"No, no! An eye--an eye as big as a saucer! It ran right up that staircase--" She indicated the alcove with a trembling forefinger. Miss Cornelia put her coffeepot and her candle down on the table and opened her mouth to express her frank opinion of her factotum"s sanity. But here the detective took charge.
"Now see here," he said with some sternness to the quaking Lizzie, "stop this racket and tell me what you saw!"
"A ghost!" persisted Lizzie, still hopping around on one leg. "It came right through that door and ran up the stairs--oh--" and she seemed prepared to scream again as Dale, white-faced, came in from the hall, followed by Billy and Brooks, the latter holding still another candle.
"Who screamed?" said Dale tensely.
"I did!" Lizzie wailed, "I saw a ghost!" She turned to Miss Cornelia.
"I begged you not to come here," she vociferated. "I begged you on my bended knees. There"s a graveyard not a quarter of a mile away."
"Yes, and one more scare like that, Lizzie Allen, and you"ll have me lying in it," said her mistress unsympathetically. She moved up to examine the scene of Lizzie"s ghostly misadventure, while Anderson began to interrogate its heroine.
"Now, Lizzie," he said, forcing himself to urbanity, "what did you really see?"
"I told you what I saw."
His manner grew somewhat threatening.
"You"re not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into leaving this house and going back to the city?"
"Well, if I am," said Lizzie with grim, unconscious humor, "I"m giving myself an awful good scare, too, ain"t I?"
The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia returned from her survey of the alcove.
"Somebody who had a key could have got in here, Mr. Anderson," she said annoyedly. "That terrace door"s been unbolted from the inside."
Lizzie groaned. "I told you so," she wailed. "I knew something was going to happen tonight. I heard rappings all over the house today, and the ouija-board spelled Bat!"
The detective recovered his poise. "I think I see the answer to your puzzle, Miss Van Gorder," he said, with a scornful glance at Lizzie.
"A hysterical and not very reliable woman, anxious to go back to the city and terrified over and over by the shutting off of the electric lights."
If looks could slay, his characterization of Lizzie would have laid him dead at her feet at that instant. Miss Van Gorder considered his theory.
"I wonder," she said.
The detective rubbed his hands together more cheerfully.
"A good night"s sleep and--" he began, but the irrepressible Lizzie interrupted him.
"My G.o.d, we"re not going to bed, are we?" she said, with her eyes as big as saucers.
He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, which she obviously resented.
"You"ll feel better in the morning," he said. "Lock your door and say your prayers, and leave the rest to me."
Lizzie muttered something inaudible and rebellious, but now Miss Cornelia added her protestations to his.
"That"s very good advice," she said decisively. "You take her, Dale."
Reluctantly, with a dragging of feet and scared glances cast back over her shoulder, Lizzie allowed herself to be drawn toward the door and the main staircase by Dale. But she did not depart without one Parthian shot.
"I"m not going to bed!" she wailed as Dale"s strong young arm helped her out into the hall. "Do you think I want to wake up in the morning with my throat cut?" Then the creaking of the stairs, and Dale"s soothing voice rea.s.suring her as she painfully clambered toward the third floor, announced that Lizzie, for some time at least, had been removed as an active factor from the puzzling equation of Cedarcrest.
Anderson confronted Miss Cornelia with certain relief.
"There are certain things I want to discuss with you, Miss Van Gorder,"
he said. "But they can wait until tomorrow morning."
Miss Cornelia glanced about the room. His manner was rea.s.suring.
"Do you think all this--pure imagination?" she said.
"Don"t you?"
She hesitated. "I"m not sure."
He laughed. "I"ll tell you what I"ll do. You go upstairs and go to bed comfortably. I"ll make a careful search of the house before I settle down, and if I find anything at all suspicious, I"ll promise to let you know."
She agreed to that, and after sending the j.a.p out for more coffee prepared to go upstairs.
Never had the thought of her own comfortable bed appealed to her so much. But, in spite of her weariness, she could not quite resign herself to take Lizzie"s story as lightly as the detective seemed to.
"If what Lizzie says is true," she said, taking her candle, "the upper floors of the house are even less safe than this one."
"I imagine Lizzie"s account just now is about as reliable as her previous one as to her age," Anderson a.s.sured her. "I"m certain you need not worry. Just go on up and get your beauty sleep; I"m sure you need it."
On which ambiguous remark Miss Van Gorder took her leave, rather grimly smiling.
It was after she had gone that Anderson"s glance fell on Brooks, standing warily in the doorway.
"What are you? The gardener?"
But Brooks was prepared for him.
"Ordinarily I drive a car," he said. "Just now I"m working on the place here."
Anderson was observing him closely, with the eyes of a man ransacking his memory for a name--a picture. "I"ve seen you somewhere--" he went on slowly. "And I"ll--place you before long." There was a little threat in his shrewd scrutiny. He took a step toward Brooks.
"Not in the portrait gallery at headquarters, are you?"
"Not yet." Brooks"s voice was resentful. Then he remembered his pose and his back grew supple, his whole att.i.tude that of the respectful servant.
"Well, we slip up now and then," said the detective slowly. Then, apparently, he gave up his search for the name--the pictured face. But his manner was still suspicious.
"All right, Brooks," he said tersely, "if you"re needed in the night, you"ll be called!"
Brooks bowed. "Very well, sir." He closed the door softly behind him, glad to have escaped as well as he had.