“Well, aren’t they? Moving chairs about?”
“Is that what happened—or happens?” asked Bess.
“So I understand,” returned Cora. “Mr. and Mrs. Floyd don’t use the main bungalow, keeping to their own rooms. But they wrote mother that, of late, there have been some queer goings on. They said they would go out, leaving the rooms in perfect order, only to find them all upset on their return. Chairs would be misplaced, tables that had been in the middle of the room would be shoved back against the wall. Dishes would be taken out of the closets, and——”
“What?” cried Cora, rather startled by the suddenness of the ejaculation.
“No, I don’t think so,” and Cora spoke slowly. “For, though the dishes were taken from the pantry, there was no food missing. Tramps would take food.”
“Is this all that happened?” Bess demanded.
“Well, once something was taken,” Cora said. “A party had the bungalow, and when they left at the end of their stay, they forgot to take some of their silver with them. Then came one of the upsetting periods, and the furniture was misplaced and the silver taken.”
Belle and Bess looked at their chum, then the former said slowly:
“I—I don’t believe we want to go to Camp Surprise, Cora.”
Cora laughed melodiously. Belle and Bess looked at her with just a shade of indignation in their eyes.
“I didn’t think you’d be such—such, well, I won’t say cowards,” Cora voiced, when the gale of merriment had passed. “But I think, Belle, that you would rise above the occasion, even if Bess——”
“Now what is there she can do that I can’t?” demanded the plump twin truculently. “I guess if it’s a question of bravery, I’m as willing as she is to go to Camp Surprise.”
“But is it a question of bravery?” asked Belle.
“Well, from the way in which Cora told it, I should think it would need some members of the Society for Psychic Research to get to the bottom of all those queer manifestations. Cora Kimball!” Belle suddenly exclaimed, sitting up in her chair. “You haven’t been hoaxing us; have you? This isn’t a joke; is it? I mean all those things really did happen; didn’t they?”
“My! what a lot of questions to set off at once,” objected Cora. “But I can answer them all by saying that I have given the story to you just as it came to me. As far as I know, it’s no joke, and the way the furniture behaved, or rather, was made to act, is strictly true.”