The next day he threw up his lease.
Second tenant: Mrs. Crispin.
Stayed but one night. Would never tell us what she saw.
Third tenant: Mrs. Southwick. Hires Bess for maid-of-all-work, the only girl she could get.
Night 1: Unearthly lights shining up through the house, waking the family. Disappeared as one and all came creeping out into the hall.
Night 2: The same, followed by deep groans. Children waked and shrieked.
Night 3: Nothing.
Night 4: Lights, groans and strange shadows on the walls and ceilings of the various hallways. Family give notice the next day, but do not leave for a week, owing to sickness. No manifestations while doctor and nurses are in the house.
House stands vacant for three months. Bess offers to remain in it as caretaker, but her offer is refused.
Police investigate.
An amusing farce. One of them saw something and could not be laughed out of it by his fellows. But the general report was unsatisfactory. The mistake was the employment of Irishmen in a task involving superstition.
Fourth tenant: Mr. Weston and family.
Remain three weeks. Leaves suddenly because the nurse encountered something moving about in the lower hall one night when she went down to the kitchen to procure hot water for a sick child. Bess again offered her services, but the family would not stay under any circumstances.
Another long period without tenant.
Mr. Searles tries a night in the empty house. Sits and dozes in library till two. Wakes suddenly. Door he has tightly shut is standing open. He feels the draft. Turns on light from dark lantern. Something is there—a shape—he can not otherwise describe it. As he stares at it, it vanishes through doorway. He rushes for it; finds nothing. The hall is empty; so is the whole house.
This finished the report.
“So Mr. Searles has had his own experiences of these Mysteries!” I exclaimed.
“As you see. Perhaps that is why he is so touchy on the subject.”
“Did he ever give you any fuller account of his experience than is detailed here?”
“No; he won’t talk about it.”
“He tried to let the house, however.”
“Yes, but he did not succeed for a long time. Finally the mayor took it.”
Refolding the paper, I handed it back to Mr. Robinson. I had its contents well in mind.
“There is one fact to which I should like to call your attention,” said I. “The manifestations, as here recorded, have all taken place in the lower part of the house. I should have had more faith in them, if they had occurred above stairs. There are no outlets through the roof.”
“Nor any visible ones below. At least no visible one was ever found open.”
“What about the woman, Bess?” I asked. “How do you account for her persistency in clinging to a place her employers invariably fled from? She seems to have been always on hand with an offer of her services.”
“Bess is not a young woman, but she is a worker of uncommon ability, very rigid and very stoical. She herself accounts for her willingness to work in this house by her utter disbelief in spirits, and the fact that it is the one place in the world which connects her with her wandering and worthless husband. Their final parting occurred during Mr. Dennison’s tenancy, and as she had given the wanderer the Franklin Street address, you could not reason her out of the belief that on his return he would expect to find here there. That is what she explained to Mr. Searles.”
“You interest me, Mr. Robinson. Is she a plain woman? Such a one as a man would not be likely to return to?”
“No, she is a very good-looking woman, refined and full of character, but odd, very odd,—in fact, baffling.”
“How baffling?”
“I never knew her to look any one directly in the eye. Her manner is abstracted and inspires distrust. There is also a marked incongruity between her employment and her general appearance. She looks out of place in her working apron, yet she is not what you would call a lady.”
“Did her husband come back?”
“No, not to my knowledge.”
“And where is she now?”
“Very near you, Miss Saunders, when you are at your home in Franklin Street. Not being able to obtain a situation in the house itself, she has rented the little shop opposite, where you can find her any day selling needles and thread.”
“I have noticed that shop,” I admitted, not knowing whether to give more or less weight to my suspicions in thus finding the mayor’s house under the continued gaze of another watchful eye.
“You will find two women there,” the amiable Mr. Robinson hastened to explain. “The one with a dark red spot just under her hair is Bess. But perhaps she doesn’t interest you. She always has me. If it had not been for one fact, I should have suspected her of having been in some way connected with the strange doings we have just been considering. She was not a member of the household during the occupancy of Mrs. Crispin and the Westons, yet these unusual manifestations went on just the same.”
“Yes, I noted that.”
“So her connivance is eliminated.”
“Undoubtedly. I am still disposed to credit the Misses Quinlan with the whole ridiculous business. They could not bear to see strangers in the house they had once called their own, and took the only means suggested to their crazy old minds to rid the place of them.”
Mr. Robinson shook his head, evidently unconvinced. The temptation was great to strengthen my side of the argument by a revelation of their real motive. Once acquainted with the story of the missing bonds he could not fail to see the extreme probability that the two sisters, afflicted as they were with dementia, should wish to protect the wealth which was once so near their grasp, from the possibility of discovery by a stranger. But I dared not take him quite yet into my full confidence. Indeed, the situation did not demand it. I had learned from him what I was most anxious to know, and was now in a position to forward my own projects without further aid from him. Almost as if he had read my thoughts, Mr. Robinson now hastened to remark:
“I find it difficult to credit these poor old souls with any such elaborate plan to empty the house, even had they possessed the most direct means of doing so, for no better reason than this one you state. Had money been somehow involved, or had they even thought so, it would be different. They are a little touched in the head on the subject of money; which isn’t very strange considering their present straits. They even show an interest in other people’s money. They have asked me more than once if any of their former neighbors have seemed to grow more prosperous since leaving Franklin Street.”
“I see; touched, touched!” I laughed, rising in my anxiety to hide any show of feeling at the directness of this purely accidental attack. But the item struck me as an important one. Mr. Robinson gave me a keen look as I uttered the usual commonplaces and prepared to take my leave.
“May I ask your intentions in this matter?” said he.
“I wish I knew them myself,” was my perfectly candid answer. “It strikes me now that my first step should be to ascertain whether there exists any secret connection between the two houses which would enable the Misses Quinlan or their emissaries to gain access to their old home, without ready detection. I know of none, and—”
“There is none,” broke in its now emphatic agent. “A half-dozen tenants, to say nothing of Mr. Searles himself, have looked it carefully over. All the walls are intact; there is absolutely no opening anywhere for surreptitious access.”