"I know it, Wynne, it was just four when that--that thing came. I wasn't asleep, I haven't been for an hour or more. Just at four o'clock,--the hall clock was striking,--I saw that awful thing come stalking in--and--and it had a death's head under that white shawl----"
"Hold on, there, Professor, if that's so, there must be somebody who did the stalking! I'm going to make search."
Landon called Thorpe, and together the two went over the whole house, searching in every nook and cranny that could possibly conceal an intruder. But none was found. Every door and window was securely fastened, and as Landon had often observed, not a mouse could get into Black Aspens, once it was locked up for the night.
"Nothing doing, Professor," he reported cheerfully, after the search. "We lighted up the whole place, and we scoured for burglars or ghost-pretenders, but nothing human has entered this house to-night. Nor was your spook any of ourselves, for Milly has rounded up the girls, and I've made sure that the doors that shut off the servants' quarters have not been opened. Now, what have you to say?"
"Only that I saw the thing," the Professor had pulled himself together, "and I'm not prepared to say whether I think it was a phantom or a person pretending to be one. You're sure about the servants?"
"What about Stebbins? Could he have been concealed in the house all night?"
"No; and if he had, how could he have got out? All the doors and windows are locked on the inside, just as they've been all night. He couldn't lock them behind him."
"Thorpe could let him in and out, if he wanted to."
"Into the back part of the house. But Thorpe himself can't get into the main house, the rooms that we use, after I lock the doors between. Come, now, Professor, you know all that as well as I do. Either you dreamed your ghost, or it's the real thing, this time. Take your choice."
Landon was so cheerful and took the thing so lightly, that Hardwick began to feel more at ease, and recounted his story in further detail. "It was the real thing," he concluded. "I wish Rudolph or Mr. Tracy had been here. They sleep in this wing, and they would have come to me more quickly than you did, Wynne."
"I came the moment I heard you call, at least, as soon as I could slip into a bathrobe."