When I came down to breakfast the next morning, the landlady in tears waylaid me.
"Oh, Mr. Wade," she began in trouble-telling tone, "this affair about the ghost is going to hurt my business. Some of those folks say they are going home, and they will tell others and--"
"I"ll fix the ghost story. Just leave it to me!" I a.s.sured her optimistically, as we went into the dining-room.
There were only enough guests to fill one long table, and every one was excitedly dissecting the ghost.
I took my seat and also the floor.
"I hate to dispel your illusions," I said cheerfully, "but the fact is, I made a daylight investigation of the haunted house. First I looked in the window and I saw--"
"Oh, what did you see?" chorused a dozen or more expectant voices.
"A lot of--mice."
"Oh!" came in disappointed and skeptical tones.
"But, the ghost, Mr. Wade?"
"Yes! The arms and the head?"
"A fake figure put up by some practical joker for the purpose of frightening timid people and encouraging the credulous. I didn"t want to spoil your little picnic, so I kept still."
"Those sounds, Lucien!" reminded Silvia.
"Were from a cat chorus. They were prowling about the house."
"You"re sure some lawyer, Mr. Wade," doubtfully complimented my grateful landlady, as we went out of the room after breakfast.
"Lucien," asked Rob _sotto voce_, joining me on the veranda, "why don"t the cats you speak of catch that lot of mice?"
Fortunately Beth came up to us, and I didn"t have to explain.
"Oh!" she said with a shudder. "I"ll never go near that awful place!
I"d rather see a perfectly good ghost, or a loon, or a lunatic any day than a mouse."
"You"re surely not afraid of a mouse!" exclaimed Rob.
"Why not?" she asked coolly as she walked on.
"I told you she was feminine," I reminded him.
He shook his head.
"I can"t understand," he remarked, "why a girl who is afraid of mice should be--"
"You don"t understand anything about women," I interrupted.
"You"re right, Lucien. I don"t, but your sister is surely the greatest enigma of them all."
I rented the stone fence farmer"s "autoo" and took Silvia and Diogenes to a neighboring town that afternoon. We didn"t get back to the hotel until dinner time.
"What have you been up to all day, Rob?" I asked.
"Numerous things. For one, I strolled down to the haunted house."
"What did you see?" cried the women.
"I saw four--"
"Ghosts?" asked Beth.
I shot him a warning glance.
"Young tomcats playing tag with the mice."
I corralled Rob outside after dinner.
"For Heaven"s sake!" I implored. "Don"t disturb Silvia"s peace of mind. Did you go inside?"
"No; I was sorely tempted to, but refrained out of deference to the evident wishes of my host, but really, Lucien, we should--"
"I have only ten more days off, Rob. Don"t make any unpleasant suggestions."
"I won"t," he said promptly.
CHAPTER X
_In Which We Make Some Discoveries_
Diogenes, who, for a Polydore, had been quite placid since Ptolemy"s departure, caused a commotion by disappearing the next morning. As he was possessed of a deep desire to go in the lake and get a little snake, he had been, when not under strict surveillance, tied to a tree with enough leeway in the length of rope to allow him to play comfortably.
By some means he had managed to work himself loose from the rope and had evidently followed Ptolemy"s example. I suggested calling up Huldah and asking if he had arrived yet, but I met with such chilling glances from Silvia and Beth that I got busy and organized searching parties, who reluctantly and lukewarmly engaged in the pursuit. Rob and I took the sh.o.r.e. After we had walked some little distance, we met a woman and stopped for inquiry. She said she had seen a child of about two years, clad in a blue and white striped dress and a big hat, going over the hill in company with a boy of about eight.
"Are you going on to the hotel?" I asked.
On her replying that she was, I told her to inform them that she had met me and that the lost child was located.
Rob and I then kept on over the hill, and when we neared the haunted house, we heard hair-raising sounds.
"If I hadn"t been here before," remarked Rob, "I should think that Sitting Bull had been reincarnated and was reviving the warrior war whoops."
We paused on the threshold. A human windmill of whirling legs and arms--Polydore legs and arms--flashed before our eyes.