force her to take him and it is for that 
 reason I thought you might " 
 
 "Never in the world. It would not help in the least. 
 On the contrary " 
 
 "But see here " 
 
 "You don't know Bradish. Any interference makes 
 him mulish and I don't blame him. I can be mulish 
 myself. If I had his money I would be a wilderness of 
 mules. Great Scott! What is the use of being rich as 
 all outdoors if you can't tell anybody and everybody 
 to go to the devil." 
 
 "Precisely, and that is just what I want him to say 
 to Mrs. Chilton. If he doesn't, look here, Poole, if 
 he doesn't, he is going to regret it." 
 
 I laughed. "Is that a threat?" 
 
36 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "You misunderstand me. He is not the man for 
 Miss Chilton. I don't mean because of his unfortu 
 nate appearance. If he were Phoebus Apollo it would 
 be quite the same. He does not appeal to her, not in 
 the least. But her mother is so jockeying her that she 
 may run her into it. In that case what sort of an 
 existence can he expect to lead." 
 
 u He hasn't told me." 
 
 "Isn't it obvious though? I may be in error, but 
 I'll wager he is as material as they make 'em." 
 
 "So am I." 
 
 Gracefully he yielded it. "I fear I am also." 
 
 "Well then?" 
 
 "But Miss Chilton is just the opposite. Miss Chil 
 ton is as spiritual as he is the reverse." 
 
 For a cited beauty, a beauty of her type and headi- 
 ness that, ordinarily, would have been a bit thick. Yet, 
 I knew it to be true. In her face were raptures. There 
 were lilies in her thoughts. But that did not help 
 matters. Even otherwise the matter did not concern 
 me and I got up to go. 
 
 He, too, got up. 
 
 "Put in a word, Poole. You will be doing him a 
 good turn." 
 
 You mean I will be doing you one, I thought, for I 
 saw through it then. 
 
 But he laughed or affected to laugh and added: 
 
 "I don't pretend to know Bradish, but I do know 
 Mrs. Chilton and that is enough." 
 
 He said it as he went with me to the door, where 
 he thanked me and saw me out. 
 
 On the landing Leah stood, a pail in one hand, a 
 mop in the other. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 37 
 
 As I went down the stair, I little dreamed in what 
 curious and tragic circumstances I was to recall having 
 seen her there. What occupied me was my lucky 
 squeak. By not more than a hair I had missed having 
 Austen for a neighbour. He would have been way 
 laying and buttonholing me till I died. 
 
 Yet, as I afterward recognised, it was fateful for 
 him, and not only for him but for all concerned, that 
 he had buttonholed me at all. 
 
 I made straight for Bradish's house. 
 
 SINCE then, in looking back, there have been mo 
 ments when it seemed to me that that moment was 
 pivotal, that of all that afterward happened I was then 
 the direct agent. There have been other moments when 
 it seemed to me that it must all have happened anyway. 
 The latter view is the more reasonable, the former 
 more ambitious. As yet, I have made no choice. 
 
 Even when the servant told me that Bradish was 
 not at home, even then, if I had gone away, the course 
 of events must have swerved, though it is probable 
 that sooner or later they would have reassembled in 
 their designed combination. The old idea of the spi- 
 derous fates that sit and spin is picturesque, as any 
 allegory should be. But behind the curtain, forces 
 which we ourselves have created, play on us and on our 
 lives. The fates that sit and spin are our own fingers. 
 The spell they cast is destiny self-made. 
 
 These views, certainly superficial, came to me long 
 later. At the moment I had turned to go. Before me 
 on the pavement a man passed and nodded. That 
 
38 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 was the pivotal moment. The trivial incident arrested 
 me and telling the servant I would wait I went on and 
 in to the library. 
 
 Former Bradishes had been intensely respectable 
 and equally dull. They were what, I believe, was called 
 strict Presbyterians. Upstairs, in the rooms that ex 
 tended from the gallery, some of their remains were 
 covered with horsehair. In this room other remains 
 survived a severe carpet, a calvanistic table, stern 
 bookshelves, straitlaced chairs. In a corner was the 
 ugliest piece of statuary I ever saw. On the table was 
 the biggest and ugliest inkpot ever made. 
 
 From a wall, Bradish's father looked down, very 
 much, I suppose, as he had looked at these things when 
 they all lived with him in Washington Square. More 
 over, in an adjoining room, that gave on the street, were 
 other felicities. The adjoining room, through which 
 one had to pass to reach the library, was the real cham 
 ber of horrors. There Bradish received tiresome 
 people, lawyers, agents and the like. Why, with all his 
 wealth, he received them at all; why he stuck to the 
 damning evidence of ancestral taste, these were mys 
 teries from which I shrank. 
 
 But it was not all horror. On this day in that library 
 I found an old friend who always had something 
 new to say, in which he differed vastly from other peo 
 ple of my acquaintance. His name is Hugo's Shakes 
 peare. The pages turn to the sound of trumpets, to 
 the long parade of genius. The book is just what a 
 book should be, perfectly impossible and equally exalt 
 ing. 
 
 A moment and the pageantry took me. I was floating 
 from height to height, from prophet to seer, hovering, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 39 
 
 a lost soul, before thrones in the ideal, passing from 
 Isaiah and ^Eschylus, up through the ages to Hugo 
 himself. Then abruptly, a titan reached and hurled 
 me. Shot through space I was on earth again, in a 
 highly uncomfortable chair, facing the insults that fell. 
 
 "What a beast you are I" 
 
 I shied the book. Bradish caught it and sat down 
 before me. 
 
 With the disposition of a sundial over which clouds 
 will pass the spider, at that moment, made him, as in 
 moments of excitement it often did make him, unaf 
 fectedly hideous. Familiarity breeds many things. 
 Usually I did not notice. I could not help noticing it 
 then. It seemed about to spring. 
 
 He motioned. "I have gone to you. I have sent. 
 The janitor said you were dead. What sort of a chap 
 are you?" 
 
 "A mere pilgrim. What's wrong?" 
 
 "I am in hell." 
 
 "Look out," I told him, and far better than I knew. 
 "There is always a deeper one. How did you get 
 there?" 
 
 He put the Hugo on the table. 
 
 "It's Miss Chilton." 
 
 "See here," I said. "An hour ago Austen had the 
 cheek to say you must keep off the grass." 
 
 Bradish stared. "He has been at you, has he?" 
 
 "He got me in his rooms and used me as a sewer. 
 It appears that if you don't look out you'll get let in." 
 
 He started. "I will, eh ? By whom then ?" 
 
 "Her mother. He said she would jockey you into 
 
 a corner." 
 
40 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Gammon! She is in a corner herself and a pretty 
 tight one. The woman hasn't a penny." 
 
 "There's the Chilton place." 
 
 "Mortgaged. Blanketed up to the roof, even to the 
 vault there." 
 
 "Vault? What vault?" 
 
 "In colonial days every manor had its own cemetery. 
 The Chiltons have theirs." 
 
 He was becoming historical, wandering away from 
 it and, glad of it, I let him run on, but he did not run 
 far. In a moment he was back again. 
 
 "Her mother is afraid they'll bolt." 
 
 I hoped they would. I omitted to say so however. 
 Instead, I became sympathetic. 
 
 "Jim, if this were a novel of mine, I would make the 
 hero you are the hero show himself in such fine 
 colours that the lady would jump down his throat." 
 
 "Yes, you would be sure to write just such rubbish." 
 
 Pausing, he smoothed the table, which was entirely 
 unruffled. 
 
 "I have, I suppose, a dollar or two. I have also, I 
 suppose, a year or two ahead of me. I would give them 
 all, everything I can claim in this world, everything I 
 may hope for in the next, if " 
 
 He broke it off, but I followed it and I thought, 
 isn't it wonderful how the illusion of happiness which 
 the idea of union with another can create, will pack a 
 sane man's head with insanities. He thinks himself 
 wholly in love with this girl and what he loves is not 
 the girl but his idea of her. Any girl that resembled 
 her would do as well. At which, up before me, surged 
 that sibyl. Nelly Chilton and Aly Bolton were alike 
 as two roses. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 41 
 
 Meanwhile, painfully he was at it. "It's my face." 
 
 "Nonsense," I told him and I meant it. For a 
 woman must be loved, though it be by a monster, per 
 haps particularly by a monster, provided that what it 
 is conventional to call her affections are not otherwise 
 involved. 
 
 "Hasn't Austen anything?" I asked. 
 
 "Enough to pay his tailor." 
 
 There had been an hour when even that potentiality 
 had seemed chimerical to me and I might have said as 
 much but, at the moment, Peters announced that lunch 
 eon was served. 
 
 Bradish got up. "Comeonski." 
 
 I, too, got up and, preceding him, went through the 
 chamber of horrors and crossed the hall where Peters 
 was opening the front door. I passed on and had en 
 tered the drawing-room when I heard a man speaking 
 rapidly, in English, but with the unmistakable accent 
 of France. 
 
 "Mr. Bradish? I am fortunate to find you. Is this 
 yours?" 
 
 I turned. The man's back was to the light. I could 
 not see his face, but I could see Jim's. He was looking 
 at a strip of paper which the man held out to him 
 and held on to also and, in looking, his face had 
 grown vicious. Usually very civil to everyone, but 
 already out of temper and angered by the abrupt intru 
 sion, not only his expression was vicious, his voice was 
 also. 
 
 "Never saw it before or you either. Peters, put 
 him out." 
 
 "Ah, flute alors et bien merci!" 
 
 The man wheeled, he went, the door closed and I 
 
42 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 passed on through the black and yellow room and then 
 through the portieres that hung between it and the 
 pseudo-baronial hall. 
 
 Bradish was at my heels and as I seated myself 
 I put it to him. 
 
 " Who is your friend?" 
 
 Vicious still, he barked. "How do I know? He 
 had a cheque drawn to somebody or other with what 
 purported to be my signature." 
 
 "A forgery?" 
 
 He flung out his napkin. "What else? They will 
 spot it quick enough at the bank." 
 
 "What was the tune?" 
 
 "Four thousand and odd." 
 
 "But look here. Are you sure it is not some cheque 
 of yours that has been raised?" 
 
 "Even so, it would not matter." 
 
 He was wrong in that and I told him so. 
 
 He washed a clam down with chablis and exploded 
 a "Ha!" to which he added: "Ever notice the little 
 joker on a Bank of England note?" 
 
 "What little joker?" 
 
 "On the left side of the second letter of the word 
 that tells the amount, there is a microscopic white 
 speck. Unless you knew of it, never in the world would 
 you see it was there." 
 
 "What of it?" 
 
 "Before the second letter of my name on my cheques 
 I put a little pen prick. The tellers look for it first." 
 
 "Such originality is stupendous." 
 
 He put it from him. "It was my father's idea." 
 
 And what an old smarty he must have been, I 
 thought. But I said, "Well, if you slip up on this 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 43 
 
 cheque it won't hurt you. I would be ashamed myself 
 to be as rich as you are." 
 
 He shoved at his plate. "You do talk such rot." 
 
 It was sheer envy on his part. He wanted to talk 
 it himself. He wanted to trot Nelly Chilton out again. 
 If you are gone on a girl you must talk of her even if 
 you have to talk to yourself. He could not. The 
 presence of Peters and Gedney prevented. Conscious 
 of which angrily he ate and savagely he drank. 
 
 What were the courses that followed, I have for 
 gotten but finally coffee came and to my regret the 
 servants withdrew. 
 
 Then at once he was back to his muttons, endlessly, 
 da capo and all over again until, after a full hour of 
 them, Peters, to my joy, looked in. 
 
 "Mrs. Chilton, sir." 
 
 Enter the villain, I thought. 
 
 Bradish got up and half-turned. "Wait here." 
 
 The portieres received him. They had parted and 
 through the parting his voice floated back. 
 
 "This is so nice of you. Have you had luncheon?*' 
 
 "Luncheon 1" She seemed to spit it. "I am drown 
 ing." 
 
 "Do sit down." 
 
 "I tell you I am drowning and you ask me to sit." 
 
 "But " 
 
 I could almost see him floundering with her. 
 
 "I want your help," she was saying. "You have got 
 to help me." 
 
 That "got" was in italics. 
 
 "Certainly. Of course." I could hear him reply. 
 "What is it?" 
 
 Slow music, I thought. 
 
44 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "How can I tell you?" But she must have known, for 
 immediately she added, "I am in the hands of " 
 
 Her voice had lowered. I could not hear her. I 
 heard him though. 
 
 "A blackmailer!" 
 
 At her age ! I thought. 
 
 Again her voice had sunk to inaudible levels. Yet 
 presently a word swam up, a word of good omen. It 
 was Bonheur, which means happiness, I believe, though 
 hardly when it rhymes with Chanteur, for that means 
 blackmailer, in French at any rate. Then, before I 
 could put them together, a question rang frank as a 
 sword thrust. 
 
 "Why don't you marry her?" 
 
 From before it, he must have backed. 
 
 "Why don't I ? Good heavens, she " 
 
 "Take her by storm ! Go at her hammer and tongs ! 
 Carry her off her feet! God, if I were a man " 
 
 He must have got his wind. "It isn't that. I would 
 pick her up and run to the moon with her. There 
 is nothing I wouldn't do, nothing! But " 
 
 "I know," I heard her cry. "I know. 'God help 
 me,' she told me, me her mother, 'it is either Fred or 
 a convent.' A convent ! With her looks ! I shall go 
 mad." 
 
 She seemed to tear the words, they came from her 
 in tatters and I could fancy her lifting her hands, wring 
 ing them, crossing and recrossing the room, and I 
 feared Bradish would say, "Calm yourself." 
 
 But at once she was at him from another angle. 
 
 "This painted beast, what am I to do with him? 
 Only don't tell me I am a beast myself. I am a beast. 
 I know it. But what is the amount to you? Besides, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 45 
 
 I thought you would never notice, or at least that I 
 could make it good before you did. Now " 
 
 "You might better have asked me," Bradish boomed 
 in. "You could have had it and welcome. As it is 
 I'll take it up. I can't do less." 
 
 "But there you are. He says only Nelly her 
 self " 
 
 Again her voice sank and again his swam up. 
 
 "I'll beat him to jelly first." 
 
 She made some sound, a sort of rasping laugh. 
 "Much good it would do for us both to be in Sing 
 Sing so near the manor, too." 
 
 At that fine levity some plan must have occurred 
 to him. In any event he suggested one. 
 
 "Go there. Go there now, today, as fast as you can. 
 She does not know, does she?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Don't tell her then. I'll settle him somehow." 
 
 "But of course I shall tell her. She can't refuse 
 you then." 
 
 "No, no. It wouldn't be fair." 
 
 "Leave it to me," I heard her say and abruptly, for 
 the first time, I realised that I should not have heard 
 her at all. I felt as one may who has been listening at 
 a keyhole. The feeling gave me a twist in the head. 
 
 I got up and went to one of the windows from which, 
 in the garden below, I saw a fat man, all in white, a 
 white linen baretta on his head, tormenting a dove- 
 coloured peacock. Momentarily the picture distracted 
 me. But snatches from the duo kept returning. They 
 were like lines in a melodrama. In particular, one 
 stood out: "It is either Fred or a convent." 
 
 Fred, I assumed, was Austen. 
 
46 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 The fat man, who wore a third empire imperial 
 pulled at it and looked up. I moved away and, as I 
 turned, Bradish came in. 
 
 "Has she gone?" I asked. 
 
 "The Lord be praised." 
 
 "Look here, Jim. Beat me if you like. I overheard 
 a lot of it." 
 
 He sat down, helped himself to a glass of brandy and 
 looked over at me. 
 
 "That chap with the cheque was Bonheur et Cie. 
 Ever hear of him?" 
 
 "Yes, and of Chanteur et Cie, and so have you. You 
 might have known better than to be so quick with 
 him. I must say you botched it famously." 
 
 "That's right. Put me in the wrong." 
 
 "You put yourself there." 
 
 "But how was I to know? He shoved the damned 
 cheque at me and asked if it were mine. What else 
 was there for me to do except send him to the devil?" 
 
 "Well, now you can go after him." 
 
 "I can, can I? Then you didn't hear his terms." 
 
 "He didn't mention any." 
 
 "Not here. But from here he went straight to Mrs. 
 Chilton. What do they give you?" 
 
 "For blackmail?" 
 
 "Forgery." 
 
 "Three or four years I fancy. It depends on how 
 polite you are to the judge. But that is all nonsense. 
 You have only to say the cheque is yours and that is 
 the end of it." 
 
 "I would have to say it in court. Besides there 
 would be experts." 
 
 "Your testimony would prevail." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 47 
 
 "But think of the papers! Think of the mess ! He 
 says I disowned it in the presence of witnesses and 
 that either Mrs. Chilton can go to jail or else her 
 daughter can come and see him. Those are his terms." 
 It was like a page from Balzac. It revolted me and 
 I rounded on him. 
 
 "What did you mean then by saying you would settle 
 him?" 
 
 "I meant I would lay him out, I suppose." 
 But that seemed very imbecile and to show no doubt 
 that I could be an imbecile too which I was I said 
 what afterward I could have bitten my tongue off for. 
 "Suppose you let me take a hand." 
 "If you only could, but how can you?" 
 "I heard you tell Mrs. Chilton to take her daughter 
 and go to the manor. Did she say she would?" 
 "Yes, today, this afternoon." 
 "Follow them then and stand guard." 
 The strategy was amateur and, what is worse, 
 catastrophic. But he jumped at it. I could see him 
 picturing himself with outstretched hands, hands that 
 dripped with money, protecting two women, one who 
 was certainly no better than she ought to be, and the 
 other too good perhaps for mortal man. 
 
 "Meanwhile," I added, "I will hold the blackmailer 
 up." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I can't say. I don't know. But I will. At all 
 events I'll try." 
 
 It was then I put my foot in it. At the time the 
 door was open, wide open. It was I that gave it the 
 first shove. That I meant well has nothing to do with 
 
48 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 it, or rather it has. Well-meaning people do the most 
 harm. 
 
 "There is an inn there," he was saying. "I'll put 
 
 up at it. Perhaps " He broke off. He looked 
 
 away. At what? I do not know. But almost at once 
 he took it up again. "Well, you never can tell. When 
 I am out there with them, she may reconsider it." 
 Again he looked away, then at me. "If I wire you, 
 you will join me, won't you?" 
 
 I stood up. "If you wire, I'll never get it. Tele 
 phone here. I'll be in tomorrow. It may be that 
 by that time this creature will have changed his tune. 
 If not " 
 
 He nodded at me. "In that case, I'll ask her again." 
 
 I did not follow him and I told him so. 
 
 "If Nelly marries me, the cheque, whether good or 
 bad, won't make a wrinkle." 
 
 "I suppose not," I said. But I was thinking of some 
 thing else, and I added: "Whom will you take with 
 you?" 
 
 "Mike." 
 
 "Hold on. Send a line to the bank. Say you guarantee 
 the signature. And I may need Peters. Tell him so. 
 While you are at it, tell him to pack your things. Then 
 hurry out there as fast as you can." 
 
 He saw me to the door. As I went down the steps 
 a motor passed. In it was a man with a dyed mus 
 tache. I did not know him from Adam, but the mus 
 tache reminded me of another, whose owner, a friend 
 of mine, I had been of some slight service to the year 
 before. Among New Yorkers, gratitude is phenom 
 enal. My friend was a Dublin man and at the time 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 49 
 
 the poor devil has since passed over he chiefed it at 
 Police Headquarters. 
 
 A taxi took me there. On the way, I evolved a 
 series of schemes that had in view the rout and ruin 
 of Bonheur et Cie. I have forgotten them all now 
 and I regret it. They would have fitted any novel, 
 however poor. 
 
 At Headquarters, then in Mulberry Street, I found 
 my friend in the front room, which resembled a real 
 estate office, and where, although he presented the 
 forbidding appearance of an auctioneer, he greeted me 
 with an affability that was painful. 
 
 "Me boy, you will just put your fist to this." 
 
 He had leaned over, fished from somewhere a copy 
 of my last turpitude and produced a fountain pen. It 
 made me feel like Ainsworth, who contrived to be the 
 author of a hundred novels and a thousand crimes. 
 
 As it happened, he knew nothing of Bonheur and he 
 sent for a vulture-eyed man with a battered beak who 
 knew less. 
 
 Meanwhile, without mentioning names, I had given 
 him the facts. 
 
 u And a Frenchman is he, me boy? Sure as you live 
 if he is that kind of a bullfrog, he's wanted over there 
 and that's why he's here. I'll send one of the lads 
 to give him the look-over. Drop in tomorrow. I 
 may have him in chains." 
 
 I took it of course at its face value. None the less 
 it gave me an idea. 
 
So THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 VI 
 
 THE next forenoon I rang at Bradish's door. Ged- 
 ney opened, but, as usual, Peters was in the hall. 
 
 "Has Mr. Bradish telephoned?" I asked him. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Just now. I said you were not here, sir. 
 Mr. Bradish said he would call up again in an hour." 
 
 "Where is your hat?" 
 
 "My 'at, sir?" 
 
 "Call a cab, please, Peters, and come with me. I 
 won't keep you long and I may not need you at all. I 
 am going to a shop on the avenue. When we get there, 
 you stand by the door." 
 
 "Yes, sir. Beg pardon, sir. May I ask what it is 
 about?" 
 
 "A crook who is trying to get the better of Mr. 
 Bradish." 
 
 Peters was as straight and probably as strong as a 
 grenadier. But, a professional man, he wore the pro 
 fessional mask. It was wooden. None the less a 
 corner of his lip had lifted very much as a dog's does 
 when about to bite. 
 
 "Thank you, sir. I'll have the cab in a moment." 
 
 The Maison Bonheur was on the ground floor. It 
 has gone since but, at the time, a small groom stood 
 at the door; a tall commissionaire on the curb. The 
 window, very spacious, delicately hung, exposed noth 
 ing so commercial as anything for sale. 
 
 As I entered, a young person in black arched her 
 eyebrows at me. The room, behind which extended a 
 suite of other rooms, was fitted with mirrors, with 
 brocaded chairs, with a table that shone. At the 
 moment, a woman, whom I judged a topnotcher, was 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 51 
 
 talking to another woman, whom I took for a premiere. 
 But the young person had approached. 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 "Tell Bonheur to come here." 
 
 "Who shall I say?" 
 
 "Say it's a man who wants a word with him and who 
 won't dilly-dally about it either." 
 
 The topnotcher looked from the premiere at me and 
 from me at the premiere. The latter stared. But the 
 young person had gone and I sat down. 
 
 Then almost at once, followed by the young person, 
 the dressmaker appeared. 
 
 "I am Mr. Bonheur. What is your business?" 
 
 More for copy purposes than anything else, I looked 
 him up and down. 
 
 Bradish was not Adonis, but you never would have 
 mistaken him for any but the right sort. The dress 
 maker had blue-black hair that was curled; dark, crafty 
 eyes; lashes so long that they were probably false; a 
 straight nose, lips full and painted, a powdered chin, a 
 loose tie, an embroidered waistcoat, a coat that fitted 
 like a mannequin's, tight trousers, purple socks, patent 
 leather pumps, the air of a coiffeur and an odour of 
 musk. A chambermaid might have thought him attrac 
 tive. I thought of what my friend at Headquarters 
 had said and in French straight at him, I threw it. 
 
 "I have seen you before." 
 
 "You have the advantage of me." 
 
 "Every advantage. The last time I saw you was in 
 the Cour d'Assises." 
 
 I flung the words at him like so many stones. I could 
 see them land. I could see him wilt. I could see him 
 going mentally down under them. With what he had 
 
52 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 been charged in that Paris court, he knew. I did not 
 know. But he thought I knew and the stones were 
 effective. Through mere chance, at the very start, I 
 had him. The rest was easy. But I threw a few more. 
 
 "Your name is not Bonheur. It is Chanteur. Yes 
 terday I cabled your description to Paris." 
 
 It was not very pretty of me to lie like that. But a 
 chap who won't lie for a woman may be a Christian, 
 he is also a duffer. 
 
 He had extended his hands. "Mais! Mais! Com- 
 prends pas" 
 
 "Yes, you do. You have a cheque that Mr. Bradish 
 signed. You are trying to blackmail a client with it." 
 
 He smiled. It is rare to see such a smile. Entirely 
 muscular, it revealed the teeth and left the crafty eyes 
 unaltered. 
 
 "Je vois bien maintenant. It is a misunderstanding. 
 I have no cheque signed by Mr. Bradish." 
 
 "You have a cheque that you brought to his house. 
 That cheque I saw him sign." 
 
 "Another cheque, yes. But not this cheque. In the 
 presence of a domestic he disowned it." 
 
 I turned. In the doorway, beside the little groom, 
 Peters stood. I motioned at him. In he came. 
 
 "Ever seen this man before?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Yesterday." 
 
 "Where was that?" 
 
 "In the hall at Mr. Bradish's, sir." 
 
 "Did you see a cheque, or hear anything about one?" 
 
 "No, sir, I did not." 
 
 The dressmaker shrieked it. "II ment. C'est 
 puant" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 53 
 
 Peters edged nearer. "Beg pardon, sir. May I 
 ask what he said?" 
 
 I smiled at him. "He complimented you on the ease 
 with which he says you lie." 
 
 Peters had removed his hat. He put it on. In put 
 ting it on he removed his mask. The professional man 
 had gone. Peters had emerged into private life. 
 
 "For tuppence, I'd knock your head off. Call me a 
 liar and I'll knock it for nothing." 
 
 I motioned at him. "That will do, Peters." 
 
 At once the professional man returned. The mask 
 was resumed. 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 I looked at the dressmaker. "Mr. Bradish has gone 
 from town. Two ladies, who were misguided enough 
 to come here, have gone also. But I remain and I'll 
 tell you one thing. I'll tell you two of them. You 
 can present that cheque or you can preserve it. But if 
 I hear of so much as a peep from you about it, I will 
 first lay you out and then hand you over to the police." 
 
 I stood up and passed on. As I went I saw him in a 
 mirror. He was wiping his face. Alarmed, the top- 
 notcher must have fled. But I could see the premiere 
 and the young person considering him with slanting 
 eyes. 
 
 VII 
 
 AT the Buck Club, just around the corner, I had a 
 truffled omelette, a cutlet in curlpapers, admirable 
 service, the day ahead of me, but as yet no word. 
 
 On vacating the Maison Malheur which, I fear I 
 vacated rather magnificently, but at the time I was 
 
54 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 rather young, I told Peters to go back to the house and, 
 when the telephone asked for me, to have me called at 
 this club, where I then instructed the operator to take 
 down any message and send it to the dining-room on 
 the floor above. 
 
 Vain oblations, though how disastrously vain, I did 
 not realise until later. Meanwhile, the dishes gone, I 
 sat and smoked, exchanged the time of day with a man 
 I did not know from Adam and was wondering vaguely 
 why I bothered to talk to him at all, when the message 
 came, a few words from Peters to the effect that Mr. 
 Bradish had not telephoned, that he had hurried in, 
 got the upshot of things and had hurried away, leaving 
 word that I was to be at the Chilton place on the 
 morrow by noon. 
 
 The upshot of things? I uncomfortably meditated, 
 as I went down and kicked my heels in the main room, 
 what the dickens did Peters imagine was the upshot? 
 The stones I had thrown, had been thrown in French 
 and although he had seen some of them flying, he 
 might have misjudged their effect. 
 
 For one mad moment, I thought of telephoning to 
 him> the next instant sanity returned. I knew I could 
 not. Even the sight of a telephone horripilates me 
 and in my trade one has to avoid anything of the sort. 
 Horripilation arrests the imagination and disrupts 
 your work. 
 
 Afterward, in sackcloth and ashes, I regretted it, 
 regretted rather that if the telephone was one too 
 many for me, I had not sent for Peters, dug it out of 
 him, and then flown up the Hudson as I would have 
 flown if I had known. But I did not know. How could 
 I ? It is true, I had an intuition that a screw was loose. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 55 
 
 Bradish's message was queer. Why should he want 
 me to be at the manor at noon? 
 
 In an effort to solve the riddle, I thought of this, 
 that and the other, of everything in fact except that he 
 had botched the whole thing. 
 
 In view of what occurred, I have to say and although 
 I hate emphasis, I cannot say it emphatically enough, 
 that what he did, he did innocently, ignorantly, hon 
 estly, without knowledge of the facts, thinking it all 
 for the best, best for himself I admit, but best also 
 for her, poor girl, as, in the inscrutable wisdom of the 
 powers that rule our lives, perhaps it was. 
 
 Meanwhile, I looked up a time-table, made a mental 
 note of a train and sat back among matters personal. 
 
 The Pilar-Morin troupe had been giving pantomime 
 and while I hoped they might rise to mine, I was uncer 
 tain whether to dangle it before them personally or 
 have the dangling done by an agent. Yet as either 
 course had its disadvantages, I postponed any imme 
 diate decision, yawned my head off, lounged out, 
 lounged in, dined with two polo men and afterward 
 read all the evening papers, in one of which I discov 
 ered that the Pilar-Morins had gone. When have I 
 loved a dear gazelle that it did not sicken, yes, and die? 
 It was too much and I went home. 
 
 The next morning I was up at what I think I have 
 seen described as betimes. In spite of which, or per 
 haps precisely on that account, I missed the train. 
 It may seem fantastic to say it now and yet I cannot but 
 believe that, if I had not missed it, what afterward 
 occurred would not have occurred at all. 
 
 When, ultimately, a village trap dropped me at the 
 manor, Bradish ran out and cursed me. I expected 
 
56 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 nothing else. Through the mysterious laws of life any 
 kindness is repaid in pain. 
 
 It was then a trifle after one and the day was of the 
 Veronese school, a day made of light, of colour, of 
 cobalt, apple-green and ochre. In the air was the 
 smell of lilacs. Beyond was the Hudson and, before 
 me, the house, ugly, comfortable, the mortgaged win 
 dows candid and open. 
 
 In the days of the landed gentry, in the days of big 
 bugs, bigwigs, chariots, postillions, red coats, loud oaths 
 and tenant-tilled estates, the manor had, I dare say, 
 been as good as the rest of them, superior perhaps, but 
 on that Veronese high noon, it seemed down at the 
 heel, as such places do seem when the odour of gentry 
 has gone and that of the bailiffs has come. It was like 
 some of the places in England where the draw 
 bridge has crumbled and the moat is choked. More 
 over, originally mile after mile in extent, running far 
 up from the river and reaching nobly to the north and 
 south, time and creditors had dwindled and curtailed 
 it. Of the great estate that had been, only the house 
 and the immediate grounds survived, only these and 
 two buildings, one of wood, the other of stone ; one the 
 family stable, the other the family vault. 
 
 But Bradish, ceasing to revile me, was talking, hur 
 riedly enough, about matters that I did not quite grasp, 
 but mainly that they were just sitting down to it, that 
 owing to the haste of it all, there was only Mrs. 
 Chilton, Mrs. Trefusis, Austen, the clergyman and 
 the bride. 
 
 I looked at him. 'The bride?" 
 
 "My dear chap, I am, or will be it is a bit awkward 
 for the moment but I shall be the happiest man in 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 57 
 
 the world and I owe a lot of it to you. Now come 
 on in. You are too late to act for me at the wedding, 
 as I hoped you would; you are in time, though, to drink 
 our health." 
 
 "But " I found but that. 
 
 He misunderstood it. "Bonheur be blowed. It is 
 of no consequence now what he says or does. She is 
 mine!" 
 
 His eyes lifted. His face had cleared. The spider 
 was dead. He seemed transfigured. Never had I 
 seen him like that before. Never did I see him like 
 that again. It was his one moment of happiness. 
 Already the door was closing on him. He was at the 
 threshold of the Eblian halls. 
 
 At the time I knew nothing of that door, nothing of 
 those halls. I knew only that Peters had botched it, 
 that Bradish was unaware that Bonheur had been 
 squelched, and a sudden picture surged Mrs. Chilton 
 telling her daughter the pretty tale of a blackmailer, 
 leaving it to her darling to decide whether she would 
 suffer her mother to be jailed, pointing to Bradish as 
 their saviour, constraining her to accept him and I felt 
 for the poor devil a pity that was infinite. For when 
 that girl knew, as she would know, as everything is 
 known, nothing could convince her that he had not been 
 a party to it. Never for a second would she believe 
 that she had not first been rooked and then bought 
 and sold. 
 
 Rather idle to tell him that then. Rather idle to mar 
 with now superfluous information, a day not merely 
 perfect but which to him was ideal. I could do nothing 
 except what I did do. I followed him in. 
 
 I had seen Nelly Chilton Mrs. James Bradish as 
 
58 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 she then was but twice. On each occasion her beauty 
 had been incredible. Where was it then? She was 
 standing behind a table. Beside her was Austen. 
 Nearby, Mrs. Chilton was directing a waiter. In a 
 window, a clergyman was talking to Mrs. Trefusis. 
 Through another window, I could see Mike. From 
 the walls, Chiltons with vermillion coats and lace 
 jabots, others with powdered hair and pointed bodices, 
 looked on. In the air was a scent of lilacs. 
 
 The table was spread. There were dishes, wines, 
 flowers, all of which, the waiter included, must have 
 come from Fifth Avenue, ordered by Bradish, charged 
 to his account. 
 
 These details, unimportant in themselves, con 
 tributed to the atmosphere of this room that was 
 stirred by that girl's vibrations. The clergyman held 
 his head a trifle to one side, as though appreciating 
 something said by Mrs. Trefusis, who was quite inca 
 pable of saying anything appreciable, and who was 
 looking, not at him, but at the others, at Mrs. Chilton, 
 painted and flushed; at Austen, black from the black 
 tumult within him, and at that girl. 
 
 Hatted, dressed in a costume of light cloth that was 
 dark, what had been done to her? Paphos had crum 
 bled, Venus had gone. Instead was Hades and Pros 
 erpine drawn into it. Exquisite still, as Proserpine 
 must have been, she had lost her flagrant beauty. 
 White as a sheet, her lips quivered. There were no 
 tears in her eyes. In their purple pools there was 
 worse, a look that those have who are haunted. 
 
 Austen was speaking to her. She did not reply. 
 She was gazing straight ahead, at what? I cannot say. 
 At things visible only to herself perhaps, but, more 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 59 
 
 probably, I think she was meditating ways and means 
 of escape, which even as they fluttered before her, she 
 must have known were absurd. Her spirit may have 
 been brave. The pale camisole of what is correct, the 
 straitjacket of conventionality, strapped her. None 
 the less, I think that given one of the sudden tempests 
 that the Hudson knows and from which, in a second, 
 night is flung, given that and I believe she would have 
 taken Austen and bolted. It was more the vivid day 
 than the pale camisole that restrained her. 
 
 These impressions, however long in the telling, were 
 close packed in a moment's space. They flooded me 
 as I entered. A moment more and the atmosphere 
 cleared. Mrs. Chilton smiled, Austen turned, the 
 bride lowered her eyes, the clergyman abandoned the 
 window, Mrs. Trefusis approached, the waiter ad 
 vanced and, to the latter's patent astonishment, over 
 the table, with head bowed, the clergyman said grace. 
 
 A cork popped. I found myself eating foie gras, 
 an abominable dish, which reminded me of duties 
 already sufficiently shirked and rising, glass in hand, I 
 proposed the health of the happy couple. 
 
 The clergyman took it up. I like clergymen, when 
 they are likeable, and Dr. Renwick, God bless him, was 
 a likeable man, in fine form, and between us we man 
 aged to keep it going, managed to evoke at least the 
 ghost of gaiety that every wedding feast demands. 
 
 But the whole thing was ghastly. That girl neither 
 ate, nor drank, nor spoke. Ramrodded in her chair 
 she looked at Austen, who looked at her, as she looked 
 at him, with eyes that were tragic. But while her face, 
 to which the rare and riant e beauty seemed then to 
 
60 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 have said farewell, was white and tense, his face was 
 black and violent. 
 
 It was poignant. An old air, quaint and sugared, 
 an aria from the Somnambula, the O perche non posso 
 odiarte, beat time in my head. It was precisely as 
 though they were joining in, wondering why, in so 
 much love, hate could not enter. 
 
 With that surety that breeding is, Bradish appeared 
 unconscious of it. The spider had leaped into life 
 again, but any venom it may have been distilling he 
 splendidly concealed, rattling on at Mrs. Chilton, turn 
 ing from her to the clergyman, from him to Mrs. 
 Trefusis, and back again to his sudden mother-in-law. 
 
 That woman, with her painted face and air of 
 intolerable secrets, had a look frightened and relieved. 
 The fright was retrospective. It had gone. But 
 fright, even in going, leaves its mark. The mark was 
 on her, yet mitigated by an immense relief. Every 
 body was dished. Croesus was her son-in-law. None 
 the less, beneath her summoned smiles, perhaps she 
 shuddered. Yet with the same surety that Bradish 
 displayed, she talked and laughed, turning now to Mrs. 
 Trefusis, again to her daughter, turning away, forced 
 to seem as unconscious of her as Bradish appeared. 
 
 'Foie gras is fit only for the cultivated taste of a 
 drayman. Supreme de poulet Regence is a mockery to 
 a hungry man. At high noon champagne turns one's 
 stomach. I would have given a dollar, two dollars, 
 five, for a cut of beef, a baked potato, a mug of ale. 
 In that extravagant mood, ardently I wished myself 
 elsewhere. The breakfast apart, it was distressing 
 to look at the bride. It seemed to me painful to stare 
 at Proserpine descending into Hades, though, could I 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 61 
 
 have foreseen the deeper depths in which she was to 
 pass, instead of staring, I would have screamed. 
 
 Then, to my relief, Bradish said something to Mrs. 
 Chilton. She stood up. We all stood up, except the 
 waiter, who was already standing. In spite of the 
 odour of food and wine, faintly the scent of lilacs 
 lingered. Through^ a window, from which I had pre 
 viously seen Mike, I saw him again, grooming a car 
 in which were bags and a hatbox. From the window I 
 looked at the bride. She was talking then, talking 
 inaudibly to Austen, saying perhaps the tender things 
 that hurt and hurt, the words that bring tears swiftest. 
 From them, I looked at Bradish. 
 
 "Jirri," I called, and as I spoke I went over and took 
 his hand, "I don't know where you are bound, but 
 wherever it may be, my best wishes, all of them, every 
 one, go with you." 
 
 He did not reply. He just nodded and shook my 
 hand. He was, I realised, strung up to the breaking 
 point of human emotion. But he did not betray it. 
 It was the spider that did. Glowing with a crimson 
 and baleful life of its own, I could almost see the 
 antennae contract. 
 
 u God bless you," I told him. u The things I leave 
 unsaid to your wife, say to her for me." 
 
 Still he said nothing. He nodded as before and 
 shook my hand with a grasp that was mighty. 
 
 Why did I not hold on to him as mightily? Why did 
 I leave him for what he was going on to meet? It was 
 there. It was just beyond. It was at the turn of the 
 road. Eyes clearer than mine could have seen it. 
 Hands firmer than mine would have held him. A voice 
 
62 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 more gifte'd would have told him not to leave that 
 room. 
 
 In looking back at it now, when it is all over and 
 done for, it seems to me, as it must seem to many 
 another, that when we are a bit more evolved, we will 
 look ahead as readily as we now look back; that the 
 immediate future will be as clear as the immediate 
 past. Or, more correctly perhaps, we will realise that 
 there is no future, no past, merely a continuous present 
 in which events occur. Those events we will see, as the 
 traveller on a highway sees meadows or bogs, abysses 
 or peaks, friends or foes, or, perhaps, merely court 
 yards curtained with cashmeres where chimeras and 
 hippogriffs crouch. Consciously he goes on to meet 
 them or, as consciously, turns away. 
 
 All that, and stupid enough it is, and, by the same 
 token, sufficiently unconsolatory, came to me later. 
 Meanwhile, I must have taken some sort of conge. I 
 say I must have because, while I would have taken 
 French leave, as they call it in England, and English 
 leave, as they call it in France, some forms I did 
 observe. But I remember nothing about it. All I 
 do recall is a diligent smile that I got from Mrs. 
 Chilton and a look, absolutely haunted, that came to 
 me from that girl. That look, from that girl, who 
 was barely a bride, accompanied me to the village 
 where I went with the clergyman and with the waiter 
 tagging behind. 
 
 I did not then know the clergyman's name. A few 
 moments later I learned that it was Renwick, a good 
 name as he, I am sure, was a good man. 
 
 On the way down, a car shot by. In it was Mrs. 
 Trefusis. A car followed, a car long, narrow, grey, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 63 
 
 one which I had already seen at the manor. In it I 
 had a glimpse of Austen, flying on, ignoring us, lost 
 to everything, lost in the black tumult of his soul. 
 
 Meanwhile the clergyman had been quoting Thomas 
 a Kempis. Interested in what he was saying, I forgot 
 the haunted eyes. By this time we had reached the 
 village and, as he was reciting a passage, it came, a 
 bolt, as the phrase is, from the blue. 
 
 Mentally, it took me a moment to adjust myself. 
 Meanwhile, I was staring at the man who had precipi 
 tated it. Seated in a waggon he was yelling at the 
 clergyman, calling him by name, which I then learned 
 was Renwick. It was not hot on that Veronese day, 
 yet he was perspiring, yelling and wiping his face at 
 the same time, urging Dr. Renwick to get in and: 
 "You, too, young feller, if you know 'em." 
 
 He spat and shouted. "It was up yonder. They're 
 all dead, all three of 'em. I'm headed for Dr. Curtis. 
 But there's room for all. Get in." 
 
 In his cultivated voice, I heard Dr. Renwick say: 
 "Mr. Belcher, I am sorry. I have not understood what 
 you were telling me. Who is dead?" 
 
 Again the Comanche shouted: "Miss Chilton and 
 two men." 
 
 We all know we are to die and few of us believe it, 
 and naturally perhaps, since there is no such thing as 
 death. But death, even in its literal meaning, lacked 
 coherence then. I could not believe it. My mind had 
 not yet adjusted itself to what my ears had heard. But 
 I was aware that Dr. Renwick was hurriedly question 
 ing and I was aware, too, of hurried and shouted 
 replies. I was aware also of a gathering group, sprung 
 from nowhere, from a saloon opposite, from the side- 
 
64 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 walk, from a grocery nearby, from the station beyond, 
 from the sky; a group that had dropped or arisen 
 about us and it was dully, from sounds that seemed 
 to proceed from afar that I absorbed and reassembled 
 the purport of it all and of which the substance was 
 that Bradish's car, flung out like a meteor, had thrown 
 a wheel, reared, reversed, turned over and that those 
 within were dead. 
 
 Then at once, from the momentary and mental 
 swoon, I swam up and I thought, what does this Yahoo 
 know about it? They may not be dead; knocked out 
 perhaps, perhaps unconscious, but not dead. 
 
 Even then I denied myself the truth. That was 
 sheer primitiveness, the instinct of self-preservation, 
 for truth, some truths at least, can drive one mad. 
 
 VIII 
 
 WHEN I reached the manor, they were there. Any 
 thing being preferable to the yelling Yahoo, it had 
 been a relief to see him take Dr. Renwick and go. Of 
 the relief that they were in search, I had my doubts 
 and also my certainties. A country practitioner, what 
 could he do ? At once Cally and his wizardries hopped 
 in my mind. 
 
 Already the door, the enigmatic door, was closing. 
 I did not know that. I knew of no door. Yet, as I 
 later discovered, in that door I turned the key. 
 
 Meanwhile, entering the station, I wrote a telegram 
 to Cally which I incorrectly addressed. Since then I 
 have often wondered what might have occurred if I 
 had addressed it correctly. But as often I have con 
 cluded that Cally was prevented from receiving the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 65 
 
 telegram not, primarily, because of an error of mine, 
 but because it was not intended that it should reach 
 him. The progressions of life and of death it is not 
 for mortals to alter. When they do alter them, or 
 appear to, what is done was in accordance with higher 
 designs. That is the occult view to which sometimes, 
 though not always, I adhere. 
 
 The wire itself, it took me quite a little while to send, 
 the operator happening to be refreshing himself else 
 where. It was therefore some time after the Co- 
 manche had gone that I reached the manor, and, as I 
 have said, when I did reach it, they were there. 
 
 The door of the house was open. Open and empty 
 too was the hall. In the room where we had break 
 fasted there were but the brave and bodiced Chiltons 
 looking on from their frames on the walls, only these, 
 half emptied bottles, dishes unremoved, the remains of 
 a wedding feast at which Death, too, had looked on. 
 
 As I entered the hall, I heard voices that came from 
 the floor above. There, in a room hung with faded 
 chintz, furnished with rickety Sheratons, on a satin- 
 wood fourposter, lay that girl. Over her a little man 
 bent. He was shaking his head. It seemed very 
 empty. But the motion distracted me. I looked at 
 the others, at Mrs. Chilton, at a woman I had never 
 seen, and at Dr. Renwick who, holding a book from 
 which he must have read the marriage service, was 
 concluding some prayer. 
 
 "Heart failure superinduced by shock," the little 
 man by way of Amen pronounced and I looked again 
 at that girl. 
 
 Her eyes, that had seemed so haunted, then were 
 closed and her face, that had been so drawn and tense, 
 
66 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 had recovered its former beauty. It was as though 
 death in taking her life had given back her loveliness. 
 The jewels, which imaginatively I had strung about 
 her and which she had never needed, had gone, as the 
 haunted look had gone. In their stead was peace, the 
 peace that is perhaps beyond all knowledge, yet 
 attenuated, I thought, by just the quiver of a passing 
 smile, a smile that just showed itself and went. The 
 effect, highly curious, was as though her riante charm 
 had made an effort to return and death had pulled 
 it back. 
 
 "Yes," Death seemed to say, u in my arms you may 
 be lovely, but smiles I cannot brook." 
 
 That, too, was imagination. I saw it was. In the 
 upturned commas of her perfect mouth there was no 
 suggestion of any smile at all. Death had kissed her 
 smiles away; kissed from her despair, happiness, sor 
 row, kissed her into peace. 
 
 "So far as I can determine," the little man was say 
 ing, "not a single lesion. Just the heart." 
 
 "And Bradish?" I asked and checked myself, for 
 the girl's mother was sobbing. 
 
 It was her fault. At that moment she knew it. At 
 that moment she knew what the Halls of Eblis are, the 
 horrible halls of the horrible hell into which the foster 
 sisters, Regret and Remorse, can fling you. 
 
 A hand covered her eyes, from which tears, possibly 
 scorching, certainly unredeeming, ran down into the 
 paint beneath. What could I do? What could any 
 one do? A poet said he could sympathise with any 
 thing except suffering. I had no sympathy for hers, 
 but apparently Dr. Renwick felt differently. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Chilton! My dear Mrs. Chilton!" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 67 
 
 he was remonstrating. "Sorrow is sent to make us 
 nobler than we were." 
 
 You are entirely right, I thought. But you miss the 
 point. Sorrow afflicts the spirit that is freed, par 
 ticularly when the spirit is probably present, probably 
 in this very room. A line of de Vere's recurred to me : 
 "Grief should be like joy, equable, sedate." 
 
 But more effective perhaps than the clergyman's 
 ministrations, was the ingrained sentiment of form. 
 Mrs. Chilton choked back her sobs and when her hand 
 fell, as it immediately did fall, she displayed a visage 
 blotched certainly (for water and paint do not marry 
 very well), but assured. To have achieved that so 
 promptly did not show callousness. One is never cal 
 lous about oneself. But it constituted one of the minor 
 triumphs of civilised life. 
 
 She turned to me. "Dr. Curtis says Mr. Bradish 
 will recover. Will you come where he is?" 
 
 On the way, the little man buttonholed me. 
 
 "I did not say that. I said he might recover. A 
 man of means, I understand. I'll telephone for a 
 
 nurse." 
 
 "For a dozen," I told him. 
 
 In a room, practically a duplicate of the other except 
 for the furniture which was Chippendale, Bradish lay 
 on another colonial fourposter. Unconscious as he was, 
 he did not know, and might never know, what had 
 happened. Already his clothes had been removed; 
 already, too, he had been examined. "A broken collar 
 bone," the little man announced, and that I knew was 
 nothing. "A broken ankle," he continued, and that I 
 knew was less. But, to these, he added an occipital 
 fracture and I thanked God I had wired for Cally. 
 
68 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 The next visit was to poor Mike who, like that girl, 
 was dead; though, unlike her, his neck was broken. 
 
 Mrs. Chilton, meanwhile, had disappeared and I 
 went down to the hall, where I found Dr. Renwick. 
 He was just leaving. The funeral, he said, was to be 
 at noon, in forty-eight hours, and, since I was return 
 ing to town, would I insert the usual notices and add, 
 it was Mrs. Chilton's wish, he explained, that the 
 funeral was private. 
 
 "Yes," I told him, "but there is a lot else: Bradish 
 cannot be moved. He will have to have nurses. The 
 nurses will have to be fed. I know nothing of the 
 domestic arrangements here but, apparently, they are 
 not profuse. If Mrs. Chilton does not object, and I 
 hope she will not, I shall send some of his servants." 
 
 Vaguely he motioned. "Pray do so, Mrs. Chilton 
 was to have gone from here today. Now she will 
 go immediately after the funeral of that poor child, 
 whom I loved like a daughter." 
 
 "Where is her father?" I asked. 
 
 He raised his eyes, shook his head. I saw that he 
 did not know, saw too that the question distressed him. 
 
 I put on my hat. "May I accompany you?" 
 
 Courteously he consented and, as we went down the 
 road, which twice that day I had ascended and on 
 which on each occasion, the Daughters of Hazard, of 
 whom ^Eschylus tells, had lain in wait, he stopped and 
 gave me his hand. He was going, he said, to the 
 undertaker. 
 
 "An undertaker here! In this little place!" I 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Death visits the hamlet as well as the metropolis," 
 he replied. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 69 
 
 A cross-road took him and I went on to the station 
 alone, more alone, I think, than I had ever been before. 
 I could not comfortably contemplate a future from 
 which Bradish was eliminated and, if he recovered, if 
 he did, I felt that it would be harder still for him to 
 reconcile himself to the long rain of days from which 
 she had gone. To have got her partook of the mar 
 vellous, but to have got her one moment and to have 
 lost her the next, might become to him a retrospective 
 torture that would inhabit his thoughts until the accus 
 toming hands of time calmed him and lulled him and 
 let him forget. 
 
 So I thought. I thought it would pass as all things 
 pass. Yes, I thought that. I could not foresee that 
 there was to be no forgetfulness, nothing but the 
 fidelity of torture that was to take him and play on 
 him and strike from him every note in the whole gamut 
 of pain. 
 
 IX 
 
 ANOTHER day after Veronese. 
 
 As the train flung itself along the river, I told myself 
 I had done 'all I could. To the surprise of a clerk in 
 a cage, I had shoved at him a marriage notice and a 
 death notice of even date, both concerning the same 
 person. He did not like it and who would? I had to 
 establish my identity before he would accept them. 
 Meanwhile I had shipped to the manor whatever an 
 unconscious man needs the least. I had gone to the 
 great white staring house and sent Peters with the chef 
 and two other servants to the station. I had gone to 
 Mike's widow. I had done other things which I have 
 
70 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 since forgotten. I had done all I could. But in the 
 train that was taking me to the funeral, I had a sense 
 of subconscious discomfort, the sense of some para 
 mount thing overlooked. Then, just before the train 
 was stopping, out it hopped. 
 
 Cally! 
 
 In the hurry of all I had had to do, I had neglected 
 to go to his office. But, I consolingly reflected, what 
 did it matter? 
 
 That it did matter, and monumentally, I was not to 
 learn until later and yet why, at the time, it should 
 have pricked me, I doubt if Freud could have told. 
 
 What did it matter? I reflected. I had not been 
 to his office and would not have found him if I had, for 
 he must have gone to the manor, where probably he 
 had remained. The idea that my telegram was an 
 estray never entered my head. 
 
 In the train were small detachments of silent and 
 sombre people, relatives I fancied, and I was convinced 
 of it when they all got out at the station, where con 
 veyances for them which the undertaker must have 
 seen to and supplied, yet perhaps inadequately; in any 
 event there was none for me, unless I intruded on 
 mourners whom I did not know, and while capable of 
 a good deal, but not of that, I started off on foot, 
 disconsolately noting that the day of the wedding and 
 the day of the funeral were twins. There were the 
 same colours, the same myrrh and cassia in the air 
 that was not of spring or of summer but of both, a 
 season not for death but for life, a time to love love, 
 not to bury it. 
 
 "Will you get in?" someone was saying. 
 
 I had heard a car, but I had not looked. Then I 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 71 
 
 did look. It was the long, grey car I had seen after 
 the wedding and in which had been Austen hurrying 
 on in that effort which is the most desperate of all, the 
 attempt to escape from oneself. He was in the car 
 then and, as I looked, I thought his face blacker even 
 than before, a face that expressed not the sorrow that 
 he must have felt, but rebellion at life, at death, at all 
 there is, at all there shall be; the face of a soul in hell. 
 
 "Will you get in?" he repeated and, when I did, he 
 asked about Bradish. 
 
 I told him what I could. He asked nothing else. 
 He said nothing more. I fancied that he knew as 
 much as I did. 
 
 In the papers of the day before there had been ac 
 counts headlined, featured, graphic, inexact. The 
 tragic wedding of the last of the Chiltons to the play 
 mate of her childhood. The beauty of the bride. The 
 wealth of the bridegroom. The death of the one. The 
 mortal injuries of the other. The manor. Colonial 
 New York. The mourning of what was termed the 
 four hundred. 
 
 These accounts Austen had certainly seen and I 
 wondered whether he had already run up to the village. 
 I did not ask, nor did I ever learn that he had, though 
 afterward, from circumstances that developed, I real 
 ised that he must have. At the time however, during 
 the brief drive, he said nothing more, nor did I hear 
 him utter another syllable. Yet then, one does not go 
 to a funeral to talk and necessarily this was more than 
 a funeral to him, much more, though how I arrived at 
 that extravagant conjecture is beyond me even now. 
 
 The brief procession from the train had entered the 
 house when we reached it and together we passed on 
 
72 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and in to the room of the candid and mortgaged win 
 dows, through which a breath of lilacs came. 
 
 Into that breath there filtered the subtler fragrance 
 of lilies that banked an open coffin in which the dead 
 girl lay. Behind the coffin, his back to the wall, from 
 which the brave and bodiced Chiltons looked, was Dr. 
 Renwick. Before the coffin were the mourners, among 
 whom I had a glimpse of a man who, though he stood 
 with bowed head, had an air of extreme distinction. 
 I had a glimpse also of a stricken woman. 
 
 Rouge is not mourning. Her face was unpainted. 
 But that air of ease, of potential arrogance, of intol 
 erable secrets, the impression wholly atmospheric 
 which previously Mrs. Chilton had suggested, the im 
 pression of a soul at bay, that had gone. She looked 
 what she was, a woman conscious that the blow that 
 had struck her her own hand had dealt. 
 
 Unobtrusively I hope, in any event as quietly as I 
 could, I edged nearer to where the dead girl lay. Forty- 
 eight hours earlier I had seen that Death in kissing her 
 had brought her beauty back, heightening it even, ren 
 dering it calm, unaware of emotion as true beauty ever 
 is, divesting it of anguish, divesting it, too, of joy. In 
 Death's arms she had been at peace. 
 
 But at this time, as, in edging nearer the coffin, I 
 saw her again, her expression seemed to have changed. 
 Her lips half-parted showed the nacre of her teeth and 
 in and about them, in and about the downcast eyes, 
 there was a look different from that which Death had 
 brought, different also from that which Death had 
 kissed away. In those days I was less familiar with 
 the phenomena of death than I have since become. I 
 knew then that those whom the gods love die young. I 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 73 
 
 did not know that the gods in sending death to those 
 they love send with it some vision of the supernal. 
 It was there. In those upturned lips and downcast 
 eyes there was wonder. 
 
 "I am the Resurrection and the Life!" 
 
 The sonorous and exalting words, the most exalting 
 that I know, shook me. From the dead, I looked at 
 the living. I looked at the clergyman, at the mourners, 
 at the lover. 
 
 Death, the death rather and the sight of it, may 
 have wrought its miracles on him. In his car, on the 
 way to the house, he had looked defiant, rebellious, a 
 soul at odds with God and man. But now, in some 
 way, through some special grace, through one of the 
 miracles that Death achieves, peace had, or appeared 
 to have, descended upon him. What his face displayed 
 was not resignation, which may be, and often is, but a 
 form of mental suicide, but relief, the relief that comes 
 when hope, fear, uncertainty, all the vultures of the 
 mind, have fled, when the worst that can be has been 
 done. 
 
 At the time, it was in that manner that I viewed 
 it. Afterward, in reassembling impressions, another 
 explanation, less laboured and more obvious occurred 
 to me. The change in Austen, if change there really 
 were, I attributed to the simple process of thanksgiv 
 ing. He had lost the girl he loved, yet the loss had 
 been strangely mitigated. An unbearable knowledge 
 had been lifted from him. He could not have her, but 
 neither could anyone else. She had been taken, but 
 not to another's arms. What he had lost, no one had 
 won. 
 
 It was in recognition of that, I thought, that the 
 
74 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 thanksgiving had come, and I thought also that the 
 thanksgiving was very human. That the girl of girls 
 shall not be won, murder after murder has been com 
 mitted. That too is human. Human and tolerably 
 primitive. 
 
 Meanwhile, the service had ended. A stout man, 
 fussy but silent, the undertaker, attended to the coffin's 
 removal to the hall, where I followed and where 
 neatly, swiftly, almost noiselessly, he closed it. 
 
 To me, it was like a kick in the stomach. I looked 
 away. On the adjacent stair was Peters. Without 
 speaking, I motioned. The motion, I knew, sufficed. 
 I knew he would know that presently I would return. 
 As I motioned, I thought of Cally. Where was he? 
 
 But at once the coffin's journey began again and we 
 all went on and out to the grounds and the vault, a 
 structure roomy and chill, where perhaps the shades 
 of departed Chiltons greeted the spirit of their kins 
 woman who, forty-eight hours earlier, during that 
 other ceremony had, I am sure, despairfully wished 
 for the peace that was theirs, had wished also and far 
 more desperately that Bradish were Austen. 
 
 As the coffin passed into the crypt, back from it 
 came the odour of tuberoses, the scent sweet and deadly 
 of wreaths put upon it. I have never forgotten it. 
 Dr. Renwick was then reciting the last words of the 
 final rites and, these ended, I turned back to the house. 
 
 In the hall was Peters. 
 
 "How is he?" I asked. 
 
 "The nurse says " 
 
 "But Dr. Cally? What does he say?" 
 
 "Dr. Cally, sir? I haven't seen him. Dr. 
 Curtis " 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 75 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me Dr. Cally has not been 
 here?" 
 
 M Not to my knowledge, sir." 
 
 It was inconceivable. The idea that I had botched 
 the address never occurred to me. What did occur to 
 me was that when I could I would give him fits. 
 
 The opportunity was not delayed. Mephistophe- 
 lianly, in the open doorway, there he stood. 
 
 I sprang at him. "What the devil! Where have 
 you been? Why haven't you come before?" 
 
 One look, a look bland and sarcastic, was all he 
 deigned to give me and that look he diverted to 
 Peters. 
 
 "Upstairs? Lead the way." 
 
 "But see here," I threw in and started to follow. 
 
 He turned to me. "You stay where you are." 
 
 The stair took him, and would have taken me, had 
 not philosophy, an old friend of mine, caught me by 
 the arm, remarking that Cally was quite right, that I 
 would be only in the way, that explanations of mine 
 would explain nothing, that certainly he did not need to 
 be told what certainly I did not know, whereupon in 
 stead of damning, I blessed. Thank God, he was there ! 
 
 The mourners, meanwhile, were leaving. Not all, 
 however. Two women and a man were entering the 
 hall. One of the women was Mrs. Chilton. When I 
 saw her in the room beyond, probably she had a hat 
 on. I had not noticed. I saw it then, saw too that she 
 was heavily veiled. I had moved aside and as, with 
 the other woman, she passed me, she made some slight 
 inclination of the head. Then up the stair they went. I 
 had never seen the other woman before and I have 
 never seen Mrs. Chilton since. Afterward I learned 
 
76 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 that that afternoon both had driven away. But had I 
 known that that was to be my last meeting with Mrs. 
 Chilton, mentally I would have wished her well. It 
 is very pontifical to judge anybody. 
 
 Then, immediately, I found myself judging the man 
 who had come in with them. He had an arid air, the 
 dry, self-sufficient look of the super-rich and a mouth 
 like a buttonhole. Probably a banker, I thought: 
 probably, too, the husband of the woman who had just 
 gone up the stair. I did not envy either of them and 
 suddenly I felt very hostile. 
 
 He was there, fiddling with his hat, affecting to re 
 gard me as part of the furniture. It was not that that 
 angered me. What angered was that Mrs. Chilton, 
 instead of messing things with that blackmailer of a 
 dressmaker, could not have gone to him and could not 
 go, because, while manifestly the man was a relative, 
 she knew him to be poor, unwilling to aid. For it is 
 unwillingness to aid that constitutes poverty, and that 
 is the poverty, not of the poor, but of the rich. 
 
 Then at once the idea passed, banished by another, 
 the possibility that the painted blackmailer and the 
 painted mother-in-law were in league together and I 
 cursed myself that I had not thought of it before. Any 
 jackass could have seen that ordinarily Bonheur would 
 never have gone to Bradish with the cheque. Ordi 
 narily he would have put it through his bank. And 
 for how much was it after all? Bradish had said four 
 thousand, but he had barely glanced at it. It might 
 have been forty thousand and I could picture Mrs. 
 Chilton waving it at the dressmaker, staking him with 
 it in return for services that would enable her to force 
 her daughter's hand. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 77 
 
 Momentarily, the picture occupied me. Before I 
 could elaborate it, there was Peters on the stair. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Dr. Cally's compliments, sir, and if you are to wait, 
 you will please not wait for him. No, sir, Dr. Cally 
 is to be here for some time." 
 
 "But what else did he say? What did he say about 
 Mr. Bradish?" 
 
 "Nothing, sir. Nothing to me. But I don't think 
 he is easy in his mind about him, sir." 
 
 For that matter, I was not easy in my mind, either. 
 Nor had I been, not for a moment since the Yahoo 
 yelled. Consequently I did want something to go on 
 and I said: 
 
 "Look here, Peters. You say I want to see him." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I will hascertain. But he has the door 
 closed and he said he wouldn't let anyone in, not even 
 Mr. Bradish's own mother if she came here from the 
 grave." 
 
 Well, that at least was definite and I went out on the 
 grounds where for a moment I stood and looked at the 
 vault. 
 
 That door, too, was closed. 
 
 X 
 
 PEACE is never the bedfellow of the anxious, and 
 anxious I was the next day, as I sat in my own work 
 shop. Far more so than three years before when I 
 found myself dished. A man may lose a fortune and 
 recover and double it. He cannot replace a friend. 
 At the time, I had no other friend than Bradish. The 
 events of the last few days needed talking over. 
 
7 8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 I wanted to talk them over. Few can be conversa 
 tional alone. But with whom? That also came to me. 
 In the course of the evening I rang at Aly Bolton's 
 door. 
 
 "Who is it?" she asked from within. 
 
 I told her and she opened. 
 
 The narrow hall, a hall identical in construction with 
 my own, was hung with India shawls and the living- 
 room, though also identical with my own, appeared 
 much larger and so appeared because the centre was 
 uncluttered. Moreover, at either end was a mirror. 
 Then also, the etagere, the chairs, the table, placed 
 back against the walls, were none of them in the way, 
 while on the walls were prints, dark and old, from 
 which the walls seemed to recede. 
 
 I used to think that a man's distinction resided in 
 the distinction of his surroundings and though I think 
 so no longer, none the less it would have been obvious 
 to anyone not courageously vulgar that the occupant 
 of the little flat was an artistic young woman. A gifted 
 young woman, too, as I had already discovered. 
 
 "I have felt for you," she said as we sat at that 
 table. "The papers told me. And now you are 
 troubled." 
 
 "It is about Bradish," I replied. u He and I are 
 pals. I don't know whether he will pull through. By 
 the way. Occasionally he must have disturbed you. 
 He used to come here and raise the dead." 
 
 She exclaimed at it. "I thought it was he! I saw 
 him once at your door, but he did not see me. He was 
 too busy trying to get at you. I liked his face. It is 
 very beautiful." 
 
 Wonderingly I looked at her. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 79 
 
 "Yes, the face of a beautiful nature." 
 
 I nodded. "Yes, he has that. But I am sure you 
 are right in saying he did not see you. If He had he 
 would have stood and mused and afterward told me 
 of it." 
 
 "No, he did not see me." 
 
 She spoke simply as the complex do speak. On the 
 table between us was a service, of Danish ware I think, 
 and she asked would I have tea. 
 
 She got up to prepare it and again I looked about. 
 The mirror at the farther end of the room was framed 
 in lacquered bamboo. Adjacent were shelves of 
 polished wood on which were books. Facing them was 
 the piano. It was all very ordinary. It was the at 
 mosphere that charmed. I have been in ornate apart 
 ments where the vibrations jarred; in opulent homes 
 where they were so malign I could not remain. In this 
 two-by-four flat there were none or, if there were any, 
 they were restful. It was an atmosphere in which 
 there was nothing discordant; not the atmosphere of 
 the cloister for that is choked; not the atmosphere of 
 bohemianism for that is pretentious. It was the at 
 mosphere that is created only by those whose ways 
 are pleasant, by the gentle and by gentlefolk. 
 
 Returning with the samovar, she poured me a cup. 
 She made no offer of cream, of sugar, nor yet of lemon. 
 It was tea she gave me, just tea, as tea should be 
 drunk, when it is tea, and this was tea, the real thing, 
 tea that needed only a honeysuckle or two to make it 
 celestial, tea of a variety and of a quality that could 
 be obtained but in the Chinese quarter and there at one 
 shop only. 
 
 I knew that tea. It awed me. For I knew, too, 
 
8o THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 what it cost and, vaguely, I wondered where she got 
 the money. 
 
 "That night," she was saying. "You remember? 
 You talked of antique sins. Anxiety was one of them. 
 I think you need not sin that way. I may be in error, 
 but I think your friend will recover." 
 
 It was easy enough to say, but merely because it was 
 easy she seemed hardly the one to say it. In speaking, 
 she had raised a cup and I had been looking at her. 
 She wore a blouse embroidered in the Rumanian man 
 ner. As always, her expression was noble and re 
 served. Nelly Chilton had been sent out as perhaps 
 only a blackmailing faiseur can send out a young 
 woman. Apart from that, apart too from her riante 
 look, apart also from her Mayfair intonation, in fea 
 ture, in colouring, there she sat. 
 
 "It is startling," I told her. 
 
 That time she missed it. "But I may be wrong." 
 
 I shook my head. "It is the resemblance." 
 
 The cup which she still held she put down. "From 
 what I read about her it was instantaneous. That is 
 terrible. It would have been so inexpressibly better 
 for her if she could have lingered a little and realised 
 that she must die." 
 
 I took it up. " 'From battle, murder and sudden 
 death, Good Lord, deliver us/ ' 
 
 "Yes, and how profound that is. The shock of sud 
 den death confuses. The dead do not know they are 
 dead. They think they are still here. Well, perhaps 
 they are. Perhaps they are the ghosts of whom one 
 hears and never sees." 
 
 From her lips it sprang out at me, the central sit- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 81 
 
 uation for a novel and commercially I exclaimed, 
 'That's it!" 
 
 There again she must have missed it. She looked 
 but she did not speak. 
 
 "Shop," I told her. "To a chap in my trade nothing 
 comes amiss. We make copy out of our own disasters. 
 
 She laughed, and in laughing her resemblance to 
 Nelly Chilton became not startling merely, but exact. 
 
 Without mentioning it, I sat back. "Yes, but the 
 point is elsewhere or rather it is here. I have been 
 threshing about for a plot. A moment ago before you 
 sat the needy knife-grinder. Now he is needy no 
 longer. You have suggested a story. And hello!" 
 I interrupted myself to exclaim, "here comes the title, 
 The bourne from which ?" 
 
 Noiselessly she clapped her fingers. "A ghost story ! 
 There never has been a good one. The chance is 
 yours. Take it. The title itself should inspire. The 
 bourne from which " 
 
 She paused and added, "I wonder, though, if every 
 reader can fill out the rest of it. Yet, even incorrectly 
 given, 'The bourne from which no traveller returns' is 
 too long." 
 
 "Well," I said, "when it appears, if it ever does ap 
 pear, you must let me bring you a copy." 
 
 "Thank you. You will find it easier to mail it." 
 
 "You are not leaving here, are you?" 
 
 "Next week. I go to Paris." 
 
 As she spoke she went to the piano, rippled the keys 
 and hummed rather than sang the valse chantante, 
 O Paris, gai sejour! 
 
 Desisting, she turned. "The house where I am is 
 sending me. You shall have the address." 
 
82 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "I congratulate you. But the story will keep until 
 you return. Besides it would clash with that gaiety. 
 If I can, I want to make the reader shriek with fright, 
 tear his hair out and hide under the bed." 
 
 She laughed. u The shiver at last!" 
 
 On that high note I would have gone, but from 
 somewhere Signor Matouchi appeared and yawned at 
 me. I tickled him in the stomach. Ostentatiously, he 
 purred. 
 
 Then, kissing her hand, I left. 
 
 XI 
 
 A WEEK later I would have burned an incense-wand, 
 only I did not happen to have one. A message had 
 reached me. If I had dictated it myself it could not 
 have been more to my taste. It was a message which 
 either clairvoyantly or sympathetically Aly Bolton had 
 divined. Bradish would recover. That was all. There 
 are brevities that are enormous. It was at the ampli 
 tude of this brevity that I would have burned an 
 incense-wand. 
 
 The message was from Cally. It had come from his 
 office. That day I looked in there. I found him at 
 a vast table on which was a riding crop and a box of 
 cigars. Nothing else, except over the table his in 
 fernal blandness, two fingers and a moment's talk. 
 
 The fingers withdrawn he pointed one at me. 
 
 "What have you behind the forehead?" 
 
 "Pulp." 
 
 "In that pulp the objective changes of the external 
 world are converted into the subjective changes of 
 consciousness. But in what manner the conversion 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 83 
 
 is effected no one knows and, in our day, no one will." 
 
 "What of it?" 
 
 "A lesion of the occipital cortex may affect that 
 mystery. Bradish has a lesion of that nature. He 
 will recover, but whether mentally he is the same man 
 again depends on circumstances which I am now too 
 idle to explain." 
 
 He stood up. "Come again when I am busy." 
 
 A hand on my elbow, he was edging me along, 
 dangling the keys of Destiny at me. 
 
 I shook him off. "When can I see him?" 
 
 "When I have him in town. You can see him then, 
 that is if he does not object." 
 
 Mephistophelianly Cagliostro smiled. It was as 
 though he were adding: "If it were I now, you'd 
 never get in." 
 
 I, too, can smile and I said: "I'll pay you for that. 
 By the Lord Harry, I'll put you in a book." 
 
 Blandly he shoved me out. "It takes genius to con 
 coct a horrible revenge." 
 
 Well, he was right. As I turned the corner I 
 thought of ^Eschylus, before whose spectres women 
 swooned, and I wished for his stylus, a wish instantly 
 replaced by a hope. I had walked straight into Aly 
 Bolton and I hoped she was dying of hunger. 
 
 "Look!" I exclaimed. "Over there! A few streets 
 down ! A man is beckoning at you I" 
 
 "Very impertinent of him. Who is he?" 
 
 "A sorcerer. He is calling, 'Miss Bolton! Miss 
 Bolton! Come to my arms and before you I will set 
 strawberries and creme Merge, plovers' eggs beaten 
 into an amber foam, quinces on platters of jade!' ' 
 
 Always gracious, she smiled and turned and together 
 
84 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 we went down the street, packed as at that hour it 
 always was with envy, greed and other things that do 
 not look nice in print, yet to which she seemed indiffer 
 ent or else unconscious . . . 
 
 She said nothing and her silence was very confiden 
 tial. It was as though she were saying to me, We 
 talk the same tongue and in that tongue there is no 
 need for speech. 
 
 Silence has its licenses and I am sure she had no 
 intention of according me any. The trick of eye, of 
 look, of way, the arts rehearsed before a mirror, the 
 little spells a girl may cast, if only for practise, she 
 disdained or else ignored. Her silence may or may 
 not have been confidential. It was not provocative. 
 
 In the gastronomic El Dorado which presently we 
 entered, her attitude changed necessarily. Yet it was 
 I who spoke first and not to her but to the waiter. 
 
 When he had gone, she said with that irrelevance 
 which is always so apropos: 
 
 "And the ghost story?" 
 
 Ten minutes earlier Cally had shaken the keys of 
 
 Destiny at me. I was yet to learn that the Urim and 
 Thummim were then in her hands from which she was 
 shedding the gloves. 
 
 The gloves were white, her costume was dark, ad 
 mirably made, equally simple. I lack the huxter's eye 
 but I knew it was not a bargain, and suddenly I re 
 captured a sensation which I had not experienced for 
 years, that of intimate association with a charming 
 and beautiful girl. 
 
 At once, and with the same irrelevance, I began 
 about a house in which I had lived. 
 
 "The house was back from the road. The door- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 85 
 
 way extended up to and through the second story. Be 
 fore the house was a high wall of grey stone. Above 
 was a grey sky. Under the house was a cellar, which 
 is the usual place for a cellar, but beneath it was an 
 other cellar. In the second cellar were barrels. In 
 the barrels was gold." 
 
 'Tours?" 
 
 "I do not know. I do not know where the house is. 
 I do not know how long ago I lived there. As a 
 child, the memory of it was vivid. It seemed as 
 neighbourly as the day before. Perhaps it was. Time 
 is very relative. It may be that there is no such thing. 
 Kant said that. Kant said that time is a category of 
 the intellect. As a child I did not know it. As a child 
 it seemed to me that I had just come from that house 
 of which my people knew nothing. Since then I have 
 realised that I lived there in a previous existence. But 
 I have always felt that I shall find the house again and 
 just now I felt that when I do find it, I shall find in it 
 a girl who will look like you." 
 
 "A compliment should be brief. That is the most 
 elaborate compliment I ever heard." 
 
 She smiled as she said it, but she smiled as much at 
 the waiter as at me. The waiter was showing her, 
 not the plovers' eggs that carelessly I had promised, 
 but a salmi Sardanapale. 
 
 When he had served it, she said: "That is the great 
 advantage of being a novelist. A novelist can imagine 
 things that never happened, that never could happen, 
 but which are real to him." 
 
 Without transition, as though wanting to get away 
 from it, she added: "This salmi must have been 
 cooked in a jewelled pan." 
 
86 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Leisurely I drew her back. "You are entirely right, 
 but so too am I. Epictetus advised us to cheat our 
 selves and dream. But do we cheat ourselves when 
 we recall what we did in a previous life? From the 
 majority, any and all memory of it is withheld. That 
 is very merciful. If people remembered what they did 
 when they were here before, a hundred and one out of 
 ninety-nine would go mad." 
 
 Whether it were that last word that prompted, or 
 whether it were due to unconscious telepathy, I do not 
 know and I do not believe she knew either, but, dis 
 missing the subject, she said: 
 
 "How is Mr. Bradish?" 
 
 "I was just coming from his physician when I met 
 you. He said that Bradish has a lesion that may re 
 sult in cerebral deglutinisation. That's a bit stiff. Un 
 til latterly, Bradish was the sanest man I knew. But 
 latterly he went quite mad over Nelly Chilton and while 
 I do not blame him for that how can I when you are 
 her living image? yet, assuming that he recovers, 
 then when he learns she is gone and gone too just when 
 he had her, it might topple him completely." 
 
 She nodded understandingly and stood up. She was 
 going, she had much to do she said, as she thanked me, 
 and I saw her to the door, to the eager sunshine, to 
 the crowd that took her and hid her away. Behind 
 me, from an orchestra in the restaurant, came a strain 
 sweet and slow. I had never heard it before. I heard 
 it afterward. I heard it every time I thought of her 
 until I saw her again, which then was a long way off. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 87 
 
 XII 
 
 SINCE then, in looking back, it has seemed to me 
 that the Daughters of Hazard that threw Nelly Chil- 
 ton into a stone vault, sank Bradish into depths where 
 Death alone could follow, and then, because there are 
 other depths, depths which only the living can enter, 
 because he had not suffered enough, because he must 
 suffer more, recalled him that he might know what 
 pain is. 
 
 Then it was that, in the voids where he lay, an 
 artery reached and drew him. His scattered senses, 
 satisfied with their temporary decentralisation, resisted. 
 During the subtle struggle, fought in a dim corridor 
 of the brain, a memory stirred and spoke. Along the 
 corridor two syllables sounded remotely. They were 
 as taps on a damp drum beaten obscurely behind the 
 shelves of thought. They awoke no echo, evoked no 
 image. Drifted by the currents of unconsciousness, 
 they passed. But the currents, barred by assembling 
 ideas, broke to their murmur. A memory that had 
 gone, looked back. The taps on the drum sounded 
 less dumbly. From behind the shelves of thought a 
 face peered out. On the lips of the sleeper there 
 formed a name. 
 
 "Nelly!" 
 
 His eyes opened. Before him was a woman, plain, 
 strange, dressed after the manner of the Belle Choco- 
 latiere. His eyes closed, partially they reopened and, 
 quite as though he were back in earlier Parisian days, 
 he said, and distinctly enough: 
 
 "A boire!" 
 
 "Bravol" I said when I heard of it. 
 
88 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Subsequently, Cally had him removed to the great 
 white staring house where at last I went, and where I 
 found him convalescent, collected, entirely rational, 
 apparently as sane as before. 
 
 At the time, he was in the library and as I entered 
 he got up and limped toward me. Loosely his clothes 
 hung about him. The spider reduced, had paled. 
 Then, before I could attempt to condole, for the at 
 tempt at condolence is all one can make, he surprisingly 
 eluded it. 
 
 "These chairs are beastly. There is not a chair in 
 the whole house that is fit to sit in. Formerly I did not 
 notice. One chair was as good as another. But since 
 I have been up, I find I want, well, what we all want, 
 what I lack. I must send Peters around to pick up 
 something decent." 
 
 I lit a cigarette. "See here, old chap, you will be 
 having a birthday soon. Sensible people have birth 
 days all the time. I'll give you one." 
 
 "What? A birthday?" 
 
 U A chair." 
 
 "You are becoming singularly generous. But I want 
 to ask you. How did she look?" 
 
 I hesitated and he added, "I asked Cally." 
 
 "He wasn't there. I rather botched a message to 
 him. He did not reach the manor until afterward." 
 
 "So he told me. How did she look?" 
 
 Fishing, I found the picture. "As though sur 
 rounded by the ineffable." 
 
 He held it up. I could see him visualising it. "Yes, 
 that would be Nelly." 
 
 Still holding it, he continued, "I don't believe a word 
 of it." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 89 
 
 I stared. "Of what?" 
 
 "Of her death. I can't believe it." 
 
 That seemed natural and I told him so. "Of course 
 not If the circumstances were reversed I could not 
 either." 
 
 Then, at once, anxious to get him away from it, I 
 tried a twist. "Cally says what you need now is a 
 change. He said Paris." 
 
 "Paris would not help me. I have supped on her." 
 
 "Yes, but the supper was years ago. Now it is din 
 ner time. Before all this happened, I wrote a panto 
 mime. I can't place it here. Recently a showman, 
 an odiously familiar brute, clapped me on the back and 
 said, 'Produce the stuff in Paris and I'll import the 
 troupe.' ' 
 
 Bradish shifted. "I know Chose of the Neuvelles, 
 and if Machin has not forgotten me, I know him, too." 
 
 "At all events Emile has not forgotten you, or me 
 either. I gave him twenty louis the last time I was 
 there." 
 
 "Emile?" 
 
 "Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt ? Don't 
 you remember how he used to rub his hands and ask, 
 'And what will ces messieurs be good enough to be 
 willing to desire?' ' 
 
 "The man 'at the Cafe Anglais?" 
 
 "Precisely. We can have Chose and Machin there 
 and, with the champagne at their throats, one or the 
 other will disgorge a contract. Then, on the first 
 night, when they call for the author, you can appear 
 and I'll shy a bouquet at you." 
 
 "I don't know that I would like that." 
 
 "Of course you will. That will be in the autumn 
 
90 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and, meanwhile, there is Spain and the bullfighters, and 
 the gipsies and the cigarreras and the highwaymen 
 and, under the stars, their little dramas of love and 
 hate that spend themselves not in a scene but in a 
 murder." 
 
 'That's Granada." 
 
 I saw he was getting interested and I was about to 
 strum another air when Peters appeared. 
 
 We went in to luncheon, during which I kept talking 
 of the Andalusia I knew and loved, sending his 
 thoughts skimming afar; promenading him along the 
 crocus and pink Delicias; seating him before the 
 castagnettes and guitars; showing him the flamenco; 
 the slim, twisting waists, the eyes burning above butter 
 fly fans; scenting it all with the odour of almonds, the 
 smell of grape. 
 
 He looked up. "When could you go?" 
 "This minute. Call a cab." 
 
 "You seem to have a Golconda of enthusiasm! 
 What do you say to a shot at next week?" 
 "Ole tu madre! Hurrah for your mother !" 
 Behind the hurrah, a hallelujah followed. There 
 he sat, white, gaunt, shaken, sane. Save for the re 
 mark that he did not believe the dead was dead, a re 
 mark qualified by the supplement that he could not 
 believe it, he had said nothing that was not humdrum, 
 commonplace, normal. Previously, I had thought that 
 with time, in which everything breaks, wears itself out, 
 passes away, resignation would come and forgetful- 
 ness with it. But though he still remembered and 
 though, too, the memory must have been poignant, 
 already he was resigned. So I thought. That opinion 
 I shortly and entirely altered. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 91 
 
 XIII 
 
 ON the floor were cigarettes, boots, books, shirts, 
 coats, trousers, enough for a trunk, a big trunk, and, 
 as I hate trunks, I was meditating how to get it all 
 into a bag. The problem was pretty, it partook of 
 geometry which I also hate. In similar circumstances 
 a poet would have omitted to meditate. A poet would 
 have called for his harp and composed a song. But 
 I am a practical man and I decided that if, but this 
 once, I could stuff everything in, for the next few 
 months Peters, or Gedney, or both, would attend to 
 the stuffing. 
 
 Then again came the rattle of Destiny's keys. At 
 the time I did not know it. I mistook the shaken 
 keys for a tradesman knocking, bill in hand, at my 
 door. As I was out of commission, copyless, with 
 nothing more commercial in my head than the fringes 
 of that ghost story, I did not swear, I did not care. 
 I went on and opened. 
 
 There was Bradish. 
 
 Not for a moment had I imagined it was he and I 
 stared. 
 
 "What have you done with your earthquake ?" 
 
 He limped in, limped along to the workshop, sat 
 down, tapped at his teeth. 
 
 I waved at the floor. "You couldn't loan me Peters 
 for an hour, could you?" 
 
 Whether he heard or not is unimportant. He had 
 been looking down, he looked up and bit at his under- 
 lip. As I afterward thought, he was steadying it. 
 Then it came. 
 
 "I have seen her." 
 
92 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 I, too, sat down. "Seen whom?" 
 "Nelly." 
 
 Until then I had not noticed the spider. It was so 
 violently red that I wondered if he had been drinking 
 and I tried to humour him. 
 
 u Yes, of course. Occasionally I see her also." 
 
 "I tell you I actually saw her." 
 
 I thought of Aly Bolton and I said, "Look here, old 
 chap, you have seen someone who resembles her." 
 
 He got up, took a cigarette from the floor, lit it, 
 sat down again. 
 
 "Nobody resembles her. In all the world she is 
 unique." 
 
 Well, you are wrong, I thought, but I said: "There 
 is no such thing as mystery, there is only ignorance 
 and with that I am abundantly supplied." 
 
 Yet, as I said that, I told myself that whomever he 
 had seen could not be Aly Bolton. She had gone. 
 
 Gloomily he flicked his ashes : "I suppose you think 
 me crazy." 
 
 I smiled at him. "I would think you abnormal if 
 you were not. In open court here, Spitzka, testifying 
 as an expert, said that all men are insane. In France, 
 Janet said the same thing. Do you object to the evi 
 dence?" 
 
 He laughed fiercely. "Not if it includes you." 
 
 Glad that he laughed, I laughed also. "Well, then, 
 the company I am in is nothing to boast of. But 
 seriously now, you know as well as I do, and probably 
 better, that alcohol or morphine can produce hallucina 
 tions which, though actually seen, represent merely the 
 observer's mental condition." 
 
 He shook the cigarette. "You are talking rubbish. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 93 
 
 I don't drink, at least not to excess, and I don't take 
 morphine, though I have had enough to drive me to 
 
 it." 
 
 "Yes, I know. But I know too that any strong 
 emotion can have the same result. Why, good Lord! 
 everybody knows that the attendants at morgues have 
 to be on their guard against the false identification of 
 the dead. People go there distracted by grief at the 
 loss of a relative and with the image of that relative 
 so glued to the retina that they identify the first body 
 they see." 
 
 He gave a sort of groan. "I did not come here to 
 exchange stupidities, my mind is clear as a bell." 
 
 "And so you will admit was Balzac's. Balzac in 
 tended to give Gautier a horse. He forgot to, but he 
 talked so much about it that he believed he had given 
 it and used to ask Gautier how the horse behaved. 
 From that you can realise what the imagination is. 
 You imagine you have seen the dead, whereas you know 
 that that is impossible." 
 
 "Impossible?" he angrily repeated. "Time and 
 again I have heard you say that the word ought to be 
 kicked out of the dictionary." 
 
 "Well, except in connection with pure mathematics, 
 so it should be. If, as Huxley said, we understood all 
 that is implied in so common an instance as an ob 
 ject that falls, we would not doubt the possibility of 
 
 any occurrence however incredible. At the same 
 
 
 time 
 
 "See here, I am not drunk or doped or a novelist. 
 I don't care what Huxley said, what you say, what 
 anyone says. I saw her." 
 
 Argument weakens all things. I yielded. 
 
94 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Very good then, where was it?' ' 
 
 "In the Park." 
 
 "In the Park! How in the Park?" 
 
 He fumbled and produced some papers. "I had 
 been to the French line. They hadn't much, but I got 
 the captain's cabin, the first officer's cabin. Here they 
 are. On the way up, the car took the Park. Near the 
 carousal I saw her. She was alone. She was on foot. 
 I got out. There were people just ahead of her. As 
 I got out she passed beyond them. For a moment, I 
 lost sight of her. There are steps there. They lead 
 to a lake. I thought she must be on them. From the 
 top you can see all around and I looked everywhere. 
 Not a sign of her. She had vanished. Like that!" 
 
 "Hold on! Did you see anyone you might have 
 mistaken for her?" 
 
 "I could not mistake children for her, could I? Or 
 old women, or nursemaids, or babies, or a boy in a 
 boat on the lake? No. I mistook no one for her. 
 Believe me or not, it was she." 
 
 I, too, helped myself to a cigarette from the floor. 
 As I lighted it, I nodded at him. 
 
 "But I want to believe you, only and for heaven's 
 sake don't think I am jesting only you would have 
 made it a bit easier if you had said you had seen her 
 at night, in the old-fashioned way, at the foot of your 
 bed, sticking her tongue at you." 
 
 He shook his head. "It was not her ghost, if that's 
 what you mean. It was she, alive, Nelly Chilton in 
 flesh and blood." 
 
 When he said that I was less eager to have that poor 
 vagrant of a word kicked out of the dictionary. What 
 he said was impossible and yet, as I had to recognise, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 95 
 
 for the impossibility of it there was a good measure of 
 excuse. The sum total of all he knew about her death 
 was hearsay. He had been flying along with her in 
 the open and, without transition, he was in bed, a 
 strange woman looking at him. Of intervening events 
 he had no knowledge whatever. There were not only 
 no intervening events, there was not even an inter 
 vening blankness. The last instant before he lost con 
 sciousness and the first instant when he recovered it, 
 met and fused. Mercifully he had felt nothing, heard 
 nothing, seen nothing. Since then he had felt and 
 acutely. He had heard, and crushingly. But of the 
 anterior moments and hours and days and weeks and 
 all that had been packed into them, he had but the 
 evidence of his own injuries and such information as 
 others supplied. 
 
 Supported by the injuries, the information was 
 credible. But human nature does not always accept 
 the merely credible. That which, in nearly killing him, 
 had thoroughly killed her, constituted a shock so over 
 whelming that he had not assimilated it. In any catas 
 trophe there is always a sense of unreality and the 
 seeming unreality of the girl's death must have been 
 with him until just then, a little before, when in the 
 Park, the sight of someone had accentuated the un 
 reality and convinced him, at any rate for the time 
 being, that she was not dead, but alive. After all, he 
 had not seen her, as I had, in her coffin, and of those 
 who had seen her, I was his only witness. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Chilton?" I asked. 
 
 "Somewhere in France. My lawyers have the ad 
 dress. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "And Mrs. Trefusis?" 
 
96 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Newport, I fancy. What do you want of her?" 
 
 "If Mrs. Chilton were in town I would ask you to 
 see her. As she is not and as Mrs. Trefusis is away, I 
 do wish you would see Austen or Renwick, or some 
 body." 
 
 "What good would it do ?" 
 
 "Jim, look here. At present I am the only one you 
 have talked to who was at the funeral. I wish you 
 would talk to some of the others. They could only 
 substantiate what I have told you, but what I have 
 told you has not been enough. What you would hear 
 from them would be cumulative and convincing. You 
 would know from it that you are mistaken about what 
 you saw, or thought you saw, in the Park. Besides I 
 dare say Cally could explain it." 
 
 "I dare say he could. But he and the seven sages 
 in active collaboration could not explain it away." 
 
 "I am not so sure. Cally told me you had a lesion 
 of the occipital cortex. At the time he did not know, 
 or professed not to know, how it might result. My 
 own ignorance being unfathomable, I looked it up and 
 I found that in cases such as yours there may be an 
 impairment of vision." 
 
 "Yes, that's true. At first I could not distinguish 
 objects very clearly, but that has gone. I can see now 
 as well as ever." 
 
 "No doubt you think so. Lots of people are colour 
 blind and have not the slightest suspicion of it." 
 
 "Yes, and lots of people are stupid and don't suspect 
 it either.. But their stupidity does not affect me. I 
 saw her. There is not the peradventure of a doubt 
 about it." 
 
 Mentally, at that, I threw up my hands. I did not 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 97 
 
 know what to say and, before I could determine, he 
 was at it from another angle. 
 
 "I want you to help me." 
 
 Theoretically, it is a privilege to help anyone. 
 Actually, it is the guano of ingratitude. Yet, weak as 
 water, I nodded at him. 
 
 "Well, then, since she was in the Park today, she 
 may be there tomorrow. It was about noon when I 
 saw her and tomorrow at eleven I shall station myself 
 at the top of the steps and I want you to be at the 
 bottom. Will you?" 
 
 It was sheer insanity but, though insanity has always 
 appealed to me, I did not at once agree. 
 
 "Assuming, not for argument's sake, but just to 
 avoid one, that it was your wife you saw, it is not 
 cricket to trap her. If it was a ghost your attitude 
 should be equally correct." 
 
 "But it is she who is not running straight." 
 
 "All the more reason then why you should." 
 
 He got up, lit another cigarette and began limping 
 about. It seemed to me that I had tangled him and, 
 with my usual weakness, I switched. 
 
 "I'll go you. If I see her, I will salute her. If you 
 see her, you will of course do the same. But if I were 
 you, and mind you I am not, but if I were, I would 
 stop there. To attempt in any way to detain or address 
 her, unless she invites it, would be an evil act." 
 
 He turned on me. "I can't see where the evil 
 would be." 
 
 "Yes, you do, you see perfectly. You know it would 
 show a total lack of consideration for her personal 
 independence. If Renwick had not mumbled a dozen 
 phrases over you both, you would never dream of it. 
 
9 8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Because he did, that does not make her your thing. 
 But all this is utter nonsense. You did not see her and 
 what you did not see, you will not see again. None 
 the less I'll go you. I'll go you because I hate the 
 humdrum and love the insane." 
 
 I broke off and added: "Can you loan me Peters 
 for a minute or two?" 
 
 "Peters? Yes. Certainly. What do you want him 
 for?" 
 
 "You may not know it, but he is a genius. He can 
 pack. It is more than I can do." 
 
 "Pack! Pack for what?" 
 
 "Sevilla! Granada! Cadiz! There are the tickets, 
 I'll toss you now. What did you pay? I'll toss you 
 and give you a cheque for the one I lose." 
 
 "Oh!" he said longingly. "You are still going, are 
 you?" 
 
 "Of course I am and so are you." 
 
 "Not now, not until I find Nelly." 
 
 I could not budge him. I tried, but not very hard. 
 I knew the harder I tried the more mulish he would 
 become, but I knew, too, that if I said little or nothing, 
 sooner or later he would veer, suggest whatever I 
 had and believe the suggestion his own. Not a very 
 original process perhaps, but I have found it the only 
 way in which one can live in comfort with unoriginal 
 people. 
 
 Consequently I threw up the sponge. "All right, 
 Granada will keep. But you're mad, mad as a hatter, 
 mad as two hatters, mad as Lincoln and Bennett." 
 
 "Then you will be there at eleven tomorrow?" 
 
 "I will be there at ten fifty-nine." 
 
 He limped along. I saw him out, heard him lumber 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 99 
 
 down the stair, crossed the landing and rang at Aly 
 Bolton's door. 
 
 It opened and a frowsy lady said: "Are you the 
 gasman?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "But not your gasman and, be 
 lieve me, I deplore it deeply." 
 
 "Get along with you. What do you want?" 
 
 "Miss Bolton's address." 
 
 The lady displayed the most distressing mouth I 
 ever saw. 
 
 "Are you meaning the party as was here? I never 
 seen her. Likely the janitor can tell you. Is it a 
 bill?" 
 
 "For the rent" in my heart, I would have added 
 but she closed the door. 
 
 XIV 
 
 FOR the purposes of that story of mine, already I 
 had looked over the papers published by the Society for 
 Psychical Research and, greatly to my amazement, dis 
 covered what I already knew, that the ego persists 
 after death. But evidence of the persistence of the 
 ego is not evidence that it revisits the glimpses of the 
 moon. In the whole interminable set of records there 
 is not one authoritatively established ghost. 
 
 And yet, either Bradish had seen a ghost or else he 
 was mad. 
 
 It is true he might have been lying and I would have 
 given him the benefit of that doubt if I had known him 
 less long and less well. It was not that he could not 
 lie and did not lie, for he did lie, as we all have to lie, 
 out of consideration and civility if nothing else. But in 
 
ioo THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 his cock-and-bull story I knew that he had been telling, 
 not the truth certainly, but what was truth to him. 
 
 I got up from the table, to which I had returned 
 from the frowsy lady, and kicked my clothes about. 
 
 But good Lord! I mentally exclaimed. What pon 
 derable reason have I for saying that it is not the 
 truth ? The fact that there has been no authoritatively 
 established ghost does not prove that there cannot 
 be one. 
 
 Dissatisfied with the reductio, I kicked again and 
 tried to look at the matter from the angle of insanity. 
 Cally had waved that flag. Yet, apart from the deter 
 mination with which Bradish had clung to the idea that 
 he had seen Nelly Chilton, he seemed normal as you 
 please, to me at least, but while I knew precious little 
 about insanity, I did know that the presence of an idea, 
 fixed and erroneous, is the surest proof of dementia. 
 The idea might therefore show that he was mad, unless, 
 of course, it were not erroneous. 
 
 But that is nonsense, I decided. He did not see the 
 the dead, he did not see a ghost. If he saw anybody, 
 it was Aly Bolton, and yet how could he? She is not 
 here. 
 
 But I am here, I disgustedly reflected, and what is 
 worse, I argue with myself. I don't wonder the frowsy 
 lady mistook me for a gasman. 
 
 Then back to me, from over the way, the possibility 
 trotted. It might be Aly Bolton. Apparently she had 
 gone. On the other hand, she might not have. She 
 had said she was going and though clearly she had 
 vacated the walkup, it did not follow that she had 
 vacated New York. Then, suddenly, I realised that I 
 knew nothing whatever about her, realised also, and 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 101 
 
 for the first time, that while seemingly frank as an 
 open newspaper, actually she might be secretive as a 
 sealed book. 
 
 Exceedingly lovely, clothed in riddles, in her two- 
 by-four flat, she had been out of place as a piano in a 
 pantry. Her natural atmosphere was the spaciousness 
 of some spacious domain. What she had was the 
 stuffiness of a furniture shop. That in itself was 
 incongruous. Yet, apart from it, where did she go? 
 what did she do? For all I knew to the contrary, 
 privately she might be a Borgia and publicly a bac 
 chante. She suggested none of these things. What 
 she did suggest was a soul singularly evolved. But 
 even though she were not, even though she were no 
 better than the law allows, her charm prevailed. That 
 charm had inundated me. Because of it I knew, what 
 ever she might be, that always before her my hat 
 would sweep the ground. 
 
 When a man does not feel that way, he has no feel 
 ing at all. One might say he is callous. 
 
 None the less mystery surrounded her and I won 
 dered if I had the right to probe it. She had been 
 living there, across the hall, beautiful and solitary at 
 night, looking like a princess and dressed for the role 
 and, by day, associated with a furniture shop. It was 
 not only incongruous, it was curious. It suggested that 
 complexity which dual personality is, and yet which all 
 problematic natures possess. 
 
 In considering the matter, it occurred to me that 
 while I had no right to lift any of her veils, to even 
 touch them for purposes of my own, yet, for Bradish's 
 sake, perhaps I should. If I could lead him up to her, 
 the shock he would get would be as pronounced as the 
 
102 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 one at my doorbell and far more effective, for definitely 
 it would lay that ghost. 
 
 I reached for my hat, took a pair of gloves, stuck 
 a stick under my arm and went down the stair. 
 
 On the main floor was the den of the janitor, a dirty, 
 wild-hearted little man with a hostile and drooping eye. 
 Long since I had tamed him. A dollar here, a cigar 
 there, and he had become a watch dog, barking that I 
 had moved, that I was dead, guarding me from inter 
 ruptions. 
 
 "Tell me, pretty maiden," I said when I got at him. 
 "What is Miss Bolton's address?" 
 
 He did not know. But he knew her place of busi 
 ness. It was a furniture store on Fortieth Street near 
 Fifth Avenue. 
 
 In an hour I found the shop, which had the air of a 
 Franco-Chinese bazaar. Among other curios was a 
 chair that stretched its arms to me. Pending the atten 
 tions of a clerk with shiny hair and a shiny moustache, 
 I accepted the chair's embraces. At the moment, the 
 clerk was talking to a woman, a topnotcher, I thought, 
 Mrs. Amsterdam for all I knew to the contrary, but 
 presently he bowed her out and I asked for Miss 
 Bolton's address. 
 
 "Miss Bolton? Never heard of her." 
 
 "Here is her picture then. A beautiful young 
 woman, beautifully dressed, who speaks with a foreign 
 intonation. She is connected with your firm. Where 
 is she?" 
 
 "Oh, yes! I recognise the picture. But er she 
 was with us under another name." 
 
 I shifted. "This is a decent chair. Send it to Mr. 
 Bradish." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 103 
 
 "Mr. James Bradish?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Bradish?" he asked, looking, I could 
 see, for the spider of which all New York was aware. 
 
 "No, but if he likes the chair, I will pay for it." 
 
 "Yes, sir. May I ask your name?" 
 
 I gave it, the Buck Club with it "and added, "Well, 
 where is the lady?" 
 
 He smoothed that moustache. "She er she dis 
 associated herself from us just when Mr. Delatour was 
 sending her abroad. I believe she is in Montreal or 
 is it Toronto?" 
 
 I could not tell him and he went back among tall 
 bahuts, silk tapestries, porcelain monsters, and I saw 
 him lean over a table. 
 
 Twelve hours away, I thought. If she is away! 
 
 But he was returning. "I don't seem to find it. 
 Mr. Delatour may know. He is out now, I will ask 
 him." 
 
 I got up. 
 
 He saw me out. "Yes, sir, it will be attended to and 
 the chair also." 
 
 As the lift took me, I could have sworn that the 
 lady of the steps was Aly Bolton. From the start I 
 could have sworn it and would have sworn it, sworn it 
 at Bradish, had I not believed she was in Paris and I 
 know of no normal process whereby a young woman 
 can be in two places at once. Or any normal process 
 either whereby she can have two names and no 
 address. 
 
 I was on the avenue by this time, looking in at shops 
 that were filled with things I did not want. What I 
 did want was a bite. I made for Sherry's, changed my 
 
io 4 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 mind, boarded a bus and got out at Bradish's corner. 
 
 In the hall was Peters and I asked him to get me a 
 sandwich. 
 
 "And a glass of Madeira, sir." 
 
 Already Gedney had told me that Bradish was in 
 the reception-room, and at once, as I entered that 
 chamber of horrors, I discovered him at the window, 
 standing there, looking out, a thing which a gentleman 
 never does. 
 
 He turned and explained it. "I am on the watch 
 now, you know." 
 
 "Well, you need not be. I have got it." 
 
 We went on in to the library and seating myself I 
 added: "Also I have a chair for you. I thought it 
 very comfortable. I thought it more than comfort 
 able. It was what you might call a Varsity chair. It 
 was highly instructive." 
 
 "You have heard something." 
 
 "Rather a long story, too. But perhaps it won't 
 bore you. There is a young woman hereabouts who 
 might be " 
 
 He had it away from me before I could get it out. 
 
 "Nelly's twin. She is employed at Delatour's. 
 Nelly told me about her. If that is your story, what 
 is true in it is not new." 
 
 "But look here " 
 
 "Oh, I'm looking and I propose to keep at it. Here 
 are your sandwiches. I hope they will seem more appe 
 tising to you than that story has to me. Did you think 
 I would swallow it?" 
 
 Peters had put a tray before me and gone. The 
 sandwiches went quite as quickly. 
 
 Smoking, he watched me and puffed. "Nelly said 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 105 
 
 the resemblance was confined to the profile and colour 
 ing. She said the Delatour girl was more fragile and 
 slimmer. I remember just the way she put it, 'She's 
 me etherealised.' ' 
 
 "In duodecimo," I threw out. "Yes, that's true. 
 None the less " 
 
 "You thought I could mistake one for the other. 
 Never." 
 
 I pushed at the tray and he sat down and shoved 
 a box at me. 
 
 "Have a cigar. You will be there tomorrow?" 
 
 "Yes, and the day after. As often as you like. But 
 I think you are wrong. I think it was the Delatour 
 girl, as you call her. I would have said so this morn 
 ing, only I thought her in Paris." 
 
 "And thought me insane." 
 
 "Look here, Jim, either you are cracked or else you 
 saw a ghost. There are no two ways about it." 
 
 "But you are ridiculous with your ghost. I never 
 heard such rot." 
 
 "Ever heard of Carlyle then? 'Ghosts,' the old 
 duffer said, 'nigh a thousand million of them walk the 
 earth at noon.' ' 
 
 "Carlyle was capable of anything, except decent 
 English. He never saw one of his ghosts or you 
 either." 
 
 "It is a pretty question. In England almost every 
 old family has a ghost. A ducal family has two ghosts. 
 You know about the Crookes menage, don't you?" 
 
 "Who the deuce is Crookes?" 
 
 "An ordinary person who discovered thallium, in 
 vented the radiometer and foretold the x-ray." 
 
 "The chemist?" 
 
106 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "From what I hear, he is passionless as algebra. 
 Now he said, 'I do not say such things may be, I say 
 such things are.' ' 
 
 "He did not say it about ghosts then." 
 
 u You are quite right. He said it about a spirit 
 materialised by a medium, a very pretty spirit, a spirit 
 that called herself Katie King, gave him her photo 
 graph, a lock of her hair and sat in his lap, sat in it 
 not once, but a hundred times. I am not making this 
 up, it is all down somewhere." 
 
 "I don't believe it" 
 
 "Of course you don't. You believe in the reality 
 of things. You believe there is heat, you believe there 
 is cold. There is neither heat nor cold. There is merely 
 vibration and the brain to translate it. You believe 
 there is light, you believe there is colour. There is no 
 light, there are no colours. There is only matter and 
 motion and the optic nerve. On the other hand you 
 don't believe in illusions. Of all illusions the real is 
 the greatest." 
 
 "Here ! Help yourself to the Madeira but spare me 
 your Fichte and brandy." 
 
 "Very good then, consider the lilies of the field. 
 They toil not, neither do they spin and you have seen 
 them in their ideal condition. But you have not heard 
 them grow into it. That is because your ears are not 
 attuned to their vibrations. If they were, you would 
 precious soon discover the noise they make. Because 
 you are not deaf, you don't believe it. Because you 
 are not blind you believe there can be nothing that is 
 not obvious. It is the obvious alone that is illusory." 
 
 "In the Park today, Nelly was perfectly obvious, 
 with nothing illusory about her." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 107 
 
 "Except when she vanished." 
 
 "I did not say she vanished. I said " 
 
 "You said you saw her one minute and could not 
 see her the next. Isn't that what you told me?" 
 
 "Well, yes, but " 
 
 "Look here, old chap, a crustacean extracts from 
 the water material wherewith to make a shell. From 
 grain a bird produces feathers and an elephant pro 
 duces ivory. These processes are marvellous. But 
 they are so common that we accept them as a matter 
 of course. Yet, in view of them, it is quite conceivable 
 that the disincarnate can so utilise particles and ele 
 ments of the air that materialisation ensues. Mate 
 rialisation can be even forced upon them. The dead 
 can be raised. It, is true it takes black magic to do it 
 and nowadays who believes in that sort of thing? I 
 am sure I did not until occultism taught me better. 
 Given certain conditions and the dead can be raised. 
 Given others and they can raise themselves. There 
 are more things in heaven and earth, Jim Bradish 
 Horatio " 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir." 
 
 In the doorway Gedney stood and with him a man 
 and that chair from which I had set forth to tell 
 Bradish what he knew beforehand. It was a mocking 
 chair. 
 
 But now, stretching its arms at Bradish, he too let 
 it embrace him. 
 
 He turned to me. "Jolly good. Where did you 
 find it?" 
 
 "At Delatour's." 
 
 He turned to the man. "Tell Delatour if he has 
 another like it to send it here." 
 
io8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 In a moment, when the man had gone, he turned 
 again to me. 
 
 "Very nice of you, I'm sure. Was it from that girl 
 you got it?" 
 
 "Lord, no. I didn't see her." 
 
 "How did you know then about the resemblance?" 
 
 "She had a flat across the way from mine." 
 
 "At your confounded walkup?" 
 
 "Where else? I am not maintaining two establish 
 ments. But she saw you there once and said you had a 
 beautiful nature. She was entirely wrong. None the 
 less you might cultivate one." 
 
 "I think I am cultivating one. I have accepted your 
 chair with gratitude and your remarks with charity. 
 What more would you have?" 
 
 "Abandon this whole thing. If you are not cracked 
 already it will drive you crazy." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir." 
 
 There was Gedney again, this time with a card on a 
 salver. 
 
 Bradish looked at the card, looked at me. 
 
 "A man with some leases. They won't take long." 
 
 He got up and limped into the chamber of horrors. 
 On the table beside me was The Dawn, a novel by Bil 
 Sayers, which the junior member of the house that 
 published my rubbish told me had sold to the tune of 
 sixty thousand copies. 
 
 Idly I opened it. Instantly the room dissolved. I 
 was wandering afar in a fancy ball of the imagination, 
 one in which I felt unworthy to tie the latchets of the 
 writer's shoes. The ball he gave suggested a Baude- 
 larian masquerade conducted by Gautier; the dual sur 
 prises that only a magician of letters can create; the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 109 
 
 words glued to the idea and the idea a winged thing. 
 With the name of a prize fighter, Bil Sayers had the 
 pen of a witch. 
 
 But the room reassembled its atoms. Bradish reap 
 peared. Yet it may be he had lingered too long in the 
 chamber of horrors. It may be that some of its 
 atmosphere had permeated him. He startled me with 
 the first thing he said. 
 
 "What did you mean by saying the dead can be 
 raised?" 
 
 "Merely that and nothing more." 
 
 "How is it done?" 
 
 "Only the initiate know. But I understand that 
 among the requisites are incantations, chemicals and 
 buckets of blood." 
 
 "And the dead rise from the buckets?" 
 
 "With the blood and other substances the spirit 
 materialises." 
 
 He had been standing. He sat down in the chair I 
 had given him, reached for the book I had put on the 
 table, fidgeted with it and shoved it back. 
 
 "And you say it has been done?" 
 
 "Read your ^Eschylus. In the Persians there is an 
 account reasonably circumstantial and tolerably terrific. 
 Since then, there have been a number of instances. Only 
 the other day I saw an account of one in the London 
 Times. It told of a seance at the Winter Palace 
 where a Thibetan lama evoked for the tsar the spirit 
 of Alexander II." 
 
 "His grandfather? The chap who was bombed? 
 I don't believe it." 
 
 "How admirable you are today. You ask for infor- 
 
no THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 mation. The prettiest girl in all the world can only- 
 give you what she's got." 
 
 But there was Gedney again. Someone else had 
 come and I reached for my hat. 
 
 "Tomorrow at eleven?" he said when he saw I was 
 going. 
 
 "On the dot." 
 
 XV 
 
 THE next morning I went to the roof. About me 
 were fastidious tokens, the subsurface garments of 
 my neighbours. In the street were hurrying insects. 
 Above, indifferent to the idiot agitations of man, 
 serenely the sun looked down. It reminded me of 
 Brahma, who knows the nothingness of all. 
 
 But the sun, that is a divine lecturer, is also a 
 heavenly clock. The hour of my rendezvous with the 
 quick, perhaps also with the dead, was approaching. I 
 threw myself down the stairs and ultimately reached 
 the Park, where I found Bradish gazing, as Janus 
 gazed, two ways at once. 
 
 Amicably he greeted me. "You are always late." 
 
 Inimically I answered him. "You look like a god." 
 
 Bolstered by a stone pillar, he stood at the top of a 
 
 flight of steps. Beneath was a path that girdled a 
 
 miasmatic lake. The path was punctuated with the 
 
 exclamation points of trees, between which, at spaced 
 
 intervals, were arbours, vine-covered, filled with 
 
 mosquitoes. At the foot of the steps, three children 
 
 shouted as only American children do shout. Along 
 
 the path a man strolled, his hands behind his back, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL in 
 
 talking to himself. Otherwise, at the moment, there 
 was no one. 
 
 Along the top of the steps were nurses, prams, old 
 women. Beyond, on the road, were cars, victorias, 
 girls on horseback. Across the road, more trees. 
 
 Bradish looked at his watch, which was always 
 wrong. 
 
 "It's eleven-thirty," he informed me. "Now," he 
 authoritatively added, "you go down there." 
 
 At the foot of the steps, I gave the shoutmg chil 
 dren a quarter and invited them to hasten elsewhere 
 in search of lollypops, of which I hoped they would 
 sicken and die. At once the man who had been talking 
 to himself began talking at me. There are times 
 when if I cannot answer rudely, I do not answer at all. 
 This was one of them. The shouting children had got 
 me on edge. Besides it seemed imbecile to stand wait 
 ing for someone who would never come, for something 
 that could never happen. 
 
 I lit a cigarette. My talkative friend had moved on. 
 The children had gone. But now, at the right, people 
 appeared, tourists I judged, quite a lot of them, talk 
 ing in that rasping voice which is one of my beloved 
 country's many specialties and dressed in a fashion 
 that is another. I looked at the miasmatic lake in 
 which were intrepid ducks and suddenly I turned. I 
 had heard Bradish. 
 
 At the top of the steps, his limping foot may have 
 slipped. I could see him, one hand on the balustrade, 
 pulling himself up, motioning at me with the other. 
 But I saw, too, something else. Descending the steps 
 was Nelly Chilton she, or her ghost. 
 
ii2 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Dumbfounded, I gasped but I rallied, dropped my 
 cigarette, raised my hat. At that instant she was mid 
 way on the steps above me. Whether or not she saw 
 me I could not tell. She ignored me as only an entirely 
 well-bred woman can ignore a man whom she does 
 not wish to notice. 
 
 I stared. She was nearer then than the instant 
 before and, in staring, I was conscious of three distinct 
 and practically simultaneous impressions. First, that 
 she was not Nelly Chilton but Aly Bolton ; second, that 
 she was neither the one nor the other ; third, that who 
 ever she might be, she was livid. 
 
 Confused by the conflicting impressions, I looked 
 up at Bradish, looked without consciously seeing him, 
 looked again at her, for her, rather. She was no 
 longer there. During the shift of my eyes she had 
 vanished. 
 
 The tourists then were directly in front of me. One 
 of them, a man, was asking me something. I flung him 
 aside, flung myself through the others, flung myself 
 beyond and looked. Not a trace ! On the other side 
 of the path were bushes. No onel Nearby was an 
 arbour. Empty ! 
 
 I turned. Bradish, red as a tomato, was limping 
 along the path. Behind him the tourists, bunched to 
 gether, were rasping angrily at me. I was sorry to 
 have appeared uncivil, but I was not in the humour to 
 say so. I had my hands full with Bradish. Without 
 his hat, passing and repassing a hand on his head, his 
 mouth working, that spider venomously active, before 
 me he stood, unable to speak, congestioned by 
 emotion. 
 
 "Come here.' 1 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 113 
 
 I got him in the arbour, got him seated, killed a few 
 mosquitoes and asked if his car was waiting. I do 
 not think he heard. He was stuttering something, 
 what I could not make out, something to the effect that 
 my Nelly was dead. 
 
 I never had a Nelly. Otherwise it was curious. 
 Bradish, six feet tall, ordinarily nerveless as a stone 
 wall, was shaking like a frightened girl. 
 
 In those remote days, brandy was to be had in the 
 Park and very bad brandy it was. But there are times 
 and seasons when bad brandy is better than none. 
 This was one of them. I thought, My kingdom for a 
 pony! His house, though, was very neighbourly. 
 Rather than the hazards of sylvan bars, it seemed to 
 me safer to get him there. 
 
 "See here," I said. "If you came on foot, we'll find 
 a cab." 
 
 Again he passed a hand over his head. "Where is 
 my hat?" 
 
 "Probably on the steps." 
 
 He got up. I put a hand under his elbow. He 
 shook it off and limped along. 
 
 The tourists then had gone. The children I had 
 hoped were dead had returned, dirtier, noisier, not 
 sick but sticky. They were having a rough and tumble 
 on the steps, from the top of which, Fletcher, who had 
 succeeded Mike, was looking down. 
 
 By this time Bradish had himself in hand. In the 
 car he said nothing but at his house he distributed 
 various orders. 
 
 "Except to Dr. Cally I am not at home." 
 
 "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." 
 
n 4 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Something to eat and drink in the library. Any 
 thing." 
 
 "Brandy," I threw in. 
 
 "And curagoa," Bradish added. 
 
 Brandy and curacoa make very good medicine. I 
 applauded the prescription. Apart from which, I 
 have often wondered how it was that in questioning 
 his sanity, I did not question my own. For presently, 
 after his servants had come and gone, and we had both 
 dosed ourselves and he went back into it, I followed 
 his lead, not head over heels perhaps, but with rela 
 tive confidence. 
 
 The lead he gave was, at first, merely an indication. 
 
 "Well, what do you make of it?" 
 
 "I don't know what to make of it, except that who 
 ever the lady of the steps may have been, neither of 
 us ever saw her before." 
 
 He lit a cigar, puffed at it, lit it again. 
 
 "You are right. Neither of us has seen a ghost. 
 Yesterday when you spoke of one, I thought it ridicu 
 lous. I did not believe it possible. I do now, though. 
 No, I still do not believe it possible and yet I have 
 to believe it. My eyes deny what my ears affirm." 
 
 I exclaimed at him. "Your ears! What have your 
 ears to do with it?" 
 
 He was relighting his cigar and I doubled on him. 
 "Look here! What in the world did you go and 
 tumble over for?" 
 
 "It was her doing." 
 
 "How her doing? You don't mean she knocked 
 you down?" 
 
 "In that beastly hole where we sat, I told you about 
 it. You seemed more interested in the mosquitoes." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 115 
 
 "Tell me again then." 
 
 "She was almost on me when I saw her. That was 
 just before you did the football work through those 
 people. To tell you the honest truth I did not expect 
 to see her. I hoped I might. I did not believe I 
 would. When she came on me, like that, I started, 
 and she did, too. Yesterday, I don't think she saw 
 me. But, today, when she did see me, she gave a sort 
 of start and I was so overcome I out with something, 
 'Nelly!' or, 'My Nelly!' and tried to touch her. I 
 know I stretched my hand toward her. She edged 
 away, drew her head back and said, and said it from 
 the tips of her lips, but as plainly as I am talking to 
 you, 'Your Nelly is dead.' You remember how she 
 used to look. She had a skin of cream with claret in 
 it. At that instant she looked as though she did not 
 have a drop of blood. I started again to approach 
 her. Already she was hurrying down the steps. I 
 slipped on a bit of orange peel and called to you." 
 
 It was rather rattling. To clarify it, I said, "You 
 are sure she spoke?" 
 
 "There is no question about it. When I said 
 'Nelly!' or 'My Nelly!' she said, and said it as though 
 she were annoyed, 'Your Nelly is dead.' ' 
 
 "The devil!" 
 
 At the moment I found but that. Yet immediately 
 I had it, or thought I had it, and I gave it to him. 
 
 "In that arbour, it occurred to me that when I went 
 through those people and was headed one way, she 
 had already taken the other." 
 
 "Supposing she had. I don't see how it matters." 
 
 "If what you tell me is true, I mean if you did 
 not imagine it, it matters everything. What you saw 
 
n6 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and I saw was not a ghost. Ghosts may or may not 
 appear, but, assuming they do appear, they don't talk. 
 They cannot. The physical organs are lacking." 
 
 I could see him turning it over. Then he, too, had 
 it, or thought he had it, and he gave it to me. 
 
 "Hold on! You told me that the spirit that sat in 
 Crookes' lap said her name was Katie King. She 
 must have talked to tell it." 
 
 "Yes, and for that matter I have had a spirit talk 
 to me. In Boston, at a seance, a spirit bobbed up right 
 in front of me. As she was young and pretty, or at 
 least seemed so in the darkened room, I put an arm 
 around her and she bleated, 'Don't, don't!' and cuddled 
 closer. While I was hugging her, the medium barked 
 like a bulldog, 'Young man ! Don't you take liberties 
 with Bright Eyes.' Then Miss Bright Eyes slipped 
 from my arms and disaggregated through the floor." 
 
 I laughed as I said it, as one does in telling a thing 
 of that sort, but it did not amuse Bradish. Gloomily 
 he smoked and I gave the story its proper perspective. 
 
 "But look here, Bright Eyes and Katie King and 
 any other mediumistically materialised spirit is not a 
 ghost. A spirit is a physical exteriorisation of the 
 medium's psychism. Apart from the medium, it has 
 no existence whatever. On the other hand, a ghost, 
 the old-fashioned ghost, had its own entity, its own 
 volition. Like the wind, it came and went as it listed. 
 But, except in novels, it never talked. How could it?" 
 
 Bradish got up and stamped about. An old trick 
 of his, it had always annoyed me. But on this day, 
 occupied as I was with what a German would call the 
 being and the non-being, nothing mattered except the 
 key to the riddle which had complicated itself by 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 117 
 
 becoming a problem with an enigma added. The lady 
 of the steps constituted the problem. Was she or was 
 she not a ghost? In either case, who was she? In the 
 latter query was the enigma. 
 
 The practically simultaneous impressions that I had 
 derived from her, vividly confusing as they were at 
 the moment, had since become less distinct. Of them 
 all the third, being the last, was the strongest and I 
 told myself that while the apparition might impossibly 
 be Nellie Chilton, might possibly have been Aly Bolton, 
 more probably it was a fair unknown. 
 
 Yet, in that event, why had she said that Nelly was 
 dead? How, for that matter had she come to say it? 
 Above all why the de haut en bas attitude? Assuming 
 it were Nelly Chilton, assuming it were Aly Bolton, 
 assuming it were a third and unknown quantity, what 
 had Bradish done to be spoken to with such loftiness? 
 He was a good sort and his attitude to the departed 
 had been impeccable. Why then the air of saying, Vil 
 lain, unhand me? 
 
 At that, quite like the mosquitoes on the lake, an 
 idea hummed and bit. 
 
 I looked up at Bradish. 
 
 "Jim, would you mind continuing your promenade 
 sitting down? I have something to ask you." 
 
 He turned to me. "Well, what?" 
 
 "You remember the ladylike dressmaker with the 
 cheque. What did you tell them at the manor about 
 him?" 
 
 It was a bit far away. It took him a moment to 
 get there. In the process he sat down. 
 
 "I don't see why you want to go back into that. 
 But if it is any benefit to you, I got Mrs. Chilton alone 
 
n8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and put the matter before her. She took it to Nelly. 
 When she returned she said Nelly would marry me." 
 
 "So I assumed. But just what did you tell Mrs. 
 Chilton?" 
 
 "What Peters told me, that he had gone with you 
 to Bonheur and that the scoundrel would not budge." 
 
 At that, I too got up and stamped about. I stamped 
 the harder because I did not know what to say. Truth 
 should be agreeable or else withheld. To have told 
 him that Nelly Chilton had agreed to marry him solely 
 because of circumstances which she was distressingly 
 unaware no longer existed or which, if they had ever 
 existed, existed only in her mother's imagination, to 
 have told him that would have been tantamount to 
 hitting him over the head. 
 
 "Well, why do you ask?" I heard him say. 
 
 I stopped and turned. "Oh, nothing." 
 
 "Nothing, eh? Then you have a mighty queer way 
 of asking mighty queer questions about it." 
 
 I had turned away, I turned again. "The whole 
 thing is queer. I am trying to get the rights of it. 
 From the manner in which the lady of the steps spoke 
 to you, it seems to me that she must have felt herself 
 aggrieved." 
 
 "About what, in God's name?" 
 
 "She may have got the idea that the Bonheur story 
 was too bad to be true." 
 
 "But where could she have got such an idea?" 
 
 "Ah, where! That's it." 
 
 "And from whom?" 
 
 "From whom, as you say." 
 
 "Well, then?" 
 
 "I do not know where she got it, how she got it or 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 119 
 
 what she got, but from your account she appears to 
 have, or appears to think she has, a grievance against 
 you, if not about Bonheur, then about somebody or 
 something else." 
 
 I sat down and he got up. 
 
 "I believe you are right." 
 
 But there now at the door was Peters. 
 
 "Dr. Cally, sir." 
 
 In he walked, the living image of the devil, and 
 pointed a finger at Bradish. 
 
 "You're exciting yourself, my son. None of that I 
 told you." 
 
 He nodded at me. "What's new on Parnassus?" 
 
 I got up to go. "What's new with you? Any inter 
 esting cases?" 
 
 Cally plucked at his beard. "My cases are all inter 
 esting to the patients. But recently I had one that 
 might interest* a genius. George Eliot had a similar 
 case in one of her novels. You, of course, could 
 handle it better, much better. You have, what she 
 lacked, the impressionist touch." 
 
 I knew he was guying me. None the less I walked 
 straight into it. 
 
 "What sort of a case?" 
 
 Blandly he smiled. "Hard up for a plot? Well, 
 some day I may give you one. But not now. Now 
 I have to scold this young man. He seems in a very 
 depleted condition. Been exchanging ideas with you, 
 hasn't he?" 
 
 "Hardly that," I said, making for the door and 
 smiling at him as I went. "Merely a tip or two. I was 
 suggesting another physician." 
 
120 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 XVI 
 
 IN the workshop that night I tried to solve the 
 riddle. The enigma passed and repassed. It galloped 
 like Flaubert's sphinx. 
 
 J'ai vu le sphinx qui fuyait. II galopait comme un chacal. 
 
 In meditating that picture, a message reached me. 
 Probably the result of what people who like fine words 
 call unconscious cerebration, or of what people who 
 like finer ones call inspiration, none the less the mes 
 sage seemed to originate not from within but from 
 without. It seemed as though an invisible presence 
 had conveyed it. Even now, though years have gone 
 by since then, I am unable to say that it was not due 
 to an external agency. The superjective, always poten 
 tial in us, though in most of us usually dormant, may 
 have transmitted it from one of the unseen helpers that 
 we all have and who are most active in our behalf 
 when we are striving, not for ourselves, but for others. 
 
 In any event and however the impact may have 
 originated, eventually it supplied the key to the riddle, 
 opened that door and changed three lives. The com 
 plex result was not immediate and in time much, if 
 not all of it, would in any case have been achieved. 
 Sooner or later all doors open, all lives change. But 
 I believe now that the key was hidden in the message 
 which, simple enough on the surface, told me to do 
 what I had then no intention whatever of doing and 
 that was to visit the Park the next day. 
 
 Chateaubriand, who knew what poetry is, said there 
 are apparitions that visit the heart of man. They 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 121 
 
 come, as thieves and angels do, and like them depart. 
 An apparition had visited me. It instructed and I 
 obeyed. On the morrow, at eleven-thirty, I was again 
 in the Park, at the foot of those steps. 
 
 I had no plan of any kind, which often is the best 
 plan of all. I had thought that when and if the 
 lady appeared, I would let circumstances guide me. 
 But though I had not planned what I would do, I had 
 planned what I would not do. The day before she 
 had cut me dead. Ghost or not, I did not propose to 
 have her cut me living. If, graciously, she were so 
 inclined and bowed, my hat would sweep the steps, and 
 if by look or motion she intimated that I might address 
 her, then, while I had no phrases rehearsed, I did think 
 I might become quite talkative and not about the 
 weather, either. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the third step from the bottom, I 
 sat down. The dear children of the day before may 
 have sickened at last. The tourists may have thought 
 the Park a haunt of thugs. The talkative man who 
 talked to himself, must have been talking elsewhere. 
 Save for the mosquitoes I was alone. Beyond, on 
 the miasmatic lake, a boat floated. Above was a 
 tender turquoise and the indifferent sun. Of the lady, 
 not a sign. 
 
 I lit a cigarette. As I tossed the match, my hand 
 stung. From it fell a pebble. I looked up. At the 
 top of the steps, Bradish was looking down. Then at 
 once, as though he had no time to waste, he turned 
 his back, a very fine back, draped beautifully in beauti 
 ful flannels. 
 
 I called at him. "Au large, canaille." 
 
122 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Still that back and I fancied he was gazing Janus- 
 esquely as he had gazed the day before. 
 
 Up the steps, like a chamois on Chamonix, I flew. 
 
 "See here, confound it, you will only make a mess of 
 things as you did yesterday, whereas I " 
 
 "You will do wonders." 
 
 "At all events, I won't lose my head and my hat 
 and tumble over backward. If she sees you, she'll 
 bolt, godlike that you are. But me, now, she may not 
 notice and I can tiptoe along and see what becomes of 
 her. It is not supposable that she will dematerialise 
 as little Bright Eyes did when her chaperon caught me 
 hugging her." 
 
 "You never can tell. She dematerialised yesterday. 
 She dematerialised the day before." 
 
 "But neither of us saw her at it. Now I saw Bright 
 Eyes perform her little act. She sank from my arms 
 through the floor, disaggregating as she went." 
 
 "She was a fool not to have disaggregated sooner." 
 
 "I dare say. But that's not the point. If you are to 
 stop here, I'll go. If you go, I'll hold the fort." 
 
 Bradish grabbed me by the arm. "There she is 
 now! In that taxi!" 
 
 In the cab, almost in front of us then, I could see 
 her, see too that she was bowing, not at both of us, 
 not at Bradish, that bow was for me, and raising my 
 stick in signal at the mechanician I bounded. Before 
 I could reach her she too may have signalled. A yard 
 or two beyond the cab stopped, a gloved hand was 
 held out to me and my eyes were eating her face. 
 
 "Well!" I exclaimed. "Of all people! You are 
 not the ghost of yourself, are you?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 123 
 
 She smiled. "No. I don't think so. Yet I may 
 be. One never knows." 
 
 "But " 
 
 The smile persisted. "You thought me abroad?" 
 
 "And heard you were not." 
 
 The smile passed. She was no longer looking at 
 me, but over me, and I felt a kick. I knew it was he, 
 confound him, and half turning, I said : 
 
 "This is Mr. Bradish, Miss Bolton." 
 
 I had seen him in any number of situations, but I 
 had never seen him awkward before. Shy, yes, and 
 diffident also, but awkward never, yet there he stood, 
 fiddling with his hat, his mouth twitching like an 
 embarrassed schoolboy. 
 
 The smile returned. "How do you do, Mr. 
 Bradish?" 
 
 He sort of gasped, but he let go. "Thank you, 
 thank you. Had the pleasure of seeing you here yes 
 terday, I believe. Yesterday and the day before." 
 
 I suppose she knew what he was thinking. She 
 usually could tell what anyone thought, that is when 
 she wanted to, but she took it very simply. 
 
 "Yesterday and the day before I was in Canada. 
 I am on my way now from the station." 
 
 She turned to me. "When you can you must look 
 in at my new quarters. Signor Matouchi will be glad 
 to see you and you also, Mr. Bradish, should you 
 care to come. Will you tell the man to drive on?" 
 
 Another smile and she drew back. But I poked my 
 head in at her. 
 
 "My love to your angel and say I don't know where 
 he lives." 
 
 She laughed and told me. It was on the west side 
 
i2 4 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 in the upper Eighties. As she told me, I saw travelling 
 bags at her feet. She gave me her hand. I told the 
 driver and fell back. 
 
 Bradish, his hat in his hand, his tail between his legs, 
 was ambling away. 
 
 I caught up with him. "Well, sir, I hope you are 
 satisfied. That ghost is laid." 
 
 With latent ferocity he turned on me. "Was that 
 the Delatour girl? She doesn't resemble Nelly in the 
 least." 
 
 "She doesn't, eh? After your telling her you saw 
 her here yesterday and the day before! I like that!" 
 
 "I don't know that I particularly care what you like 
 or what you don't like. At a distance there is a resem 
 blance, I admit that. But the voice is different. This 
 girl has a foreign intonation, a foreign look. Viennese, 
 I should say. I did not notice that until she spoke. 
 Then at once the slight resemblance faded. It was 
 not she who said to me yesterday, 'Your Nelly is 
 dead.' " 
 
 "It was not you either, I suppose, who grabbed me 
 by the arm and said, 'There she is I There she is !' ' 
 
 "I made a mistake, that's all there is to it. You 
 needn't rub it in. Come on to the house and have 
 luncheon." 
 
 Mentally, again I threw up the sponge. In trying to 
 unravel it the night before, I found that I did not 
 believe that the lady on the steps had spoken to him. 
 I believed that self-suggestioned, he had imagined that 
 she had. Other people have had auditory hallucina 
 tions, and why not he ? Why not he, particularly ? He 
 was just in a condition for them. In any event one 
 thing now was certain and, in a matter such as this, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 125 
 
 one was a great many. The lady of the steps was not 
 Aly Bolton. Definitely she was eliminated. I was 
 free to pick and choose between a dead girl and a dame 
 inconnue and of the two I infinitely preferred the latter. 
 At the same time, it struck me that in a town as beauty- 
 lorn as Manhattan the coincidence of three young 
 women identical in beauty was fabulous. Of the three 
 one had now dropped out. The wonder remained. 
 The subtraction diminished it by not more than a jot. 
 
 I looked at Bradish. "What did Cally say?" 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "The condition of affairs in Peru." 
 
 He scowled. "You are always trying to be funny." 
 
 I laughed. "How splendid it is for you not even 
 to have to try! Come now, out with it. What did 
 he say?" 
 
 "He did not say anything. He had no chance. I 
 did not tell him. If I had, he would have wanted to 
 have me committed." 
 
 As he said that, he nodded at me and I nodded 
 back. 
 
 "I am not so sure but that we both of us ought to 
 be. Here we have been, two days running, hunting 
 a ghost at high noon and in this beastly Park of all 
 places. Not Cally alone, but anyone else would think 
 we were cracked." 
 
 "Speak for yourself. What Cally did say is that 
 I ought to get out of here." 
 
 I ran up the flag. "Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz ! Can't 
 you hear the castagnettes, the clinking heels, the 
 guitars and the shouts? Can't you smell the orange- 
 trees and the blood? Can't you see the flash of the 
 rapier, the bull on his knees and the whole plaza yell- 
 
126 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 ing like mad? The Lord have mercy upon us ! There 
 people spend their coppers and live. Here they grub 
 for them and die." 
 
 He turned on me. "All that is copy. You know 
 you don't care a rap for any of it and you know, too, 
 and jolly well, that I don't either." 
 
 We had reached the avenue. Just beyond, a man 
 was scaling a bus. I did not know him, but he re 
 minded me of Austen. I thought of the street of 
 obscure calamities in which he had buttonholed me. 
 As I remembered it, it was somewhere off there to the 
 east and I asked Bradish if he knew where he lived. 
 
 Bradish gestured vaguely. "He left a card for me. 
 Very civil of him, I thought." 
 
 We lunched like imitation barons in the pseudo- 
 baronial hall. But Bradish played with the food. He 
 had a headache, he said, and I never heard him say 
 such a thing before. 
 
 Afterward, in the library, I caught him gazing at 
 me with pensive malignancy. 
 
 "What did you have in your head yesterday when 
 you brought up that Bonheur business?" 
 
 At the moment I had forgotten just what had sug 
 gested it and I told him so. 
 
 "I will refresh your memory then. You intimated 
 that Nelly might have misconstrued it. What the 
 devil did you mean?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing in particular." 
 
 I was wriggling. He saw it and pinned me down. 
 
 "I wish you would tell me." 
 
 A good straight honest lie has saved many a situa 
 tion. But, at the moment, my imagination was indi- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 127 
 
 gent. I could not think of one and though I regretted 
 it later, I told the truth. 
 
 "Well, then, since you will have it, you were a bit 
 precipitate." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I lied like a thief to Bonheur. I told him I had 
 seen him in the dock, told him I had seen you sign 
 that cheque. Then I shook the stripes and handcuffs 
 at him. When I got through, he was a wet rag." 
 
 Bradish bit his lip, but clutching back at his own 
 version, he brought it out. 
 
 "Peters said he would not budge." 
 
 "Peters was only in there for a moment. He 
 marched in and threatened to knock Bonheur's head 
 off. I sent him out again. Afterward I rather feared 
 he might have got it wrong and I sat about forever 
 expecting you would telephone. You didn't, but 
 then " 
 
 "But then what?" 
 
 "Afterward I thought it all bunkum." 
 
 He roared it. "Bunkum! What do you mean?" 
 
 I looked him over. "See here, I have no desire to 
 defame any woman, least of all your mother-in-law. 
 But I'll wager what you like that she gave Bonheur 
 that cheque which she knew you would honour just 
 to pave the way for her to come here and throw a 
 scare in you. That day Austen buttonholed me. I 
 told you about it. He said she would jockey her daugh 
 ter into marrying you. Well, she did. She jockeyed 
 her, jockeyed you and that's the long and short of it." 
 
 He passed his hand over his forehead, got up, limped 
 into the chamber of horrors and back again, while I 
 threshed around for a palliative. I did not find any, 
 
128 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 or what I did find seemed very futile. Yet what is 
 there in life that is not futile? As for this thing, I 
 knew that by day he could rid himself of it. Through 
 mere determination, one can, by day, rid the mind of 
 anything. But, at night, I knew it would take him 
 unawares, pull at his sleeve, wake him, sit there 
 and stare. 
 
 "She has got to know. She has got to be told that I 
 knew nothing of it." 
 
 He had stopped limping about and was standing in 
 front of me, the spider pulsating as I had never seen 
 it pulsate before. In standing he sort of shook, as 
 one does with the ague. 
 
 "I don't know how I can get her to know. In the 
 Park, if I see her again, she may refuse to listen. 
 I " 
 
 He broke off, sat down and got up again. "I'll 
 import a lama, hang me if I don't." 
 
 I could not make head or tail of it. Perhaps he 
 saw that I could not for he waved and added : 
 
 "You told me of a Thibetan lama that raised the 
 dead." 
 
 "Lord of Eternity!" I helplessly exclaimed. "No 
 doubt I did. I am capable of retailing any insanity. 
 But a lama is not a prize-pig. You couldn't import 
 one. Besides " 
 
 "You said," he cut in, "that there had been any 
 number of instances. Other means failing, there 
 shall be one here." 
 
 I sat back. It seemed phantasmagoric. But what 
 else had the episode on the steps been? Perhaps where 
 all is abnormal, the abnormal ceases. Yet the ab 
 normal need not be the illicit and I said as much. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 129 
 
 'That way leads to Bedlam." 
 
 He laughed. His laughter was that which a poet 
 catalogued as heard in hell, far down. 
 
 "Where else have I been since I woke up at the 
 manor and saw that woman looking at me? As soon 
 as I knew about Nelly, I wished I had gone with her. 
 I have wished it a hundred times. I wish it now." 
 
 He sat down. "I suppose it is indecent of me to 
 say so. It is always indecent to say how one feels. 
 But, unless I find a way out of this " 
 
 "Well, you will," I interrupted. "I have told you 
 that. You are standing before a door that is closed, 
 bolted, barred, sealed and walled. There are just two 
 things than can efface it time and silence." 
 
 Sotto voce I added: "And some one to beguile them 
 both." 
 
 Angrily he protested. "Save that for your novels. 
 Ten years hence, time and silence might help and would 
 help now, I suppose, if all this had happened ten years 
 ago. But today, tomorrow, the day after! Not for 
 
 an instant." 
 
 "See here, if you don't mind, I'll ask some of your 
 people to fetch me a drink." 
 
 I did not want it. To fuddle in the daytime has 
 always seemed to me the act of a barbarian or else 
 of a fool. But liquor, which excites most men, was a 
 sedative to Bradish and I thought that under its influ 
 ence, his mood might change, veer and pass. 
 
 He was one too many for me. 
 
 "Stop on here and get as squiffy as you like. My 
 head aches to split. I am off to bed." 
 
 He was going, but he stopped, turned, pointed. 
 
 "That door you know the door bolted, barred, 
 sealed, walled I'll break it down." 
 
130 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 XVII 
 
 IT seemed very unnatural of Bradish to have a head 
 ache. Unnatural too was his irritability. In my igno 
 rance, the combination seemed to me symptomatic of 
 approaching derangement and so weighed on me that 
 that night I awoke calling for help. I had had a 
 frightful dream about Switzerland. 
 
 It passed as such things do pass and that afternoon 
 I went to the address which Aly Bolton had supplied. 
 
 By comparison with the walkup, the house was noble. 
 A lift exalted me and presently a moonfaced maid 
 conducted me to a sitting-room that was charming. 
 
 "Rather a change from Harlem," I said when the 
 maid's mistress appeared. 
 
 She had come into a little money, she told me. In 
 telling it, she gave me her hand and, indicating an 
 oblong silver box that sat on a table, offered me a 
 cigarette. But though she smiled, as I think she alone 
 could smile, she had the languid air of those who are 
 a bit overworked. 
 
 "And now tell me about yourself," she added. 
 
 I was admiring her frock. It was delicious and she 
 was delicious in it. The combined delights sang 
 about me. 
 
 "You may perhaps remember my ghost story." 
 
 "You have been writing it?" 
 
 "I have been living it. In the second chapter you 
 walked in." 
 
 She was looking at me, reading me, I thought, but 
 even for her clear eyes I felt that that second chapter 
 was too involved and I shook it out for her after sum 
 marising the first. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 131 
 
 In turn she summed it. "The lady of the steps you 
 took first for Nelly Chilton, then for me, then for a 
 stranger, after which she vanished, though not until 
 she had told poor Mr. Bradish that his Nelly was 
 dead. But what better ghost story would you have?" 
 
 "Personally I cannot improve it. But you might. 
 Since yesterday I have been hoping you would. The 
 curious gift that is yours may save a poor devil's 
 
 reason." 
 
 Always superior, she did not deny the gift nor did 
 she belittle it. She put it properly before me. 
 
 "One may psychometrise an object, not an illusion." 
 "Forgive me, this was nothing of the kind." 
 "A lady capable of a triple metamorphosis while 
 descending a flight of steps may not be a ghost, but 
 certainly she is a moving picture and would you not 
 call that an illusion?" 
 
 "I will call it whatever you like. But I do not believe 
 she spoke to Bradish. I believe that what he* said 
 she said was an auditory hallucination. Now, ignorant 
 brute that I am, I do not know whether I have an open 
 mind or not. But I can admit that if he had an audi 
 tory hallucination, I may have had an ocular one. 
 That lady may be a figment of my own imagination. 
 She certainly is as far as you are concerned. Yet, 
 assuming that Bradish heard nothing and that I saw 
 less, our testimony coincides in one particular. The 
 vision appeared to us both. There is no illusion about 
 that." 
 
 Her head drawn back, she was gazing upward, not 
 at the ceiling, but through it and beyond. At what? 
 I cannot say. At other stars perhaps, at skies more 
 
132 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 deeply blue, at lands that would be divine were it not 
 for man. 
 
 A picture returned and I displayed it. 
 
 " 'I saw the sphinx in flight. He galloped like a 
 jackal!'" 
 
 Leisurely she redescended to earth and to me. 
 
 "You have a solution?" 
 
 "No, but I had an impact. It directed me to the 
 Park. Yesterday I saw you there. Then I knew why 
 I was sent. I was sent to meet you, for you alone can 
 help us." 
 
 "Tell me how." 
 
 "I will tell you more. Bradish believes that the 
 vision has misinterpreted an entirely innocent act of his. 
 That is impossible. Death took her too suddenly. It is 
 true she might have acquired an erroneous account of 
 it where she is and that, I think, is his idea. Yet how 
 could she? One does not gossip in the astral. At 
 least it is not supposable. But he won't look at it in 
 that way. In the sheer luxury of his grief he wants 
 to get at her." 
 
 "Orpheus and Eurydice!" 
 
 "A modern version. Orpheus, whose lyre charmed 
 all nature, all hell as well, tried with it to recover 
 his dear departed. Bradish thinks a cheque book 
 equally coercive. I was idiot enough to tell him of 
 a Thibetan lama who had evoked a dead emperor. 
 Yesterday he spoke of importing one quite as though 
 he had only to cable and hang the expense." 
 
 "Your poor Mr. Bradish might know that every 
 lama is not a magician and also that magic is not 
 confined to Thibet." 
 
 I took another cigarette. "There are satanists 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 133 
 
 everywhere. I dare say there are a few here." 
 
 She moved a matchbox to me. "I know of one by 
 repute. Probably there are others. The atmosphere 
 of New York, charged as it is with grossness, is highly 
 favourable for them. Yet I doubt that any or all of 
 them could help your friend in the least. I doubt that 
 a congress of black magicians could summon Nelly 
 Chilton." 
 
 "She is too white, you mean?" 
 
 "That would have its effect. But there is another 
 reason, one of a different order. I " 
 
 She hesitated, paused, broke it off. 
 
 I picked it up. "Well?" 
 
 She pushed it away. "It is all so out of the common 
 that sooner or later I shall be reading it, with your 
 name on the cover. You have been living it, as you 
 said. You know all the characters, all the facts." 
 
 "Not all the facts, there's the rub. Even otherwise, 
 it entirely exceeds my absence of talent. For that mat 
 ter I can think of but one writer who could do it 
 justice and that is Bil Sayers. Have you read The 
 Dawn?" 
 
 "Yes. Do you like it?" 
 
 "Enormously. The book is very able. So is he. 
 He keeps his name out of the papers and nowadays it 
 takes genius to do that." 
 
 For a moment she appeared to turn it over. Then 
 she said: "It may be he feels that a writer should so 
 arrange his life that posterity can find no evidence of 
 his having lived at all." 
 
 I laughed. "There are writers that survive only 
 because death has ignored them. But all this is shop- 
 talk. What did Canada say?" 
 
i 3 4 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Where I was it did not talk, it whispered. I 
 went for that whisper. At times, New York deafens 
 me, then it suffocates and I have to get away." 
 
 "While you were away, I took the liberty of enquir 
 ing for you at Delatour's. At the time I did not know 
 but that you might be the lady of the steps." 
 
 "They undeceived you, I hope." 
 
 "A shiny young man was reasonably vague. I left 
 with the impression that somewhere in Canada there 
 was a young gentlewoman with two names and no 
 address." 
 
 "The shiny young man knew me only as an expert. 
 My individuality and my own name I keep for my 
 friends." 
 
 "And among your friends is a sorcerer. Would you 
 care to visit his cavern tonight?" 
 
 "Dear Mr. Delmonico? I should love to." 
 
 I stood up. "You're a brick. I will stop by for you 
 then at, say " 
 
 She helped me. "At seven-thirty." 
 
 Presently the lift was redescending me to earth. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 THAT night, when the philters had been removed, 
 the den of the necromancer was void of the bewitched. 
 The disenthralled were afar, at the sea, in the moun 
 tains. Those still under the spell had gone to roof- 
 gardens, or else to joys less severe. In a corner two 
 phantoms were tenderly telling how they hated each 
 other. Occasionally a goblin moved as moves a form 
 in a dream. At the entrance occasionally a face 
 appeared and vanished. Otherwise we were alone. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 135 
 
 Among the elixirs had been a flagon of Nuits. 
 There is nothing so agreeably demoralising. A faint 
 reflection of its scarlet midnight had passed into her 
 face. On the table her right hand lay. In her left 
 hand was a cigarette. Though years have gone since 
 then, I can see her still, see the smoke as she blew it 
 through her teeth, see the dawn with which the Nuits 
 had tinted her face. From the back of her chair 
 her wrap trailed. The colour, pale amber, rhymed 
 with her dress which was mauve and which left her 
 slimly and decently naked, not severely nude as one 
 of the post-bellum frocks that began too late and ended 
 too soon would have done, but after the engaging man 
 ner of what was fashion then, just calmly and properly 
 bare. In that dress she looked like a song from Shelley 
 translated by Baudelaire. The aerial effect was there; 
 there too was the odour of exotics and these influences 
 were more subtly incandescent than the headiness which 
 Nelly Chilton in her more definite beauty had exhaled. 
 Of that beauty one had been at once aware. It was 
 flagrant. The beauty of this girl disclosed itself slowly 
 as perfection ever does. It needed custom and a certain 
 degree of intimacy before the full loveliness appeared. 
 An acquired taste perhaps, yet a taste which once 
 acquired none other can replace. 
 
 Ouvrons nos coeurs aux ivresses nouvelles. 
 
 In that line of Leconte de Lisle there is an invitation 
 and a wisdom which most of us miss. Lifting the 
 thimble of another elixir I was about to repeat it to 
 her when she took it from me. With that curious 
 divinatory gift which she possessed she may have seen 
 
136 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 it coming and, conscious that it awoke no echo, she 
 waved it away. The heights are not for every mortal. 
 They were not to be mine that night. 
 
 u We are here on business," she was saying and look 
 ing as she said it as unbusinesslike as you please. "If 
 I am to help, there are one or two things I should 
 know. Whom had she that was near to her?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "she had at least one distant rela 
 tive. That was her mother. Mrs. Chilton had a Dar 
 ling for her always. I think though it came from the 
 lips. At heart I think she looked on the girl as a 
 golden egg, or do I mean the hen that lays it?" 
 
 "And her father, was he a distant relative also?" 
 
 "A foreign one I should say. At some time or other 
 he folded his tent. He may be now in Paris or he may 
 be in San Francisco. When a New Yorker concludes 
 to disappear he makes for the coast, or else for the 
 Seine. What determines the choice must depend on 
 memory, or such information as a club window sup 
 plies." 
 
 "A man of position was he?" 
 
 "I do not know. I do not know what a man of 
 position is. But I fancy he was reasonably aware that 
 he came of good stock. If he had come of better stock 
 he might have omitted to be aware of it at all." 
 
 She raised a slender finger. "If I am to help you 
 to help Mr. Bradish, please do not talk like a society 
 play." 
 
 I raised my hand in salute. 
 
 The slender finger sank. 
 
 "The golden egg you mention spells Mr. Bradish, 
 I suppose. From the spelling am I to infer the wolf?" 
 
 "The whole pack. They chased Mrs. Chilton 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 137 
 
 through the doors of Bradish's bank where she dodged 
 in and out and ran into a fine fellow who promised her 
 the penitentiary unless she permitted him to make up 
 to her daughter. Or so at least she confided to 
 Bradish." 
 
 "You mean she invented it?" 
 
 "At any rate, Bradish swallowed it. And here the 
 plot thickens. Previously and, I fancy, by prearrange- 
 ment, the fine fellow had shown Bradish a forged 
 cheque which naturally he disowned and, as it hap 
 pened, in the presence of witnesses. At the moment, 
 the poor chap never for an instant imagined that Jim 
 the Penman was Mrs. Chilton. An hour later she 
 swam in, owned up and, the next day, with* an imagi 
 nary penitentiary staring her in the face, frightened 
 her daughter into taking him. For a moment only. 
 Since then Bradish has learned the truth. He thinks 
 she has also and thinks she believes he knew of it at 
 the time and got her under false pretences." 
 
 Aly Bolton, dropping her cigarette in a fingerbowl, 
 watched it drown and looked up at me. 
 
 "There was a nearer one yet?" 
 
 "Much nearer. A chap named Austen. She was 
 dead in love with him and is still for that matter. 
 Dead in love is a ridiculous expression when applied 
 to the living, but it fits a ghost." 
 
 Up again went that slender finger. "I asked you 
 not to talk like a society play and now you are trying 
 to talk like a low comedian." 
 
 "I wish I might so talk that " 
 
 She had taken her gloves. She was reaching back 
 for the wrap. I saw that the nature of my conversa 
 tional ambitions she divined and dismissed. 
 
138 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Summoning a goblin, I paid and off we went and 
 into a cab where I did not attempt to take her hand. 
 I knew it would be withdrawn. I knew she was not 
 the girl to give a man the lesser mystery of a hand 
 to hold unless the greater mysteries were to follow. 
 
 I knew she would never graduate the degrees to the 
 the temple. I knew she might never give anything, but 
 I knew also that if she ever did, the gift, however 
 slight, would be the token of everything else. I not 
 only knew that, I knew that she knew exactly what I 
 was thinking. 
 
 The experience of making up to her without the 
 necessity of saying a word, delighted me. It supplied all 
 the enticements of love without any of its disillusions. 
 
 But at once I was conscious that even the immaterial 
 was denied me. We were seated together, a fold of 
 her wrap just touching me, and it was through the fold 
 that she may have got the current of my thoughts that 
 were perfumed with her imagined kisses. In any event, 
 without moving an inch, she drew the fold from me. 
 The motion she made was so slight that had I been 
 less conscious of her I would not have noticed it. But 
 I did notice it. I knew it was a rebuke, one as unspoken 
 as everything else had been, and turning to her I 
 raised my hat. 
 
 "Forgive me." 
 
 Readily she might have asked for what? Readily 
 she might have pretended ignorance. There was no 
 pretence about Aly Bolton. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "I will." She paused and added: 
 
 "We have to see Mr. Bradish through and for that 
 we must be friends." 
 
 Friends 1 Dear me, how long ago that is ! 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 139 
 
 XIX 
 
 THE next day it rained ravishingly, a rich downpour 
 that ordinarily would have been to me life's full de 
 light. A nice long rainy day, what more can the heart 
 desire? It keeps you in and keeps others out. But 
 my table was bare. Bare was the cupboard of my 
 mind. I had squandered my substance on ghosts and 
 girls. In revenge, that drab of a muse had fled. She 
 had deserted my bed and board. Mentally, that day, 
 I was dished. 
 
 To the ripple of the rain I beat a tattoo on the win 
 dow. Hollow device. Wearying of it and conscious 
 of being in low spirits, the genial idea occurred to me 
 of cheering Bradish up. 
 
 The fates had ordered otherwise. When drippingly 
 I got to his house, Mr. Bradish was not at home, sir. 
 Would I wait? No, I would not, and I descended on 
 the Buck Club where that gay ass Brevoort supplied me 
 with arid jests and offers of liquid refreshment. 
 
 "See here," in my misery I said to him. "What's 
 up?" 
 
 "Not stocks. They have been up. Now they are 
 down. Thank the Lord they can't go sideways. An 
 other Martini?" 
 
 The day, though dark, was young. There were but 
 two other members in the room and they were at the 
 farther window. I knew that intentionally they would 
 not listen and that even otherwise they were too re 
 moved to overhear. Mentally I weighed it. Should I 
 tell him? Weighing it still, I beat about the bush. 
 
 "The last time I saw you, a very affable person con- 
 
1 40 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 verted your handkerchief into a conservatory. Re 
 member it?" 
 
 "Shook it out, the beggar did, over Miss Chilton. 
 Should say I do remember." 
 
 At his empty glass he nodded. "Tell you what. 
 When I read about her, it knocked me silly." 
 
 Cautiously he looked at the other window. "I say I 
 You don't believe in ghosts, do you?" 
 
 "No, I don't," I told him. "But I am dreadfully 
 afraid of them." 
 
 Yet as I uttered that antique stupidity, I gasped. 
 
 The gay ass now was solemn. "Six days ago, no, 
 hold on, five, it was on the eighteenth, I know because 
 I had an appointment with my dentist. I was on my 
 way to him when I ran smack into her. You don't 
 believe me, of course not. Would not believe my own 
 mother if she told me. Couldn't believe it myself. 
 Yet there was Nelly Chilton and I off with my hat. 
 Never noticed me. Passed straight on. I tell you 
 a feather would have done for me. What bucked me, 
 the Lord only knows, but I doubled and followed her. 
 Followed her straight into a shop and found it was 
 she and yet that it wasn't." 
 
 I snarled at him. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Search me. Looked exactly like herself and yet 
 she didn't." 
 
 I snarled again. "That second Martini that you 
 haven't had, has not gone to your head, has it?" 
 
 "I don't wonder you ask. But I tell you there was 
 something damn queer about it." 
 
 "You know she is dead, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I know it. If the notice in the paper 
 had not said, 'Funeral private/ I'd have gone. Sent 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 141 
 
 flowers though. Knew her when she was knee-high. " 
 
 He touched a bell and ordered. "Two Martinis." 
 
 I rounded on him. "In the shop, how did she look?" 
 
 "Ghastly." 
 
 "Shop lighted?" 
 
 "They all are." 
 
 "Calcium?" 
 
 "Don't remember. Why?" 
 
 "That might account for it. Besides " 
 
 "Besides what?" 
 
 "If you knew her since she was a child, you must 
 have known her people. Had she any cousins?" 
 
 "Her father is the last of the Chiltons." 
 
 "Is her mother equally unique?" 
 
 "Her mother was a Fellowes and, by George I now 
 I come to think of it " 
 
 "Well, what?" 
 
 "She had a brother, Cranston Fellowes. He's dead. 
 Got drunk on a yacht and fell overboard. They fished 
 him out. Too much for him though. Pneumonia 
 probably. That was before my time. Heard of it 
 often though. My governor knew him. Said he and 
 Mrs. Chilton were the living image of each other. Now 
 he had a daughter. Never saw her. Don't know any 
 body that ever did. When she was fourteen she bolted 
 with a chauffeur." 
 
 "A chauffeur!" I exclaimed. 
 
 Gaily the gay ass laughed: "Hey, why not? Every 
 body can't be a best-seller." 
 
 The cocktails had come. While he was drinking 
 his, it naturally occurred to me that the lady of the 
 steps and the lady in the shop must be the same and, 
 conceivably, the chauffeur's inamorata. 
 
i 4 2 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 I raised my glass. u What did she do in the shop?" 
 
 "That's it! A floorwalker asked what I wanted. I 
 looked at him as much as to say, 'speak when you're 
 spoken to,' just looked from her at him and back again 
 and, begad, she'd gone!" 
 
 The coincidence was so striking that untasted I put 
 the cocktail down and tentatively played out a rope. 
 
 "The usual sea of millinery had engulfed her." 
 
 "Devilish high the sea must have been to carry her 
 off like that." 
 
 Still playing out the rope, I laughed. "Not a bit of 
 it. The trouble with you is you are too fascinating. 
 A woman has eyes in the back of her head. This 
 woman knew you were following her. She feared for 
 herself and entered a shop to lose you." 
 
 If you can chuckle gravely, the gay ass did. Yet 
 at once, assuming a false modesty, he waved the pic 
 ture away. 
 
 "Oh, for all of me " 
 
 Again I rounded on him. "Look here! You go 
 about telling other people what you have told me and 
 before you can say Jack Robinson they'll clap you in 
 Bloomingdale. Isn't it obvious that the lady in the 
 shop is your chauffeur's girl?" 
 
 "He isn't my chauffeur. What's more, I fancy she 
 is no longer his. But perhaps you are right. It may 
 have been she. I didn't think of it before." 
 
 "Think of it now then." 
 
 We were seated as, in a club, men often are, at a 
 window. Through it, for a little since, I had been 
 aware of an encroaching blue. The ravishing rain had 
 ceased. Westward the sky had cleared. At the houses 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 143 
 
 opposite, the sun, from its magic treasury, was tossing 
 aigrettes of gold. 
 
 But now a youth in a slashed waistcoat was bearing 
 down on us. 
 
 "Beg pardon, Mr. Brevoort. A telephone call, sir." 
 
 With a gesture of excuse, he left me. I was glad 
 of it. The advice I had volunteered applied to us both. 
 I too needed to think of it and while he was shut in a 
 cupboard, I ferreted about, found my umbrella and 
 went out. 
 
 To go out when you have nowhere to go affords a 
 spaciousness of freedom that is eminently relaxing. I 
 had no wish to curtail it. After the stuffiness of that 
 window, the puddles and gasolined air exhilarated and 
 though it would be an excess of metaphor to say that 
 they enlightened, none the less at the next corner I 
 threw the chauffeur's girl into the middle of the street. 
 Good enough for that gay ass if he wanted her, she 
 was too fanciful for me. For a moment I had been 
 inclined to swallow her, but on that corner I threw 
 her up. The facial resemblance of cousins is rarely 
 vivid and I abandoned the young woman with a shrug. 
 
 I was yet to learn that one does not get rid of a 
 girl like that. It was some time before she caught up 
 with me again but when I next saw her, then, in return 
 for my shrug, she gave me a start. 
 
 It was near the Cathedral that I said goodbye to 
 the misconducted daughter of Cranston Fellowes who, 
 in addition to outraging the proprieties with a chauf 
 feur, had managed to become mistaken for a ghost, and 
 although I dropped her there, originally, in the club 
 window where I first saw her, I had thought of taking 
 
144 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 her along and making her go through her tricks for 
 the benefit of Bradish and his peace of mind. 
 
 Yet, as I afterward realised, nothing earthly could 
 have benefited him. Back of the doors that close be 
 hind our birth it must have been all prearranged. 
 Long ago, on inaccessible spheres, for some sin anterior 
 and forgotten, all that had happened to him and all 
 that was yet to happen, must have been written in his 
 progression. Men who denounce the injustice of fate 
 do not realise that their destiny is self-made, that as 
 they sow they reap, though the reaping be postponed 
 until their nominal death has intervened and they re 
 turn here for the harvest. 
 
 These esotericisms did not occur to me when I was 
 throwing the chauffeur's girl in the street. They came, 
 with other things in their train, years later. At the 
 time, innocently, in my ignorance, I thought that one 
 may outwit fate. Innocently and ignorantly I thought 
 I might help Bradish. I know I tried and, in his hor 
 rible journey to nowhere and back, it is possible that 
 my efforts were of aid. But the journey itself, the 
 long road hedged with hazards, no one but he could 
 take, no one could save him from it. In the secret 
 chambers of his soul he followed it. He had to follow 
 it. Ineluctable as such journeys ever are, that journey 
 was his destiny self-made. But I can say for him, 
 that though he fell, as again and again he did fall, 
 he saw it through and, not at the end, there was no end, 
 there never is an end, but somewhere, midway between 
 nothing and nowhere on that hazard-strewn road, he 
 found peace. How he found it, and where he found 
 it, will be related later on. Yet, now that I think of 
 it, Swinburne told it better than I can, better than 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 145 
 
 anyone could. "Even the weariest river winds some 
 where safe to sea." 
 
 XX 
 
 "I DON'T like it, sir," Peters was telling me. 
 
 It was in my workshop. I am not the Pope and I 
 had asked him to sit down. I do not think he liked 
 that either. In any event, an expert in his vocation, he 
 knew the niceties of its etiquette too well to accept. 
 Civilly, but firmly, he had refused. 
 
 "Well, Peters," I told him, "you know I cannot 
 listen to you. What Mr. Bradish does is his own affair. 
 If he cares to tell me that is another kettle of fish, 
 but you ought not to." 
 
 "Then who can I tell, sir?" 
 
 That was it. Bradish had relatives whom he studi 
 ously avoided. There was no one to stand in loco 
 parentis. To produce another legal phrase, I was his 
 nearest friend. 
 
 For a moment I turned it over. An idea crossed it 
 and I said : 
 
 "Anyway, say nothing to Dr. Cally." 
 
 "No, sir, I certainly will not, sir. But that now 
 is another thing that has made me hanxious. I asked 
 Mr. Bradish if he would wish me to have Dr. Cally 
 in. Mr. Bradish has always been most the gentleman 
 to us servants. But he cursed me something dreadful. 
 He looked frightful, sir. I was afraid he'd have a fit. 
 But if I may take the liberty of saying it, the people 
 that come there " and Peters raised a hand in mor 
 tification "they " 
 
 I interrupted him. "I can't listen to that. I will 
 
146 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 stop by and if Mr. Bradish cares to tell me anything I 
 may know what to say. In that box over there you will 
 find some cigars. Help yourself." 
 
 A week had gone since I threw the chauffeur's girl 
 overboard. In the interim, my old drab of a muse 
 had returned more in love with me than before. Poor 
 taste on her part, but there she was and I had been 
 wringing from her a tale of the west. As, at the 
 time, I had not been farther west than Hoboken, local 
 colour stood about in jars. I had only to help myself. 
 Within range of my gun which I could pull by a slight 
 of wrist too quick for the eye to detect were prairies, 
 cattle, saloons, faro-banks, cowboys, bad men, bad 
 lands and The Girl, a flower, fleet as a mustang and 
 pure as prayer. 
 
 I had gone at the accursed thing because I could not 
 go at the ghost story and I could not go at that because 
 I was living it. You never can properly begin a novel 
 until it is finished. 
 
 All that by the way. I enter it in these papers only 
 that I may make it clear, how it was that since the 
 ravishing day when I pitched Miss Fellowes in the 
 mud, I had not seen Bradish, or Aly Bolton either. 
 For that matter, I had not even revisited the Park. 
 But, at the time, I felt that the lady of the steps would 
 descend them no more. It seemed to me that when 
 Bradish first saw her there, she had not seen him. It 
 seemed to me also that when she did see him, she may 
 have feared that if she went there again, some effort 
 might be made to detain her. I have, it is true, no 
 facts to support my opinion, but I believe that the 
 second time she was seen on those steps was the last 
 time she returned there. In any event, neither Brad- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 147 
 
 ish nor I saw her there again, nor have I heard of 
 anyone more fortunate. 
 
 But to go back a bit. I was in the workshop wring 
 ing a farrage of rot from that drab, taking down her 
 gurgles, when I heard someone without. There was 
 no pounding; just a tap, just a voice. 
 
 "Please, sir. It's Peters." 
 
 It was an awkward and perilous moment. But some 
 thing might be wrong with Bradish. Consequently I 
 had no recourse but to go forward with a backward 
 eye and, while clutching the story with one hand, open 
 the door with the other. 
 
 Four minutes later, Peters had gone. With him that 
 fly-by-night had flown. Try as I might, it was idle, 
 not a line would come. The only thing that prevented 
 me from throwing my inkstand out of the window was 
 the subliminal consciousness that I would have to buy 
 another. 
 
 In the circumstances, what I did do was perhaps ex 
 cessive. Resigning myself to the will of the gods, I 
 went to sleep. 
 
 I awoke with a jump. Either the house had blown 
 up or else the roof had fallen in. But no, it was merely 
 Bradish at the door. 
 
 Without any of the amenities of life, he issued his 
 edict. I was to come to his house at once. The pro- 
 nunciamento pronounced, he deigned to be scurrilous. 
 
 "What on earth have you been doing?" 
 
 "Writing a book." 
 
 "Why haven't you looked in on me?" 
 
 "Writing a book is like having a baby. Any inter 
 ruption is at the expense of the child." 
 
 "You talk like a wetnurse and act like a thug. I 
 
i 4 8 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 would have telephoned, wired or sent, but no one can 
 get at you. Here I am, on the edge of it, and I have 
 had to come myself. What is more, a blear-eyed 
 scoundrel below told me you had married and moved 
 to Brooklyn. What a devil of a way to live !" 
 
 We were on the stair while he was singing that song 
 and presently we were in his car. 
 
 There he improvised another. "That door is not 
 as tight as you think. I have got the locksmith." 
 
 As he said that, I could see Peters, his hand lifted 
 in mortification at the people Bradish received. 
 
 "Where did you find him?" I asked. "In the gut 
 ter?" 
 
 "It was a bookshop." 
 
 "A bookshop !" I amazedly repeated. 
 
 "A cellar. Run by a lousy old party who sells queer 
 trash. Sells it, no, has it on tap and sits there looking 
 at it, twirling his thumbs, waiting for customers that 
 never come. He had the effrontery to tell me he was 
 busy, yes and fearless." 
 
 "How did you " 
 
 "How did I find him? Through another bookseller. 
 When I got in the cellar I asked for occult literature 
 and an instructor. It was then he told me he was 
 busy. I paid him for his time, promised him more 
 money and gave him my address. He has been send 
 ing instructors ever since. Of the lot, I selected one. 
 He is the locksmith. He says he can make the door 
 open of itself. If he does, I believe I shall die of 
 joy after having nearly died of grief." 
 
 We were flying through the Park. I was looking at 
 the stars, at the myriad worlds, and a very convincing 
 spectacle they are when you have erroneous ideas of 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 149 
 
 your own importance. In the light of suns that reach 
 us aeons after the suns themselves have ceased to be, 
 it occurred to me that Bradish had an idea, perhaps 
 exaggerated, of the importance of mundane joys and 
 sorrows. What he had said about the door opening 
 of itself seemed to me equally exaggerated. I do not 
 believe in miracles, although in view of my literary 
 crimes it must have required a procession of them to 
 keep me out of Sing Sing. 
 
 The flight of the car diminished into a soapy slide. 
 We were at the house where, as usual, Peters was in 
 the hall. His face, as wooden as ever, was an expres 
 sionless mask from which his eyes looked at me. There 
 was no recognition in them, but there was, I thought, 
 anxiety. 
 
 Bradish, meanwhile, had said a word to him. 
 
 "When the magus comes we will be in the library." 
 
 The magus! I chewed the title. The taste was 
 rotten. 
 
 But in the library where already Gedney had pre 
 ceded us, there were, in addition to authors less inter 
 esting, a set of the works of the monks of Chartreuse, 
 operas from Cognac, and a sonata, pale yellow, that 
 had been composed in Rotterdam. 
 
 Bradish began reading one of them and, I thought, 
 very fluently. 
 
 Patting his mouth with his handkerchief, he sat down 
 at the table where already I had seated myself and to 
 which he drew another chair. 
 
 "For the magus," he told me. 
 
 I smiled. "Have you found him expensive?" 
 
 "Well," he replied, drinking quite as fluently again, 
 "no." He waved the glass, indicating the room, the 
 
150 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 spaciousness of the great, white, staring house. u ln 
 view of this, I suppose he put prices up a peg or two. 
 But that is neither here nor there. At any figure the 
 key will be cheap. By the way, I wish you would ask 
 for a look at it. I know nothing of these things and 
 you do." 
 
 I sat back. "Good heavens! What I know could 
 find a playground on the head of a pin. A few odds 
 and ends I may have picked up, but that is all that 
 can be picked up by anyone not an initiate and the 
 initiate tell nothing. Or, if they do, they are killed." 
 
 Bradish put down the glass. "How killed? What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "In France a man named Delormel, who was an ini 
 tiate, published a book La Periode Solaire. What 
 was in it I do not know, but I do know that in twenty- 
 four hours not one single copy of that book was any 
 where obtainable and Delormel was dead." 
 
 "The magus!" 
 
 It was Gedney announcing the locksmith who, at 
 the entrance, folded his arms and bowed. 
 
 Affectations have never appealed to me and that 
 affectation of orientalism angered. To give him such 
 credit as may have been his due, he saw my hostility 
 at once, and saw it, too, though my expression had not 
 altered. 
 
 But such credit as may have been his due, he must 
 have been unable to obtain elsewhere. Thin, and by 
 comparison with Bradish and myself, undersized, he 
 wore a long frock coat, stained and shabby. On one 
 hand he had a glove from which a finger had promi 
 nently gone. He had a high frayed collar, a dingy 
 black stock, but no cuffs, none at least that I could 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 151 
 
 see, and I divined the complete absence of linen. The 
 man was in rags and he held himself with an air that 
 Frederick Le Maftre may have displayed, when, in 
 Robert Macaire, he appeared princely in tatters. 
 
 He bowed again, moved toward us and sat down. 
 His eyes large, black, piercing, commanding, turned 
 from Bradish to me. His hair, yellowish white, the 
 colour of old straw, was abundant and through it he 
 ran that fingerless glove. His features, plainly Semitic, 
 were otherwise regular and his skin, pale saffron, was 
 blotched. He might have been forty. He may have 
 been a hundred. 
 
 As silent he sat, turning his eyes without moving his 
 head, I thought him the most repellent creature I had 
 ever beheld, a soul unclean, which is common enough; 
 but a soul so unclean that it attracted elementals as 
 filth draws flies. Things revolting, unmaterialised and 
 therefore invisible, but none the less hideous, might, I 
 thought, be crawling all over him and, conceivably, 
 might crawl from him to me. Mentally I crossed my 
 self. Physically I edged away. 
 
 He saw that as, presumably, he saw everything and 
 smiled. But what a smile ! A smile that disclosed 
 teeth that were vulperine, black and yellow, pointed 
 and sharp, the fangs of a human hyena. 
 
 Then at once, but slowly, in the voice of a ventrilo 
 quist, each syllable carefully enunciated, he addressed 
 me. 
 
 "You are young, therefore ignorant and in ignorance 
 is disdain. You are contemptuous and unaware that 
 I am a priest. Magus means priest and the knowledge 
 you lack and which I possess is the sacred wisdom to 
 which Plato, Plutarch and Virgil bowed and which 
 
152 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 caused three of its hierophants to lay symbolic homages 
 at the cradle of your Lord. That wisdom, the Magh 
 dim, created the gigantic civilisations whose ruins still 
 support the weight of sixty cycles. In your ignorance 
 you disdain the Maghdim which, in your mouth, is 
 magic and magic a conjurer's device. Sir, magic is 
 will. It was by the magic of his own will that Brahma 
 created whatever is. By will man may also create, 
 he may acquire prerogatives apparently superhuman 
 and, if he be an adept, even as I, he can will to his 
 will all the forces and powers of nature." 
 
 I nodded at him. "You are entirely right. I am 
 an ignorant brute. Ignorant and cynical. But I have 
 heard that magic is of two classes, the white and the 
 black; that the one works through pantacles and prayer, 
 the other by sacrilege and Satanism. Yours, I assume 
 is the latter. Jim, pass the bottle. Give the magus 
 a drink." 
 
 "I do not consume liquor, sir, and if I may further 
 instruct you, Satan is the name that the perversely 
 ignorant give to Elim Sabaot." 
 
 "Who is that?" Bradish asked. 
 
 "Elim Sabaot is the Being whom you call God." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" I exclaimed. Illiterately I added: 
 "Elim Sabaot is the incommunicable name of which the 
 mention was forbidden and which is employed now only 
 in magical mantras by vulgar thaumaturges. Do you 
 count yourself among them, Magus?" 
 
 "Sir, I am a priest of the Maghdim, and if that be 
 vulgar and black, then black and vulgar was the power 
 with which Swedenborg summoned the dead. Black 
 and vulgar also was the power which Spiridon, a bishop 
 whom the Church made a saint, evoked the spirit of his 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 153 
 
 daughter. Spiridon and Swedenborg were priests of 
 the Maghdim, even as I." 
 
 "Good Lord!" I disgustedly exclaimed. "If it 
 comes to that, then so was Cagliostro." 
 
 "Permit me again to correct you, sir. Cagliostro, 
 though he summoned the dead and had them parade 
 before his guests at supper, possessed but an imperfect 
 knowledge of the sacred science and was surrendered 
 by the true magi to the Roman Inquisition." 
 
 Physically the creature was revolting. Morally he 
 nauseated me. I felt I could stand it no longer and I 
 started to go, but beforehand I gave him one more. 
 
 "It is wonderful to meet anyone as invariably right 
 as you are. At the same time, the honour of being 
 addressed by Cagliostro's superior is too overwhelm 
 ing. Jim, I'll borrow your car and go home." 
 
 The beast had risen. He turned to Bradish. 
 
 "Since your friend intends to counsel you against 
 my offices: nay, by his manner has so counselled you 
 already, it is for me to go." 
 
 He backed to the entrance. There, folding his 
 arms, he bowed as he had bowed before. 
 
 Bradish followed him out. For a moment I could 
 hear them talking, their voices diminishing as they 
 went, the key jingling in the wake. I was sorry then 
 I had not asked to look at it and then flung it in the 
 vermin's face. 
 
 For assuming the key, assuming also that it had even 
 a minor value, it would have opened one door at least, 
 the door of some box in which there was coin. Yet, 
 I suddenly had to ask myself, was it not already in the 
 lock of the cheque-book that Bradish signed? The 
 
154 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 fact that Bradish was a fool and this creature a knave 
 did not lessen the magic of that. 
 
 But there was another angle, far more important. 
 Any key of a door to the dead drips with perils. I 
 feared them for Bradish who, at the moment, came 
 limping in. 
 
 Malignantly he surveyed me. "Rather had you, eh? 
 Served you right for being so damned uncivil. Never 
 saw you show up worse, damned if I have, and I 
 wanted you to sit in with us. Now he won't have 
 you." 
 
 But that cup of coffee was a trifle too strong. In 
 no circumstances would I have approached the door and 
 there it went slamming in my face. The ease with 
 which the trick had been turned made me laugh. 
 
 "What the devil are you grinning at? Do you think 
 he can't do it?" 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Break through." 
 
 Before answering, I helped myself to the Rotter 
 dam sonata. Then I looked up at him. 
 
 "Given the Satanism, the occult knowledge, together 
 with the ability to employ it and, everything being 
 possible, perhaps he can. But the perils of the 
 threshold " 
 
 "Damn the perils!" 
 
 "Yes, but then they may damn you. In the last at 
 tempt at anything of the kind that I know of, one of the 
 participants was strangled to death and another went 
 raving mad." 
 
 "What became of the third?" 
 
 Surprised at the question, I asked one. "How do 
 you know there was a third?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 155 
 
 "The old cock said there must be three and, hang it, 
 I had counted on you." 
 
 "You will have to count again then. In this instance 
 there were three. The third escaped in time." 
 
 Bradish gestured. "Escaped, did he, and from what? 
 The effects of his own imagination. Otherwise they 
 must have botched it. From what I understand, and 
 I propose to verify it, in the course of the ceremonies 
 the door will open and Nelly will appear." 
 
 "Perhaps," I told him and I told him, too, to mark 
 the perhaps. "But," I added, "supposing that instead 
 of the dead, there appear, as there appeared to the 
 people I just mentioned, a materialised elemental that 
 grapples with you, eats your throat out, tears your 
 reason away. What happened to them, might happen 
 to you. They also were trying to evoke a dead girl. 
 A demoniac incube came in her place. For God's 
 sake, Jim " 
 
 He shoved the gin at me. "Have another. We are 
 not in Sunday school." 
 
 I was looking at him and, as I looked, I had an im 
 pression, curious, abnormal and perhaps unfounded 
 that he was obsessed. In his eyes was an expression 
 so evil and about his mouth a twist so vile, that it was 
 as though a psychical confiscation had occurred and I 
 was looking at another being. 
 
 Since then I have been through the war, where I 
 learned what fear is; where I learned also that in the 
 presence of the fearful you will falter if you do not 
 laugh. I had not learned that lesson then. None the 
 less I laughed. I laughed at him or at it. 
 
 Viciously he eyed me. Then at once, with a shake 
 of the head, he raised a hand and passed it down over 
 
156 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 the face from forehead to chin. It was as though he 
 were wiping, or trying to wipe, some of the evil away. 
 But the action may have been entirely unconscious. 
 None the less and though the horrible expression re 
 mained, it had diminished and in a moment, when he 
 again spoke, it seemed to leave him, sponged away by 
 an effort of his own volition. 
 
 u The old cock told me to say to you from him, 
 Silence and Farewell." 
 
 I looked at my glass and from it at him. "Very 
 considerate. It is the occultist leave-taking. I do wish 
 he would say it to you." 
 
 As I said that, I could have sworn that in spite of 
 his efforts, that revolting look, the look of another 
 entity, glared out from him at me. 
 
 He turned on his heel and turned back. 
 
 "The car is waiting." 
 
 So too was that look. I did not laugh then. I 
 went on and out. As I went the look followed. In the 
 car, there it was. It was like a look shot through the 
 keyhole of some door below. 
 
 XXI 
 
 IN times of stress, and this was one of them, a 
 cultivated indifference has its value, but it is perhaps 
 less conducive to serenity than the opiates of work. 
 Resolutely, on the morrow, I prepared to give my pen 
 a skirt dance around that garbage flower of the west, 
 yet, such was the stress, that it was not until evening 
 that I had it sufficiently groomed for the grand ecart. 
 But what pen, however poor, can be saltitudinous on 
 an empty stomach ? With a view to various vilenesses 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 157 
 
 at a cookshop nearby, but accompanied by cowpunchers, 
 bad men and that prairie pearl, I was somnambulistic- 
 ally vacating the rookery when the janitor's drooping 
 eye popped up and a note fluttered at me. 
 
 Anything of the kind was distinctly forbidden and 
 I was about to give him fits but inadvertently I had 
 looked at the superscription. Never before had I seen 
 that writing. Yet its character, oddly cobwebby and 
 equally clear, was as serviceable as a photograph. 
 
 "I thought as how/' the dirty little man was saying, 
 "seeing it was her " 
 
 "And thou hast done well, my pretty maiden. Here." 
 
 I fed a dollar into his dirty paw and read. 
 
 Would I come and dine? 
 
 Would I? The bad men could shoot themselves 
 through, shoot every cowpuncher I never saw. For all 
 I cared the freckled lily could bolt for good, bolt for 
 bad. A fairer flower was beckoning then. 
 
 "Will come with joy and leave with regret," I scrib 
 bled with her address on a card. 
 
 "And here," I said, feeding out another dollar. 
 "Run around to the telegraph shop and send this at 
 
 once." 
 
 She is a good sort, I presently remarked at my mir 
 ror as I tied my white tie. 
 
 Now, in looking back, I remember that the dinner 
 was detestable. But though the dinner was vile, Aly 
 was delicious. Not a philistine trace of preoccupation, 
 no bourgeois attempt at excuse. 
 
 The attitude charmed me. Moreover, as I have 
 lived as lizards live, on sunshine and dust, the quality 
 of the dinner did not affect me in the least. It could 
 not have been worse, though if it had been, what could 
 
158 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 it have mattered since she was there? Later I 
 learned that she had left it all to the maid. Thrice 
 happy maid who, while not the rose, yet lived nearby. 
 
 Presently coffee came. The cloth was removed and 
 she played a little; an air from Louise, the Depuis 
 le jour; then more perfumery, Salome's song in 
 Herodiade. After which, turning on the bench, she 
 looked at me. 
 
 "I think the lady of the steps is a Miss Fellowes." 
 
 "Hello!" I exclaimed, surprised enough at the sud 
 den entrance of the young woman I had pitched in the 
 street. 
 
 From the bench she moved nearer. "You know of 
 a Miss Fellowes?" 
 
 "Why, when was it? The day after I brought you 
 back here, I looked in at a club where a gay sort of ass, 
 a chap named Brevoort, told me of a Miss Fellowes 
 who ran off with a chauffeur." 
 
 "The gay young man told you something else." 
 
 "He certainly did. He said she was a cousin of 
 Nelly Chilton." 
 
 "And looked like her?" 
 
 "He thought her her ghost." 
 
 Aly laughed. "He must be a dear." 
 
 "But," I asked, "why do you think she is the lady 
 of the steps?" 
 
 "I happened to see her and the probability occurred 
 
 to me." 
 
 "It occurred to me that the lady of the steps was 
 you and, if I had not known that at the time you were 
 in Canada, it would have occurred to me that you were 
 Brevoort's ghost; or no, not his ghost, the ghost he 
 thought he saw," 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 159 
 
 "I am glad to be acquitted." 
 
 "But your innocence is not a proof of this other girl's 
 guilt. I don't think it was she at all." 
 
 "Whom do you think it was?" 
 
 "Some fair unknown who possessed the extraordi 
 nary advantage of resembling both you and Nelly 
 Chilton." 
 
 "Why then may it not be this Miss Fellowes?" 
 
 "Well, you see, don't you know, in view of the chauf 
 feur she must be considerably out of it. Brevoort 
 said she had not been seen or heard of since she danced 
 the pas de quoi." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, then, when Bradish hailed her as his Nelly, 
 she would not have known him from Adam and as a 
 consequence could not have retorted, 'Your Nelly is 
 dead.' " 
 
 From the silver box Aly Bolton took a cigarette, 
 lighted it, blew a ring of smoke, ran a finger through 
 it and, incidentally, through my argument. 
 
 "Mr. Bradish is known to all New York. Miss 
 Fellowes cannot be more out of it than I am and yet 
 the first time I saw him I knew at once who he was." 
 
 "But my dear young woman. When " 
 
 "Don't be so violent. I am not your dear young 
 woman." 
 
 "My hated young woman then. When you saw 
 Bradish in the Park, if he had hailed you as his Nelly, 
 I will wager a bag of ducats you would not have as 
 sumed a sainte n'y louche attitude and told him what 
 he knew." 
 
 "Yes, but, and to borrow your own mode of expres 
 sion, you see, don't you know, Miss Fellowes may be 
 
160 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 more conversational. Then also, and however the 
 chauffeur may have disconnected her, none the less she 
 is one of the family and if she read the papers she 
 would have known that her cousin had married and 
 died." 
 
 "Where did you see her?" I suddenly remembered 
 to ask. 
 
 "In the street." 
 
 u How did you know she was Miss Fellowes?" 
 
 "I did not know. I had never heard of Miss Fel 
 lowes. But when I saw her I stopped and said, 'This 
 is Mrs. Bradish, is it not?' and she said, no, she was 
 Miss Fellowes." 
 
 "Like that ! Without showing surprise or anything? 
 Forgive me. I don't get the atmosphere." 
 
 "It was today. I was passing the cathedral. She 
 was coming out. I stopped and spoke. She seemed 
 annoyed, if anything. Then I saw she had a man with 
 her. If I had known she was not alone, I would not 
 have spoken at all." 
 
 "The chauffeur perhaps?" 
 
 "I can't tell you. I had but a glimpse of him. I 
 should say he was fifty and probably English. He did 
 not look like a chauffeur. This man looked like a 
 viceroy. He had the grand air." 
 
 "We can bury the chauffeur then. But after she 
 spoke, did she vanish?" 
 
 "Yes, in a cab." 
 
 "And before that. How did she look? Brevoort 
 said she was ghastly." 
 
 "Her skin was the colour of lard. I could feel that 
 she had suffered and suffered acutely. Yet then, an 
 impression of that kind I often get. Perhaps people 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 161 
 
 are not always as debonair as they seem. But I had 
 still another impression, that she was preoccupied about 
 something. What, I cannot say. I might have picked 
 her mind, but that, except when the picking is involun 
 tary, I never do. Yet there is something that she is 
 keeping to herself. Of that I am sure. I am sure, 
 too, some day it will be known. Unfortunately for us 
 all, sooner or later any secret we may have is bared." 
 
 Then for a while we discussed it, she maintaining 
 that Bradish should be told, I maintaining that it would 
 not matter now and relating the incidents of the night 
 before. 
 
 "I know the magus by repute," she said at last. 
 "His rags are a masquerade. If he is paid to open 
 that door, he will. What he finds behind it is another 
 matter." 
 
 I stood up. "You tell me that sooner or later all 
 secrets will be bared?" 
 
 She must have seen it coming, for she called to her 
 ostentatious cat. 
 
 But I did not propose to have Signer Matouchi inter 
 fere and I put it to her. 
 
 "When will mine be bared?" 
 
 Sagely she replied: "When its hour comes." 
 
 "That is not very comforting. I always picture the 
 future as a greenroom of which the stage-manager is 
 Time. The hours he motions to beset our lives are 
 sad enough, but sadder still are those that are yet to 
 
 come." 
 
 Quickly she looked at me. "Do you not think that 
 that depends on ourselves? It is not the hours that are 
 sad, it is we that sadden them." 
 
1 62 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 As quickly I looked at her. "Bil Sayers said that. 
 It is in The Dawn" 
 
 She gave me her hand. "Yes, I was quoting from 
 it. Perhaps it is not very profound." 
 
 "Less profound than your eyes," I replied. "When 
 you quote to me, quote to me with them." 
 
 Tolerably banal, I resumed to myself when I was 
 at last in the street. Why is it, when a man is in love, 
 he talks like a fool? 
 
 XXII 
 
 WHETHER the western garbage-lily bolted or not, is 
 certainly immaterial. In any event, so many amazing 
 incidents intervened that it was some time before my 
 pen could pirouette before her. The quick lariat of 
 her slang, the astonishing grace with which she leaped 
 on a horse from behind, the aura of purity that carried 
 her on a piebald mustang unspotted through the ma 
 chinations of the worst men in the bad lands, for these 
 virginal acrobatics my publishers had to wait. 
 
 Another young woman, the girl I had pitched in the 
 street, primarily detained me. Pictured by Aly, she 
 differed from the ghost that Brevoort had pursued and 
 although, the night before, when she so surprisingly 
 appeared, I could not take her seriously, yet, such are 
 the clarifying processes of sleep, that it seemed to me 
 Bradish should be shown the composite view. It 
 seemed to me that she must be the lady of the steps. 
 It seemed to me also that since she had a name, she 
 must have also a local habitation. 
 
 Apart from which I was curious about him. The 
 evil look in his eyes, the ugly twist to his mouth, the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 163 
 
 highly uncomfortable idea of psychic confiscation, these 
 impressions lingered, but only after the manner of 
 nightmares that day has dispersed. I had been con 
 scious of them. They had disturbed me. But after 
 thought had induced the idea that they were due to 
 the malign influence of that Eblian rat, or else and 
 what was less fantastic and more reasonable to my 
 own attempt at interference and the hostility to the 
 vermin that I had displayed. 
 
 Moreover, in the same manner that the strength 
 and precision of my own impressions had diminished, 
 it seemed to me that his own impressions might have 
 lost their force, that I might find him, not as he had 
 been, but perhaps less tedious than latterly he had be 
 come. Ever since the vision on the steps, he had been 
 tiresome as only a self-centred invalid can be. For he 
 was an invalid, mentally at least, with whose tedious- 
 ness it was, no doubt, my duty to bear. 
 
 It is true that when a duty is not a joy I have shirked 
 it and shirk it I always shall. The doing your duty 
 for duty's sake seems to me sanctimonious cant. There 
 ought to be joy in everything. There should be joy 
 in that and not the sense of severe satisfaction which 
 some people appear to get out of it. Anyway, brain- 
 workers are different. Brainworkers represent a spe 
 cial form of life. For them to suffer themselves to be 
 depressed is immoral. 
 
 It was with these Confucianisms in mind that I ap 
 proached the great white staring house. Occupied as 
 I was with them, I did not immediately notice Peters. 
 He had come out from the basement before I saw him 
 and then, to my amusement, I heard him urge me to 
 go away. 
 
1 64 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Yet at once he must have thought better of it, incom 
 prehensibly better, for he backed into an area, invisible 
 from the upper windows, where he effected a dumb- 
 show that would have been good business in my panto 
 mime. His face, ordinarily wooden, was as full of 
 expression as a Chinese mask and that, phenomenal 
 as it is in an English servant, decided me. I marched 
 in to where he was. 
 
 "Pardon me, sir, but Mr. Bradish's orders are that 
 no one is to be admitted and Mr. Bradish particularly 
 mentioned you, sir." 
 
 I looked at him and pulled at my nose. 
 
 At that, he clapped a hand to his mouth. 
 
 Immediately several things occurred to me. I real 
 ised that the grand Satanic seance was being held and 
 that a man, straight as a grenadier and perhaps equally 
 strong, was afraid of something which he did not under 
 stand. At the same time, I realised also that while 
 courage is often the result of an entire absence of 
 imagination, quite as often ignorance is the most potent 
 factor of fear. Yet as I doubted that Peters had ever 
 heard of the demoniac polka and as I was sure it would 
 be too much for him if he had, I invented a palpable 
 explanation, but, before producing it, I thought that 
 for once he ought to have his say and I gave him 
 the cue. 
 
 "What the devilis all this?" 
 
 I could see him jumping at it. His hand dropped. 
 
 "I don't know, sir. As God is my witness I don't. 
 But have you noticed the windows, sir? All darkened, 
 everyone in the 'ouse, even to those at the back and 
 here in the basement. That isn't all; no, sir. The 
 furniture taken out of the drawing-room, every stick of 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 165 
 
 it, and a fire burning there, a fire all night, and Mr. 
 Bradish in there with two men. Yesterday a man 
 came in a closed carnage, he is one of 'em. That man 
 as was here the night you were, sir, he's been in the 
 'ouse ever since and he's another and there are two 
 lambs. The man as came in the carriage he fetched 
 them and a copper pot big enough to boil 'em both." 
 
 The witches' cauldron, I thought, and I thought too, 
 whoever wrote Macbeth knew what he was writing 
 about. 
 
 "And no one allowed in since then, sir, and none of 
 us allowed out. Gedney, he's at the side door. I am 
 here and Fletcher is at the back. Mr. Bradish hasn't 
 eaten anything, not one of 'em has, not a crust, and 
 we are none of us allowed above the basement floor 
 and what they are doing there with that pot and those 
 lambs and in the dark, God 'elp me, sir, I don't know." 
 
 "It is very simple," I said. "Just a little ceremony 
 in commemoration of the landing here of the first 
 cargo of schnapps. All good Knickerbockers piously 
 observe it. Nothing to concern yourself about. No 
 ticed any wind yet?" 
 
 "Wind, sir? In the 'ouse? With the windows all 
 closed!" 
 
 "Well, if you do, pay no attention. It will be over 
 shortly. It'll stop by tomorrow." 
 
 Whereupon, with something to think of, I turned on 
 my heel and, in passing, glanced up at the house which, 
 with the windows closed and the blinds so drawn that 
 not a ray of light could enter, looked both sepulchral 
 and hermetic. But only to me. A passer who thought 
 of it at all, would have thought merely that the owner 
 was away. 
 
1 66 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 And yet would he? Not if he were the least psychic. 
 For about the great white staring house, there was a 
 sensation of chill, a savour of things damned, an im 
 pression of space, of shapes of sin, of monstrous crimes, 
 of sacrilege and sorcery. 
 
 And yet, I reflected and reflected, too, very erro 
 neously if an ordinary passer had succeeded in looking 
 in, he could have witnessed nothing more than the 
 mummeries of three men in a darkened room where, 
 set in a circle marked by cabalistic designs, stood a 
 tripod topped by a pot full of blood, before which one 
 of the men, turning and bending to the north and south, 
 was invoking enigmatic beings, calling to them in words 
 rhythmic and unprintable. But nothing else, nothing 
 whatever, except what the normal eye could not detect, 
 a crew of elementals swarming in a wind that swept 
 through the dismantled room and tore along the hall 
 ways of the empty house. 
 
 That would be all, unless the passer lingered, in 
 which case he might behold a vapour rising from the 
 cauldron, a vapour that wavered, ascended, descended, 
 expanded and, gradually solidifying, assumed a human 
 shape; the form of a girl translucently beautiful, im 
 mortally pale. If, after that, he did not shriek and 
 run away, it would be because he was a brave man and 
 lacked imagination. 
 
 Certainly I, too, lacked it. There was far more 
 for that imbecile to see than I saw for him. There 
 were rites curiously revolting, a ritual of perverted 
 horror, all the turpitudes of the black mass accentuated 
 by the infamies of black magic. Of that I did not 
 learn until later. 
 
 At the time, in picturing pictures for my imaginary 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 167 
 
 passer, I had entered the Park where I found a bench 
 free from nursemaids and babies. There the trees, 
 the green, the grass, distracted me. I thought of hills 
 and dales and winding lanes. I love the country when 
 I am not in it. Wearily a squirrel eyed me and gingerly 
 approached. I stretched my hand. A ball of fur and 
 nothing! The squirrel had evaporated as suddenly as 
 the lady of the steps. My thoughts went back to her, 
 from her to Bradish, and I wondered. The always 
 possible possibility of his becoming insane occurred 
 to me, as it had occurred before. In those shadowy 
 halls of his, Lyssa, goddess of the mad, goddess, too, 
 of the elect, stood and waited. I could picture her 
 also, picture her fanning him with her harlequin wings, 
 binding him with her opal chains. 
 
 And for what? The tenuous theory of sins anterior 
 and forgotten returned, but the immediate cause was 
 clearer. He had everything, except one thing only. 
 Certainly he was not Adonis. But what of it? When 
 you are rich as Croesus, though how rich Croesus may 
 have been I have no idea, yet when you are, then were 
 your nose as big as a pillow and your face an open 
 wound, always there are attractive women to call you 
 Dear. You cannot keep them away with a club. 
 
 That was not enough for Jim Bradish. A dead girl, 
 who had been in love with another man, was shoving 
 him deeper and deeper into the shadowy halls, beck 
 oning to Lyssa, calling to her, telling her to take him 
 and bind him and hide him away. 
 
 What a fool! I reflected. What a bloody fool any 
 man is who wants more than peace, fresh linen, a cigar 
 ette and a book ! I thought of Aly. As addition to the 
 little inventory I wanted her. But I knew, well enough, 
 
1 68 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 she did not want me. If she had wanted me, and I 
 could have kept my head, I might have said, Refuse 
 me everything. 
 
 Then along the path before me came Marguerite 
 of Navarre. She nodded, stopped, smiled, tapped me 
 with her fan and said: "Si vous voulez cesser d* aimer, 
 possedez la chose aimee." 
 
 Or did I dream it? Like the squirrel she had gone 
 and I was back at those halls, at the window there, 
 looking in at the unholy horrors that they held, and 
 again I wondered. Yet there was nothing earthly I 
 could do, except prime Cally who never needed priming. 
 
 I might adventure that way, I thought, submit a 
 hypothetical case and get my bearings. 
 
 On I went. At his house, a servant told me it 
 was not the doctor's office hour. 
 
 "So much the better then. Take my hat and stick." 
 
 The negro backed but he rallied. "He isn't in." 
 
 I turned on my heel and was going up the street when 
 I saw Cally affecting to hide behind a lamppost. 
 
 I stood and looked at him. 
 
 "Well," he said, pretending to pretend that he had 
 not been there. "I saw the literary light at my door. 
 Highly effulgent. I've read your last book." 
 
 "You must have been very idle. See here, I have a 
 conundrum for you. What would you do if a patient 
 went mad? Rob him?" 
 
 "I would cure him first. Thinking of Bradish, eh? 
 You need not. There is not a possibility of it. He's 
 not a genius. If he were like you now " 
 
 "Or you." 
 
 "Always the retort courteous. Poole, you are the 
 most engaging man I know. Come on in and smoke 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 169 
 
 a small cigar. I won't offer you a big one. I haven't 
 the time." 
 
 At his office, he abandoned me in a dismal den where, 
 as I kicked my heels, I reflected that since he was as 
 confident about Bradish as all that, not only it was 
 idle to bother but it would be beastly of me to tell 
 tales out of school. 
 
 These meditations were interrupted. Cally returned 
 cigarless. He had no cigars, he told me, and took one 
 of mine which, hang him, he seemed to enjoy. As he 
 pulled at it a remark he had made the last time I saw 
 him occurred to me, and, with an eye to copy, I prod 
 ded him. 
 
 "What about that interesting case?" 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 "You said George Eliot had written about some 
 thing similar." 
 
 "Yaas, I remember now. When I mentioned it I 
 had just come from the g.p. It was a case of catalepsy. 
 Could you use that?" 
 
 "Hardly. Too much of an hors d'ceuwe. The public 
 wants roast beef and boiled potatoes. But though I 
 can't feed out catalepsy, I'll take a bite of it myself." 
 
 "Sorry. Impossible to serve it today. It will keep 
 though. Let me see. If you are still hungry, look in 
 on Sunday." 
 
 But a man capable of that cigar trick was capable 
 of anything, and I shied, little thinking how soon and 
 how desperately I was to rush to him for aid. 
 
i yo THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 XXIII 
 
 I FELT quite the loafer when, after leaving tricky 
 little Cally, I entered the club where other chaps looked 
 as I felt. Mainly polo men, they were healthy, inno 
 cent-minded young animals to whom a purveyor of 
 cheap fiction was one of the literati, a being to be 
 treated with respect and avoided with care. None 
 the less, at the window where they sat, they made 
 room for me, swapped stories with each other, stories 
 as innocent as themselves, and yet told with such a 
 flourish of By George ! and I tell you ! with such shrieks 
 of laughter and such unfathomable good fellowship, 
 that I will be shot if I did not begin to feel as innocent 
 as they and went with them on and up to dinner, a noisy 
 catch-as-catch-can sort of an affair, at which some of 
 them became a bit superhilarious, but where I kept 
 my head. 
 
 I can truthfully testify to that because of subsequent 
 events which even now I vividly recall. The polo chaps 
 were all to be off on the morrow, for a match some 
 where or other, at Point Judith I think, but, for the 
 evening, they had planned to go to a roof and as in the 
 interim I had talked not shop but horses, their respect 
 for the literati had so measurably diminished that they 
 were for having me chip in. I agreed of course and 
 then managed to lose them, after which I went on and 
 up to the temporary temple of Beelzebub. 
 
 Beelzebub or, more exactly, Baal Zebub, a Syrian 
 demon, was lord of flies and, I remember thinking at 
 the time, possibly lord of fireflies also. For the temple, 
 previously dark, was bright. Through curtains at the 
 windows came the gleam of electric bulbs and it oc- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 171 
 
 curred to me that in the great dining-hall a feast was 
 in progress, an infernal orgy, at which to the right 
 and left of Satan's legate, sat the quick and the dead; 
 that there, with that saffron monster of a magus, were 
 bride and groom; Nelly Chilton summoned from her 
 grave and Bradish conjecturing the chill raptures of 
 her bloodless lips, the frigid emptiness of her ghostly 
 arms, the renewed and spectral wedding. 
 
 I thought of that, of more too I dare say, as I stood 
 on the stoop. But at once the door opened. Gedney 
 was there. Beyond was Peters. On the stair was 
 Bradish. 
 
 u Hey!" he threw at me. 
 
 Gedney took my hat and stick. He seemed catlike 
 as ever. From Peters the Chinese mask had been 
 lifted. His face was as dumb as before. But on 
 that stair, Bradish had an air and an expression so 
 reassuring that it upset me. 
 
 "Gedney, take Mr. Poole's orders." 
 
 In the Park I had dreamed that Marguerite de 
 Navarre addressed me. On the stair, Bradish seemed 
 equally unaccountable. What I had really expected, I 
 do not remember but I suppose it was the unexpected. 
 Well, there it was. Instead of odours of the black 
 mass and savours of a satanic feast, the normal con 
 fronted me and such was my mental somersault, such 
 rather are the abysses of human nature, that finding 
 the banal where I had awaited the demoniac, I stran 
 gled an oath. 
 
 "Come on in here," Bradish was saying. 
 
 Vacating the stair, he indicated the library. There 
 again I looked at him. The evil that had been in his 
 eyes, the ugly twist about his mouth, the suggestions of 
 
172 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 an alien and obsessing entity that he had exhaled, these 
 malignities had gone. Even the spider had diminished. 
 It was no longer crimson but dull, lifeless as, in the 
 old days, it used to be. 
 
 Reassured as to that, but vastly perplexed, I let fly. 
 
 "I was here at noon and could not get in. You were 
 closeted with that rat I suppose. Where is he?" 
 
 He half raised a hand. "I don't know. I don't 
 care. But I can tell you this, he did it." 
 
 Now, though, Gedney, with his catlike tread, was 
 coming in. 
 
 In my bewilderment, not at him, but at what Bradish 
 had said, I flopped in a chair. 
 
 "It cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you that also, 
 but I can tell you, too, it was uncommonly cheap." 
 
 Gedney had gone and I reached for one of the sere 
 nades he had brought. 
 
 "Then the door was opened?" 
 
 "Well," he surprisingly replied, "that depends on 
 how you look at it." 
 
 "But as yet," I angrily protested, "I don't know 
 how to look or what to look at. Either the Satanism 
 succeeded or it did not. Which was it?" 
 
 "It did both." 
 
 At that, and feeling perhaps that only spirit forces 
 could sustain me, I emptied my glass. 
 
 He was still standing, but coming to the table he 
 poured out a little gin, watered it discreetly, sat down 
 and sipped. He sipped with the comfortable air of an 
 old woman drinking tea. 
 
 I do not know why that should have angered me fur 
 ther, but he seemed so entirely at his ease that I barked. 
 
 "See here. I hate rows unless I make them myself." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 173 
 
 He looked over his glass at me. "Yes?" 
 I nodded at him. "I can promise you this, there 
 will be one unless you stop beating about the bush." 
 "There was a bush, but it's gone. She's alive." 
 "Alive! What are you talking about?" 
 He put down the glass. "About Nelly of course 
 and I always knew it. From the start I knew it. From 
 the moment I woke up and saw that nurse looking at 
 me, I did not believe that anything had happened at 
 all. Afterward I realised that I had been hurt and 
 that Mike was dead and I was sorry enough about 
 that. But, as for Nelly, I never believed it. All gam 
 mon and spinach, that's what I thought it. I have told 
 you so time and again." 
 
 I had it at last. Long since overstrained, the Satan 
 ism had unhinged him. The man was demented, there 
 fore to be humoured and I nodded again, this time 
 pleasantly enough and soothingly answered, "Of 
 course, of course." 
 
 He sipped again. "Yes, today the magus confirmed 
 it. He and I and an occultist that he had in, engaged 
 in an enterprise that was frankly revolting. In that 
 room across the hall things were done that made my 
 flesh creep. There were others that nauseated me. 
 There was a sort of double shuffle, the crapulous and 
 the sanguinary heel-and-toeing with the invisible. I 
 throw a veil over it and all the more readily because I 
 swore I would. Apart from that, there were influences 
 about, influences that had come or been loosed there. 
 What they were is beyond me. I could not see them, 
 but I felt them. It was as though a lot of bats were 
 swarming about me in the dark. It was ignoble and 
 it was horrible. But there was nothing more, or 
 
174 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 rather there was nothing else. The fact that there 
 was nothing more threw the old cock in a fury. He 
 spluttered at me like a hellcat. I got it out of him then. 
 Nelly did not appear because she could not appear and 
 could not appear because she is alive." 
 
 I smiled and said nothing. What was there to say? 
 But in smiling I revised my inexpert diagnosis. Brad- 
 ish was not mad; he was far worse, he was silly. 
 
 "Yes," he resumed, "how could she materialise when 
 she was material already? But the old cock did not 
 stop there. He cursed and swore that I had inveigled 
 him into attempting to evoke a spirit that was not a 
 spirit, that I knew was not a spirit and I had done it 
 out of vulgar curiosity, to see what could be evoked, 
 an act, he said, that might have been mortally disas 
 trous to all concerned. His adjutant was as spluttery 
 as he." 
 
 And that was the way he wriggled out of it, I 
 thought. But I said, "I don't suppose they fell on 
 you tooth and nail." 
 
 As Bradish could have knocked their heads together, 
 knocked the heads of a dozen like them, the supposition 
 was extravagant. He took it gravely. 
 
 "They were viperish enough for anything and though 
 I paid them what I had promised, they reviled me in 
 terms that at least had the merit of being new. I 
 naturally protested that " 
 
 "I dare say you did," I interrupted. "But not that 
 you had been rooked. You were plucked like a pigeon. 
 Those rats knew beforehand that there would be no 
 materialisation and worked on your credulity after 
 planning to put the failure and the burden of it on you." 
 
 "No, not at all. Their rage was not feigned. Rats 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 175 
 
 they may be. They are not Salvinis. When I pro 
 tested that it had been formally certified to me that my 
 wife was dead and that she had been put in a vault 
 at Chilton Manor, the magus spat at me, 'Go and 
 look.' " 
 
 "The only sensible thing that has come from him. 
 I wish you would. Go tomorrow. The day after, loan 
 me Peters for an hour and we can start for Spain." 
 
 "I shall go tomorrow and you will go with me." 
 
 "Nothing of the kind. I have had enough of this 
 tomfoolery. Take Peters, or take Gedney, or take 
 both. They can help you shift things about but I 
 won't. Besides, you won't need to shift anything. The 
 coffin is at the entrance, on the right. Get the door 
 open and you will find it." 
 
 "There is always a door, isn't there? Well, I will 
 open this one." 
 
 "You have not opened any yet and when you do open 
 this one you won't want to open any more. But for the 
 Lord's sake get it over tomorrow. Then, hurrah for 
 Spain!" 
 
 "I am not going to Spain. I shall look for Nelly." 
 
 "Well then, after looking in Hades, you can hunt 
 through heaven." 
 
 "I shall go about," he unheedingly continued, "I 
 shall " 
 
 "Meet Miss Fellowes," I put in. 
 
 "What?" he put back. 
 
 "Mrs. Chilton's niece. Ever hear of her?" 
 
 "What are you bringing her in for?" 
 
 "The other day Brevoort said he had seen her some 
 where. In a shop, I think." 
 
1 76 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "He was drunk. She has not been in this country 
 for years." 
 
 "She might have returned." 
 
 "When she was quite young she ran away with a 
 green-grocer, or was it a groom? I have forgotten. 
 Anyway she ran away from him, ran over to Europe 
 where she has been running ever since. Mrs. Chilton 
 told me." 
 
 "Did she say she looked like her daughter?" 
 
 "Like Nelly? No. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "I thought she might be the lady of the steps." 
 
 "That was Nelly herself." 
 
 "I won't argue over it. But hadn't she any other 
 cousins? There must be other Fellowes hereabouts." 
 
 "A lot of bores also. If you have anything up your 
 sleeve, out with it, but don't sit there asking stupid 
 questions. You make me nervous." 
 
 I gave it to him then about Aly's little adventure, 
 about her, "This is Mrs. Bradish?" and of the vexed, 
 "No, I am Miss Fellowes." 
 
 I could see him taking it in, see him turning it over 
 and I capped it. 
 
 "You may be sure that some Miss Fellowes or other 
 is the lady of the steps." 
 
 But in turning it, he must have seen something else. 
 He threw it back at me. 
 
 "No, all that is sheer nonsense." 
 
 He lifted his glass and I looked in mine. In it 
 floated the earlier surprises, the amazement I had ex 
 perienced when, on entering the house, I had been met, 
 not by the sound of shaken bells, the muffled riot of 
 a Satanic orgy and the spectacle of the spectre bride, 
 but by the numbing fingers of the commonplace. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 177 
 
 From the infernal to the banal, how brief the 
 bridge ! At that platitude, the memory of a verse from 
 the one American writer who could have adequately 
 pictured the episode recurred to me and I misquoted it. 
 
 ' 'Is all we feel or think or seem, 
 But a dream within a dream ?' " 
 
 "What are you mumbling?" he asked. 
 
 But I had had enough. I left him to his morrow, 
 little suspecting that there also Poe would have been 
 of use. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 IN and out of the hall when, on that morrow, I 
 returned there, were wiry, aproned men whom Peters 
 directed in the task of re-establishing the black and yel 
 low room as it had been before the parlour game of hide 
 and go seek. 
 
 Mr. Bradish, he told me, was motoring and would I 
 wait, sir? Of his experiences and presumable emo 
 tions since he unburdened himself in the area, not a 
 word. An automaton was before me. The man had 
 gone. 
 
 It was after six then and in the library I renewed 
 my acquaintance with Hugo's Orient ales, in which to 
 the hum of mandolins, the poet leads you through the 
 Andalusia that he knew and sang. 
 
 "Yes, sir, Mr. Poole is in the library. Thank you, 
 
 sir." 
 
 In the silent house, deserted now by those aproned 
 men, Granada had been before me. I saw the Plaza 
 de Toros, heard the shouts. Then, suddenly the Al- 
 
178 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 hambra faded, the bullring crumbled, the shouts were 
 stilled. 
 
 "She is not there!" 
 
 Bradish, a cap on, took it off, dropped it, removed 
 his gloves. 
 
 "Just as I told you." 
 
 Astonishment is dumb. I said nothing. I could not 
 say anything. Then it occurred to me that I had not 
 heard him aright. 
 
 "What's all that?" 
 
 "The coffin is open and empty. Empty! And there 
 is nothing emptier than an empty coffin." 
 
 He had sat down on that chair from Delatour and 
 was folding and refolding his gloves which presently 
 he put on the table. 
 
 "It is just as I told you." 
 
 The repetition of any remark weakens it. Besides he 
 had told me nothing of the kind. In addition, and 
 although I hate the word, I knew it was impossible. A 
 corpse cannot rise from a coffin. I doubt if even a live 
 Hercules could open one from within. Then I had it. 
 
 "Look here! You promised those rats a fortune. 
 No doubt you gave them something on account." 
 
 He leaned over, took a cigarette. "What I paid has 
 nothing to do with it." 
 
 "Everything. To guard against any Stop thief on 
 your part, they arranged matters before the tea-party 
 was given, then when it fizzled, as they knew it would 
 fizzle, they cried Cheat at you. You protested. At 
 that they told you to go and look. Well, you have 
 looked. You found nothing because what there was 
 had been removed." 
 
 He twirled the cigarette. "The grass before the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 179 
 
 vault was a foot high. If within the last few days 
 they had been there, if anyone had been there, the 
 grass could not have looked as it did." 
 
 I turned it around at him. "Did you ever hear of 
 Heraclitus? Heraclitus died of laughing, literally of 
 laughing, at the stupidity of his friends." 
 
 Bradish lit the cigarette. "I am not one of them 
 then. Perhaps you are. I know what you are going 
 to say, that they got fresh sods of grass and planted 
 them for me. They did nothing of the kind. I looked 
 into that also." 
 
 Drinking the smoke, he resumed: "Nelly never was 
 there at all. I felt that from the start and what I 
 felt the magus confirmed. Now where is she?" 
 
 "Ask that rat. If he can raise the dead, raising 
 grass must be easy for him. If it were I, I would 
 prosecute him, not for bilking me, I would not want 
 it known what a bloody fool I had been, but for rifling 
 a sepulchre." 
 
 He flicked his ashes. "You need not talk the way 
 you write. Rifling a sepulchre ! The dust on the cof 
 fin was an inch thick. Perhaps you will say they planted 
 that also." 
 
 "It would be only artistic of them and on a par 
 with everything else. The confidence game with which 
 they gulled you, I cannot but admire. You are swallow 
 ing it still and crying for more." 
 
 My shots, such as they were, may have told. He 
 seemed to be weakening and I gave him another. 
 
 "See here ! Send for that rat, offer him a release in 
 full and another cheque if he will tell you what he did 
 with the remains." 
 
 "If he were the crook you think him, he would accept 
 
1 8o THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 the offer and say he dumped them in the river. I admit 
 he is a queer fish. But he is not a crook. He does not 
 need to be one. The man is a conjurer and he knows his 
 trade. The other night, after you had gone, I had him 
 in here again. He sat at this end of the table. At the 
 farther end was that inkstand. It must weigh five 
 pounds. He beckoned, said something, I don't know 
 what, and the inkstand slid of itself the length of the 
 table to him." 
 
 "So you think. It did not slide of itself. It was 
 moved by elementals. That night I could have sworn 
 they were crawling all over him. I have thought since 
 then that some of them must have crawled on you. 
 You looked it. I don't mean to compliment you, but 
 you looked like a fiend." 
 
 At that, or at something else, a memory perhaps, 
 he shifted, uneasily I thought, turned away and then 
 to me. 
 
 "We are wandering all over the grounds." 
 "Yes, we would be much better off in Spain." 
 "Leave me in the lurch then. I am going to find 
 Nelly." 
 
 The faith that moved mountains I Instead of my 
 incredulity weakening him, his confidence was weaken 
 ing me. That confidence, irrational, illogical, utterly 
 insane, had been superb. When he heard the girl was 
 dead he did not believe it. That disbelief the sight 
 of some damsel in the Park had confirmed. When 
 the young person reiterated what others had asserted, 
 he had tried sorcery to get the girl back. That failing 
 he had looked for her in her coffin. In its emptiness 
 his confidence was renewed. Now he was going to 
 find her ! Among the living he was going to hunt for 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 181 
 
 the dead! What could you do, what could anyone 
 do with a chap like that? I saw but one course and 
 I took it. 
 
 "Jim, you are sublime !" 
 
 He must have thought I was guying him. He shook 
 his head. 
 
 "I can see it all from your angle. I do not blame 
 you because you cannot see it from mine. It would be 
 phenomenal if you could. It is not a thing I can ana 
 lyse. It is not an idea, it is a sensation, like joy or 
 like dread, which one experiences and cannot describe, 
 no, nor share." 
 
 I dressed it a bit and gave it back. 
 
 "It is the inner voice, the voice that makes the 
 hero, makes the martyr." 
 
 "And the fool," he put in. "I may be one. You 
 think so and Cally would. If Cally knew what you 
 know he would want to lock me up. But a fool may 
 be wise in his folly and time alone can show whether 
 I am an imbecile in mine." 
 
 He was taking it then so sagely that a recompense 
 was due and lightly I produced it. 
 
 "Spain can go hang. I'll see you through." 
 
 I made the promise as one promises the moon. His 
 quick and rapid fire in defence of the Eblian rat had 
 confused, it had not converted me. The girl was 
 dead. That her tomb had opened and her remains had 
 flown were matters temporarily inexplicable but eter 
 nally subordinate. The girl was dead. Yet that fact, 
 which was the cardinal fact, Bradish could not and 
 would not accept. Readily I might promise to see 
 him through. But see him through to what?" 
 
 "And there I am," he was saying, "I am up a tree." 
 
1 82 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 That tree, how well I knew it ! I was as high up in 
 it as he and my perch was more rickety. He had faith 
 to sustain him and I had none. What I did have was a 
 range of vision superior to his, because impersonal, and 
 along it I looked. The horizon was dark. Not a sign 
 of help. Not the hope of a ladder. 
 
 "Dinner is served, sir." 
 
 In the old days of the grand manner, before the 
 battle began the young officer put on his gloves. He 
 put on the white gloves that tradition required. In the 
 great crises of life one should always dress for dinner. 
 Evening clothes have a steadying effect. At the an 
 nouncement, I regretted I was in flannels. 
 
 At table I forgot them. Very thoughtfully, Peters 
 had provided a cru from the Garonne, which while 
 not summery, had an amplitude that was majestic. In 
 its red kisses were art, literature, the hum of lutes, and 
 all of them enchanting the palate, caressing it with 
 combined enthrallments. The sorceries of the red 
 magic brightened the horizon. Afar was a gleam that 
 looked like a sail or, more serviceably, a ladder. 
 
 Yet, not being Archimedes, I omitted to cry Eureka ! 
 
 Instead I said and casually enough: "How did you 
 get in?" 
 
 The red necromancies may have lowered Bradish 
 from that tree. They may have lifted him higher. In 
 any event he was not at the moment where he had been. 
 Vaguely he looked at me. 
 
 Ordinarily the fact that Peters and Gedney were 
 present would have prevented any intimate conversa 
 tion. But as they knew about the visit to the tomb, 
 I reconstructed it. 
 
 "The vault was locked, was it not?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 183 
 
 "Oh! Yes! Well, I sent Fletcher for a man to 
 open it. It took some time." 
 
 "Afterward, you locked it again?" 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 "What did you do with the key?" 
 
 He turned. "What did I do with the key, Gedney ?" 
 
 "You left it in the padlock, sir." 
 
 "Who is at the manor?" I asked. 
 
 "Nobody. It is boarded up. Mrs. Chilton wanted 
 to rent it. I had my lawyers take a lease of it from 
 her. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "I shall be going there tomorrow." 
 
 He sat back. "That's mighty nice of you. You may 
 find something that I missed. Take Fletcher and 
 the car." 
 
 I stood up. "There are one or two things I have to 
 do beforehand. Send the car to my shop at noon and 
 if I find anything " 
 
 "Fetch it straight here." 
 
 He turned again. "Gedney, a cab for Mr. Poole." 
 
 XXV 
 
 THE cab took me to a noble mansion, an exalting 
 lift to a door. 
 
 In the sorceries of the red wine from the blue river, 
 it was Aly Bolton I had seen with the ladder. Aly 
 assisting and we might all climb down, though what 
 lay at the foot of the tree was enigmatic as the mys 
 teries of Eleusis. Theories I had had. One after 
 another they had come. One after another they had 
 gone. If Aly balked and refused then, until we were 
 all dead, it might be that only the tree would remain. 
 
1 84 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 In looking back at it now, I realise, what I should 
 have realised then, that there are mysteries it is wiser 
 to ignore than to elucidate. In the greenroom of the 
 future where the hours fall in line, there are many that 
 wound, there are some that console. Time, that stages 
 the hours which inform our lives, had sent Bradish 
 many charged with darts and might have sent him 
 others that would have dulled their pain. The grave 
 of all things has its violet. Yet, for that lessened 
 mourning to replace the blacker trappings of one's woe, 
 a grave there must be. To the ineluctable, the strong 
 est yield. It is suspense that daunts us all. 
 
 In looking back now I see that clearly enough, yet 
 more clearly still I see that instead of helping, I 
 harmed. The fact that my intentions were good only 
 aggravates the offence. The best intentioned people 
 are the most insupportable. "Pas de zele," said Talley 
 rand. Why did I need to show any? 
 
 But though now with riper years, I ask myself these 
 things, I know that whatever happens, happens because 
 it had to happen and because it could not happen other 
 wise. There is consolation in that, there always is in 
 philosophy and one can find consolation nowhere else 
 except, as a poet said, in the dictionary. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Moonfaced, a little maid was looking at me. How 
 long she had been looking it is awkward to conjecture. 
 After reaching the door, the possibilities of the ladder 
 had swarmed about me. In considering them I had 
 forgotten I had knocked. I had not seen the door 
 open or the moonfaced maid. I was in the condition 
 of a chess player who answers a question minutes after 
 it has been put. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 185 
 
 But even as the absent player awakes so did I awake 
 and in awakening I smiled. 
 
 Was Miss Bolton visible? 
 
 Then presently I was tickling a gentleman who re 
 sented it so little that he scaled me, perched on my 
 shoulder and was purring ostentatiously when gra 
 ciously, as she did everything, the lady of the ladder 
 appeared. 
 
 Then I also purred. "I love your cat. I love your 
 flat. I love lalage. Duke ridentem, duke loquen- 
 tem, Lalagen amabo. Horace said that, or something 
 like it. Lalage was a young woman who charmed his 
 leisures. I am sure you are much better looking. But 
 sweetly you smile, as she smiled. Sweetly you talk, as 
 she talked. If sweetly you do not blush, as sweetly she 
 must have blushed, it is because I headed myself off in 
 time. Yes, thank you, I will sit down and thank you, 
 yes, I will smoke." 
 
 "You are thinking of something else than that im 
 proper young woman." 
 
 Before I answered I took and lighted a cigarette. 
 Even then I could not go at it like that, all of a sudden. 
 The art of life, as of literature, consists in easy transi 
 tions and I fell back on Bil Sayers. 
 
 "Yes, The Dawn. Recently I was looking it over 
 again. A very admirable performance." 
 
 I coughed and resumed: "Bil Sayers writes his books 
 as the Moslems built their mosques, mixing musk with 
 mortar that the whole structure should be perfumed." 
 
 I did not improvise that, or rather it was my usual 
 improvisation, one that I had played many a time and 
 oft to the tune of other works, other poems. But, 
 though she had not blushed before, she flushed a little 
 
1 86 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 then and I knew my hackneyed performance had the 
 merit of pleasing her, as the picturesque always does 
 please the artist. 
 
 She shook a tapering finger at me. "That is not 
 what you have in mind." 
 
 How lovely she looked! Adorably constructed and 
 constructed too to be adored, as she sat there, her fair 
 face slightly flushed, one bare arm on the table, the 
 other supporting her head, I wished I were Greuze. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, you see, you know, after I left here the 
 other evening, a problem occurred to me. Why is it 
 when a man is in love he talks like a fool?" 
 
 "That is not it either," she said, and I thought the 
 flush deepened. 
 
 That annoyed me. She knew perfectly well that I 
 wanted her. There was no news in that. But it was 
 vexatious of her to accept my own estimate of myself. 
 It was an estimate which she should have returned to 
 me corrected and revised. But that was not Aly's way 
 and in my annoyance I let go. 
 
 "Why do you ask what I am thinking when you 
 know without being told? I am thinking of you and 
 a ladder. I am up a tree and I want to climb down." 
 
 "Is the tree on the Hudson?" 
 
 Then, as I nodded, she added: "You brought it in 
 with you. But whether it is an oak or an aspen, the 
 tree of knowledge or the tree of the golden fruit, you 
 must tell before I can say whether anything I may do 
 will be of use." 
 
 I put the whole thing before her; the danse macabre, 
 the rat's assertion that the girl was alive, the visit to 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 187 
 
 the vault, the empty coffin, the profundities of Bradish's 
 prodigious faith. 
 
 "And I thought him mad," I concluded. "He may be 
 saner than I. But you can see now the tree on which 
 we sit. Barring a miracle, he alone or I alone or both 
 together cannot, whatever we contrive, get behind the 
 puzzle of what became of the corpse. It is true, he 
 will have it that there was no corpse and there is his 
 amazing faith. Of course, without a crystal or even 
 with one, I cannot make him see and hear what I did. 
 I cannot make him hear the physician, as I heard him, 
 pronounce the girl dead. I cannot make him see her, 
 as I saw her, in her coffin. It is not that he doubts 
 my word, he prefers the testimony of his own intui 
 tions and what is one to do with a chap like that? 
 Between us, one or the other is wrong. He thinks 
 I am, I know he is. For assuming what has happened 
 time and again, that the girl was in a trance and was 
 buried alive, assuming all that, then, if after being 
 put in the vault, consciousness returned, she would 
 have died of suffocation in the coffin. She could not 
 have got from it. But assuming even that she did, she 
 could not have got out of the vault. No one would 
 have heard her calls for help. Moreover if anyone 
 did hear, it is quite on the cards that they would have 
 shrieked and run away. The problem therefore is just 
 this : I want to know what became of the body, Bradish 
 wants to know what became of the girl." 
 
 Aly looked up. "To solve the problem, you spoke 
 of a miracle. What did you mean?" 
 
 I shook my head. "You don't need to ask, you 
 know. The miracle is you, Aly Bolton. You are a 
 
1 88 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 living, breathing miracle, a miracle of beauty in a 
 miracle of flesh." 
 
 "Also, there is a Mr. Chandos Poole, who is a 
 highly lyrical young man." 
 
 u Yes," I told her, "and a trifle vatic to boot. For 
 he can tell you one thing which you cannot foresee. He 
 intends to be far more lyric than he is. He intends to 
 be so lyric that seraphs will take up the burden of his 
 lay and strum it at you from their golden harps." 
 
 That was an improvisation and poor as every im 
 provisation is that has not been practised and rehearsed 
 in advance. Conscious of which, I coughed again and 
 took another cigarette. 
 
 With an indifference so vividly incandescent that I 
 could have caught and kissed her until she swooned 
 and died, she stood up, left the room, followed by her 
 ostentatious cat. Then almost at once she returned 
 with a wicker-covered gourd of glass which she said, 
 and which I did not believe, she had given herself, and 
 which contains the liquid sol bemol that mortals mor 
 tals who know call mandarin liqueur. 
 
 She gave me a thimble. I lapped it, poured a drop 
 on my forefinger and offered it to Signer Matouchi. 
 He sniffed and bit me. Any kindness is repaid in pain. 
 
 Aly, who had had half a thimble, put down her little 
 glass. 
 
 "Who was at the manor the night of the funeral?" 
 
 Nursing the bite, I told her. "Bradish, who was 
 unconscious, a nurse who was dumb, a servant who 
 was deaf and a mechanician who was dead." 
 
 For a moment she considered the picture. Then 
 she tried to frame it. 
 
 "It would fit in your ghost story." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 189 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 She smiled and smoothed her hair. "You do not 
 think so now. You will later. At present you are too 
 near it. It lacks perspective for you. But let me ask. 
 Why not make a scenario of it?" 
 
 "For whom?" 
 
 "Well," she said, still smiling, still smoothing her 
 hair. "There is Bil Sayers. You seem to like his 
 work." 
 
 The manner in which it afterward came about has 
 nothing to do with the present document, but later a 
 novel of Bil Sayers appeared which I have already 
 cited. Entitled The Halls of Eblis, it presents many of 
 the incidents that are given here. Otherwise it is supe 
 riorly dramatic, the denouement being totally different 
 from what actually occurred. That is as it should be. 
 The climaxes of fiction are logical, those of life are not. 
 In fiction matters turn out as they ought to. In life 
 it is just the reverse. 
 
 I throw that in now to get rid of it. At the time 
 I was not thinking of fiction but of a corpse that had 
 assumed a fictional aspect of life. I wanted to be rid 
 of that also. I wanted it safely reburied. Meanwhile, 
 nursing the ungrateful bite, I looked over at Aly. She 
 seemed to be nursing the scenario which she had sug 
 gested. 
 
 I brought her back. "I have shown you the tree. 
 Will you supply the ladder?" 
 
 She looked up. "A descent is always possible, but 
 is it wise?" 
 
 "Why do you say that? Do you see anything?" 
 
 "No, I am in the tree with you. But you want to 
 climb down and I do not" 
 
190 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Surprisedly I stared. "Why don't you want to?" 
 
 "I might disturb things." 
 
 "Things!" I amazedly repeated. "What things?" 
 
 "The things at the bottom. They are so quiet. It 
 is wrong to disturb them. It is always wrong to stir 
 the silent things that do not speak. The world is full 
 of noise and sin. The silent things only wish for 
 silence. It is wicked to go down and harm them where 
 they hide." 
 
 "But," I protested, "you move me to tears." 
 
 I said it jestingly, but at once I could have said it in 
 earnest. Her eyes had filled. I saw her tears. None 
 the less she smiled. It was very curious. She was 
 both smiling and crying, crying because she could not 
 help it and smiling that I might not be distressed. It 
 was not only curious, it was affecting. I leaned toward 
 her. 
 
 "What was it that you saw down there?" 
 
 She brushed her eyes. "Nothing. I have not 
 looked. It is what I fear to see." 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 "I do not know. I only know I dread it." 
 
 "But you want to help. You said so." 
 
 "Yes, I said that." 
 
 "Then will you?" 
 
 "I will help, but I will not harm." 
 
 "Aly Bolton, listen to me. You will harm if you do 
 not help." 
 
 "How will I harm?" 
 
 "Banality kills. Suspense is more treacherous. It 
 may drive Bradish insane." 
 
 At that she made a little pathetic motion and I 
 added : "Will you go there with me tomorrow ?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 191 
 
 She pressed her hands together almost as though she 
 were wringing them. I loosened and kissed them and 
 looked up at her. 
 
 "Will you?' 'I repeated. 
 
 "Yes," she said longly. "I will go." 
 
 Her eyes were still wet and why were they? Though 
 I asked she did not tell, perhaps she could not. But 
 they were still wet when, our simple plans simply made, 
 she saw me to the door. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 I AWOKE to the crash of worlds, to the trumpets of 
 the last judgment. In the sarabands of lightning there 
 was an expansiveness, a continuity and a glory that 
 made the black sky gold. A picture torn from the 
 mythologies, the war of titans and of gods, I went to 
 the roof to enjoy it. The lightning there was rasp 
 berry, the sky when not a gold field was a tent of 
 crepe. Between was scudding lingerie, and I held my 
 hair on as I stood, like a valkyr I hope, in the howling 
 and deluvian rain. 
 
 The night before, the vibrance of Aly's sensitive 
 ness had affected me. I dreamed of undergrass grown 
 overgreen where, in bogs of leprous scum, devils danced 
 and ghouls were coldly crouching. Ordinarily I would 
 have taken them straight to the workshop. The 
 crashing worlds interfered. When, over the Palisades, 
 a curtain had risen, when the lightning had rescaled 
 the sky, when gods and titans had slunk back to the 
 classical dictionaries, and the air aquiver with their 
 surge and rout was wholly divine, I could only rush 
 
192 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 down, dry my hair and change my clothes. It was 
 high noon and Aly waited. 
 
 The flight through the suburbs, the shoot up the 
 Hudson, pictures that I did not see, incidents that did 
 not occur, the antiquarian will set forth in Bil Savers' 
 novel. He is the poet of this matter of which I am 
 but the clerk. For the dull-as-ditchwater effect of the 
 present account I offer therefore no apologies. On 
 the contrary. The effect has its value. Every scrupu 
 lous critic knows that no history can be reliable unless 
 it is packed with yawns. 
 
 Among the simple plans of the night before, lunch 
 eon at the village inn had been included. Since then, 
 Aly had otherwise ordered. When the exquisite girl 
 got with me in the car, there got with us a basket in 
 which were sandwiches and a thermos bottle of coffee 
 and water, and a very good drink I have always found 
 it, though, to take the taste from my mouth of one 
 or two of the surprises that awaited us, I would have 
 said Thank you to a glass of brandy. 
 
 Meanwhile, as Aly entered the car, I looked in her 
 eyes. The rain had dried them. They were blue as 
 the sky and bluer. On her face the slight flush of 
 the night before persisted, maintained there perhaps 
 by the consciousness of the ladder. But, as the car 
 flew on, these delicacies lost themselves behind a motor 
 veil and it was not until we reached the manor that 
 I could feast again upon them. 
 
 The house, which had had an ugly, comfortable air, 
 exhaled then the more penetrating atmosphere of 
 emptiness and desertion. The front door was walled, 
 the candid windows were barred and the grounds 
 which on the funeral day had seemed none too smart, 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 193 
 
 were the unkempt. Desolation brooded there. Only 
 the vault was unaltered. In the days of the landed 
 gentry, the Chiltons had been a high-handed, high- 
 headed lot. What remained of them that vault con 
 tained. 
 
 We had left Fletcher, the car, the basket and the 
 veil on the road beyond and, as we approached the 
 vault, I heard her say, perhaps to me, perhaps to her 
 self: 
 
 "There it is, exactly as I saw it." 
 
 There, too, was the long grass of which Bradish 
 had told, a bit trampled since his own excursion, ,and 
 in the padlock was the key concerning which Gedney 
 had informed him. Whether the downpour of the 
 morning had already rusted it is now immaterial but 
 it would not turn. As, at the time, I could crack a 
 hickory nut with my fingers, I knew that where I failed 
 Fletcher would do no better and I was for sending 
 him for the man of the day before, when Aly tried it. 
 The key turned, the hasp loosened, the padlock fell and 
 through the then opened door the chill breath of the 
 dead came at us. 
 
 From before it Aly retreated. The flush then had 
 gone, but though at the moment she was pale she must 
 have been resolute for she rallied and entered. The 
 back of the vault was dark, the north side was dim 
 but on the south side, on the lower slab, where I had 
 seen the coffin put, light entered with her and I saw 
 again that bier. But not as I had seen it when I fol 
 lowed it there. It was open, it was empty, and back 
 to me swam the remark that Bradish had made: 
 
 "There is nothing emptier than an empty coffin." 
 
 Aly, who needed no guidance, no prompting, no 
 
194 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 word from me, removed a glove, put her bare hand on 
 the coffin and looked away, looked up. At what? 
 What did she see? Her lips moved, but they may 
 have gone dry. She moistened them and so absent was 
 her expression that I am sure she did it unconsciously. 
 Her upper teeth were pressed on her lower lip. I 
 could see the edges, see too the facial muscles con 
 tracting the corners of her mouth. Still she looked 
 up, but through eyelids that had closed. Hers was 
 the rapt look I had read of and never seen. Then 
 presently, with an intake of the breath, her eyes opened, 
 she turned, left the vault, but stood by me while I 
 recovered the padlock and fastened it again. 
 
 Finishing with it, I turned to her. She was putting 
 on her glove and she finished with that before she 
 spoke, preluding what she did say with a little motion, 
 a gesture slight, perhaps involuntary, as though either 
 expressing regret for what she was about to tell, or 
 else disclaiming responsibility for it, a little gesture 
 that I could interpret as I pleased. 
 
 "There is a man, tall, slim, handsome, with the 
 brave air of a young prince marching past lifted swords 
 out from a tapestry of the renaissance. Who is he?" 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 "He went to the coffin, swept heaped flowers from 
 it, raised the top. He lifted it so readily it could not 
 have been closed. She lay there white, motionless, 
 dead. He bent over her, bent closer, kissed her, 
 straightened, moved aside, moved back, bent to her 
 again, put his arms about her, lifted her from the 
 coffin, carried her out, carried her into the night. I 
 saw no more. Who is he?" 
 
 "Austen." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 195 
 
 "The man who was in love with her?" 
 
 "And with whom she was in love." 
 
 But I did not ask were she sure. I did not ask 
 whether there were the chance of error. On the morn 
 ing when she awoke in my workshop, I brought her 
 coffee, and a cup. From that cup she had evolved a pic 
 ture of me as a child, of my grandfather who was living 
 then, of the room in which he sat. No, I did not ask 
 were she sure. Nor did I marvel at the psychometry 
 with which I was familiar. It was the ladder. It was 
 for that I had brought her there. I merely exploded. 
 
 "So that is it then ! But why did he carry her away? 
 Where did he carry her? What did he do with her 
 when he got her there? He could only have buried 
 her again and not that it can make the slightest differ 
 ence to her now, but when she lived, had she thought 
 of herself as a corpse, an idea I am sure that never 
 entered her head, but if it had she would have said: 
 Put me with my people. Why then did he carry her 
 away? Why did he profane her with kisses? What 
 Bradish did was sacrilege. What Austen did seems 
 to me worse. Why did he do it?" 
 
 "The magus said she was alive." 
 
 "But I saw her dead. You saw her dead. I re 
 member your very words 'There she lay, white, mo 
 tionless, dead.' " 
 
 She made another little gesture, just a motion with 
 her hand. 
 
 "But because I can sometimes see things, it does not 
 follow that I can explain them." 
 
 "No, of course not. Besides, in asking a string of 
 imbecile questions, I was putting them to myself. I 
 
196 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 was trying to clarify my own ideas and I cannot, I'll 
 be shot if I can." 
 
 She got away from it. "Don't you think we might 
 give that poor man a sandwich or two? He drove so 
 well." 
 
 In exploding the questions, I had been too full of 
 them to notice, but I saw then that she looked com 
 pletely fagged, as one must I suppose after such an 
 expenditure of nervous force. 
 
 "We might have a few ourselves. I know I would 
 say Thank you for a glass of brandy. But I would 
 say it for you, you look utterly done." 
 
 None the less and however exhausted, she saw to 
 it that Fletcher had his sandwiches and, with them, a 
 glass of coffee and water. 
 
 Then, for a while, the basket between us, we sat on 
 the steps of the house where she tormented a bit of 
 bread. She was not hungry she said, except for cigar 
 ettes and as she sat and smoked I saw about her that 
 air of languor I had noticed the first time I was at 
 her flat and where she may have been psychometrising 
 also. 
 
 In watching her, I stuffed and, at the same time, 
 reviewed the picture series revealed by her latest tour 
 de force. Charged with surmises, with hypotheses, 
 with interrogations, the pictures passed before me. For 
 my own edification I tried to imagine what had oc 
 curred before they were taken and what had hap 
 pened afterward. Considered in the ensemble they 
 were illustrations for an unwritten tale of Hoffman, 
 etchings for some story lost or strayed from the port 
 folio of Villiers de lisle Adam, vignettes for an un 
 published manuscript of Poe. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 197 
 
 From them, I turned to her. 
 
 "Last night I dreamed of dancing devils and crouch 
 ing ghouls. I don't wonder now. Austen cannot be 
 plural but he is certainly singular. Singular! He is 
 epic. The imagination reels from before him. For 
 what lethean farewells, for what plutonian embraces, 
 for what lemurianisms did he go to the vault that 
 night? What drew him there and what having drawn 
 him there, induced him to take her away? Barring 
 the old tales of mediaeval monasteries, there is nothing 
 like it anywhere. Austen is not epic merely, he is 
 unique. I should like to have a word with him. 
 Bradish certainly will." 
 
 The sibyl sighed. "Poor man, his path has been 
 hard and is to be harder yet. Heretofore it has been 
 a path, a very uncertain path, but still a path on which 
 there was light. Now it is a blind alley." 
 
 She paused, sighed again and stood up. "How 
 wrong it is to stir the silent things that do not wish to 
 speak." 
 
 Through the long green afternoon, back to the 
 sordid city, back from sepulchral visions to the triviali 
 ties of the everyday, on we flew. We flew whirlingly, 
 noisily and yet silent as the things that should not stir. 
 Aly could not talk. One of the rare beings that never 
 complain and always console, her head must have been 
 splitting, but she said nothing of it. Only, she could 
 not talk and, at her house, I thought her hand trembled 
 when she reached it to tell me goodbye. 
 
 The white staring house came next. In the library 
 there, Bradish resembled a great caged beast of the 
 jungle, a wounded lion, with nothing for his mind to 
 chew on, nothing except the marvel of the empty bier. 
 
198 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Well?" he threw at me. "Find anything?" 
 
 "Everything. But before you can grasp it, I must 
 tell you that Miss Bolton " 
 
 "Damn Miss Bolton. What do you mean by every 
 thing?" 
 
 For that damn, ordinarily I would have damned 
 him, but on the top branch of the tree where he 
 prowled he needed indulgence. I let it go therefore 
 and gave it to him. 
 
 "Austen took her." 
 
 Open-mouthed he fell back and clutched first at a 
 chair, then at the table, all the hate, all the virulence, 
 all the murderous jealousy of the male mounting and 
 flaming in that spider on his face. Instantly hideous, 
 he shook. Yet then, one has to recognise, that in 
 beasts, in men, in women, jealousy, the most primitive 
 of emotions, is the most blinding of all. At that mo 
 ment, Bradish, mentally, was trampling Austen beneath 
 his heels, gouging his eyes out with them, trampling 
 him to death. 
 
 That sweet surcease not being practicable, at all 
 events not then, he gave a sort of yelp, looked at me, 
 I dare say without seeing me, and disdaining the bell, 
 called mightily. 
 
 "Hey! Peters! Gedney!" 
 
 From the hall beyond, both hastened, Gedney with 
 his catlike tread, Peters with his mask of wood. 
 
 Pointing a finger like a pistol at the latter, 
 
 "Er-er," he stuttered, "a Mr. Austen, he called here, 
 left a card. Find it." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the mask. "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "And Gedney," he called at the catman. "Fletcher 
 waiting? Tell him to wait." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 199 
 
 "I say, old chap," I put in, threshing about for 
 what I could say. "You rather left this business to 
 me. Now don't you think " 
 
 "Think!" he roared. "I have done nothing but 
 think. Now I shall act." 
 
 I ran a spoke in at him. "He won't be at home." 
 
 "I'll damn soon find out." 
 
 "If you please, sir." 
 
 Peters with a card on a tray, was presenting it. 
 
 Bradish snapped it up, snapped it back. 
 
 "Look him up in the telephone book. Say I am 
 coming. Say James Bradish is coming at once. 
 Say " 
 
 "Yes," I threw in. "Tell him to clear the decks and 
 prepare for action." 
 
 Fiercely he turned on me. "I wish " 
 
 "So do I. I wish you had some sense. Can't you 
 see that to get him, there will have to be a surprise 
 attack. Have Peters tell him to call to quarters and 
 he will be ready for you. Take him off his guard, 
 you idiot." 
 
 The strategy was a douche. From before it he 
 backed. He did not like it. I could see that. I could 
 see that what he wanted was to sail right in, flags 
 flying, trumpets blowing, batteries unmasked, fair play 
 and be hanged to you. But into his dislike for any 
 strategy the idea must have filtered that Austen him 
 self was not playing fair, for suddenly he rounded and 
 turned to Peters who had stood before us precisely as 
 though he were waiting to hear whether he were to 
 fetch sherry and bitters or tea and toast 
 
 "Find out when he will be in." 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
200 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Now that is more like it," I said as the man with 
 drew, "and I'll go with you." 
 
 He turned again. "No you won't. He would think 
 I had brought a husky along. I'll show him. I'll 
 settle this business myself." 
 
 "But see here," I said, sparring for wind. "You 
 know nothing about it. Hadn't you better have a few 
 facts to go on first?" 
 
 "You said he took her. Did he or did he not?" 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 "That's all I need." 
 
 "Except a gun." 
 
 The shot confused him. Ardently I wished that with 
 chloroform I could dull the confusion into inaction. 
 
 Yet the chloroform I lacked, Peters serviceably, if 
 metaphorically, produced. 
 
 "The gentleman is not at home, sir." 
 
 "Then find out when he will be." 
 
 "Yes, sir. I asked, sir. Mr. Austen's man said that 
 Mr. Austen was expected at seven." 
 
 Bradish sat down and tapped at his teeth. The 
 chloroform was acting and, in a moment, when the 
 anaesthetist had gone, I took his place. 
 
 "It seems unfortunate, but you never can tell. If 
 all of a sudden he marched in here, what could you do, 
 what could you say? You could only shout, 'Where's 
 my wife?' and have him shout, 'What do you mean?' 
 There you would be. You couldn't tell him. You don't 
 know. Don't you have any tea in the house? I have 
 been at it for you all night and all day. I am starving 
 and you lack the decency to offer me a crust. What a 
 curse it is to have a friend like you." 
 
 He muttered and moved. Anaesthesia was not com- 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 201 
 
 plete. But confusion was departing. The assassin 
 was slinking away. Presently the normal being would 
 return. Even then he was showing his head. 
 
 He touched a bell. "Tea!" 
 
 When presently it came, he drank two cups, with a 
 drop of brandy in them. I was glad to see him at it. 
 Tea clarifies, brandy strengthens, and force, though 
 not too much of it, and sense, though not too much of 
 that either, was what he needed most. 
 
 He put down the cup. "Suppose you tell me." 
 
 At that, I outlined Aly's grand act on the triple 
 psychic trapese, omitting only the Stygian kiss which 
 she had beheld there. The rest I gave him. The feat 
 itself, the palpitant gyrations, may, or may not, have 
 surprised him. He said nothing on the subject, nor, 
 in regard to the abduction, did he say and I thought 
 it singularly heroic of him that he had always sus 
 pected it. Quite the contrary. His first comment was 
 that he had thought of everything but that. 
 
 His second comment seemed to me less commend 
 able. 
 
 "Nelly was the lady of the steps. It was she whom 
 Brevoort saw and to whom Miss Bolton spoke. She 
 has taken her mother's name." 
 
 "But see here " I began. 
 
 He checked me. "Do drop all that. It is the old 
 song. I am sick of it, sick and tired of it and the 
 variations. You were about to tell me she is dead. 
 She is not dead. She is alive. I knew it from the 
 start." 
 
 "But see here," I again began, renewing to him the 
 objections to any such possibility which I had advanced 
 to Aly at the manor. 
 
202 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 He treated them like cobwebs. "That is not the 
 point. The point is where did he hide her? Where 
 has he been hiding her ever since?" 
 
 "You will have to ask him. But I doubt that she 
 is hidden. The lady of the steps was not hidden, 
 Brevoort's lady of the shop could come and go and 
 Miss Fellowes had the freedom of the city. Then also 
 Miss Fellowes had a man in tow, an old man. If 
 Austen had her hidden she would not be about, nor 
 would she be roaming the streets with any man, young 
 or old. Besides this Miss Fellowes is probably alive, 
 whereas " 
 
 Impatiently Bradish shoved at his cup. "There you 
 go again. But no matter. I'll know tonight." 
 
 "Yes, but softly does it. The stupidest thing you 
 can do is to make a row." 
 
 "Ah, there at last you are right ! When I first heard 
 of the abduction, there might have been one, there 
 would have been one, there could not have been any 
 thing else. But there will be none now. All the same, 
 I'll make him disgorge." 
 
 That was reasonable enough. Anaesthesia had had 
 its proper effect. I could safely leave him and, as I 
 had troubles of my own, I got up to go. 
 
 He motioned at me. "I don't know but that- " 
 
 It broke off. In a moment he put it together again. 
 
 "See here. I don't care a tinker's curse what Austen 
 thinks. This is a ticklish business. I may need a 
 witness." 
 
 I sat down again. 
 
 "All right. Here he is. I'll go you. I wanted to 
 from the start." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 203 
 
 He looked at his watch. 
 
 "I can't sit here and twirl my thumbs. Suppose we 
 start now. If he isn't in, we can camp on his door 
 step." 
 
 I jumped up. 
 
 "Comeonski." 
 
 XXVII 
 
 AT the house where, long since, before anything at 
 all had happened, Austen had buttonholed me, I led 
 the way up the stair to the floor where he lived and 
 on which, facing the head of the stair, were two par 
 allel flats. 
 
 Uncertainly before them I hesitated. Was Austen's 
 the one on the left or at the right? In the one which 
 was not his I had, on that remote visit, seen a scrub 
 woman. She may have eloped. She was no longer 
 there. Both doors were closed. Moreover dusk had 
 come. The landing was dark. If there were names on 
 the doors, the names were invisible. 
 
 I turned to Bradish. "I don't know which is his." 
 He shoved me aside. "Potluck then." 
 Already he was feeling for the button. Whether 
 he found it or not I do not know. Yet, instantly, the 
 door swung back. There, his hat on, a stick in one 
 hand, the other still on the knob, was the abductor. 
 
 From behind, a light in the hall showed Bradish's 
 face without showing Austen's and whether he were 
 surprised or not I could not tell. I am sure though he 
 must have been. In any case, he did not betray it. 
 He had himself in hand at once and devilish cool he 
 was about it. 
 
204 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Hello ! Was it you that telephoned?" 
 
 That was his greeting, offhand as you please. But 
 even as he spoke, Bradish was speaking to him. 
 
 "I want a word with you." 
 
 Austen stood aside. "How de do, Poole? Come 
 in. That room there, if you don't mind." 
 
 Bradish went on. As I followed I saw a head poked 
 suddenly through a doorway farther down the hall. 
 It was Austen's gnome I thought. But now we were 
 all in the sitting-room where I had been before. Ap 
 parently, nothing had happened to it. It had the same 
 careless air. On the sideboard were decanters. On 
 the table was the drooping green cover. As before, 
 the cupboard door stood open. 
 
 Austen closed it. He had entered with us and, 
 after closing the cupboard, indicated the decanters. 
 
 "Have a drink?" 
 
 Bradish took off his hat. 
 
 "Austen, where is my wife?" 
 
 Austen motioned. 
 
 "Do sit down." 
 
 I did. Bradish remained standing. He stood on 
 one side of the table, Austen at the other. On the 
 table was an ivory paper-cutter. Austen reached for 
 it and said: 
 
 "I don't know why you ask me that." 
 
 Bradish pulled at his gloves. "You know perfectly 
 and I will thank you to tell me." 
 
 Austen looked at the ivory knife, then at me. From 
 me he looked at Bradish. 
 
 "Your wife is dead." 
 
 Bradish had removed a glove. He struck the table 
 with it. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 205 
 
 "See here, I have reason to believe that after the 
 funeral you entered the vault and abducted her." 
 
 Austen threw down the knife and turned again to 
 me. It was as though he were saying: "You hear 
 that! He's crazy." 
 
 Bradish may have so interpreted it. Resting one 
 hand on the table, he leaned forward. 
 
 "I propose to get at the bottom of this. I don't 
 mean to be more disagreeable than I can help, 
 but " 
 
 Austen interrupted. "You needn't apologise. Be 
 sides, the only place I know where you can get the in 
 formation you ask is the bureau of vital statistics." 
 
 Impatiently Bradish straightened. 
 
 "That has nothing to do with it." 
 
 Austen smiled, or affected to smile. "Come now. 
 You ought to see that it has everything to do with it. 
 If you take a look, you will find there, entered and 
 filed, the certificate of your wife's decease." 
 
 Bradish flushed. I could see he was trying to hold 
 in and I could see too he was having a job of it. 
 
 "I don't want that. What I want is to know what 
 became of her after you abducted her." 
 
 Austen took up the paper-cutter again. I thought 
 he was stumped but he wasn't. 
 
 "Whom do you mean by her?" he surprisingly asked. 
 
 For the first time Bradish raised his voice. 
 
 "Here! Don't quibble. You know I mean my 
 wife." 
 
 Austen made a pass with the knife. 
 
 "It is hardly a quibble to repeat that she is dead." 
 
 Bradish was looking him straight in the eyes, he 
 was looking straight at Bradish and he added: 
 
206 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "I can tell you nothing else." 
 
 At that Bradish sort of nodded. "Very good then. 
 If you won't answer me as man to man, you will an 
 swer me as defendant to plaintiff." 
 
 Austen raised his eyebrows. Perhaps he did not 
 understand. I am sure that I did not. 
 
 "You may not know it," Bradish continued, "but I 
 have leased the manor. The vault is my property and 
 you effected a felonious entry into it." 
 
 It was a false move. A threat is always that. Be 
 sides how was any action possible? The jury were 
 yet to be born that would accept Aly's story. At once 
 I started to interrupt but, before I could, Austen was 
 shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 "The sooner I have your complaint, the sooner you 
 will have my answer." 
 
 Bradish put on his hat. "Is that your last word?" 
 
 Austen turned to me. 
 
 "Can't you help a bit, Poole? You were at the 
 funeral. You saw Mrs. Bradish in her coffin." 
 
 "Yes," I answered, "but I have seen her since, or at 
 least " 
 
 I was about to qualify it and say if I had not seen 
 her I had seen her ghost, instead of which I screamed. 
 I saw something else and, at what I saw, it may be 
 that my hair stood on end for I could feel my flesh 
 creep. 
 
 There, before me, before Bradish, but not before 
 Austen whose back was turned, was Nelly Chilton. 
 
 I say Nelly Chilton. It was she or her ghost. The 
 door of the cupboard had opened and there she stood. 
 
 A second only. Clothed sepulchrally in white, in 
 stantly she vanished. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 207 
 
 In screaming, I jumped and so violently that I over 
 turned the chair. Stupidly, I stopped to raise it. It 
 took but a moment, yet as I started and screamed, 
 Bradish cleared the table, swung himself clear over it 
 and dashed into the cupboard in which she or it 
 had disappeared. 
 
 I had just a glimpse of Austen turning and looking 
 amazedly after him. He had not seen the phantom 
 but I had and, with no conscious motive, yet propelled, 
 I now think, by sheer nervous excitement, I bolted, 
 flung myself in the cupboard. 
 
 There was no one there ! 
 
 I heard, or thought I heard something, the sound 
 of an object that had fallen, but I was too rattled to 
 locate it, too confused to be sure. 
 
 On either side coats were hanging. At the back 
 there were more, but of Bradish not a sign, of the 
 phantom, not a trace. Save for myself and the hang 
 ing garments in which feverishly I felt, save too for 
 the ceiling and floor, save these things and myself, the 
 cupboard was empty. There was no one. Together 
 the quick and the dead had gone. 
 
 My forehead was wet, my hands were moist. I got 
 out my handkerchief and reentered the room. 
 
 That also was empty. 
 
 "Well," I nervously mumbled, "I'll be damned!" 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 ON the table was the paper-cutter. It was not very 
 helpful and I got down and looked under the table. 
 For all I found I might as well have looked out of the 
 window. Besides it was a bit awkward. While I 
 
208 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 was still on my knees and before I could rise, the 
 door, not of the cupboard but of the room, opened and 
 Austen's man came in. 
 
 "I am taking a walk," I told him. 
 
 "Exactly, sir." 
 
 He spoke as though crawling about on all fours was 
 perfectly natural and I stood up. 
 
 "I was looking for Mr. Austen. I will thank you 
 to tell him I am still here." 
 
 Civilly he considered me. 
 
 "I will see, sir, but I think Mr. Austen just went 
 out." 
 
 "Out!" I repeated. 
 
 But he too had gone. 
 
 I sat down and tried to pull myself together. In 
 spite of the ease with which I had invented a prome 
 nade, I was unstrung, nervous as a witch, dripping 
 with perspiration, and, as I raised my hand to wipe 
 my face, it did what no hand of mine had ever done, 
 it shook. 
 
 I got up, went to the sideboard, helped myself from 
 a decanter, spilling a little of the contents, and heard 
 the glass click against my teeth. 
 
 This won't do, I reflected. 
 
 To steady my nerves, I evolved a few platitudes, 
 among others that, if I had seen a ghost, I ought to 
 applaud my luck instead of being alarmed by it. 
 
 The comfort of that was mediocre. For, admitting 
 the ghost, what had become of Bradish? His de- 
 materialisation was a phenomenon for which nothing 
 in occultism had prepared me. I was necessarily aware, 
 as everyone else is, that, by virtue of certain austeri 
 ties, an adept can disentangle himself from the body 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 209 
 
 and swim into the astral, but, even so, he has to leave 
 his body behind and, so far as I could discover, 
 Bradish had not left so much as his hat. On the other 
 hand there are, or there used to be, stories of people 
 that had the gift of becoming invisible. But the 
 precedent helped me no more than the paper-cutter. 
 Bradish had no such gift. 
 
 I peered at the cupboard. For all I knew to the 
 contrary there might be some power there, a power 
 of which I had never heard, some force unimaginable 
 and inexplicable that had whisked him away. But 
 whisked him where? It would have to land him some 
 where. It could not gobble him up. 
 
 These platitudes, however long in the telling, came 
 at me in flashes. They occupied but a moment and in 
 peering at the cupboard I approached it and reached 
 in a tentative hand, bracing myself to snatch it back 
 at any snatching forward. Then, conscious presently 
 that it was unmolested, that there was no attempt to 
 whisk me, I put a foot in. 
 
 Except for such light as came from the window 
 behind me, it was dark and I lit a match. I could see 
 then that on either side were wooden bars from which, 
 on hangers, the coats hung. At the back there were 
 hooks and more coats. As for the floor, I could feel 
 it. It was unyielding as rock. I looked up. The 
 ceiling, obviously there, was out of reach. Then the 
 match burned my fingers. I dropped it and felt behind 
 the coats, not to find Bradish, I knew he was not there, 
 but with some imbecile idea of testifying afterward 
 that I had done so. 
 
 By this time I was relatively collected, reasonably 
 cool, yet conscious of an odd feeling in my head. It 
 
210 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 was as though a little top were spinning there. With 
 that consciousness, memory raised a latch. I was back 
 in Mayfair, where a woman was telling me of some 
 friend, a typical Englishman who, for a bet, had 
 passed the night in a house said to be haunted, and 
 who, the next morning, was taken from it raving mad. 
 Then at once logic raised another latch. I realised 
 that for that Englishman to go mad he must have been 
 confronted by some unimaginable horror. Confront 
 ing me were coats. The deduction followed. Nothing 
 very horrifying there. On the other hand there was 
 something so baffling that it amounted nearly to the 
 same thing and in view of that top I wondered if my 
 brain was about to tip. Before it could, I jumped. 
 I jumped as a cat does at the unexpected. I had heard 
 somebody, or something, and in jumping I wheeled. 
 Another awkward moment. There again was that 
 gnome. 
 
 "I was looking for Mr. Bradish," I told him. 
 
 "Exactly, sir." 
 
 On this occasion he spoke as though his master's 
 friends invariably played hide and seek whenever they 
 came to see him. 
 
 "Where is he?" I added. 
 
 Respectfully he considered me. "Where is who, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Mr. Bradish?" 
 
 "I don't think I know the gentleman, sir." 
 
 "You were in the hall when I came in here with Mr. 
 Austen, weren't you?" 
 
 "In the hall, yes, sir." 
 
 "There was nother man with us. That was Mr. 
 Bradish. Have you any idea where he is?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 211 
 
 He wiped his civil mouth. "Excuse me, sir, I didn't 
 see any other gentleman." 
 
 I had abandoned the cupboard. I was standing by 
 the table and I had taken up the paper-cutter which I 
 was trying to use as a fan. But at that I dropped it. 
 
 "Look here," I said. "I am speaking of a man who 
 came in here a few minutes ago with Mr. Austen and 
 myself. Mr. Austen opened the door for us. You 
 must have seen him." 
 
 "Yes, sir. Mr. Austen was going out." 
 
 "I am not speaking of Mr. Austen. I am speaking 
 of the man who came in with me. You saw him." 
 
 "I can't rightly say I did, sir." 
 
 "But you saw me come in?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. I saw you, sir. You are the gentleman 
 that was under the table." 
 
 "Then do you mean to stand there and tell me that 
 apart from Mr. Austen and myself, you saw no one 
 come in?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; no, sir." 
 
 I snapped at him, "What do you mean by no, sir; 
 yes, sir?" 
 
 But his civility remained unaffected. 
 
 "I don't mean nothing, sir. You asked me about 
 another gentleman. I didn't see no other gentleman." 
 
 He is an idiot, I hopelessly decided. But at once, 
 catching myself up, I smiled at him. 
 
 "Have you ever seen a er a ghost here?" 
 
 He backed. His mouth twitched. But he was still 
 civil. 
 
 "Will you be waiting for Mr. Austen, sir?" In 
 backing, he turned. At the door he turned again. 
 
 "If you don't mind, sir, I have work to do." 
 
212 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 The hall took him. Once more I was alone in this 
 room in which a vision had appeared and a mortal had 
 disintegrated, a room from which, in fear of me, a 
 gnome had fled. 
 
 I sat down. That top must have doubled itself. It 
 seemed to me that two of them were spinning just 
 beneath the pineal gland. Joined to that was the sensa 
 tion which one has after a white night, the sensation 
 that the brain, won't act. I told myself that I if could 
 put my head under a shower, it would help. But I 
 did not want to go ferreting about for the bathroom. 
 I knew the gnome would find me at it and, however 
 accustomed he might be to the vagaries of Austen's 
 guests, few of them I imagined could come there to 
 bathe. None the less I rather fancied that if when 
 stripped and in the tub I had told him I was expecting 
 my grandmother, his "Exactly, sir" would be as 
 prompt and as civil as before. 
 
 At the picture, nervously I laughed. I had laughed 
 at nothing and what better reason can one have ? Then 
 again I laughed, this time at the little gnome for run 
 ning away. He must have thought me cracked, that is 
 if he thought at all. But perhaps I am, I immediately 
 reflected. Perhaps everything that has occurred has 
 only seemed to occur. Even so, I told myself, people 
 are not mad because they see things that do not exist, 
 they are only mad if they believe in them and I won't. 
 Yet how vain that resolution was ! I could not make 
 myself believe that Bradish had not come with me. 
 I could not pretend that I had not seen him disappear. 
 The vision that had evaporated with him might be a 
 phantom and I was willing to let it go at that. But 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 213 
 
 there was nothing phantasmal about Bradish. None 
 the less the gnome had not seen him at all! 
 
 But that is impossible. I told myself. Either he 
 lied or Austen coached him or 
 
 My mind shot back. I reconstructed our entry. 
 Bradish, lordly as usual, had marched in first. I had 
 followed. In following I had seen the servant's head 
 poked from a doorway farther down the hall. Prob 
 ably, a moment earlier, he had seen his master about 
 to leave. Then, hearing voices, he had looked out 
 again, but not until Bradish had entered this room. 
 
 This is it, I reflected, but, I had to ask myself, what 
 did it matter ? The complex problem remained. How 
 and where had Bradish gone? 
 
 Clearly he was not under the table, or secreted in 
 the cupboard, and I wondered whether he could have 
 levitated himself through the ceiling. There was a 
 medium whom Browning threw rhymes at who 
 could perform that little trick, or at all events some 
 thing similar. But, I had to realise, Bradish was no 
 more capable of anything of the kind than he was of 
 composing a ballet. Even otherwise, what object 
 could he have had? He had come with me to this 
 shop, solely that he might bully Austen. In that he 
 had failed, or been about to fail, when he flung him 
 self over the table and jumped into the fourth dimen 
 sion. 
 
 What kind of behavior was that? Patently, it had 
 amazed Austen, as well it might, and the memory of it 
 so angered me that if, at that moment, Bradish had 
 popped back, I would have up and struck him. 
 
 No such luck, however, and for the time being at 
 any rate, no possibility of it. 
 
214 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 As that conclusion reached me, a query followed. 
 If there were no chance of his popping then, when 
 would he pop and would he ever? Had he definitely 
 deserted this world? 
 
 "But that is madness !" I exclaimed aloud. 
 
 At once, to put an accent on it, if one were needed, 
 I saw that gnome peering in at me from the door. A 
 moment only. The door closed. More frightened 
 perhaps than before, again the harmless wretch had 
 fled. 
 
 I could not blame him. First he had found me on 
 all fours; afterward in the cupboard. On the first 
 occasion I told him I was taking a walk. On the sec 
 ond, I had insisted he had seen what he had not seen 
 and I had enquired about a ghost. Now, a moment 
 since, he had heard me talking to myself, talking of 
 the madness which he must have suspected. Instantly, 
 I could hear the clanging ambulance, feel the strait- 
 jacket, see the psychopathic ward! 
 
 Unstrung as I was, it alarmed me. I sprang up, 
 grabbed my hat and stick and with the idea of doing 
 something, of going somewhere, of enlisting some 
 body's aid, I hurried on and out and down the stair 
 to the street where, comfortably, Fletcher waited. 
 
 I had forgotten him utterly and said as much. 
 
 "Thank heaven you are here ! Have you seen Mr. 
 Bradish?" 
 
 He touched his cap. "Why no, sir. Not since he 
 went in with you." 
 
 "You are sure he hasn't come out?" 
 
 "Positive, sir." 
 
 "Fletcher, look here. He has disappeared." 
 
 His eyes bulged. "Mr. Bradish has?" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 215 
 
 "We went in to see a man and while Mr. Bradish 
 was talking to him all of a sudden he wasn't there. I 
 don't know what to do." 
 
 Fletcher's eyes bulged wider. But any hypothesis 
 save one, that I was drunk, was clearly beyond him. 
 I saw it and motioned. 
 
 "Here, let's go to Dr. Cally. He may tell us how 
 to act." 
 
 On the way, I thought of Aly and wondered whether 
 what she had seen, or thought she had seen, were true, 
 feeling, as I wondered, that it were better if it was 
 not; though better still, better far it would be if, when 
 Bradish entered the vault, he had found his bride there, 
 found her lover with her, found him dead, found her 
 dead, found them dead together, and when, ragingly, 
 he had tried to tear them apart, they had crumbled 
 to dust before him. A climax such as that would, it 
 seemed to me, be more f atefully poetic than the melo 
 drama which Aly had related. 
 
 But now we were at Cally's, who, it appeared, was 
 out. It was that nigger of his who told me and surly 
 enough he was about it. He did not know where Dr. 
 Cally was, he knew nothing and he looked ready and 
 eager to slam the door in my face. 
 
 Fortunately, I know just how to tame a brute of 
 that kind and, quick as a wink, I pulled a roll of bills 
 straight at him. 
 
 "Throw out your hand." 
 
 The effect was magical. Instantly a sullen lout be 
 came all teeth and eyes. In his erebean face I could 
 even detect gleams of intelligence. 
 
 "Find him. Tell him it is a matter of life and 
 death. I will be at the Buck Club." 
 
216 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 Confident then, that unless Cally had also evapo 
 rated, he would shortly materialise, I flew down the 
 steps, hopped in the car and told Fletcher to drive to 
 the club where, when presently I entered it, I ran 
 around like a chicken with its head off. 
 
 In the main room I saw no one to whom I could 
 turn and, leaving it, I did what I rarely do, I looked 
 in my letter box. There was a chance, slim enough 
 in all conscience, yet still a chance that from some rec 
 ondite region, Bradish might be trying to communicate 
 with me. 
 
 The box was tolerably stuffed, but mainly with cir 
 culars from among which I sifted two letters, one of 
 which contained a request for my autograph. I 
 dropped it. Immediately a boy in a slashed waistcoat 
 sprang from nowhere, picked it up and gave it back 
 to me. I dropped it again and put my foot on it. The 
 other letter was from my publishers who said that five 
 thousand was offered for the picture rights of my last 
 iniquity and would I see them about it? 
 
 Mere starvation wages, I thought and thought no 
 more about it, for the time being that is, and hurried 
 on through the billiard room to the bar where there 
 were two men whose names I might have remembered 
 but whose faces were blanks. 
 
 One of them had the agreeable air of having just 
 stepped from a bandbox. He invited me to drink. 
 
 I ordered vichy. 
 
 The other man, who reeked of polo, addressed me 
 in a throaty voice. 
 
 "Whatcher up to now, Poole? Writin' somethin' 
 noo?" 
 
 I barked at him. "Writing something? I am living 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 217 
 
 something, something that would bowl you over, bore 
 holes in you and stuff you full of nightmare. Do you 
 know Bradish?" 
 
 "The spider chap? What of him?" 
 
 I gulped the vichy. "He was with me one moment 
 and vanished the next. Is Brevoort here?" 
 
 Lightly, with a forefinger, the other man motioned. 
 
 "There's a boy trying to speak to you." 
 
 I looked about. The slashed waistcoat had ap 
 proached. 
 
 "Dr. Kelly, sir. He's in the hall." 
 
 Without one of the amenities of life, I abandoned 
 those men and hurried on and out to where Cally 
 stood. 
 
 He plucked at his beard. "You've been corrupting 
 my servant. He says you gave him thirty dollars." 
 
 "See here! Bradish has disappeared. You and I 
 have got to find him." 
 
 He adjusted his glasses. "Disappearances are de 
 ceptive. How did it happen?" 
 
 "I went with him to call on a man and, while there, 
 a ghost appeared and Bradish jumped into the fourth 
 dimension." 
 
 "Where did these commonplace incidents occur?" 
 
 "At Austen's." 
 
 "Was Bradish acquainted with the ghost?" 
 
 "It was Nelly Chilton's." 
 
 Mephistophelianly he eyed me, not as though he 
 were questioning my sanity, but rather as though he 
 had always thought me demented. 
 
 "You saw it too then? Where did it come from?" 
 
 "A cupboard, and look here, no sooner did it ap- 
 
218 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 pear than it disappeared and Bradish disappeared 
 also." 
 
 "In the cupboard?" 
 
 "Didn't you hear me? I dashed in there the next 
 instant. There was nobody there, nobody, nothing, 
 coats only." 
 
 He lit one of his vile cigars. 
 
 "Poole, always I have admired you. But never be 
 fore have you been as brilliant. Personally, fool that 
 I am, I have regarded the fourth dimension as an 
 example of mathemathical hysterics. But to you it is 
 a cupboard full of old clothes. That is what I call 
 originality. Now " 
 
 I grabbed him by the arm. "Stow all that. We 
 have got to get back there and " 
 
 He shook me off. "If you take my advice, you 
 will leave things as they are." 
 
 I could have torn my hair, torn his. Again I 
 grabbed him. 
 
 "I don't want your advice. If I had elephantiasis 
 I wouldn't take it. I want your help." 
 
 "Why don't you knock me down?" 
 
 He said it with a hateful affection of patience, the 
 resigned patience of the long suffering, and it infu 
 riated me. 
 
 "I'll be shot if I don't, if you won't come along." 
 
 "A lamb led by a lion," I heard him protest at the 
 doorkeeper who regarded us both with professional 
 stolidity. 
 
 But at last I had him in the car and after directing 
 Fletcher, I went over it again, but this time in full. 
 
 "What do you make of it?" I concluded. "To me 
 it is a nightmare." 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 219 
 
 "Can you keep a secret?" 
 
 "Yes. 
 
 "Well, I can't. Your nightmare is a mare's nest." 
 
 "How a mare's nest?" 
 
 "You are a novelist, I believe." 
 
 "You mean I have invented all this?" 
 
 "No, that would require ability. You have merely 
 twisted things crooked and then frightened yourself 
 with them." 
 
 "Yes," I admitted. "That is only commonsense. 
 The whole affair has rattled me so that I can't think 
 straight." 
 
 "Totally unnecessary to tell me that, Poole. More 
 over, if I were you, I wouldn't talk of commonsense. 
 It might seem boastful." 
 
 I found no adequate retort. Besides, what he said 
 was natural enough. He did not believe me. How 
 could he? How could anyone believe my cock-and-bull 
 story? How for that matter could I prove it? I had 
 no witness except Austen, who might deny everything, 
 and that gnome who had not seen Bradish at all. 
 
 But now the car was veering. Into the street of 
 obscure calamities it swam and, at the Leah-like house, 
 we alighted. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 IN the hall, on the way up, Cally looked at his 
 watch and blandly, with his abominable unconcern, re 
 marked that he had an appointment at nine. 
 
 "At nine !" I exclaimed. "It must be midnight now." 
 
 "Two minutes after eight precisely." 
 
220 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 I stared. It was my turn. I did not believe him. 
 It was incredible that all that had happened could have 
 been comprised into an hour's space. 
 
 "Seeing more ghosts?" he obligingly enquired. 
 
 But now we were on the landing above. It was 
 darker than before, yet, without apparent effort, he 
 found the button. 
 
 The gnome opened. Cally said something, asking 
 for Austen I think, and I went on with him into the 
 sitting-room where the evaporation had occurred. 
 
 Previously, it had not been lighted. It was then 
 and Cally indicated the cupboard of which the door 
 had been closed. 
 
 "Is that your fourth dimension ?" 
 
 Suddenly I felt very tired. Joined to the fatigue 
 was a sense of helplessness. I felt that Cally would 
 be of no use whatever and I cursed myself for not 
 having thought to subvention Aly. She could have 
 psychometrised the cupboard and told me what hap 
 pened when Bradish disappeared. 
 
 From the chair on which I had dropped, I looked 
 about. Cally had opened the cupboard and I saw 
 him go in. Then I lost sight of him and I wondered 
 though with that indifference which lassitude brings 
 whether he too had been whisked away. 
 
 Yet almost at once he showed himself and beckoned. 
 I got up and went to him. Preceding me, he re-entered 
 the cupboard and pushed at the back. Silently it 
 parted. An unimagined door had opened. I was 
 looking into another room. 
 
 A foot or two beyond was a trunk and beside it a 
 hat. I saw that, saw too something else. Across the 
 room was another door. As I looked it also opened. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 221 
 
 From behind it a face, ageless and sexless, peered and 
 I heard a sexless and ageless voice. 
 
 "In Christian charity, will you go?" 
 
 But the voice, however unearthly, was human. The 
 room into which I looked was real. Then at once I 
 was in darkness. Cally had withdrawn his hand. In 
 stantly the cupboard's back exit had closed and I real 
 ised how it was that when Bradish dashed in there, I 
 had missed him by not more than a hair. 
 
 "There is your fourth dimension. Take a jump in 
 yourself. If you don't find Bradish, it is because he 
 has gone. I am going too. Some folks have their 
 living to make." 
 
 It was Cally of course. I had no answer for him, 
 nor any surprise at his familiarity with the lay of the 
 land. I took it that he had stumbled on it by accident, 
 as I might have, if I had been less rattled when Bradish 
 disappeared. Then, at once, with a push of my own, 
 I passed through. 
 
 At the right was a sofa, behind it a window. Oppo 
 site the sofa, a yard or two away, was a table. On it 
 was a book and above it a light. Nearby were two 
 chairs. Save for a small rug, that trunk and the hat, 
 the floor was bare. These things I absorbed at a 
 glance. What alone among them detained me was the 
 sofa. 
 
 There sat Bradish. He was holding his leg as 
 though it were a guitar. 
 
 The attitude exasperated me. If a last straw were 
 needed there it was and I yelped. 
 
 "What are you doing?" 
 
 He motioned at the opposite wall. "Nelly is in 
 there. I would have had her, I nearly had her, she 
 
222 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 was just ahead of me, making for that door, when I 
 tripped and fell." 
 
 It was too much and I let go. 
 
 "You are always tumbling over yourself and always 
 at the wrong moment. It is a pity you did not break 
 your neck." 
 
 He grimaced. "I nearly did. I fell over that trunk 
 and twisted my bad ankle. The pain must have 
 knocked me. When I came to, I was on the floor." 
 
 I gave it to him again. 
 
 "I thought you were dead, confound you. When I 
 saw what you saw, I sprang in the air and screamed 
 like an octopus, but you dashed in here and fainted 
 from sheer bravado. Come along out of this." 
 
 "Not till I see Nelly." 
 
 "You intend to stay here for the rest of your born 
 days?" 
 
 "I intend to get at Nelly if I have to break down 
 every door in the place." 
 
 "Nice blackguardly program." 
 
 He threw out his chin. "Kid gloves, eh? I have 
 worn them too long." 
 
 As he spoke, he lowered his leg, got to his feet, 
 winced visibly and as visibly stared, not at me, at 
 something or someone behind me. 
 
 I turned. In the doorway, through which that un 
 earthly face had peered, stood a man whom I remem 
 bered having seen at the funeral. Obviously a man of 
 the world and not of its neighbourhood, as some 
 worldly men are, he had that air of extreme distinction 
 which certain New Yorkers used to possess and which 
 now is gone forever. Another lost art. 
 
 He bowed to Bradish. "My name is Chilton. He 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 223 
 
 turned to me. "Mr. Poole, I believe. Won't you 
 both be seated?" 
 
 There could be but one Chilton Nelly's father. 
 There he stood. Bradish sank back on the sofa. I 
 took a chair. There were but two chairs. He took 
 the other. 
 
 "Mr. Bradish," he resumed. "It was my intention 
 to call on you tomorrow, for in returning here, I hardly 
 expected to find you. Austen, who went in search of 
 rne, told me of your visit. He told me also what you 
 said. In what manner you discovered what you did 
 discover is incomprehensible. It is also unfortunate. 
 He paused and continued: "What I have to say to 
 you intimately concerns my daughter." 
 
 I made for the door. "Mr. Chilton, I am your very 
 obedient servant." 
 
 At once he protested. "No, no, I beg of you. 
 Please do not go. At least for a moment. I ' 
 
 "Your daughter," Bradish heatedly cut in, "is in the 
 next room. She " 
 
 "My daughter is dead," the old man interrupted. 
 
 At that the lion roared. "She isn't! She can't be! 
 She never has been! I don't believe it. I've seen 
 her." 
 
 Cheerlessly the old man eyed him. "When you saw 
 her she told you she was dead. She spoke the truth. 
 Civilly she has no existence." 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" Bradish cried at him. 
 
 The old man's right hand had been ungloved. 
 Slowly he removed the other glove. 
 
 "What the law is here I do not know, but I do know 
 that on the Continent a death certificate, properly en 
 tered, is incapable of revision." 
 
224 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 The spider then seemed to be digging into Bradish's 
 face. 
 
 "It cannot be that you propose to stand on that?" 
 
 The old man turned to me. "I stand on nothing." 
 He turned to Bradish. "None the less " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I ask you to relinquish her." 
 
 Bradish glared. The expression is cheap. I can 
 think of none other that is as adequate. 
 
 "Not to her lover!" The five syllables he tore 
 from his mouth and flung them so violently that the 
 spider seemed about to fling itself with them. Nor 
 had he done. With the same violence he gestured at 
 the cupboard. "In that room in there I surprised her 
 going to him." 
 
 But the violence served only to heighten that air of 
 distinction. 
 
 "Mr. Bradish, no man should speak, as you have 
 spoken, to a girl's father. Yet I do not venture to 
 reprove you. Presently you will reprove yourself. 
 Meanwhile you will allow me to correct you. When 
 you surprised my daughter in the adjoining room, it 
 was in search of me she was going. Since Austen first 
 took this apartment for me, very often I have sat 
 there, usually with him, but also with Dr. Cally, who 
 has been attending her." 
 
 And that, I reflected, is how tricky little Cally knew 
 the lay of the land. 
 
 "As Dr. Cally is aware, though you are not, she is 
 dying. The dying, Mr. Bradish, do not act in the 
 manner which you have asserted." 
 
 Again the wounded lion roared. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 225 
 
 "Dying! It is impossible. Only a while ago, 
 she " 
 
 Protestingly the old man had motioned. "I must 
 ask you to hear me. For some time I was abroad. It 
 was only a few days before my daughter's marriage 
 that I returned to this country. She was then inter 
 ested in Austen as she always had been. To my knowl 
 edge she had never looked, as the phrase is, at another 
 man. Her marriage to you was therefore a surprise 
 to me. She has since told me that her mother so rep 
 resented matters with which you are familiar, that she 
 had no other recourse. Mr. Poolc, will you care to 
 smoke?" 
 
 In speaking he produced a cigarette case, which he 
 offered to me, offered to Bradish, who shook his head. 
 I thanked him and took one. He also took one and 
 resumed. 
 
 "You will appreciate in a moment why I enter into 
 circumstances which, without reflecting in any way on 
 you, are painful to us both. But then the whole matter 
 is painful, far more so than you know. Have you a 
 match, Mr. Poole?" 
 
 I struck one which I gave him. He thanked me, 
 lighted his cigarette and motioned at Bradish. 
 
 "I love Nelly. She is the one human being I do 
 love. A sacrifice for her would not be a sacrifice, it 
 would be a joy. I can make none. There is none to 
 be made. You ask if I proposed to stand on the death 
 certificate. I can only stand and look on, stand and 
 wring my hands." 
 
 The gloves which he held he dropped, bent over 
 and recovered them. 
 
 "Mr. Bradish, you married a girl whom you have 
 
226 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 lost through no fault of yours, through no fault of 
 hers. Be good enough to keep that in mind. But you 
 have lost her as I have, as we all have, for we have 
 lost her forever." 
 
 Then again the wounded lion roared. 
 
 "It is preposterous! I don't believe it!" 
 
 The atmosphere was stifling. Charged with grief, 
 with anger, with suspense, it had us all by the throat. 
 I was about to go and throw open the window, but the 
 old man was speaking. 
 
 "Civilly she is dead and nominally " 
 
 He broke off. For a moment, resolutely he closed 
 his mouth. Then at once, with a gesture of excuse, he 
 looked at Bradish. 
 
 "I again ask you to relinquish her." 
 
 Again Bradish flung it at him. "And I repeat, I 
 will not relinquish my wife to her lover." 
 
 Mr. Chilton looked at me and though years have 
 gone by since then, that look seems to me still the 
 most despairful that I ever saw. But precisely as he 
 had mastered himself a moment earlier, he mastered 
 himself then. The air of extreme distinction returned 
 and it was actually with a smile, the smile of a man of 
 the world to whom nothing is important, that he turned 
 anew to Bradish. 
 
 "I fear you will have to relinquish her to her lover, 
 for her lover is Christ." 
 
 Even then I did not get it. Nor did Bradish. He 
 blazed. 
 
 "Either you are insane, sir, or I am." 
 
 "No, not that," the old man still with that smile 
 replied. "But you are wretched and angry and I am 
 wretched and sad. Let me tell you. During the 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 227 
 
 funeral, my daughter's consciousness returned. But 
 with that consciousness was another, perhaps the most 
 pitiful and perhaps, too, the most horrible that a mor 
 tal can experience. She heard the service, smelt the 
 tuberoses, knew where she was, knew that she was 
 assisting at her own funeral and she could not speak, 
 she could not stir. Catalepsy in paralysing the nerve 
 centres had made her rigid. She was unable to move 
 an eyelid. Perhaps you can imagine how she felt. 
 I do not want to." 
 
 The smile had gone. Cheerlessly he continued. 
 
 "That night, as you have since discovered, Austen 
 rescued her. But the rescue itself was entirely fortu 
 itous. He had previously arranged that the coffin 
 should not be closed and that arrangement, which had 
 in view a last visit to her, was merely one of senti 
 ment. But when he saw her, when he touched her, it 
 seemed to him that she could not be dead and he 
 brought her to me here and sent for Dr. Cally." 
 
 "Yes," I said, and I said it only for the sake of 
 saying something. "Cally told me of a case of cata 
 lepsy. He did not tell me whose." 
 
 "We begged him not to. Meanwhile, after he had 
 revived her, she said she saw the light. She " 
 
 He broke off. Again the room was being invaded, 
 this time by Austen, who nodded at us and seated him 
 self on the trunk. 
 
 The old man glanced at. him, turned, straightened 
 and looked at Bradish, and what a lookl 
 
 "Legally my daughter is dead. Nominally she is 
 dying. A Sister of Mercy is with her now." 
 
 The face in the doorway, I thought. 
 
 With that look, he was adding: "Yesterday my 
 
228 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 daughter was received in the Catholic Church. Shortly, 
 so far as the world is concerned, she will be buried 
 from us all. Will you say, for your saying it may 
 give her an added peace, will you say you relinquish 
 her now before she begins the novitiate that ends with 
 the veil?" 
 
 It was too suffocating. On the table at my elbow 
 was a book, a breviary as I then discovered. But the 
 lines were blurred. I could not see them. What I 
 did see was that girl, the cited beauty, bidding farewell 
 to love, to life; taking the black veil which is a white 
 shroud. The picture was the most desolate I had ever 
 seen. Yet, at once, beneath it, those words, which are 
 so curiously radiant, shimmered like thin flames: 
 "Behold, I make all things new!" 
 
 For her, yes; not in this life certainly, but in the 
 next and probably in her lives to follow, all things 
 broken would be made complete and she would find 
 again things vanished. 
 
 But for Bradish, what could life hold except the tan- 
 talian torture of knowing her alive and yet dead to 
 him? Again I wondered what sin, enigmatic, anterior, 
 unknown, could have thrust him in those halls where 
 expiation would walk ever at his side, sit with him 
 when he sat and, in sleep, lie with him when sleep he 
 could. 
 
 I turned to look at him. He was no longer where 
 he had been. He had gone to the window where he 
 stood, his back turned, looking out, but at what? 
 What did he see there ? It must have been something 
 very penetrant for in a moment, when he turned, the 
 spider that had been digging and tearing at his face 
 had yellowed and the face itself was drawn and grey. 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 229 
 
 From the night, age may have reached and touched 
 him. Yet also, another presence may have touched 
 not him alone but his soul. So I thought. I was 
 entirely in error. At the moment I did not realise 
 that, only that he was saying something, saying it in 
 a voice that rang. 
 
 "All right, I will, and I am glad of the chance." 
 
 What on earth did he mean, I wondered. In the 
 interim I had lost the connection. I think the others 
 had also. They were looking at him, as I was, in 
 vague surmise. 
 
 But at once and to my disgust he became sententious. 
 
 "The world is very narrow." 
 
 Martin Tupper, I thought. 
 
 Immediately he retrieved himself. "Let the world 
 be her convent." 
 
 Where did he get that? I asked myself. It is too 
 good for him. 
 
 "I shall ask," he was adding, "that we be divorced." 
 
 "You will ask in vain then," I called at him. "Yes 
 terday, as I understood from Mr. Chilton, Mrs. 
 Bradish joined the Church. The Church does not 
 recognise divorce." 
 
 Impatiently he gestured. "The Church can grant 
 an annulment." 
 
 Austen sprang up, "Bradish " 
 
 "We have been man and wife in name only," he 
 uninterruptedly continued. "In the existing circum 
 stances that might not be enough. But there are ante 
 cedent circumstances that will be." 
 
 "Bradish " Austen again began. 
 
 "I married her under false pretences." 
 
 "Jim!" I protested. 
 
2 3 o THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 "Not intentionally. I was unaware they were false. 
 But the fact remains that she became my wife because 
 of conditions which she was unaware had ceased to 
 exist; that is, if they ever existed. If only for that 
 I cannot do otherwise than release her. But there is 
 another reason, a personal reason which, when Mr. 
 Chilton entered here, I meant to state but which is 
 superfluous now. As it is she can have the marriage 
 annulled and return, not to death, but to life. I wish 
 her joy." 
 
 "Bradish," Austen began anew and this time suc 
 ceeded in saying it, "it is what I expected of you." 
 
 He might, I thought, have said less. But I thought, 
 too, he could not have said more. 
 
 Bradish made no reply. He did not even look at 
 him. He ignored him completely and that attitude, 
 it seemed to me and how erroneously ! was induced 
 neither by jealousy nor callousness, but by that detach 
 ment which is part of the higher faith, and a line, less 
 radiant than that other but more beautiful came back 
 to me: "Near to renunciation, very near, dwelleth 
 eternal peace." 
 
 "Now, I'll go," he abruptly added. 
 
 Mr. Chilton had stood up. 
 
 "Goodnight," he rather cavalierly concluded. 
 
 I had gone on to the trunk where I got his hat which 
 I gave him and, Mr. Chilton preceding us, we went 
 on to the door of this flat where the old man, as he 
 opened it, bowed gravely. 
 
 In the car, Bradish turned to me. 
 
 "I will go to Spain with you next week." 
 
 "You will go as a grandee then. You have done a 
 noble act" 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 231 
 
 He twisted his eyebrows at me. "Rubbish ! When 
 I came to in that ghastly room I determined to get at 
 that girl if I broke down every door in the place." 
 
 u So you said." 
 
 "And I meant it. But it was not to carry her off. 
 It was to tell her what I thought of her. I would have 
 told Chilton, told him to tell her, told him when he 
 came in the room, if he had not infuriated me at the 
 very start." 
 
 He broke off and angrily continued, "When I keeled 
 over, she never turned, she never stopped. For all of 
 her I might have died there. Afterward, when I sat on 
 that confounded sofa, I realised what must have been 
 unconsciously germinating in me ever since that day 
 in the Park when she said she was dead." 
 
 Surprisedly I looked at him. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that I hate her. It was that that I wanted 
 to say." 
 
 Well, after all, it was only natural. His torture 
 had been excessive. The screws had been turned 
 too tight. Besides, hatred is but love reversed. 
 
 Before I could say so, up again ran the Spanish flag. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "But you will have to loan me Peters 
 for an hour." 
 
 That hour never came. 
 
 XXX 
 
 THE morrow was amazing as every morrow should 
 be, but, in the instance, shuttled with a vast surprise 
 which I, who had promenaded from the unexpected to 
 the unawaited, had entirely omitted to foresee. 
 
 The surprise, which battened on me in a lift and 
 
232 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 multiplied itself elsewhere, began, after the manner of 
 great events, in a commonplace fashion. 
 
 I was on my way to sign the picture contract at my 
 publishers when I ran into Aly. As I had all that 
 had occurred to tell her, I asked her to come with me 
 and go afterward to the sorcerer's for his brews. 
 
 But though, good sort that she was, she consented, 
 she did not see her dear Mr. Delmonico that day, 
 while I beheld what is far rarer than any sorcerer, the 
 complex phenomenon of dual personality. 
 
 Meanwhile, we had entered the junior partner's 
 office. At the moment, he was elsewhere. But Miss 
 Judson, his secretary, was there, and there also was 
 a lanky young man, the portrait on foot of a greenhorn. 
 
 Then, as Aly and I waited, he addressed me, asking 
 whether Broadway were uptown or down, and I was 
 informing him when the junior member entered behind 
 me with a "Hal" 
 
 To which he added, "I see you know Bil Sayers." 
 
 The depth of the sanctuary is the place for idols. 
 Invisible, secreted from vulgar eyes, there they should 
 remain. The same may be true of authors. Yet, 
 while I do not recall that I had evolved any particular 
 image of Bil Sayers, I am sure I never imagined he 
 would resemble a lout. I glanced at Aly. She also 
 seemed perplexed. There goes her idol, too, I thought, 
 when another incident occurred. 
 
 The junior member was old and stout. The senior 
 member was young and slim. At that moment, his 
 hat on, a cigar in his mouth, in he marched. In all 
 the vanishing acts that prestidigitateurs perform, I 
 have seen nothing more instantaneous than the manner 
 in which that cigar disappeared. No dancing master 
 
THE GHOST GIRL 233 
 
 I ever heard of could have been quicker with his hat. 
 
 It was not for me of course, nor even for the lanky 
 genius, that these immediate feats of haute ecole were 
 performed. He was not looking at either of us. He 
 was looking at Aly, and a proper tribute to her beauty 
 it was. 
 
 But Miss Judson had come to me with the contracts 
 and I went forward to a desk where, with the junior 
 member facing me, I sat down. 
 
 "Our London house has particularly requested the 
 autograph. It is for the Queen. I will have a Dawn 
 in at once. Miss Judson !" 
 
 It was the senior member's voice and Ho! I 
 thought, how tickled the Queen would be if she could 
 see the lovely lad. 
 
 Then Aly's voice reached me, though occupied as I 
 at once became with a tortuous clause of the contract, 
 what she said I did not hear, and subconsciously I 
 fancied she must be expressing yet how far more 
 graciously ! precisely what I thought. 
 
 Then I signed and the old junior member told me 
 the cheque would be mailed that night. 
 
 The entire transaction had not taken more than a 
 moment or so, but when I got up the young senior 
 member had disappeared, as his cigar had, gone, I 
 took it, for the book. In the window the genius stood 
 on one foot, picking his teeth. I thought the attitude 
 excessive and Aly must have thought so also. She 
 was pink. 
 
 Nodding at the junior member, I passed out with 
 her to the hall where, while waiting for the lift, I 
 condoled. 
 
 "Sorry I saw him, aren't you?" 
 
234 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 At that moment Miss Judson flew up. 
 
 "Shall I mail it to you, mem?" 
 
 Of all the gentle people I ever met, Aly Bolton is, 
 I think, the gentlest. Yet instantly, for some undi- 
 vinable reason, she assumed the expression of a tigress. 
 
 But a descending cage has stopped and into it we got, 
 while Miss Judson called: 
 
 "It's for the Queen, mem, did they tell you?" 
 
 The steel door slammed. Down we sank. 
 
 "What the dickens do you care?" I muttered at 
 her. Pink before, she was pinker then. 
 
 Nor could she have heard me, for as we reached 
 the street she said and said it, too, with flashing eyes : 
 
 "It is outrageous. They promised no one should 
 know." 
 
 Imbecile that I was, not until that moment had it 
 dawned upon me. But in that moment, dawn came, 
 dawn went. It was day. With its full light in my 
 eyes, I blinked. Then I laughed. 
 
 "You're a sneaky little thing." 
 
 A vagabond cab was passing and I raised my stick. 
 
 But no. She did not want to drive. She did not 
 want elixirs. As for the old junior member and the 
 young senior, never would she put her foot in their 
 shop again, while, as for the Queen, well, I was glad 
 Broadway was not Pall Mall. 
 
 Never had I seen her angry before. Never have I 
 seen her angry since. Vexed, yes; annoyed also, but 
 angry, no, and I have regretted it. An exquisite girl 
 in a tempest what more appetising sight would you 
 have? 
 
 "And I am not a sneaky little thing," she snapped at 
 me. "And it is none of your business anyway." 
 
. THE GHOST GIRL 235 
 
 I have found it politic to agree with anyone, no 
 matter whom, about anything, no matter what, and I 
 applied that myrrh and cassia. 
 
 "Of course it is none of my business. Moreover, 
 decent people never hear anything that was not in 
 tended for them. It was sneaky of me to listen. But 
 never mind. Your shameful secret is safe. No one 
 shall know from me that you are the great Bil Sayers. 
 I won't have the chance to tell. I am leaving this 
 part of the planet." 
 
 She cocked the seashell of an ear. "What?" 
 
 In the tumult of the jostling street, it was not pos 
 sible to go into it then, nor did I attempt to until we 
 reached her flat where her "Oh! Oh's!" at my account 
 of all that had happened continued until the account 
 was ended when, clapping her hands, she cried: 
 
 "Those two will be happy ever after." 
 
 That, I think, set the tune. 
 
 What I said, what she said, what afterward occurred 
 when the brave, foolish words, Forever, Never, were 
 uttered by us both, all that has nothing to do with the 
 present document except, that in enabling me to build 
 an immediate castle in Spain, it withheld me from the 
 Alhambra. 
 
 The fairy castle metamorphosed itself into a 
 Riverside flat. 
 
 But that also is irrelevant. What alone imports is 
 Bradish, who accepted my infection with such passivity 
 that I could not but see he thought it better so and pre 
 ferred to be alone. 
 
 That is years ago. For a while he wrote. He wrote 
 from Avignon. He wrote from Vallombrosa. Then 
 his letters ceased. During the war he fought for Italy 
 
236 THE GHOST GIRL 
 
 and died for her in the Alps. There he was delivered 
 from the sweep and loneliness of things. If the great 
 renunciation did not bring him peace, he found it 
 there. There at last he was free and forever from 
 those halls hung with enigmas, tapestried with tears, 
 before which the sphinx in flight gallops like a jackal. 
 
 THE END. 
 

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
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 RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE 
 RECALL 
 
 SEP 1 9 1966 
 : SEP i 9 1966 
 NOV 2 2 ,g 67 
 
 
 LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS 
 
 Book Slip-70m-9,'65(F7151s4)458 
 
N2 416830 
 
 PS2752 
 
 Salt us, E,E. G 
 
 The ghost girl. 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS