“No; I’ll see the show through. You can look after the ladies, Tracy.”
So the others crowded round Stebbins, as he prepared to unlock the door of the fatal room.
“’Tain’t no great sight,” he said, almost apologetically. “But it’s the ha’nted room.”
Slowly he turned the key and they all filed in.
The room was dark, save for what light came in from the hall. All blinds were closed, and over the windows hung heavy curtains of rep that had once been red but was now a dull, nondescript colour. There were more of these heavy, long curtains, evidently concealing alcoves or cupboards, and over each curtain was a “lambrequin” edged with thick twisted woolen fringe, and at intervals, tassels,—enormous, weighty tassels, such as were once used in church pulpits and other old-fashioned upholstery. Such quantities of these there were, that it is small wonder the room received its name.
And the tassels had a sinister air. Motionless they hung, dingy, faded, but still of an individuality that seemed to say, “we have seen unholy deed,—we cry out mutely for vengeance!”
“It was them tassels that scared me most,” Stebbins said, in an awed tone. “I mean before—she come. They sort of swayed,—when they wasn’t no draught nor anything.”
“I don’t wonder!” said Braye, “they’re the ghostliest things I ever saw! But the whole room is awful! It—oh I say! put up a window!”
“I can’t,” said Stebbins simply. “These here windows ain’t been up for years and years. The springs is all rusted and won’t work.”
“There’s something in the room!” cried Eve, hysterically, “I mean—something—besides us—something alive!”
“No, ma’am,” said Stebbins, solemnly, “what’s in here ain’t alive, ma’am. I ain’t been in here myself, since that night I slep’ here, and I wouldn’t be now, only to show you folks the room. I sort of feel ’s if I’d shifted the responsibility to you folks now. I don’t seem to feel the same fear of the ha’nt, like I was here alone.”
“Don’t say ha’nt! Stop it!” and Eve almost shrieked at him.
“Yes, ma’am. Ghost, ma’am. But ha’nt it is, and ha’nt it will be, till the crack o’ doom. Air ye all satisfied with your bargain?”
No one answered, for every one was conscious of a subtle presence and each glanced fearfully, furtively about, nerves shaken, wills enfeebled, vitality low.
“What is it?” whispered Eve.
“Imagination!” declared Mr. Bruce, but he shook his shoulders as he spoke, as if ridding himself of an incubus.
There was a chilliness that was not like honest cold, there was a stillness that was not an ordinary silence, and there was an impelling desire in every heart to get out of that room and never return.
But all were game, and when at last Stebbins said, “Seen enough?” they almost tumbled over one another in a burst of relief at the thought of exit.
The great hall seemed cheerful by contrast, and Landon, in a voice he strove to make matter-of-fact, said, “Thank you, Stebbins, you have certainly given us what we asked for.”
“Yes, sir. Did you notice it, sir?”
“What?”
“The smell—the odour—in that room?”
“I did,” said Eve, “I noticed the odour of prussic acid.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Stebbins, “that’s what I meant.”
CHAPTER V
Eve’s Experience
The investigators had investigated for a week. They were now having tea in the great hall, to whose shadowy distances and shabby appointments they had become somewhat accustomed.
Kept up to the mark by the Landons, old Jed Thorpe had developed positive talents as a butler, and with plenty of lamps and candles, and a couple of willing, if ignorant maids, the household machinery ran fairly smoothly. Supplies were procured in East Dryden or sent up from New York markets and by day the party was usually a gay-hearted, merry-mannered country house group.
Every day at tea-time, they recounted any individual experiences that might seem mysterious, and discussed them.
“It’s this way,” Professor Hardwick summed up; “the determining factor is the dark. Ghosts and haunted houses are all very well at night, but daylight dispels them as a sound breaks silence.”
“What about my experience when I slept in the Room with the Tassels,” growled Gifford Bruce.
Braye laughed. “You queered yourself, Uncle Gif, when you announced before we started, that you were not bound to good faith. Your ghost stories are discounted before you tell ’em!”
“But I did see a shape,—a shadowy form, like a tall woman with a shawl over her head——”
“You dreamed it,” said Milly, smiling at him. “Or else——”
“Milly daren’t say it,” laughed Eve, “but I will. Or else, you invented the yarn.”
“If I’m to be called a——”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Bruce,” intervened Tracy, “nobody called you one! Playful prevarication is all right, especially as you warned us you’d fool us if you could. Now I can tell an experience and justly expect to be believed.”
“But you haven’t had any,” and Eve’s translucent eyes turned to him.
“I have,” began Tracy, slowly, “but they’ve been a bit indefinite. It’s unsatisfactory to present only an impression or a suggestion, where facts are wanted. And the Professor says truly that hints and haunts are convincing at night, but repeated, at a pleasant, comfortable tea hour, they sound flimsy and unconvincing.”
“What did you think you saw or heard?” asked Norma, with a reminiscent, far-off look in her eyes.
“Every morning, or almost every morning, at four o’clock, I seem to hear the trailing robes of a presence of some sort. I seem to hear a faint moaning sound, that is like nothing human.”
“That’s imagination,” said Braye, promptly.
“It is, doubtless,” agreed Hardwick, “but it is due to what may be called ‘expectant attention.’ If we had not connected four o’clock with the story of this house, Mr. Tracy would not have those hallucinations at that time.”
“Perhaps so,” the clergyman looked thoughtful. “But it seems vivid and real at the time. Then, in the later morning, it is merely a hazy memory.”
“You know Mr. Stebbins said that every one who died in this house always died at four o’clock.”
“I know he said so,” and Braye looked quizzical.
“Oh, come now, don’t doubt honest old Stebbins!” and Eve frowned. “We must believe his tales or we’ll never get anywhere. I’m going over to East Dryden to see him to-morrow, I want a few more details. And, it seems to me, we’re getting nowhere,—with our imaginations and hallucinations. Now, to-night, I’m going to sleep in the Room with the Tassels. I’ve no fear of it, and I have a deep and great curiosity.”
“Oh, let me sleep there with you! Mayn’t I, Eve? Oh, please let me!” Vernie danced about in her eagerness, and knelt before Eve, pleading.
“No, Vernie, I forbid it,” said her uncle, decidedly. “If Miss Carnforth wants to do this thing, I have nothing to say, but you must not, my child. I know you people don’t believe me, but I surely saw an apparition the night I slept there, and it was no human trickster. Neither was it hallucination. I was as wideawake as I am now——”
“We know the rest, Uncle Gif,” and Braye laughingly interrupted the recital. “Stalking ghost, hollow groans, and—were there clanking chains?”
“There were not, but in its shrouded hand the spectre held a glass——”
“Of prussic acid, of which you smelt the strong odour! Yes, I know,—but it won’t go down, old chap——”
“The prussic acid won’t?” and Landon chuckled.
“Nor the tale either,” said the Professor. “It’s too true. The shawled woman filled the specifications too accurately to seem convincing.”
“You’re a nice crowd,” grumbled Mr. Bruce. “Come up here for experiences and then hoot at the first real thing that happens.”
“All your own fault,” retorted Norma. “If you hadn’t advertised your propensity for fooling us, your word would have carried weight.”
“All right, let somebody else sleep in that room, then. But not Miss Carnforth. Let one of the men try it.”
“Thank you, none for me,” said Braye. “I detest shawled women waking me up at four o’clock, to take my poison!”
“I’ll beg off, too,” said Tracy. “I wake at four every morning anyway, with those aspen boughs shivering against my windows. I’d trim them off, but that doesn’t seem like playing the game.”
“Wynne shan’t sleep there, and that settles that,” and Milly’s grasp on her husband’s coat sleeve was evidently sufficiently detaining.
“That leaves only me, of the men,” asserted the Professor. “I’m quite willing to sleep in that room. Indeed, I want to. I’ve only been waiting till I felt sure of the house, the servants and—excuse me, the members of our own party! Now, I’ve discovered that the servants’ quarters can be securely locked off, so that they cannot get in this part of the house; I’ve found that the outside doors and the windows can be fastened against all possibility of outside intrusion; and, I shall stipulate that our party shall so congregate in a few rooms, that no one can—ahem,—haunt my slumbers without some one else knowing it. I’ll ask you three young ladies to sleep in one room and allow me to lock you in. Or two adjoining rooms, to which I may hold all keys. Mr. Tracy, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Braye, I shall arrange similarly, while the Landons must also consent to be imprisoned by me. This is the only way I can make a fair test. Will you all agree?”
“Splendid!” cried Eve, “of course we will. But, Professor, let me try it first. If you should have a weird experience, it might scare me off, but now I am brave enough. Oh, please, do that! Let me lock you all in your rooms, and let me sleep in the Room with the Tassels to-night! Oh, please say yes, all of you! I must, I must try it!” The girl looked like a seeress, as, with glittering eyes and flushed cheeks she plead her cause.
“Why, of course, if you want to, Miss Carnforth,” said the Professor, looking at her admiringly. “I’ll be glad to have the benefit of your experience before testing myself. And there is positively no danger. As I’ve said, the locks, bolts, and bars are absolutely safe against outside intrusion, or visits from the servants. Though we know they are not to be suspected. And as you are not afraid of the supernatural, I can see no argument against your plan.”
“Suppose I go with you,” suggested Norma, her large blue eyes questioning Eve Carnforth’s excited face.
“No, Norma, not this time. I prefer to be alone. I’ll lock you and Vernie in your room; I’ll lock Milly and Wynne in their room; I’ll lock you four men in two rooms, and then, I’ll know—I’ll know that whatever I see or hear is not a fraud or trick of anybody. And I think you can trust me to tell you the truth in the morning.”
“If there’s anything to tell,” supplemented Braye. “I think, Eve, as to ghosts, you’re cutting off your source of supply.”
“Then we’ll merely prove nothing. But I’m determined to try.”
Again Vernie begged to be allowed to share Eve’s experiences, but neither Mr. Bruce, nor Eve herself would consider the child’s request.
“Every one of us,” the Professor said, musingly, “has told of hearing mysterious sounds and of seeing mysterious shadows, but,—except for Bruce’s graphic details!—all our observations have been vague and uncertain. They may well have been merely imagination. But Miss Carnforth is not imaginative, I mean, not so, to the exclusion of a fair judgment of what her senses experience. Therefore I shall feel, if she sees nothing to-night, that I shall see nothing when I sleep in that room to-morrow night.”
“I am especially well adapted for the test,” Eve said, though in no way proudly, “for I have a premonition that the phantasm will appear to me more readily than to some others. Remember, I knew that was the haunted room before we had been told. I knew it before we entered the house that first night. It was revealed to me, as other things have been even during our stay here. You must realize that I am a sensitive, and so better fitted for these visitations than a more phlegmatic or practical person.”
“What else has been revealed to you, Eve?” asked Braye.
“Perhaps revealed isn’t just the word, Rudolph, but I’ve seen more than most of you, I’ve heard voices, rustling as of wings, and other inexplicable sounds, that I know were audible only to me.”
“Lord, Eve, you give me the creeps! Finished your tea? Come out for a walk then. Let’s get off these subjects, if only for half an hour.”
That night, Eve Carnforth carried out her plans to the letter.
Gifford Bruce, and his nephew Braye in one room; the Professor and Tracy in another, were locked in by Eve, amid much gaiety of ceremony.
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” Braye declared. “Tracy, look after the Professor, that he doesn’t jump out of the window, and you, Professor, watch Tracy!”
“They can’t jump out the windows,” said Eve, practically, “they’re too high. And if they could, they couldn’t get in the tasseled room. Those windows won’t open. And, too, I know the Professor won’t let Mr. Tracy out of his sight, or vice versa. Rudolph, you tie your uncle, if he shows signs of roving.”
Eve’s strong nerves gave no sign of tension as she completed all her precautionary arrangements. She locked the doors that shut off the servants’ quarters; she locked the Landons in their room, she locked the door of the room that Norma and Vernie occupied, and at last, with various gay messages shouted at her through the closed portals, she went downstairs to keep her lonely vigil.
She did not undress, for she had no intention of sleeping that night. A kimono, and her hair comfortably in a long braid were her only concessions to relaxation.
She lay down on the hard old bed, and gazed about her. A single lamp lit the room, and she had a candle also, in case she desired to use it.
The light made strange shadows, the heavy, faded hangings seemed to sway and move, but whether they really did so or not, Eve couldn’t determine. She got up and went to examine them. The feel of them was damp and unpleasant, they seemed to squirm under her hand, and she hastily dropped them and returned to the bed.
There was an uncanny, creepy atmosphere that disturbed her, in spite of her strong nerves and indomitable will.
She had locked the door, now she arose and took the key out and laid it on a table. She had heard that a key in a lock could be turned from the other side.
Then, on a sudden impulse, she put out the lamp, feeling utter darkness preferable to those weird shadows. But the darkness was too horrible, so she lighted the candle. It was not in the historic old brass candlestick, but in a gay affair of red china, and the homely, cheap thing somewhat reassured her, as a bit of modernity and real life.
She listened for a long time, imagining sighs or sounds, which she could not be sure she really heard. The whispering aspens outside were audible, and their continued soughing was monotonously annoying, but not frightful, because she had accustomed herself to it.
At last, her over-wrought nerves wearied, her physical nature refused further strain, and Eve slept. A light, fitful sleep, interspersed with waking moments and with sudden swift dreams. But she kept fast hold of her perceptive faculties. If she slept and woke, she knew it. She heard the aspens’ sounds, the hours struck by the great hall clock, and the sound of her own quick, short breathing.
Nothing else.
Until, just as the clock tolled the last stroke of four, she heard a low grating sound. Was some one at the door? She was glad she had taken out the key.
The candle still burned, but its tiny light rather accentuated than lifted the gloom of the shadowy room.
Slowly and noiselessly the door swung open, inward, into the room. Eve tried to sit up in bed, but could not. She felt paralyzed, not so much frightened, as numbed with physical dread.
And then, with a slow gliding motion, something entered,—something tall, gaunt and robed in long, pale-coloured draperies. It was unreal, shadowy in its aspect, it was only dimly visible in the gloom, but it gave the impression of a frightened, furtive personality that hesitated to move, yet was impelled to. A soft moan, as of despair, came from the figure, and it put out a long white hand and pinched out the candle flame. Then, with another sigh, Eve could feel, in the utter black darkness that the thing was coming to her side.
With all her might she tried to cry out, but her vocal cords were dumb, she made no sound. But she felt,—with all her senses, she felt the apparition draw nearer. At her bedside it paused, she knew this, by a sort of sixth sense, for she heard or saw nothing.
Then, she was conscious of a faint odour of prussic acid, its pungent bitterness unmistakable, though slight.
And then, a tiny flame, as of a wick without a candle, flashed for a second, disappeared, and Eve almost fainted. She did not entirely lose consciousness, but her brain reeled, her head seemed to spin round and her ears rang with a strange buzzing, for in the instant’s gleam of that weird light, she had seen the face of the phantom, and—it was the face of a skull! It was the ghastly countenance of a death’s head!
Half conscious, but listening with abnormal sense, she thought she descried the closing of the door, but could hear no key turn.
The knowledge that she was alone, gave her new life. She sprang up, lighted the candle, lighted the lamp, and looked about. All was as she had arranged it. The door was locked, the key, untouched, upon the table. Nothing was disturbed, but Eve Carnforth knew that her experience, whatever its explanation, had not been a dream.
When her senses had reeled, she had not lost entire control of them through her physical fear, she had kept her mental balance, and she knew that what her brain had registered had actually occurred.
Alert, she lay for a long time thinking it over. She felt sure there would be no return of the spectre,—she felt sure it had been a spectre,—and she was conscious of a feeling of curiosity rather than fright.
At last she rose, and unlocking the door, went out into the great hall. By the light of her lamp, she looked it over. The carved bronze doors between the enormous bronze columns, were so elaborately locked and bolted as to give almost the effect of a fortress.
The windows were fastened and some were barred. But all these details had been looked after in advance; Eve gazed at them now, in an idle quest for some hint of hitherto unsuspected ingress.
But there was none, and now the clock was striking five.
She went slowly upstairs, unlocked the various doors, without opening them, and then went to her own bedroom.
“What about it?” cried Norma, eagerly, running to Eve’s room.
“A big story,” Eve returned, wearily. “But I’ll tell it to you all at once. I’m going to get some sleep. Wake me at eight, will you, Norma?”
Disappointed, but helpless, as Eve closed her door upon the would-be visitor, Norma went back and told Milly, who was waiting and listening.
“I don’t like it,” Norma said, “for by eight o’clock she can cook up a story to scare us all! I think two ought to sleep in that room at once.”
“Go to bed,” said Milly, sleepily. “And don’t you suspect Eve Carnforth of making up a yarn or even dressing up the truth! She isn’t that sort.”
As to Eve’s veracity, opinions were divided.
She told the whole story, directly after breakfast, to the whole group, the servants being well out of earshot.
She told it simply and straightforwardly, just as it had happened to her. Her sincerity and accurate statements stood a fire of questions, a volley of sarcastic comments and a few assertions of unbelief.
Professor Hardwick believed implicitly all she said, and encouraged her to dilate upon her experiences. But in nowise did she add to them, she merely repeated or emphasized the various points without deviation from her first narrative.
Norma and Braye went for a walk, and frankly discussed it.
“Of course, Eve colours it without meaning to,” declared Braye; “it couldn’t have happened, you know. We were all locked in, and Lord knows none of us could have put that stunt over even if we had wanted to.”
“Of course not; that locking in business was unnecessary, but it does prove that no human agency was at work. That leaves only Eve’s imagination—or—the real thing.”
“It wasn’t the real thing,” and Braye shook his head. “There ain’t no such animal! But Eve’s imagination is——”
“No. Mr. Braye, you’re on the wrong tack. Eve’s imagination is not the sort that conjures up phantoms. Vernie’s might do that, or Mrs. Landon’s,—but not Miss Carnforth’s. She is psychic,—I know, because I am myself——”
“Miss Cameron,—Norma,——” and Braye became suddenly insistent, “don’t you sleep in that infernal room, will you? Promise me you won’t.”
“Why?” and the big blue eyes looked at him in surprise. “As Sentimental Tommy used to say, ‘I would fell like to!’ Why shouldn’t I?”
“Oh, I don’t want you to,” and Braye looked really distressed. “Promise me you won’t—please.”
“Why do you care? ’Fraid I’ll be carried off by the Shawled Woman?”
“Ugh!” and Braye shivered. “I can’t bear to think of you alone down there. I beg of you not to do it.”
“But that’s what we came for. We’re to investigate, you know.”
“Well, then promise you won’t try it until after I do.”
“Trickster! And if you never try it, I can’t!”
“You see through me too well. But, at least, promise this. If you try it, don’t go alone. Say, you and Miss Carnforth go together——”
“Hello, people,” and Vernie ran round a corner, followed more slowly by Tracy. “We’ve had a great little old climb! Hundreds of thousands of feet up the mounting side,—wasn’t it, Mr. Tracy?”
“Thar or tharabouts,” agreed Tracy, smiling at the pretty child.
“And Mr. Tracy is the delightfullest man! He told me all the names of the wild flowers,—weeds, rather,—there weren’t any flowers. And oh, isn’t it exciting about Eve’s ghost! I’m going to ballyrag Uncle Gif till he lets me sleep in that room. He’ll have to give in at last!”
“Don’t, Vernie,” begged Braye. “What possesses all you girls! I wish we’d never started this racket! But you mustn’t do it, Kiddie, unless, that is, you go with somebody else. But not alone.”
“Why, Cousin Rudolph, what are you afraid of? Are you a mollycoddle?”
“No, child, I’m afraid for you. A shock like that, even an imaginary fright, might upset your reason and——”
“Fiddle-de-dee! my reason is deeper rooted than that! Come on, Mr. Tracy, I’ll race you to that big hemlock tree!”
The two started off, Vernie’s flying legs gaining ground at first, over Tracy’s steady well-trained running step.
CHAPTER VI
At Four o’Clock
The game grew more absorbing. Most of the party managed to store up enough courage by day to last well into the darker and more mysterious hours. It was at four in the morning that manifestations were oftenest noticed. At that hour vague moanings and rustlings were reported by one or another of the interested investigators, but no human agency was found to account for these.
Many plans were tried for discovering the secret of the Room with the Tassels, but all scrutiny failed to show any secret panel or concealed entrance. Indeed, their measurings and soundings proved there could not possibly be any entrance to that room save the door from the hall.
Eve and Norma believed thoroughly in the actual haunt of the woman who had poisoned her husband. They had no difficulty in swallowing whole all the strange noises or sights and attributing them to supernatural causes.
Not so Gifford Bruce. He still held that it was all trickery, cleverly done by some of the party, but as this was so clearly impossible, his opinion carried no weight.
Professor Hardwick was open-minded, but exceedingly alert of observation and ready to suspect anybody who would give him the slightest reason to do so. Nobody did, however, and the weird sounds continued at intervals. The other men were noncommittal, saying they hadn’t yet sufficient data to base conclusions on.
Milly was nervous and hysterical, but controlled her feelings at Landon’s plea, and awaited developments with the rest. Vernie was merely an excited child, gay with youthful spirits and ready to believe or disbelieve whatever the others did.
Soon after Eve’s experience, which no one, unless Gifford Bruce, doubted, Professor Hardwick slept in the haunted room. He had no results of interest to report. He said he had lain awake for a few hours and then fell asleep not to waken until daylight. If the Shawled Woman prowled about, he did not see or hear her. This was disappointing, but Tracy tried with little better success. In the morning, after a wakeful but uneventful night, the clergyman found the old battered brass candlestick in the room.
It had not been there the night before, and he had locked the door as the others had done. This was inexplicable, but of slight interest compared to a real haunting.
“You might have made up a ghost story,” Braye reproached him, “as Uncle Gifford did, and as Miss Carnforth—didn’t!”
The last word was distinctly teasing and Eve frowned gaily at him, but did not defend herself. She knew her experience had occurred just as she had told it, and, deeply mystified, she was earnestly and eagerly awaiting more light.
One day Braye found it necessary to go down to New York for a couple of days on some business matters. Before leaving, he made Vernie promise she would not sleep alone in the haunted room while he was gone.
“I forbid it, child,” he said. “Uncle Gif is so easy-going that I’ve no doubt you could wheedle permission out of him, but I beg of you not to. You’re too young to risk a nerve shock of that sort. If you want to try it with Miss Carnforth or Miss Cameron, all right, but not alone. Promise me, Flapper, and I’ll bring you a pretty present from town day after to-morrow.”
Vernie laughingly gave the required promise, but it did not weigh heavily on her conscience, for no sooner had Braye really gone, than she confided to Mr. Tracy her indecision regarding the keeping of her word.
“Of course you’ll keep your promise,” and Tracy regarded her seriously. “Nice people consider a spoken word inviolable. I know you, Vernie; you like to talk at random, but I think you’ve an honourable nature.”
So Vernie said nothing more to him, but she confided in Eve Carnforth her intention of sleeping in the Tasseled Room that very night.
Eve did not discourage her, and promised to tell no one.
The plan was easily carried out. As it was understood no one was sleeping in the haunted room, no special precautions were taken, save the usual locking up against outside intruders. And after the great locks and bolts were fastened on doors and windows, it would have been a clever burglar indeed who could have effected an entrance to Black Aspens.
The evening had been pleasantly spent. Some trials of the Ouija board, a favourite diversion, had produced no interesting results, and rather early they all retired.
At midnight, Vernie softly rose, and went downstairs alone in the darkness. A night lamp in the upper hall gave a faint glimmer below stairs, but after the girl turned into the great hall the dark was almost impenetrable.
Feeling her way, she came to the door of the room, softly entered it and walked in. Passing her hands along the walls and the familiar furnishings she found the bed and lay down upon it. Her heart beat fast with excitement but not with fear. She felt thrills of hope that the ghost would appear and thrills of apprehension lest it should!
She had left the door to the hall open, and though it could scarcely be called light, there was a mitigation of the darkness near the door. A not unpleasant drowsiness overcame her, and she half slept, waking every time the clock struck in the hall.
At three, she smiled to herself, realizing that she was there, in the Room with the Tassels, and felt no fear. “I hope something comes at four,——” she thought sleepily, and closed her eyes again.
One—two—three—four—boomed the hall clock.
Vernie opened her eyes, only half conscious, and yet able to discern a strange chill in the air. Between her and the open door stood a tall gaunt shape, merely a shadow, for it was too dark to discern details. Her calm forsook her; she shivered violently, unable to control her muscles. Her teeth chattered, her knees knocked together, and her hair seemed to rise from her head.
Yet she could make no sound. Vainly she tried to scream, to shriek,—but her dry throat was constricted as with an iron band.
Her eyes burned in their sockets, yet she was powerless to shut them. They seemed suddenly to possess an uncanny ability to pierce the darkness, and she saw the shape draw slowly nearer to her.
Clutching the bedclothing, she tried to draw it over her head, but her paralyzed arms refused to move. Nearer, slowly nearer, the thing came, and horror reached its climax at sight of the face beneath the sheltering shawl. It was the face of a skull! The hollow eye-sockets glared at her, and lifting a deathlike hand, with long white fingers, the spectre told off one, two, three, four! on the digits. There was no sound, but a final pointing of the fearsome index finger at the stricken girl, seemed a death warrant for herself.
The thing disappeared. Slowly, silently, as it had come, so it went. From nowhere to nowhere,—it evolved from the darkness and to the darkness returned.
Vernie didn’t faint, but she suffered excruciatingly; her head was on fire, her flesh crept and quivered, she was bathed in a cold perspiration, and her heart beat madly, wildly, as if it would burst.
The vision, though gone, remained etched on her brain, and she knew that until that faded she could not move or speak.
It seemed to her hours, but at last the tension lessened a little. The first move was agony, but by degrees she changed her position a trifle and moistened her dry lips.
With the first faint glimmer of dawn, she dragged herself upstairs and crept into bed beside Eve Carnforth.
“Tell me,” begged Eve, and Vernie told her.
“It was a warning,” said the child, solemnly. “It means I shall die at four o’clock some morning.”
“Nonsense, Kiddie! Now you’ve come through so bravely, and have such an experience to tell, don’t spoil it all by such croaking.”
“But it’s true, Eve. I could see that awful thing’s face, and it counted four, and then beckoned,—sort of shook its finger, you know, and pointed at me. And—oh, I hardly noticed at the time, but it carried a glass in its hand—it seemed to have two glasses——”
“Oh, come now, dearie, you’re romancing. How could it have two glasses, when it was shaking its hand at you?”
“But it did, Eve. It had two little glasses, both in the same hand. I remember distinctly. Oh, every bit of it is printed on my brain forever! I wish I hadn’t done it! Rudolph told me not to!”
A flood of tears came and Vernie gave way to great racking sobs, as she buried her face in the pillow.
“Yes, he was right, too, Vernie; but you know, he only wanted you not to try it because he feared it would upset your nerves. Now if you’re going to square yourself with Mr. Braye, you can only do it, by not letting your nerves be upset. So brace up and control them. Cry, dear, cry all you can. That’s a relief, and will do you a heap of good. Then we’ll talk it over, and by breakfast time you’ll be ready to tell them all about it, and you’ll be the heroine of the whole crowd. It’s wonderful, Vernie, what you’ve got to tell, and you must be careful to tell it truly and not exaggerate or forget anything. Cry away, honey, here’s a fresh handkerchief.”
Eve’s calm voice and matter-of-fact manner did much to restore Vernie’s nerves, and as she looked around the rational, familiar room, bright with sunlight, her spirits revived, and she began to appreciate her rôle of heroine.
Her story was received with grave consideration. It was impossible to believe the honest, earnest child capable of falsehood or deceit. Her description was too realistic, her straightforward narrative too unshakable, her manner too impressively true, to be doubted in the least degree or detail.
Gifford Bruce laughed and complimented her on her pluck. Mr. Tracy reproved her for breaking her word to her cousin, but as he was in no way responsible for Vernie’s behaviour, he said very little.
Landon scolded her roundly, while Milly said nothing at all.
The whole affair cast rather a gloom over them all, for it seemed as if the spectre had at last really manifested itself in earnest. An undoubted appearance to an innocent child was far more convincing than to a grown person of avowed psychic tendencies. Eve Carnforth might have imagined much of the story she told; her ‘expectant attention’ might have exaggerated the facts; but Vernie’s mind was like a page of white paper, on which the scene she passed through had left a clear imprint.
That night Vernie herself got out the Ouija board and asked Eve to help her try it.
“No,” was the reply. “I’m too broken up. And, too, the people don’t believe me. Get your uncle or Mr. Tracy or some truthful and honourable person to help you.”
It embittered Eve that her earnestness and her implicit belief in the supernatural made it more difficult for the others to look upon her as entirely disingenuous. She resented this, and was a little morose in consequence. Norma Cameron, herself an avowed ‘sensitive,’ had had no spiritistic visitant in the haunted room, and Eve thought Norma had doubted her word.
At last after trying all the others that she wanted, Vernie persuaded good-natured Mr. Tracy to move Ouija with her, and the two sat down with the board between them.
Few and flippant messages were forthcoming, until, just as Vernie had laughingly declared she would throw the old thing out of the window, a startling sentence formed itself from the erratic dartings of the heart-shaped toy, and Vernie turned pale.
“Stop it!” ordered Tracy, “I refuse to touch it again!”
He removed his hands and sat back, but Vernie, glaring at the letters, held it a moment longer. “To-morrow! it says to-morrow!” she cried. “Oh, Eve, I told you so!”
“What, Vernie? What is it, dear?” and Eve Carnforth came over to the excited child.
“Ouija, Eve! Ouija said that to-morrow at four, two of us are to die! Oh, Eve, you know every death in this house has occurred at four o’clock in the morning! Mr. Stebbins said so. And now, two of us are to die to-morrow!”
“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Tracy, “don’t listen to that rubbish! The Ouija ran off its track. Maybe Vernie pushed it,—maybe I did.”
“Now, Mr. Tracy, I didn’t push it, and you needn’t try to make anybody think you did! You never’d push it to say a thing like that! Why, it spelled it all out as plain as day! Uncle Gifford, do you hear! Two of us to die to-morrow!” Vernie’s voice rose to a hysterical shriek.
“Hush, Vernie! Hush, child. I’ll take you away from here to-morrow. We ought never to have brought you,” and Gifford Bruce glowered at the others as he clasped the sobbing child in his arms, and took her from the room.
“You’re right,” agreed Mr. Tracy, “and Braye was right. He said a fright or shock would upset that child’s nerves completely. But she must have pushed the board herself. It flew round like lightning, and spelled out the message, just as she said. I tried to steer it off, but she urged against me. I felt her doing so. I don’t mean she made up the message to create a sensation, but I think the ghost last night affected her as a warning, and her mind is so full of it, that she unconsciously or subconsciously worked up that ‘message.’ At any rate, I’ve had about enough of this, if she’s to be here. It isn’t right to frighten a child so, and Vernie is little more than a child.”
“That’s so,” said Norma, thoughtfully. “I’ve had enough, too. If the rest of you want to stay on, I’ll go down to New York to-morrow, and take Vernie to stay with me for a while. We’ll go to the seashore, and I’ll see to it that she has no psychic or supernatural experiences.”
“Why, Norma,” and Eve looked surprised, “I thought you were so interested in these things.”
“So I am, but not to the extent of so affecting the nervous system of a sweet, innocent child, that it may result in permanent injury.”
“She’s all right,” said Gifford Bruce, returning, alone. “It’s hysteria. I think I’ll take her back to town to-morrow or next day. There’s something uncanny up here, that’s certain. I didn’t take any stock in the experiences of you people, but I can’t disbelieve Vernie’s story.”
The party broke up and all went to their rooms. There was no volunteer to sleep in the haunted room that night, and every one felt a shivering dread of what might happen at four o’clock the next morning.
Not one admitted it, but every one secretly shuddered at thought of Ouija’s message.
And when, as the hall clock rung out its four strokes the next morning, and nothing untoward happened, every one drew a long breath and soon went to sleep again, relieved, as of a heavy burden.
Gaily they gathered at breakfast, daylight and good cheer reviving their spirits.
“But Ouija is henceforth taboo,” said Mr. Tracy, shaking his finger at the now laughing Vernie.
“For little girls, anyway,” supplemented Eve.
“Little girls are taboo, also,” declared Gifford Bruce. “I can’t get off to-day, for I want to see Rudolph on his return, but to-morrow, I pack up my Vernie child and take her back to our own little old Chicago on the lake. These Aspens are too black for us!”
“Now, Uncle, I don’t want to go,” and Vernie pouted prettily. “And sumpum tells me I won’t go,” she added with a roguish glance at her uncle, whom she usually twisted round her rosy little finger.
But he gave her a grave smile in return, and the subject was dropped for the moment.
Soon after noon, Braye came up from the city, and listened, frowning, to the tales that were told him.
“You promised me, Vernie,” he said, reproachfully.