And so we marched out of the fine library of Joshua Barton, leaving the old man hunched over his huge desk, down the worn stone steps and up the avenue.
“Doc,” said Heywood when we had turned the corner. “You are a great little actor.”
“You’re not so rotten yourself,” said I. “Are your men ready?”
“Eight policemen and two Secret Service operatives await us at the Ferry Street dock. They have a launch, automatic rifles, a machine gun and a flock of tear bombs. It looks like a big evening. Let’s go.”
Chapter XV
Keeping Promises
Heywood and I sat in my library. Outside the autumn day waned with pensive grace. I had not seen much of him during the long, hot summer, for he had been out of the city on an assignment and I had dawdled about the beach resorts in half-hearted fashion. But the golden fall had brought us both back and we had spent this whole afternoon drinking and smoking and talking of our great adventure.
“I suppose you knew they convicted Blake to-day,” said Heywood.
“Yes,” said I. “There was a story in the papers.”
“Queer, brazen fellow. Stuck it out to the end and never batted an eye when the judge gave him ten years. Acted just like he did the night we swooped down on his island. Remember?”
“I’ll never forget it. Was Barton a witness for the government?”
“Yes, he was there. Looked a hundred years old. Had to be helped to the stand, and his testimony was so faint that it couldn’t be heard three rows back. That’s the last of it, I guess. Hutchins in the penitentiary, Blake on his way, Barton broken and old, Drummond pardoned, and the girl in the green dress—”
He broke off and looked at me shrewdly.
“You never heard from her?”
“No,” said I. “The last I saw of her was on the island. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I just had a hunch that perhaps you had found her and she hadn’t— Well, hang it, you know what I mean. I thought maybe she wasn’t up to expectations.”
“I’ve never seen her, Heywood.”
“Just as well that you didn’t. If I may be frank, I’ll say that I always thought she was a member of Blake’s gang, regardless of what kind of a yarn she told you.”
I smiled, but I am afraid that it was not very convincing.
“Wrong, Heywood. She was Drummond’s fiancée in search of the letter to get him out of prison. Romantic, what?”
“Romantic if true. She must have been in pretty good with Blake, though. Remember, she was the only person allowed to enter the mysterious building near the mill. How do you explain that?”
“I’ve never been able to explain it,” I growled. “That’s the only unsatisfactory part of the whole affair. Why a man should have a place all fitted up with padded walls is quite beyond me.”
“Queer,” said Heywood, “damned queer. Oh, well, some day Blake may take a notion to talk and we’ll unravel the whole thing. What a story that would make.”
It was at this juncture that Mrs. Barkley sidled into the room and extended an envelope toward me.
“It was left here a minute ago by a messenger boy,” she explained. “He said he was to tell you it was important and that you were to read it right away.”
I took the envelope.
Dear Dr. Waring:
I feel that I owe you an explanation of some of the circumstances which surrounded my appearance in a recent case which came to your attention. Part of the story you guessed, but since I can now speak freely, I am glad to set the matter straight.
My father, Jackson Drummond, a diamond importer, became ill several years ago and specialists told us that he was losing his mind. He became steadily worse, and as my brother was abroad studying, it fell upon me to nurse and watch him. While he was in a hospital,
I was informed that my brother bad been arrested and sent to prison as a smuggler through the scheming of Barton and Blake.
Determined to possess the letter which I learned Barton had written to Blake, I cultivated the acquaintance of the latter and confided my father’s condition to him. He removed father to the island, where he was kept in a building near the mill. I believed that Blake was sincere in his efforts to help me and thought he would aid me in recovering the letter which I believed to be in your possession.
Father died the day after you escaped from the island, and I had gone away with his body when you returned with the policeman.
It is all over now and, thanks to you, my brother and I are very happy. I have told him all about it. He says he wants to meet you.
Yours,
P. S. — I am living at 412 Riverview Place.
“Heywood,” said I when I had finished reading, “I hate to leave you when I have not had the pleasure of your company for so long, but an important matter has arisen which cannot wait. It is what you might call a crisis.
“In other words, Heywood, old fellow, I’m about to put on my hat and dash out to propose to a young lady who once wore a green dress and played burglar in my library.
“If you will wait here long enough, you can be my best man, if any. And while you are waiting, here is something you might amuse yourself by reading.”
And I tossed the letter to him.
“It’ll be worth waiting to see you with a wife,” he sighed.
Haunts of the Invisible-1
by Alexander Stewart
Striking tales are these, from the phantom world, submitted just as they occurred — you to be the final judge
“Who has not either seen or heard of some house, shut up and uninhabitable, fallen into decay and looking dusty and dreary, from which at midnight strange sounds have been heard to issue — knockings, the rattling of chains and the groans of perturbed spirits? A house that people thought it unsafe to pass after dark, and which has remained for years without a tenant — which no tenant would occupy, even if he were paid for it?
“There are hundreds of such houses in England and the United States to-day. Hundreds in France, Germany and almost every country in Europe, which are marked with the mark of fear.”
The above statement was made more than fifty years ago. It still holds good at the present time. For the so-called “haunted” houses are still with us.
In the pages which follow, the records of several of these houses have been set down. No explanations have been attempted. No theories have been advanced. The account here given is merely a plain statement of the facts so far as they are known.
In studying them the reader is asked to remember just one thing—
Although this is the age of science, there are some things which science has not explained. Haunted houses have been recognized by European law for several centuries. Their story is not just a mere fantastic romance.
For the benefit of people who think them a thing of the past, the first house chosen is of very recent date — a villa in Comeada, a suburb of Coimbra, Portugal. The occurrences which took place there were first described by Mme. Frondoni Lacombe, of Lisbon, in an article published in Annales des Sciences Psychiques, March, 1920.
The main victim or hero — whichever you wish to call him — of the affair later described his experiences in detail in a book, “Le Parc du Mystere,” published in 1923 in collaboration with Mme. Rachilde — a woman who up to that time had refused to admit the reality of psychic phenomena at any price, because her parents had been the victims of mediums.