CHAPTER IV.
MILLIE STEVENS.
After questioning the two men whom he had found in the stable, Nick walked toward the house.
On the way he met Horace Richmond.
"Mrs. Stevens has gone home," said Horace. "She would not remain for dinner, although she has such a long ride before her. She seems terribly distressed by this strange affair."
"What did your uncle say to her?"
"Not much," was the reply; "and I was a good deal surprised. He begged her not to be nervous about it, and talked very pleasantly to her, but he steered clear of the matter of the jewels.
"I don't understand it. I thought he would insist upon what he calls a restitution of the property."
"Perhaps, after all," said Nick, "he isn't so far off his base on the ghost question as you think he is."
"Don't you deceive yourself about that. He is just as sure that his aunt's spirit removed those jewels as you are that that house is resting on its foundations.
"And I wouldn't try to shake his belief just now," continued Horace, seriously. "Simply say nothing about the affair this evening. Talk about something else to him. Stay with us as long as you can, and quietly look the ground over. Then tell me privately what you think."
This advice seemed good to Nick. He passed a quiet evening in the house, and nobody but Mrs. Pond referred to the robberies. Horace managed to quiet her quickly.
But the next morning after breakfast she came to Nick with a very long face.
"My father has been talking to me," she said, "and I'm going to lose those jewels surely, unless you do something and do it very quickly. I don't care for their value, but they're mine by right, and I mean to keep them if I can. But, of course, I can't bear to make my father's life miserable. It will probably end by my compelling my husband to let me give them up."
Nick had his doubts about the possibility of such a thing, and they were made certainties very soon afterward.
Mr. Pond arrived unexpectedly. When the story was told him, he "danced the war-dance," as our young friend Patsy might have expressed it.
"You don't seem to realize the importance of this matter," he exclaimed. "Why, it's a million-dollar robbery, that's what it is! If we give up the jewels, the colonel will give us their value. By jingo, he'll have to.
"Well, what's that but the theft of a million from him?"
Nick was compelled to confess that it was just that, and nothing else.
"And who'll reap the proceeds?" continued Pond. "Why, the Stevenses, of course. Nobody else gets anything out of it. They're playing on the colonel's superstitions for a million dollar stake.
"Now, Mr. Carter, you go ahead and work this thing out. Catch the thief. Don't let the colonel get you out of the way. If there's a question of money, I'm good for the best fee you can name."
Nick's first move that day was to go to Mrs. Stevens' house.
She lived well on her small income. It was a nice old country-house, with grounds of considerable extent, and a stable in which two good horses were kept.
Nick rode over there on one of Colonel Richmond's fine saddle-horses.
As the detective rode up the winding, shaded walk toward the house, he noticed a man-servant just ahead of him.
This servant had a newspaper and some letters in his hand. He seemed to have come from the village post-office.
Leaning over the railing of the veranda, as if waiting for this servant, was one of the handsomest girls Nick had ever seen. She was a beauty of the dashing, dark-eyed type—a girl of courage and strong will.
The servant gave her the letters just as Nick came in sight. He not only gave her those he had been carrying in his hand, but he drew one from his pocket with a motion that suggested secrecy.
Nick rode up to the veranda, introduced himself, and asked to see Mrs. Stevens.
"Let James take your horse," said the girl. "Come into the house, if you please. I will speak to my mother."
Nick went into the cool and pretty parlor. Miss Stevens left the room for a moment, and then returned with her mother.
The detective spoke of the occurrences of the day before, and requested permission to see the room in which the jewelry had so mysteriously appeared.
While they were talking thus, it happened that Miss Stevens drew her handkerchief from her pocket, and as she did so two little pieces of paper fell to the floor.
"So she's read that letter, and torn it up so soon," was Nick's silent comment.
Almost immediately Miss Stevens said:
"There's the mail on the table, mother. I forgot to give it to you. There are several letters."
Mrs. Stevens glanced at the addresses.
"They are all for me," she said. "Was there nothing for you?"
"No, indeed," cried the girl. "There's nobody who writes letters to me."
"Lies to her mother, does she?" said Nick to himself. "Well, it begins to look bad for her."
Miss Stevens did not notice the bits of paper on the floor, and Nick by clever work succeeded in getting possession of them.
Then, by Mrs. Stevens' permission, he went to look at the room already referred to.
No sooner was he there than he got rid of the lady upon some plausible excuse, and so had an opportunity of examining the bits of paper.
They were ordinary letter paper impossible to trace.
One bit was blank on both sides. The other bore some queer little marks, but no writing. To Nick the marks were quite clear. They were the dots and dashes of the Morse telegraphic alphabet. They represented the letters n, t, b, e, t, r, a, written very small on a narrow scrap, not more than an inch long.
"Don't betray," muttered Nick. "Worse and worse. Miss Stevens will evidently bear watching."
As to the room, his inspection of it was of little use. He had not expected much. He had come to see Miss Stevens, principally, and in her case the investigation had certainly begun better than he could have reasonably expected. She was engaged in some secret affair. She concealed letters from her mother. She had bribed one of the servants. This last fact was proven by the manner in which the letter had been delivered to her.
As he was turning these matters over in his mind, Mrs. Stevens and her daughter entered the room.
"What have you discovered, Mr. Carter?" asked the girl. "You must know that my mother has told me all about this strange affair, and I am deeply interested."
"I have learned nothing," said Nick, "except that this room can be easily entered, even when the doors are locked.
"Take this door leading to the rear room, for instance. The key was on this side, it is true, but it turns very easily. A person with a pair of nippers could get in without trouble, and lock the door afterward.
"I can't tell from the appearance of the key whether or not this was done, but I think it probable."
"You mean that somebody came in here while mother was at lunch, and put the jewels where they were found?"
"Exactly."
"But who could it have been?"
"I don't know," answered Nick, frankly.
"And how do you explain the presence of that other pin in the box?" asked Mrs. Stevens.
"There is an explanation," said Nick; "but I prefer not to give it now."
"As you please," responded the lady, haughtily. "I can only say that I trust you will find this thief speedily, and end this annoyance to which we are being subjected."
"I don't think it ought to be hard for a person of your abilities," said Miss Stevens. "I have already solved the puzzle."
"And who is the guilty person?" asked Nick, with a smile.
"Colonel Richmond, of course."
"Why should he do this?"
"Because he's crazy. That's reason enough."
"I'd like to hear you explain your theory a little further."
"Why, Mr. Carter, I'm surprised at you. Is there any motive for this so-called crime? No. Then it must be a crazy person's work. Is there more than one lunatic among us? Certainly not. So, as two and two make four, and the sun doesn't rise in the west, Colonel Richmond is the man. What kind of a detective do you think I'd make?"
"There isn't any one alive who could compare with you," said Nick.
"You're joking."
"No; I'm serious. There are plenty of detectives who can reason up to the wrong man, but none, I'm sure, who can do it so quickly as you can."
Mrs. Stevens laughed at her daughter's discomfiture, and the girl joined heartily.
"Supposing for a moment that your theory is true," continued Nick. "How do you suppose that Colonel Richmond managed to get the jewels over here?"
The girl became serious in a moment.
"This is a very delicate subject," she said. "I hate to cast suspicion upon any one."
"You refer to the new servant, of course."
"Well, we know nothing about the girl," said Mrs. Stevens, "and, of course, when anything so strange happens in the house we naturally think of her. She brought good references, and she certainly looks honest."
"Did she have an opportunity to put the jewels into this room?"
"As to that, I have talked it over with my daughter, and it seems just possible that the girl could have done it. I thought at first that it was not."
"Of course, it was possible," exclaimed Miss Stevens. "She could have run up the back stairs at any time."
She proceeded to explain this theory, until it seemed quite plausible.
And yet all the time she was filling the detective's mind with the blackest suspicions against herself.
Here was the case: The plotters were trying to work on Colonel Richmond's superstitions.
A celebrated detective had been called in. If he succeeded, the plotters failed, and the Stevenses lost the jewels.
What more natural than that the criminals should wish to throw the detective on a wrong scent? Was it not to be expected that they should pitch upon this new servant as the best person with whom to deceive Nick.
Altogether, Miss Stevens was making out a very strong case against herself.
CHAPTER V.
COLONEL RICHMOND'S NIGHT ADVENTURE.
Of course, Nick questioned the servant. To have failed to do that would have been to throw light upon his real suspicions.
She was a tall, slender, and rather pretty Irish girl, named Annie O'Neil.
Her answers to all questions were plain and simple.
She told what she had been doing on the previous day while Mrs. Stevens was at lunch. She had not been in the dining-room all the time, but had come in twice or thrice when summoned.
During the remainder of the time she had been in the kitchen. Nobody had been with her there.
When Nick left the house, he rode half a mile back along the road, and then dismounted and sat down under a big tree. In a few minutes a farmer's wagon came along. A young man, who looked like a farm laborer, was riding beside the farmer. He did not ride far beyond the place where Nick was sitting. In a few minutes they sat together under the tree. The young farm laborer was Patsy.
"I got your message," said Patsy. "I took the chance to ride over from the station with that fellow, and I've asked him a few questions about the house where you want me to go on duty. It seems that there's no show to get in there on any pretext. I'll have to camp around on the outside like a grass-eater."
"That won't hurt you, Patsy, my lad," said Nick. "The weather's good. You're to keep an eye on the whole household, but on Miss Stevens especially.
"This is the way the case looks at present: The girl is doing the work on this end in connection with some confederate concealed in Colonel Richmond's house.
"You understand the game. It's to work the spirit racket on Colonel Richmond until he buys the jewels from his daughter or her husband, and gives them to Miss Stevens.
"You must watch for the system by which she communicates with her confederate in Richmond's house. They work the mails, but there must be some quicker means to use in emergencies.
"Try to snare a letter, or get a sight of the other party.
"And be sure not to jump at conclusions, Patsy. I've told you how the case looks, but it may be any other way. I haven't begun to work down to it yet."
Nick mounted his horse, and Patsy strolled away in the direction of the Stevens house.
When the detective got back to Colonel Richmond's, it was well along in the afternoon.
He spent the remainder of his day in exploring the secret recesses of the old house. It was, indeed, a marvelous place, and Nick got a very high opinion of the ingenuity of the man who had designed its mysterious passages.
He got little else, however. One or two discoveries he certainly made. They were important as indicating that somebody had recently been in the secret passages.
There was nothing to show what that person had been doing there, but the probability was, of course, that he had concealed himself in the old part of the house while preparing for his operations in Mrs. Pond's room, or while escaping from them.
These indications were very vague, and did not point to the principal in this affair—that mysterious thief who worked invisibly and by such strange methods.
After dinner Horace Richmond took Nick aside, for what he termed a discussion of "this ghostly rot."
"The very devil is in this business," said Horace. "The servants are getting scared out of their wits.
"They all sleep in the old part of the house, you know, and there isn't one of them who hasn't some story to tell of what goes on there in the night.
"Some of these yarns are the old-fashioned business about sighs and groans, and doors opening and shutting without anybody to open and shut them.
"But under it all I must say that there seems to be a basis of fact. There's John Gilder, the coachman. You've seen him, Does he look like a man who can be scared easily?"
"I should say not," laughed Nick. "He looks to me like a Yankee horse-trader, who is too intimate with the devil and his ways to be at all alarmed about them."
"Just so. Well, John Gilder came to me to-day, and told me just as calmly as I'd tell you the time of day, that he'd seen the ghost of Miss Lavina Richmond. He saw her right in this room where we are now."
They had gone to the large dining-hall in the old mansion. Horace sometimes used it as a smoking-room, but otherwise it was seldom visited, except when the house was full of guests and all the old part was thrown open.
It was a long and high room, finished in dark wood, and decorated with moldering portraits in the worst possible style of art.
At one end was a gigantic fire-place, which was closed by a screen of boards.
"He told me," continued Horace, "that he was passing through here late last night—near midnight, he said—and that he saw Lavina Richmond standing just about where you stand now.
"He came in by that door, behind me, and she was directly facing him. He says that he didn't move or yell, or do anything, but just stood staring at her.
"She paid no attention whatever to him, but passed across the room and went out by that other door, which opened as she approached and closed after her of itself.
"Then he ran for his room. He claims that he wasn't scared—only a bit nervous.
"You can believe that if you want to. I tell you that he was scared, so that he won't get over it in a year.
"If it wasn't for that I might think he was lying; but when a man like Gilder quietly invites the footman—whom he always hated—to take half of his bed for a few weeks, it's a sure thing that he's seen something out of the ordinary.
"And the footman, as I learn, was mighty glad to accept the invitation, for he's been having a few experiences of his own.
"Now, Mr. Carter, you and I believe that these things are done by some clever trickster. It may be that some bogus medium who used to get the colonel's good money away from him, wants more of it, and is taking this means of driving my uncle back to the fold of true believers.
"I'm beginning to believe that that may be the fact. But whatever it is, the case is almighty serious.
"Here's a nice old man, living happily, and gradually getting away from his delusion. Here's an agent of the devil trying to drive this old man back to his delusion, and make a lunatic of him, for that's what the doctor says will certainly happen.
"I say it's too bad, not to mention the jewels at all. Now, what are we going to do about it?"
"Catch the rascal," said Nick, promptly, "and catch him mighty quick."
"Well, I hope you'll succeed. I tell you, Mr. Carter, I feel toward Colonel Richmond all the affection that I would give my father, if he were alive, and I can't bear to see him driven out of his wits in this infernal way."
"Have no fear," said Nick; "we'll save him. This trickery with the servants may give us a chance to catch our man."
They returned to the parlor in the new part of the house.
Colonel Richmond was not there.
"Where is he?" asked Horace, anxiously, of Mrs. Pond.
"He has gone to his room. He said that the excitement of this affair had worn him out completely."
Horace looked relieved.
Nick said that he, too, would go to his room.
He went, but he did not remain long in it. He had a fancy for a quiet stroll around the house on the outside. It would be interesting to know whether anybody entered or left it during the night.
One of the secret passages of the old house communicated with a sort of tunnel, which had its outer extremity in an old well about twenty yards away. This tunnel had caved in long before, but had been restored by Colonel Richmond, who wished to preserve all the old-time peculiarities of the place.
The inner end of it had been closed by a strong door, so as to prevent anybody who might have the secret from entering in that way, but Nick was strongly of the opinion that it would not keep out the persons who were "haunting" the house in case they desired to come in.
If anybody was going in and out secretly this seemed to be the readiest way, so Nick had resolved to watch the well that night.
A little house with sides of lattice-work had been built over it, and vines covered it.
Nick stealthily crept into its shadow, and prepared for his vigil. But it was not destined to be a long one.
He had not been there ten minutes before he saw a figure hastening along one of the numerous paths which wound through the grounds.
This person evidently wished to avoid observation, and that was enough for Nick. He immediately started in pursuit.
He trailed his man to the edge of the colonel's grounds. During this pursuit the man kept in the shadow of some trees, and Nick had no opportunity to see him clearly.
But as the man stepped out into the highway, a ray of moonlight fell upon him, and Nick recognized him in an instant. It was Colonel Richmond.
Why this man should be leaving his own house by stealth and under the cover of darkness was an interesting problem.
Nick resolved to know all about it before the night was much older. So he trailed along.
The colonel walked up the highway with rapid strides.
About half a mile from the house he found a carriage standing under the shadow of a tree.
Evidently he expected to find it just there, for he immediately jumped into it, and the driver whipped up his horse.
Nick was unable to see the driver, for the carriage was a covered buggy, and had been standing with its back toward him.
The horse was evidently a good one, but Nick overhauled him, and got hold of the carriage behind.
There was no chance for him to ride there, but his grip on the wagon helped him along, and he ran about eight miles quite comfortably.
His presence so near was entirely unsuspected by the occupants of the carriage. He was favorably situated for overhearing their conversation, but unfortunately they did not say anything.
Nick discovered that the driver was a woman, but he could only guess at her identity.
At last they turned suddenly out of the road, into the grounds of a private house.
The sound of the wheels was evidently heard within, and the front door was thrown open, letting out considerable light from the hall.
Nick could not go too near that light, so he let go, and crept into some shrubbery.
The carriage drew up before the door, and the colonel and his companion hurried into the house, leaving the horse tied.
The detective failed to obtain a good view of the woman or of the person who had opened the door. The latter seemed to be a servant.
When the door had closed, Nick crept up.
He manoeuvred carefully, and discovered that there was somebody sitting in the hall just inside the door.
Entrance by that means was out of the question.
However, he succeeded without much difficulty in entering the house from the rear.
He found himself in the kitchen, from which he passed to a dining-room.
This apartment was almost totally dark. Nick felt his way to the side opposite the kitchen, and came to a heavy pair of folding doors.
From the other side came a confused murmur of voices, as if many persons were talking in hushed tones.
Presently they became quite still and then there arose the sound of music. It was a slow and somber strain, as from an organ gently played.
Nick was crouching against the door, among the folds of a curtain which could be drawn across.
Suddenly he heard a slight sound behind him. He turned noiselessly.
A white figure flitted across the room.
Nick was at one end of the folding doors, and the figure passed to the other end and into the corner beyond.
There it suddenly vanished.
The light was so dim that Nick could not tell exactly what had happened.
It certainly seemed as if the figure had gone straight through the wall.
About a minute later another form appeared in the same way. It crossed the room, and vanished.
"Good!" muttered Nick. "I'll back these ghosts against any that Colonel Richmond can raise in his house."
Almost immediately there was the sound of a voice in the room beyond the doors.
"Does any person present recognize a departed friend?" it said.
Then Colonel Richmond's voice arose, hoarse and trembling with emotion.
"Aunt Lavina," he said, "tell me what you wish me to do. I will obey you absolutely."
"I thought so," chuckled the detective. "The colonel has come to attend a spiritualistic seance."
CHAPTER VI.
A ROUND-UP OF SPOOK-ARTISTS.
It began to look very much as if Horace Richmond's theory was correct. Certainly the colonel had fallen again into the clutches of bogus mediums.
It might be that the whole plot was directed to that end, and that the transfer of the jewels to the Stevenses was only to be an incidental result of the plot.
Yet so long as Miss Stevens' unusual conduct remained unexplained, it would not do to go upon this theory.
"One of the principal things that Horace Richmond employed me to do," said Nick to himself, "was to break up his uncle's belief in spiritualism. I guess that this is a first-class chance to do it."
He softly crept to the corner where the gliding figures had disappeared.
There, as he expected, he found one of those movable panels which the bogus mediums prepare so cleverly.
His experience of such affairs taught Nick exactly what he should find in the other room.
There must be a little cabinet in the corner covering the other side of the sliding panel.
The medium might be in it, or she might be sitting blindfold just by the door.
But the cabinet was certainly not empty. Two figures had gone into it, as Nick had observed.
One of these was doubtless playing the part of Aunt Lavina.
The other must be waiting to appear in some other role.
Nick listened. He could hear the colonel questioning the supposed spirit.
The replies were put in that silly and mysterious language supposed to be appropriate to visitors from the other world.
The meaning of them, however, was plain enough. Colonel Richmond was commanded to restore the jewels to Millie Stevens.
This point was made so exceedingly clear, and his promise was demanded in such stringent terms that Nick was no longer able to doubt that the interests of the Stevenses were being very carefully attended to by these "spook-compellers."
In view of the facts already known, it was hardly possible to reach any other conclusion than that Millie Stevens had hired this medium to do the whole job.
That it was being done "to the queen's taste," Nick was forced to admit.
Yet he couldn't help being sorry to believe that such a charming and beautiful girl as Millie Stevens should be mixed up in such a dirty business.
He waited till Colonel Richmond had completed his solemn protestations, and then suddenly slid the panel and passed through.
There was another person in the cabinet, who was, of course, instantly aware of Nick's entrance.
But the place was so dark that at first the bogus ghost did not know that Nick was not one of the regular company of spirits.
He had a chance to get his bearings before the discovery was made.
The shade of Aunt Lavina was just retreating toward the cabinet making that absurd series of nods and gestures which such spirits always use.
Nick could see this performance through an aperture in the side of the cabinet.
He instantly leaped out, and grappled with the spook.
Then there was an uproar. The whole room was in indescribable confusion.
Somebody turned up the light. For an instant Nick, grappling with the spirit, saw Colonel Richmond.
The colonel had not been given a private seance. Possibly he had not desired it. He had come with a dozen other victims of the same delusion.
He had been given a seat a little in the rear.
Before him, as is usual, was a row of persons who were "in the game."
The space where the spirits appear is always encircled by such a line as a guard against possible attempts at exposure.
Of course, everybody in the room was on his feet.
Some of the front-row people were rushing upon Nick.
Others had crowded around Colonel Richmond so closely that Nick was afraid he might not fully see the exposure of this fake.
The person whom Nick had seized was not a woman, as might have been expected, but a man. He was of short stature, but surprising strength.
Even in the mighty arms of the detective, he managed to struggle vigorously, and for a moment prevented Nick from tearing away the white and ghostly wrappings.
But a complete expose could not have been long delayed. In spite of the odds against him, Nick was certain to come out ahead.
He called out to Colonel Richmond:
"Look! Look at this! It's a man!"
Just at that instant a tall man who had been standing beside the female "medium," and acting as master of ceremonies, seized an ornament from the mantelpiece, and hurled it not at Nick, as the detective expected, but at the lamp in the corner of the room.
This lamp had been turned up by one of the timid believers as soon as the row began.
The missile which the spiritualistic "bouncer" hurled was well directed. It smashed the lamp to fragments, and the room for a minute was dark.
Then another light flashed up. The broken lamp had set fire to the window curtains.
The scene hadn't been what one would call peaceful before, but it had been nothing at all to what it became when the fire leaped up.
Pandemonium broke loose. Doors and windows were burst out, and everybody rushed toward the outer air.
Among the last to emerge was Nick.
He held the "bouncer" in one hand and the ghost of Aunt Lavina in the other.
Both of them were very badly used up. When the detective dropped them on the lawn they made no attempt to rise.
Some of the medium's stool-pigeons were beginning to get their wits together, and were making preparations for putting out the fire.
Nick yelled to them, and pointed to a line of garden hose on the lawn.
There was a head of water in this pipe, and with the aid of its stream the fire was extinguished.
The detective did not assist. He turned his attention to discovering what had become of Colonel Richmond.
The colonel had disappeared. The carriage in which he had come was gone.
Doubtless the person who had driven him over had hustled him into the carriage at the earliest possible moment.
"A shrewd move," muttered Nick, "and a bad one for me. However, I've got this gang cornered, and if they've been doing the job at the colonel's house, their operations are over."
There was an excited group of people by the main door of the house. In the midst of them stood the medium, a fat and coarse woman, whom Nick had seen before in the same crooked business.
Those around her were the real believers in spiritualism, who had come to the show.
They had witnessed the exposure, and were ready to mob the medium.
Nick took his two prisoners to this group. He tied them securely, and then turned to one of the dupes:
"Why don't you have these people arrested?" he whispered. "Charge them with taking money under false pretenses."
"Good!" said the man. "There's a warrant for some of them already. I'll get the constable, who lives over across the fields, and he'll pull 'em all in."
A half-hour later the whole gang was under arrest and on the way to the nearest lock-up.
The detective felt that his evening's work was not in vain. Whatever might be the facts about the connection of this gang with the affair at Colonel Richmond's, it was a good thing to get them all out of the way.
The colonel's presence among them proved that they were the spiritualistic crowd which was after him. Their removal would simplify matters.
Moreover, the colonel's presence, and his questioning of the spook, showed that any theory connecting him with the disappearance of the jewels was wrong.
It was evident that he had asked the questions in all sincerity, believing that he was really in the presence of his aunt's spirit.
He could hardly be crazy enough to do that, supposing that his lunacy had led him to abstract the jewels.
Having witnessed the arrest of the gang, Nick procured a horse and drove rapidly toward Colonel Richmond's house. He arrived there about half-past eleven o'clock.
There was a light in the parlor, and through the open window Nick beheld an unusual scene.
The colonel, Mrs. Pond and Horace were present. Mr. Pond was not in the house. He had returned to New York.
Besides the persons named, there were in the parlor nearly all the servants connected in any way with the establishment.
It looked as if the colonel was holding court.
One of the servants seemed to be giving testimony. The expressions on the faces of the others showed deep interest and superstitious terror.
Nick had no doubt about what was going on. The colonel was getting to the bottom of the ghost stories. There must have been more manifestations that night.
The detective was in doubt whether to enter the house in his own character. Finally he decided not to do so.
He disguised himself in the character of John Gilder, the coachman, who was not present in the parlor.
It seemed best to gain access to the room from an entrance toward the old part of the house instead of from the main hall.
So Nick passed around the corner of the house. As he did so he was aware of a dark figure crouching in the shadow.
He instantly grappled with it, and the figure was not less prompt in grappling with him.
The struggle was very brief. It ended with Nick on top, and no harm done.
The detective instantly leaped to his feet again.
"Patsy!" he exclaimed. "What brings you here?"
CHAPTER VII.
A REALLY COMPETENT GHOST.
Patsy told his story in a few words.
He had watched the Stevens house all day without discovering anything.
As evening descended, however, his patience had been rewarded.
"She came out," said Patsy, "and quietly scooted off across the fields."
"Millie Stevens?"
"Yes."
"What did she do?"
"She made for that big oak tree which stands in the middle of the field on the right of the road as you go from the station.
"I had to trail carefully, for it was not very dark and there was no cover. So I couldn't get very near her.
"Under that tree a man was waiting. He had a saddle-horse with him. The man and the girl exchanged a few words.
"Of course, I couldn't hear what they said. Neither could I get a line on the man.
"I resolved to get nearer, though it was taking big risks. It couldn't be done. They saw me.
"In a flash the man leaped into his saddle and pulled the girl up in front of him in regular old-fashioned style.
"They were off in no time. It was a fine horse they rode.
"I wasn't in it at any stage of the game. I ran myself out at the end of about a mile.
"They had disappeared in the darkness, but they were taking the road toward this place, and on a venture I came over. I hoped to connect with you, and get instructions."
"That was right. Come with me."
"What's up?"
"A ghost hunt, unless I'm very much mistaken. I guess we can join it without any trouble."
They made their way into the old portion of the house.
In the hall from which the broad stone stairs led up to the second floor they paused a moment to listen.
Steps were approaching. Before they could get into a place of concealment a door opened, and Colonel Richmond entered.
He carried a small lamp in his hand. Horace followed him.
"Gilder!" cried the colonel, seeing Nick disguised as the coachman. "Why were you not present in the parlor?"
"I've just got back to the house, sir," rejoined the detective, imitating Gilder's Yankee twang".
"Who's that with you?"
"My cousin, Frank Gilder."
"What's he doing here?"
"If you please, sir, I brought him over to spend the night with me. The footman and I don't get along very well together, and I don't like to be alone in a room in this house, sir, just now."
"So!" said the colonel. "I understand that you have seen strange things. Very well; I am going to investigate this matter. I shall pass the remainder of the night in the dining-hall above."
The colonel led the way up the stairs. The whole party followed him.
"May I ask where the other servants are, sir?" said Nick.
"They will pass the night in the new part of the house," returned Horace Richmond, with a grim smile. "You can do so if you like."
"No, sir," said Nick; "I think I'd rather sleep in my own room so long as my cousin is with me."
At the head of the stairs they turned at once toward the old dining-hall.
It was proper for Nick to follow, for the nearest way to Gilder's room led in that direction.
It was exactly midnight when they opened the door of the old dining-hall. A cool breath of air swept out upon them, for the thick stone walls of this part of the house resisted the hot weather, and this room had been kept closed.
The colonel shivered slightly in the draught.
He paused on the threshold for a moment, and looked into the room. It was lighted—except for the feeble ray from the lamp—only by the faint moonlight which found its way in through the hall and narrow windows, partly overgrown with clinging vines.
The whole party entered. The colonel set his lamp upon the sideboard.
He turned to speak to the supposed Gilder, probably with the intention of sending him at once to his room.
But at that moment the lamp suddenly went out.
With a low cry the colonel sprang toward it. The lamp was not there.
It had been removed. The room was almost totally dark.
The colonel lit a match. There was no sign of the lamp. It had utterly vanished.
As the burned match fell to the floor a beam of light suddenly shot across the gloom.
And there, before the old-fashioned fire-place, stood a figure corresponding in every particular to Lavina Richmond as she appeared in a portrait painted just previous to her death, and hanging at that moment in the colonel's room.
There was no sound in the room except the labored breathing of the excited old man, whose faith was now fully justified to his mind.
He was gazing straight at this apparition.
It was veiled, and the heavy folds of a black silk dress in the style of many years ago hung loosely about the form.
Immediately a white hand appeared. The veil was lifted, disclosing the thin and pale face of a woman of advanced age and feeble health. The likeness of Lavina Richmond was perfect.
The colonel tried to speak, but his voice stuck in his throat.
Slowly the veil descended. Nick made a sign to Patsy, who had pressed up a little in advance.
He had kept an eye over his shoulder, however, to be sure of getting any orders from his chief.
There was light enough to see the signal. Patsy sprang forward toward the specter.
The distance separating them was not more than twenty feet. The athletic youth would have covered it in a twinkling.
But suddenly he fell to the floor with a smothered groan.
"I'm hit hard," he cried; and, raising himself upon one knee, with his left hand pressed to his temple, he drew a revolver with the other.
"Don't shoot!" exclaimed Nick. "It's Millie Stevens!"
The detective made a bound toward the figure.
The light which had played full upon it wavered, as if about to vanish.
Yet there was time. Nick felt sure of his prize, as he sprang out from his place beside the colonel.
And the next thing Nick knew it was six o'clock of the following morning, and he was lying in a bed, looking up into Patsy's face.