The Mystery of Jockey Hollow Part 24

"Tell me," he begged.

They did.

Harry laughed. He absent-mindedly took out his cigarette case and then quickly put it back in his pocket, and almost as quickly took it out when Sim said: "You may."

"Well, I'm one up on you," he said to Terry and Arden.

"What do you mean?" Arden asked as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

"My ghost got away from me."

"No!"

"Really?"

"Did you see anything?"

This in turn from Arden, Sim, and Terry. Dorothy was getting him an ash tray.

"Oh, tell us!"

This came in a most proper Greek chorus.

"Well," he began, adjusting himself comfortably in the chair that gave him a view of all the girls, "I began my investigation at the ghost house this morning. Two of you were witnesses to that." He indicated Terry and Arden. They bowed in answer.

"I went all over the old place," the young millionaire resumed, "from cellar to what was left of the fourth floor. And I found nothing except the old furniture, the beds, a picture of a pretty girl in a green riding habit, and some old chests that were locked so I didn't open them. I understand they belong to Mrs. Howe."

"Yes," Arden said. "But didn't you find any secret pa.s.sage, anything to explain how Jim Danton disappeared out of that closet and was found in the cellar? Didn't you discover the remains of the ghost of the old soldier, Nathaniel Greene-didn't you find any traces of Patience Howe?"

breathlessly Arden demanded to know.

"Not a trace," and Harry shook his head. "I tried to find some secret pa.s.sage out of that closet, but I couldn't. My only explanation is that Jim got mixed up and really fell down the big ash-chute. No, I really didn't find a thing."

"But you said," interposed Terry, "that you heard--"

"Yes. That's inexplainable. As I was tramping around the old place, pulling at loose boards here and there, suddenly, when I was in the room where, you say, a dead woman was seen on the bed, I heard the most unearthly groan, screech, yell, or scream. It was a combination of all four. It gave even me a start, I a.s.sure you," he admitted.

"What happened then?"

"What did you do?"

"Who screamed?"

"Didn't you discover anything?"

Dot joined in the questioning this time.

It was a big moment, and Harry was making the most of it.

What young man wouldn't have?

CHAPTER XXI Rift in the Clouds

Harry helped himself to another cigarette before he answered the barrage of inquiries.

"As nearly as I could tell," said the ghost-hunter, "the scream came from the room of the mysterious closet. At least, it sounded so to me. As I say, I was in the room where the old four-poster bed was."

"Where the workman said he saw the dead body," interposed Arden.

"Exactly. Well, I left that room on the jump, you may be sure, when I heard that terrible yell. I knew it hadn't come from the room where I was, and I headed for the closet room, as we'll call it."

The girls nodded their heads understandingly but did not interrupt.

"But there was nothing there," young Pangborn said. "Not a thing that could have screamed. There was nothing there. Absolutely!"

"Whatever did you do?" asked Terry, her eyes brighter. Really, this was all so eerily interesting that she almost forgot the pain of her bandaged ankle.

"I just looked around," was the answer. "That horrible scream seemed to be still echoing through the big bare room, and to me it seemed to come up out of the ash-chute of the fireplace."

"That's what one of Jim's companions said," remarked Sim. "He said it sounded like a dying cat, and he dropped a brick down."

"If this was a cat it must have been a mountain lion," said Harry, seriously enough. "I've hunted them, and those catamounts do yell, groan, or scream in a most unearthly fas.h.i.+on at times. But there are none within many miles of here, unless one has escaped from a menagerie. Of course, that's possible."

"Do you think," asked Dot, examining one of her pink nails, "that it could be an animal who has been responsible for all the demonstrations?"

"What a fade-out for our ghosts!" murmured Sim.

"Not to be thought of!" declared Arden.

"I did have the idea of an animal for a moment," was the young man's answer. "But not after I investigated. I looked down the old ash-chute and even threw some pieces of bricks down. There was no come-back. Then I made another search of the old house, even going down cellar and looking at the bottom of the chute, where, you say, Jim was found."

Arden nodded in confirmation.

"There was nothing there," went on the narrator, "not even a wild animal smell, which is very characteristic, I a.s.sure you. So I went outside and had a look around. I got positive evidence, then, that no one but myself had entered the house."

"How did you prove that?" pursued Terry.

"By the footprints in the snow. Or, rather, by a lack of footprints. The only marks were those I had made in entering and those Terry and Arden left, but they did not come near the house. So I knew that there was no one in the house with me."

"And yet you heard that terrible yell!" whispered Terry.

"Yes, I heard it. There was no mistake about it."

"What is your explanation?" asked Arden after a rather long pause.

Harry laughed, shrugged his shoulders, crushed his cigarette out on the tray Dot had brought him, and said: