The only answer that came back was a slow and heavy tread, that seemed to come from a corridor opening out upon the walk along which Barney had come.
Tramp, tramp, tramp!
The footsteps sounded with great distinctness. Merriwell threw open the door of his room leading out into this corridor. The light of the lamp flooded the corridor, and he was able to view it from end to end. He could have sworn that the footsteps were just beyond his door. But the corridor was absolutely empty. And the footsteps had ceased.
Frank whistled softly to himself. He was not superst.i.tious, but this was rather shaking to the nerves. He hurried back to the window and looked out upon the walk and down the moon-lighted sward. No sound came, save the dashing of the surf. He leaped through the open window and proceeded to inspect the grounds in that vicinity. The ghostly form had vanished.
"Hodge!" he called. "Hodge! Come out here."
Hodge, who occupied an adjacent room, and who had been asleep, threw up a window and looked out.
"Yes," he said. "As soon as I can slip into my clothes. What is it, Merry?"
"I don"t know," Frank confessed. "I wish I did know."
"Of course, there are no such things as ghosts," he declared, when Bart joined him. "But if ever a man saw one, I did just now--the ghost of Barney Mulloy!"
Hodge stared at his friend as if wondering if Frank"s mind was not affected.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I have said to you. I saw an apparition that resembled Barney Mulloy. And I not only saw it, but I heard it. It came right along here, and turned in there, and then I heard it in the corridor. I threw open the corridor door before any one could have got out of there, and the corridor was empty!"
"You must have been dreaming!"
"Not a bit of it, Bart. I hadn"t gone to bed. I haven"t been even a bit sleepy. I was sitting at my window, and I saw it as plainly as I see you."
"You certainly must have been dreaming, Merry!" Bart insisted. "Have you looked all about?"
"Everywhere."
Bart walked over to the door which opened from the corridor on the lawn.
It was not locked.
"It couldn"t have been Barney, of course; but whoever it was went through here into the corridor."
"And how did he get out of the corridor?"
"Walked on through into the office."
"The office is closed. The landlord and all the servants retired long ago."
"Well, it couldn"t have been a ghost!"
"I am wondering if it could have been Barney himself?"
"He was--attacked near Sea Cove, not here!"
"I am going to rout out the landlord," Merriwell declared. "Perhaps he can throw some light on the subject."
"He told you, when you inquired, that he had heard nothing except what was in the papers."
"But he may be able to help us to clear away this mystery."
When summoned, the landlord came down into the little office looking very sleepy, very stupid, and somewhat angry. Merriwell told what he had seen and heard, and repeated the newspaper story about the murder of Barney.
"Well, that was at Sea Cove," was the answer. "Ghosts always come back to the place where the person was killed. Why should it come here? I don"t like this. If you tell it, it will give my house a bad name. No one wants to board in a haunted house, and it will ruin my summer"s business."
"But I thought you might help us to an explanation," Frank insisted.
The sleepy and stupid look had pa.s.sed away. The landlord had once been a seafaring man, and he was a bit superst.i.tious. Still, he was not willing to acknowledge that Frank had beheld something supernatural. He would not deny its possibility, but repeated over and over his belief that ghosts always return to the place of the murder and to no other place, and that the repet.i.tion of the story would drive away his summer boarders.
"I tell him he was just dreaming," said Bart.
"Sure!" with a look of relief. "Of course, he was dreaming. There"s been n.o.body in Glen Springs looking like the chap you describe, and I"m sure that n.o.body has been walking in that corridor, "less it was burglars."
So Frank went back to his room, accompanied by Bart. He knew that he had not been asleep, though, and he felt sure that he had really seen and heard something, and was not the victim of a hallucination. Merriwell sat down again by the open window, and Bart dropped into a chair by his side.
"If the thing comes again, we"ll capture it!" said Hodge. "Somebody may be playing ghost, just to scare us. I have heard----"
He did not complete the sentence, for he really heard something at the moment that stilled the words on his lips and drove the blood out of his face.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!
The sounds came unmistakably from the corridor.
"There it is again!" Frank exclaimed.
Bart leaped toward the door and quickly threw it open. The lamplight again streamed out into the corridor. But the sounds had ceased, and the corridor was empty. Hodge stared down the corridor in stupid bewilderment.
"Of all the strange things!" he gasped.
"That is the strangest!" Merriwell added. "You heard it for yourself then!"
Bart walked out into the corridor, peered out of doors through the gla.s.s set in the side door, and opened the door leading into the deserted office. There was nothing to be seen. When he came back, his face was beaded with moisture.
"Merry, I wish you"d tell me the meaning of that!"
"I wish you would tell me, Bart! You thought I was dreaming, or fancied that I saw and heard something. You see now that you were mistaken."
"Unless I am dreaming myself!"
"You are perfectly wide-awake, Hodge, and so am I! There is a mystery here."
"Never knew anything like it," mopping his face. "Whew! It brings the cold sweat out on me!"
He dropped down into the chair by the window, leaving the corridor door open. Nothing further was heard.