“Then they saw the ghost. It was in the reception-hall, some of ’em said, others said it was in the library, but anyhow it was there, and the whole gang left just as fast as they knew how. They slept on the ground that night. Next day they took out their things and went back to Boston. Since then nobody here has heard from ’em.”
“What sort of a ghost was it?”
“Oh, it was a man ghost, about nine feet high, and he was blazing from head to foot as if he was burning up,” said the constable. “He had a long knife in his hand and waved it at ’em. They didn’t stop to argue. They ran, and as they ran they heard the ghost a-laughing at them.”
“I should think he would have been amused,” was Hatch’s somewhat sarcastic comment. “Has anybody who lives in the village seen the ghost?”
“No; we’re willing to take their word for it, I suppose,” was the grinning reply, “because there never was a ghost there before. I go up and look over the place every afternoon, but everything seems to be all right, and I haven’t gone there at night. It’s quite a way off my beat,” he hastened to explain.
“A man ghost with a long knife,” mused Hatch “Blazing, seems to be burning up, eh? That sounds exciting. Now, a ghost who knows his business never appears except where there has been a murder. Was there ever a murder in that house?”
“When I was a little chap I heard there was a murder or something there, but I suppose if I don’t remember it nobody else here does,” was the old man’s reply. “It happened one Winter when the Westons weren’t there. There was something, too, about jewelry and diamonds, but I don’t remember just what it was.”
“Indeed?” asked the reporter.
“Yes, something about somebody trying to steal a lot of jewelry—a hundred thousand dollars’ worth. I know nobody ever paid much attention to it. I just heard about it when I was a boy, and that was at least fifty years ago.”
“I see,” said the reporter.
* * * *
That night at nine o’clock, under cover of perfect blackness, Hatch climbed the cliff toward the Weston house. At one o’clock he came racing down the hill, with frequent glances over his shoulder. His face was pallid with a fear which he had never known before and his lips were ashen. Once in his room in the village hotel Hutchinson Hatch, the nerveless young man, lighted a lamp with trembling hands and sat with wide, staring eyes until the dawn broke through the east.
He had seen the flaming phantom.
CHAPTER II
It was ten o’clock that morning when Hutchinson Hatch called on Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. The reporter’s face was still white, showing that he had slept little, if at all. The Thinking Machine squinted at him a moment through his thick glasses, then dropped into a chair.
“Well?” he queried.
“I’m almost ashamed to come to you, Professor,” Hatch confessed, after a minute, and there was a little embarrassed hesitation in his speech. “It’s another mystery.”
“Sit down and tell me about it.”
Hatch took a seat opposite the scientist.
“I’ve been frightened,” he said at last, with a sheepish grin; “horribly, awfully frightened. I came to you to know what frightened me.”
“Dear me! Dear me!” exclaimed The Thinking Machine. “What is it?”
Then Hatch told him from the beginning the story of the haunted house as he knew it; how he had examined the house by daylight, just what he had found, the story of the old murder and the jewels, the fact that Ernest Weston was to be married. The scientist listened attentively.
“It was nine o’clock that night when I went to the house the second time,” said Hatch. “I went prepared for something, but not for what I saw.”
“Well, go on,” said the other, irritably.
“I went in while it was perfectly dark. I took a position on the stairs because I had been told the—the thing—had been seen from the stairs, and I thought that where it had been seen once it would be seen again. I had presumed it was some trick of a shadow, or moonlight, or something of the kind. So I sat waiting calmly. I am not a nervous man—that is, I never have been until now.
“I took no light of any kind with me. It seemed an interminable time that I waited, staring into the reception-room in the general direction of the library. At last, as I gazed into the darkness, I heard a noise. It startled me a bit, but it didn’t frighten me, for I put it down to a rat running across the floor.
“But after awhile I heard the most awful cry a human being ever listened to. It was neither a moan nor a shriek—merely a—a cry. Then, as I steadied my nerves a little, a figure—a blazing, burning white figure—grew out of nothingness before my very eyes, in the reception-room. It actually grew and assembled as I looked at it.”
He paused, and The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly.
“The figure was that of a man, apparently, I should say, eight feet high. Don’t think I’m a fool—I’m not exaggerating. It was all in white and seemed to radiate a light, a ghostly, unearthly light, which, as I looked, grew brighter. I saw no face to the thing, but it had a head. Then I saw an arm raised and in the hand was a dagger, blazing as was the figure.
“By this time I was a coward, a cringing, frightened coward—frightened not at what I saw, but at the weirdness of it. And then, still as I looked, the—the thing—raised the other hand, and there, in the air before my eyes, wrote with his own finger—on the very face of the air, mind you—one word: ‘Beware!’”
“Was it a man’s or woman’s writing?” asked The Thinking Machine.
The matter-of-fact tone recalled Hatch, who was again being carried away by fear, and he laughed vacantly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Go on.”
“I have never considered myself a coward, and certainly I am not a child to be frightened at a thing which my reason tells me is not possible, and, despite my fright, I compelled myself to action. If the thing were a man I was not afraid of it, dagger and all; if it were not, it could do me no injury.
“I leaped down the three steps to the bottom of the stairs, and while the thing stood there with upraised dagger, with one hand pointing at me, I rushed for it. I think I must have shouted, because I have a dim idea that I heard my own voice. But whether or not I did I—”
Again he paused. It was a distinct effort to pull himself together. He felt like a child; the cold, squint eyes of The Thinking Machine were turned on him disapprovingly.
“Then—the thing disappeared just as it seemed I had my hands on it. I was expecting a dagger thrust. Before my eyes, while I was staring at it, I suddenly saw only half of it. Again I heard the cry, and the other half disappeared—my hands grasped empty air.
“Where the thing had been there was nothing. The impetus of my rush was such that I went right on past the spot where the thing had been, and found myself groping in the dark in a room which I didn’t place for an instant. Now I know it was the library.
“By this time I was mad with terror. I smashed one of the windows and went through it. Then from there, until I reached my room, I didn’t stop running. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have gone back to the reception-room for all the millions in the world.”
The Thinking Machine twiddled his fingers idly; Hatch sat gazing at him with anxious, eager inquiry in his eyes.
“So when you ran and the—the thing moved away or disappeared you found yourself in the library?” The Thinking Machine asked at last.
“Yes.”
“Therefore you must have run from the reception-room through the door into the library?”
“Yes.”
“You left that door closed that day?”
“Yes.”
Again there was a pause.
“Smell anything?” asked The Thinking Machine.
“No.”
“You figure that the thing, as you call it, must have been just about in the door?”
�
�Yes.”
“Too bad you didn’t notice the handwriting—that is, whether it seemed to be a man’s or a woman’s.”
“I think, under the circumstances, I would be excused for omitting that,” was the reply.
“You said you heard something that you thought must be a rat,” went on The Thinking Machine. “What was this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Any squeak about it?”
“No, not that I noticed.”
“Five years since the house was occupied,” mused the scientist. “How far away is the water?”
“The place overlooks the water, but it’s a steep climb of three hundred yards from the water to the house.”
That seemed to satisfy The Thinking Machine as to what actually happened.
“When you went over the house in daylight, did you notice if any of the mirrors were dusty?” he asked.
“I should presume that all were,” was the reply. “There’s no reason why they should have been otherwise.”
“But you didn’t notice particularly that some were not dusty?” the scientist insisted.
“No. I merely noticed that they were there.”
The Thinking Machine sat for a long time squinting at the ceiling, then asked, abruptly:
“Have you seen Mr. Weston, the owner?”
“No.”
“See him and find out what he has to say about the place, the murder, the jewels, and all that. It would be rather a queer state of affairs if, say, a fortune in jewels should be concealed somewhere about the place, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” said Hatch. “It would.”
“Who is Miss Katherine Everard?”
“Daughter of a banker here, Curtis Everard. Was a reigning belle at Newport for two seasons. She is now in Europe, I think, buying a trousseau, possibly.”
“Find out all about her, and what Weston has to say, then come back here,” said The Thinking Machine, as if in conclusion. “Oh, by the way,” he added, “look up something of the family history of the Westons. How many heirs were there? Who are they? How much did each one get? All those things. That’s all.”
Hatch went out, far more composed and quiet than when he entered, and began the work of finding out those things The Thinking Machine had asked for, confident now that there would be a solution of the mystery.
That night the flaming phantom played new pranks. The town constable, backed by half a dozen villagers, descended upon the place at midnight, to be met in the yard by the apparition in person. Again the dagger was seen; again the ghostly laughter and the awful cry were heard.
“Surrender or I’ll shoot,” shouted the constable, nervously.
A laugh was the answer, and the constable felt something warm spatter in his face. Others in the party felt it, too, and wiped their faces and hands. By the light of the feeble lanterns they carried they examined their handkerchiefs and hands. Then the party fled in awful disorder.
The warmth they had felt was the warmth of blood—red blood, freshly drawn.
CHAPTER III
Hatch found Ernest Weston at luncheon with another gentleman at one o’clock that day. This other gentleman was introduced to Hatch as George Weston, a cousin. Hatch instantly remembered George Weston for certain eccentric exploits at Newport a season or so before; and also as one of the heirs of the original Weston estate.
Hatch thought he remembered, too, that at the time Miss Everard had been so prominent socially at Newport George Weston had been her most ardent suitor. It was rumored that there would have been an engagement between them, but her father objected. Hatch looked at him curiously; his face was clearly a dissipated one, yet there was about him the unmistakable polish and gentility of the well-bred man of society.
Hatch knew Ernest Weston as Weston knew Hatch; they had met frequently in the ten years Hatch had been a newspaper reporter, and Weston had been courteous to him always. The reporter was in doubt as to whether to bring up the subject on which he had sought out Ernest Weston, but the broker brought it up himself, smilingly.
“Well, what is it this time?” he asked, genially. “The ghost down on the South Shore, or my forth-coming marriage?”
“Both,” replied Hatch.
Weston talked freely of his engagement to Miss Everard, which he said was to have been announced in another week, at which time she was due to return to America from Europe. The marriage was to be three or four months later, the exact date had not been set.
“And I suppose the country place was being put in order as a Summer residence?” the reporter asked.
“Yes. I had intended to make some repairs and changes there, and furnish it, but now I understand that a ghost has taken a hand in the matter and has delayed it. Have you heard much about this ghost story?” he asked, and there was a slight smile on his face.
“I have seen the ghost,” Hatch answered.
“You have?” demanded the broker.
George Weston echoed the words and leaned forward, with a new interest in his eyes, to listen. Hatch told them what had happened in the haunted house—all of it. They listened with the keenest interest, one as eager as the other.
“By George!” exclaimed the broker, when Hatch had finished. “How do you account for it?”
“I don’t,” said Hatch, flatly. “I can offer no possible solution. I am not a child to be tricked by the ordinary illusion, nor am I of the temperament which imagines things, but I can offer no explanation of this.”
“It must be a trick of some sort,” said George Weston.
“I was positive of that,” said Hatch, “but if it is a trick, it is the cleverest I ever saw.”
The conversation drifted on to the old story of missing jewels and a tragedy in the house fifty years before. Now Hatch was asking questions by direction of The Thinking Machine; he himself hardly saw their purport, but he asked them.
“Well, the full story of that affair, the tragedy there, would open up an old chapter in our family which is nothing to be ashamed of, of course,” said the broker, frankly; “still it is something we have not paid much attention to for many years. Perhaps George here knows it better than I do. His mother, then a bride, heard the recital of the story from my grandmother.”
Ernest Weston and Hatch looked inquiringly at George Weston, who lighted a fresh cigarette and leaned over the table toward them. He was an excellent talker.
“I’ve heard my mother tell of it, but it was a long time ago,” he began. “It seems, though, as I remember it, that my great-grandfather, who built the house, was a wealthy man, as fortunes went in those days, worth probably a million dollars.
“A part of this fortune, say about one hundred thousand dollars, was in jewels, which had come with the family from England. Many of those pieces would be of far greater value now than they were then, because of their antiquity. It was only on state occasions, I might say, when these were worn, say, once a year.
“Between times the problem of keeping them safely was a difficult one, it appeared. This was before the time of safety deposit vaults. My grandfather conceived the idea of hiding the jewels in the old place down on the South Shore, instead of keeping them in the house he had in Boston. He took them there accordingly.
“At this time one was compelled to travel down the South Shore, below Cohasset anyway, by stagecoach. My grandfather’s family was then in the city, as it was Winter, so he made the trip alone. He planned to reach there at night, so as not to attract attention to himself, to hide the jewels about the house, and leave that same night for Boston again by a relay of horses he had arranged for. Just what happened after he left the stagecoach, below Cohasset, no one ever knew except by surmise.”
The speaker paused a moment and relighted his cigarette.
“Next morning my great-grandfather was found unconscious and badly injured on the veranda of the house. His skull had been fractured. In the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one within a radius of many miles of the place
had ever seen him.
“This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and the one which the family has always accepted, being that my grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold, that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and there was a fight.
“In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having regained consciousness. That’s all we know or can surmise reasonably about the matter.”
“Were the jewels ever found?” asked the reporter.
“No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession of my grandfather.”
“It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and that he got away with the jewels?” asked Ernest Weston.
“It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I suppose it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that only two trails of footsteps led to the house and none out. There was a heavy snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously impossible that anyone came out.”
Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly.
“It would seem from that,” said Ernest Weston, at last, “that the jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found.”
George Weston smiled.
“Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my mother’s story,” he said. “Every inch of the cellar was dug up; every possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire matter passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt if it has ever been referred to again until now.”
The Detective Megapack Page 13
