his tales or we’ll never get anywhere. I’m going over to East Dryden to see him to-morrow, I want a few more details. And, it seems to me, we’re getting nowhere,—with our imaginations and hallucinations. Now, to-night, I’m going to sleep in the Room with the Tassels. I’ve no fear of it, and I have a deep and great curiosity.”
“Oh, let me sleep there with you! Mayn’t I, Eve? Oh, please let me!” Vernie danced about in her eagerness, and knelt before Eve, pleading.
“No, Vernie, I forbid it,” said her uncle, decidedly. “If Miss Carnforth wants to do this thing, I have nothing to say, but you must not, my child. I know you people don’t believe me, but I surely saw an apparition the night I slept there, and it was no human trickster. Neither was it hallucination. I was as wideawake as I am now——”
“We know the rest, Uncle Gif,” and Braye laughingly interrupted the recital. “Stalking ghost, hollow groans, and—were there clanking chains?”
“There were not, but in its shrouded hand the spectre held a glass——”
“Of prussic acid, of which you smelt the strong odour! Yes, I know,—but it won’t go down, old chap——”
“The prussic acid won’t?” and Landon chuckled.
“Nor the tale either,” said the Professor. “It’s too true. The shawled woman filled the specifications too accurately to seem convincing.”
“You’re a nice crowd,” grumbled Mr. Bruce. “Come up here for experiences and then hoot at the first real thing that happens.”
“All your own fault,” retorted Norma. “If you hadn’t advertised your propensity for fooling us, your word would have carried weight.”
“All right, let somebody else sleep in that room, then. But not Miss Carnforth. Let one of the men try it.”
“Thank you, none for me,” said Braye. “I detest shawled women waking me up at four o’clock, to take my poison!”
“I’ll beg off, too,” said Tracy. “I wake at four every morning anyway, with those aspen boughs shivering against my windows. I’d trim them off, but that doesn’t seem like playing the game.”
“Wynne shan’t sleep there, and that settles that,” and Milly’s grasp on her husband’s coat sleeve was evidently sufficiently detaining.
“That leaves only me, of the men,” asserted the Professor. “I’m quite willing to sleep in that room. Indeed, I want to. I’ve only been waiting till I felt sure of the house, the servants and—excuse me, the members of our own party! Now, I’ve discovered that the servants’ quarters can be securely locked off, so that they cannot get in this part of the house; I’ve found that the outside doors and the windows can be fastened against all possibility of outside intrusion; and, I shall stipulate that our party shall so congregate in a few rooms, that no one can—ahem,—haunt my slumbers without some one else knowing it. I’ll ask you three young ladies to sleep in one room and allow me to lock you in. Or two adjoining rooms, to which I may hold all keys. Mr. Tracy, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Braye, I shall arrange similarly, while the Landons must also consent to be imprisoned by me. This is the only way I can make a fair test. Will you all agree?”
“Splendid!” cried Eve, “of course we will. But, Professor, let me try it first. If you should have a weird experience, it might scare me off, but now I am brave enough. Oh, please, do that! Let me lock you all in your rooms, and let me sleep in the Room with the Tassels to-night! Oh, please say yes, all of you! I must, I must try it!” The girl looked like a seeress, as, with glittering eyes and flushed cheeks she plead her cause.
“Why, of course, if you want to, Miss Carnforth,” said the Professor, looking at her admiringly. “I’ll be glad to have the benefit of your experience before testing myself. And there is positively no danger. As I’ve said, the locks, bolts, and bars are absolutely safe against outside intrusion, or visits from the servants. Though we know they are not to be suspected. And as you are not afraid of the supernatural, I can see no argument against your plan.”
“Suppose I go with you,” suggested Norma, her large blue eyes questioning Eve Carnforth’s excited face.
“No, Norma, not this time. I prefer to be alone. I’ll lock you and Vernie in your room; I’ll lock Milly and Wynne in their room; I’ll lock you four men in two rooms, and then, I’ll know—I’ll know that whatever I see or hear is not a fraud or trick of anybody. And I think you can trust me to tell you the truth in the morning.”
“If there’s anything to tell,” supplemented Braye. “I think, Eve, as to ghosts, you’re cutting off your source of supply.”
“Then we’ll merely prove nothing. But I’m determined to try.”
Again Vernie begged to be allowed to share Eve’s experiences, but neither Mr. Bruce, nor Eve herself would consider the child’s request.
“Every one of us,” the Professor said, musingly, “has told of hearing mysterious sounds and of seeing mysterious shadows, but,—except for Bruce’s graphic details!—all our observations have been vague and uncertain. They may well have been merely imagination. But Miss Carnforth is not imaginative, I mean, not so, to the exclusion of a fair judgment of what her senses experience. Therefore I shall feel, if she sees nothing to-night, that I shall see nothing when I sleep in that room to-morrow night.”
“I am especially well adapted for the test,” Eve said, though in no way proudly, “for I have a premonition that the phantasm will appear to me more readily than to some others. Remember, I knew that was the haunted room before we had been told. I knew it before we entered the house that first night. It was revealed to me, as other things have been even during our stay here. You must realize that I am a sensitive, and so better fitted for these visitations than a more phlegmatic or practical person.”
“What else has been revealed to you, Eve?” asked Braye.
“Perhaps revealed isn’t just the word, Rudolph, but I’ve seen more than most of you, I’ve heard voices, rustling as of wings, and other inexplicable sounds, that I know were audible only to me.”
“Lord, Eve, you give me the creeps! Finished your tea? Come out for a walk then. Let’s get off these subjects, if only for half an hour.”
That night, Eve Carnforth carried out her plans to the letter.
Gifford Bruce, and his nephew Braye in one room; the Professor and Tracy in another, were locked in by Eve, amid much gaiety of ceremony.
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” Braye declared. “Tracy, look after the Professor, that he doesn’t jump out of the window, and you, Professor, watch Tracy!”
“They can’t jump out the windows,” said Eve, practically, “they’re too high. And if they could, they couldn’t get in the tasseled room. Those windows won’t open. And, too, I know the Professor won’t let Mr. Tracy out of his sight, or vice versa. Rudolph, you tie your uncle, if he shows signs of roving.”
Eve’s strong nerves gave no sign of tension as she completed all her precautionary arrangements. She locked the doors that shut off the servants’ quarters; she locked the Landons in their room, she locked the door of the room that Norma and Vernie occupied, and at last, with various gay messages shouted at her through the closed portals, she went downstairs to keep her lonely vigil.
She did not undress, for she had no intention of sleeping that night. A kimono, and her hair comfortably in a long braid were her only concessions to relaxation.
She lay down on the hard old bed, and gazed about her. A single lamp lit the room, and she had a candle also, in case she desired to use it.
The light made strange shadows, the heavy, faded hangings seemed to sway and move, but whether they really did so or not, Eve couldn’t determine. She got up and went to examine them. The feel of them was damp