Harry was not at all abashed by coming into a girl’s room while she was reclining and with three other pretty girls seated around her. Young Mr. Pangborn was not easily flustered. But he did look surprised.
“Well, what happened?” he inquired anxiously as he bowed to each one in turn and went over to Terry in the bed. “Did the bad old ghost get you?”
“Almost,” she smiled as he took her hand. “Only it turned out to be a Santa Claus ghost; the real thing, too.”
“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 passage, 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 passage 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 assure 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?
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 fashion 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 assure 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:
“I haven’t any! I’m as much up in the air as you girls are.”
They were rather wide-eyed at hearing this.
“Of course,” he went on, “this yell is the only manifestation that has come to me. I understand you girls have both seen and heard things.”
“No.” Arden shook her head. “We were never really in the house when anything actually happened. We would arrive on the scene after the men had run out, yelling that they had either seen or heard something. What they heard, so they said, was a scream like the one you describe. Also there was the sound of heavily booted feet tramping on the stairs. And I think one man said he saw what he thought was a soldier in one of the rooms. Then there was the figure on the bed. But we never saw either of those.”
“And the last thing that happened,” said Sim, “I mean just before what you heard this afternoon, Harry, was the disappearance of Jim and his subsequent discovery in the cellar.”
“He said something hit him on the head,” suggested Dot.
“Oh, yes, so he did,” Arden recalled.
“Then,” stated the young man, “we have three sorts of ghostly demonstrations: visible, audible, and manual, I might say, to describe the assault on Mr. Jim. It’s very odd. I can’t account for it. I was sure, after I heard that scream, that some prank-loving chap had slipped into the house after me and was practising his college yell. But the snow told a different story.”
They were silent a little while, and then Arden, in rather a small voice, asked:
“What are you going to do next, Harry?”
“I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”
“Well, we’d like to have you help us find that ghost, if it’s only to satisfy ourselves that there’s no such thing,” said Sim.
“And we want to help Granny Howe,” suggested Terry. “It seems pathetic that her Sycamore Hall, or what she claims is her ancestors’ manor house and ought to be hers, must be torn down, taken away, and she and the two grandchildren get nothing for it.”
“Yes,” admitted Mr. Pangborn. “Pass that, and I shall have something to say on it in a moment. But can I do anything else to help you? I’ll say now, in between times of laying out the bird sanctuary, I’m going to keep after the ghost.”
“There’s one other thing,” Arden said. “About Jim Danton’s family. They are in want and he was hurt while working for that contractor.”
“Oh, yes, I was going to tell you about that,” Harry went on. “As I was coming away, after my unsuccessful, mysterious-voice hunt, I met Mr. Callahan. I had in mind what you told me last night about this Jim, and I spoke about him. Callahan says he will see that he gets workman’s compensation all the while he is ill. The contractor carries insurance.”
“That’s fine,” exclaimed Arden. “Well, outside of finding the ghost, which perhaps we can’t do, and helping Granny—which seems impossible——”
“Perhaps not quite as impossible as you think,” interrupted the bird-sanctuary man with a smile, asking pardon for his interruption. “I talked with my friend Dr. Thandu over the telephone after I left here last night. I spoke of this case, the old ancestral hall being torn down and no compensation being paid to the evident heirs, Granny, Dick, and Betty.
“Dr. Thandu said it was a very complicated case. It appears when the state took over Jockey Hollow for a park Mrs. Howe and her grandchildren lived in the Hall. She had lived there many years and always supposed it was her property. But when, under the law known as the right of eminent domain, the state took it to make a Revolutionary memorial park, Mrs. Howe could produce no papers proving her claim. She never had occasion to use them, she said, and had no idea where they might be. She surmised that her father or grandfather had put them away, but a diligent search failed to reveal them.
“Well, the state waited a long time, and then, as she could show no legal title, they asked her to move, which she did, as they were soon going to start tearing down the place. However, Dr. Thandu and his fellow commissioners did all they could. They had the Hall appraised and the money was paid into court. It is there now, and whoever can prove title to Sycamore Hall will get that money.”
“It should go to Granny Howe, and possibly some of it to her cousin Viney,” declared Arden, “and to Betty and Dick. Why doesn’t the state or Dr. Thandu or somebody give it to them? It’s doing no good where it is now!” Arden was indignant.
“Granted,” said Harry. “But here is the point. Suppose the state paid this sequestered money to Granny Howe and her kin. Then, some time later, suppose the real heirs appeared with the legal papers and showed that the Hall was theirs. The state would have to pay all over again.”
“I suppose they couldn’t do that,” agreed Sim a little sadly.
“That’s why they have to be so careful,” went on Mr. Pangborn. “It is a complicated matter. The state doesn’t want to cheat Granny, nor does it want to be cheated itself. But there is a rift in the clouds.”
“Where?” asked Terry.
“Dr. Thandu is willing and will urge that the whole case be reopened. The Park Commission lawyers will go over it all again and take the matter to court, seeing if it is possible, even without the missing papers, to pay Mrs. Howe. And I may add that I am going to have my late grandfather’s lawyers—the ones who posted that reward circular about me,” he said with a smile to Arden—“I’m going to have them look into the case for Mrs. Howe. They are clever fellows. So perhaps it may all come right after all.”
“Oh, I do hope so!” cried Arden. “And in this connection I’ve just had the most wonderful thought. I must tell you before I forget it. This is going to be a happy Christmas for Granny Howe. Now, this is my plan.”
But before Arden could continue, there came a knock at the door.
Arden was on the verge of disclosing something when that knock sounded. So excited were the girls over what had happened and what Harry Pangborn had told them that, for a moment, they were startled.
Then Sim, the first, seemingly, to return to the very practical present, called:
“Come in!”
Moselle entered.
“’Scuse me,” she said, “but the horse-boy is downstairs.”
“The horse-boy?” repeated Sim.
“Do you mean somebody with a cold?” asked Arden mischievously glancing at Harry.
“No’m, Miss Arden. I means that boy you-all go riding with on horses.”
“Oh, Dick Howe!” said Terry.
“Whom I have yet to have the pleasure of meeting,” murmured Dot.
“What can he want?” murmured Sim.
“I wonder if anything could have happened to Granny—or at the Hall?” questioned Arden.
“Did he say what he wanted, Moselle?” Sim asked, and Moselle let her eyes rove about the room containing the four pretty girls and the very presentable Harry Pangborn. Perhaps Moselle wondered at a gentleman not a physician visiting in Terry’s room, but the cook said nothing about that. She merely remarked:
“He didn’t say what he wanted—just asked to see one of the young ladies.”
“Which one?” asked Terry, laughing, for her ankle pain was much relieved by the comforting bandages and the liniment the doctor had used.
“He didn’t say, Miss Terry, but I ’spects he meant Miss Sim.”
“I’d better go down,” Sim decided.
“I hope,” remarked Arden as Sim started downstairs, “that Dick’s call has nothing to do with Granny Howe being ill, or anything like that. What I was just going to tell you has to do with Granny.”
“I had a glimpse of her near her little cottage as I was leaving the Hall,” said Harry. “She seemed to be all right, bustling about in the snow like some Colonial housewife. Very picturesque.”
“Hurry back, Sim, and tell us,” begged Dot. “I’m dying with curiosity, and if he’s good-looking and young and all that sort of thing, he might come around oftener. You hinted there might be some young men when you asked me out for the holidays,” she said, mischief again sparkling in her rather fascinating eyes.
“What do you call this nice young man?” Arden pointed a slim pink finger at Harry who bowed gallantly.
“One among four?” questioned Dot with upraised eyebrows.
“I know some chaps——” Harry began, but Arden interrupted with:
“Don’t pay any attention to Dot. She’s too theatrical.”
Sim had gone down and was returning quickly.
“It wasn’t anything,” she reported. “Dick just wanted to know when we were going to ride again. He said business was rather slow at Ellery’s, and it was Dick’s idea to start out and drum up a little trade. He does get a commission, just as I expected. Shall we go riding again?”
“I’d love it!” Dot declared.
“But—Terry,” Sim reminded them, going over to the bed and smoothing back the invalid’s hair, rather movie-like.
“Oh, don’t mind me!” Terry was quick to say. “I think a little rest and quiet will do me good. I shall probably doze off after my ride with Santa Claus, that was invigorating,” and she laughed a little, just like herself.
“Well, what about it, girls?” asked Sim. “Dick is waiting for an answer. I think a ride would do us good. He says he’ll bring the horses around here—he’ll have another groom to help him.”
“I’m not very favorably disposed toward Mr. Ellery after that talk I heard when Nick, or somebody, hinted that the liveryman had some underhand connection with the old Hall,” spoke Arden. “It may have been nothing, but, somehow, I don’t trust Mr. Ellery too far.”
“You can’t blame what he does or says, or anything that the mysterious Nick does, on the horses,” Sim declared. “And it would mean something to Dick. Besides, I would like a ride. Why not?”
“I might come along as second groom,” suggested Harry.
“Oh, please do!” begged Dorothy impulsively. She, as Sim said to Arden later, seemed fast making friends with the young man. Dorothy showed her mother’s theatrical influence.
“Then I’ll tell Dick to bring around four horses,” decided Sim. “You’re sure you won’t mind, Terry?”
“Not a bit. But I do wish Arden would tell us the big secret before you go. I’ll have something to think about, then, while you’re gone.”
“Oh, I think it will be the loveliest thing!” Arden said, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “I’m so glad I thought of it. The idea came to me when Harry was telling about his plan, and the park commissioners, to give Granny more time to prove her claim—or to help her with legal advice or something like that. Anyhow, it looks like new hope for Granny. And what I suggest is that we give her a little party, say on Christmas Eve, and tell her the good news. I believe it will be the best present she could want.”
“Say, that is an idea!” exclaimed Sim.
“Just like you, Arden,” said Dot.
“Does that appeal to you, Harry?” Sim wanted to know.
“Splendid!”
“And my ankle will be enough better, then, so I can come to the party,” Terry murmured.
“Would you have it here or at Granny’s cottage?” Sim asked. “I think here would be nice, as we have the holly now.”
“Why not have it in the Hall?” asked Dorothy. “I think that would be the most appropriate place for such an announcement.”
“Good!” said Harry.
“But could we?” Sim asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it be bleak and cold? The weather is likely to be stormy now for quite a while. It is still snowing.”
“I love to ride in a snowstorm,” was Dot’s remark. “It would be just like one of those funny old melodramas, riding back home.” Dorothy was best when she was theatrical.
“But about using the Hall for Granny’s Christmas party,” suggested Harry, “I think nothing could be nicer. And from what I saw of the place in my investigations today, I think that big lower room could be very well used for it. By keeping the windows and doors closed and building a big fire on the hearth it would be warm enough; simply swell. That hearth will take in a whole fence rail. Then there are some old tables, chairs, boxes, and chests scattered through the old mansion that we could bring to that room and make it look like Christmas in the very old days. No trouble at all.”
“Then we’ll do it!” Sim decided. “Arden, you get the prize of a fur-lined Santa Claus suit in which to make the announcement to Granny!”
“Oh, won’t it be fun!” sighed Terry. “How long until Christmas?” and she began to count on her fingers. The ankle was now being all but forgotten.
“Then we’ll regard it as settled,” said Arden. “I’m so glad I thought of this, and so glad you mentioned having it in the Hall, Dot. Things are looking distinctly brighter; in fact, they begin to shine!”
“In spite of the fact that we haven’t solved the mystery,” added Sim.
“But we shall!” predicted Harry. “I’m going to be around here for some time after Christmas on that bird-sanctuary business, and the mystery is going to be solved before the birds settle down.”
“Let us help,” suggested Arden. “Don’t forget we had ‘firsties,’” she finished, dimpling like a little girl.
“I’ll let you help, gladly,” Harry answered. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“Well, if we’re going riding, let’s go!” proposed Sim. “Poor Dick is waiting. Probably he wants the commission he’ll get out of our business to buy Christmas presents with.”
The girls scurried out to get into riding togs. Harry Pangborn was wearing what would be all right for his ride as the rig had been chosen for his woodland work. He looked well in windbreaker coat, cap, leather puttees, and his knickers were genuine Scotch plaid.
Sim, before going to dress, sent Moselle to tell Dick to bring around four horses and then supplied Terry with books to read in bed while she would be alone.
“Sure you won’t be lonesome?” Sim asked, smoothing down the spread.
“Not at all. I shall probably read myself to sleep,” Terry promised.
Dick and a younger helper were soon back with the mounts, and they all started gayly out in the snow, which was falling faster than ever. But it was a dry, fine snow that did not melt on one’s garments or get in wet around one’s neck. Even the horses seemed to like it; this friendly snow.
“Which way shall we take?” asked Sim as they started out.
“Let’s go round by way of the Hall and—have a look at the prospects,” suggested Arden, warning her companions with a look not to say too much about Granny’s Christmas party before Dick. The details were to be a sort of surprise, though the old lady might have to be told that the young people wanted to use that one big room in her former home for a little festivity. The Hall being locally famous, that arrangement would be reasonable enough.
“We can bring Granny over from her cottage at the last minute,” Arden had said when discussing this angle of it.
“There’s nothing doing at the Hall now,” said Dick when the horses had been turned in the direction of Jockey Hollow.
“What do you mean?” asked Sim.
“I mean Callahan has called all the work off.”
“Why is that?” Arden wanted to know.
“Perhaps new and worse ghosts,” suggested Dorothy quizzically.
“No, that isn’t it,” the young groom answered. “I believe he couldn’t get the right kind of men to work, it’s so near Christmas. They would work half a day and then want to stop. I didn’t hear anything more about the ghosts—not since my sister found what she thought was a dead man in the cellar,” and Dick laughed, recalling that incident.
“That certainly was something to find,” murmured Arden. “Poor Betty! She was so frightened. I’ll never forget how she shook.”
“She’s all over it now, though,” her brother declared. “But it did give her quite a shock. She talked about it a lot afterwards. No, I don’t believe in that ghost business myself. It’s just a lot of tricks those workmen think funny,” he suggested boyishly.
“Tell him about the scream you heard, Harry,” suggested Dorothy to the young man she was riding beside. As if that might change Dick’s opinion.
“No, I think I’d better not,” Harry answered. “I want to find that screamer first. Then, I’ll tell the big story.”
They broke into a brisk canter. It was a splendid ride in the friendly snow, and in due time they reached the old Hall.
“Hello!” exclaimed Dick as he saw the now almost obliterated footprints leading into the mansion. “Somebody has been here after all. I wonder if any of the men can be working, after what Callahan told me?”
“Probably just some curiosity-seeker went in,” suggested Harry with a warning look at the girls. “Only one man, according to footprints,” he said.
“I guess that’s right,” Dick agreed. “Well, it shouldn’t worry me. This place doesn’t belong in our family any more.” He could not repress a little sigh of regret as they rode on past the historic place that had been in the possession of the Howes so many years.
“How does this ghost business affect your grandmother’s cousin, Mrs. Tucker?” asked Arden of Dick.
“Oh, Cousin Viney? She just laughs at it. Doesn’t believe in it at all. She’s bitter, though, at us losing the place. Rants about the carelessness of some ancestor who either lost the deeds or else hid them so well neither he nor anybody else was ever able to find them—deeds, a missing will, or whatever papers are called for in a case like this,” Dick said, a little confused in attempting to make that complicated speech.
“So Cousin Viney doesn’t believe in ghosts?” asked Harry in an offhand sort of way.
“No more than Granny does. Anyhow, Cousin Viney is away now. She goes and comes, visiting around among various relatives. She went away this morning—didn’t say when she would come back.”
“It’s just as well,” said Sim to Dot. “Then we won’t have to ask her to Granny’s little party. And I don’t like Cousin Viney very much, anyhow.”
“She did rather give me the creeps,” Dot said, “so sharp and ‘sassy.’”
They rode on into Jockey Hollow while the snowflakes continued to sift down upon them, almost hiding the ghostly Hall behind a thin, shifting, white curtain.
There were many historic spots in Jockey Hollow. Arden had found out some facts from the library book, and Dick knew others gleaned in various ways. As they rode along they talked about it all.
Dick pointed out rows of chimney stones where once had stood the log huts that housed the 10,000 men of Washington’s army camped in the Hollow that winter of 1779. Washington himself had a mansion in a near-by town long famous in history, Dick took pleasure in reminding them.
Dick located a grove of locust trees, shrouded now in white where, he said, several hundred men of the unfortunate Continental Army had died and were buried along the banks of Primrose Brook which now was frozen over and covered with downy snow.
“Well, when they get the park laid out and finished,” suggested Arden, “I suppose they’ll put up a bronze tablet somewhere around here to commemorate the valiant men.”
“A pity they can’t keep the old Hall standing. That would be a fine monument,” suggested Sim. “It could be a memorial hall.”
“The Hall is doomed,” said Dick sadly. “We have given up all hope.” He urged his horse ahead briskly.
“He doesn’t know what you are going to tell Granny!” whispered Dorothy to Harry.
“I hope something comes of it,” he remarked in a low voice. “At least, the whole matter will be thoroughly gone over, and if there is anything in her claim, and any money due her that can be paid, my lawyers will arrange it. They are smart men, I am sure of that.”
It was almost dark when the riders returned to Sim’s house. Dick and the other groom went back with the horses. The ride had been enjoyable for all of them.
“Don’t forget to let me know when you want to go out again,” Dick called with gay freedom. “If I can get money enough for an education out of my commissions from Ellery, that will be fine,” he suggested as he rode happily away.
Terry was eagerly waiting for her friends when they got back.
“What, no ghosts?” she exclaimed when they trooped in to tell her of their ride.
“Not a ghost—not even scolded by Viney Tucker. She should have told us that we rode too long,” laughed Arden. “Viney, by the way, is out of the way.”
“Where?” Terry asked.
“Off visiting, so Dick says. Oh, but I’m hungry!” cried Sim. “Where is Moselle? You’ll stay to dinner, of course, Harry?”
“Thanks, but I’m afraid I can’t. I want to get in touch with the lawyers on the telephone, and Dr. Thandu, to make sure that there will be no hitch in the plans for Granny’s Christmas party. And I shall probably need to put in calls and wait for answers. I’d be jumping up from the table off and on. No, I’ll go back to the hotel. I can phone nicely from there. But I’ll keep this invitation in reserve, if I may.”
“Of course. Any time. This will keep.”
Terry’s ankle was much improved by morning, though the doctor said she must not yet step on it.
“In another day you may be able to hobble about the house on a cane,” he had said.
“She will be an invalid with a most interesting limp,” declared Dot.
That day Harry telephoned to say that matters connected with the legal aspects of Granny’s case were coming along most satisfactorily.
“You will be able to assure her at the Christmas party,” he told Arden, “that she has the best chance she ever had to get something out of the estate. At any rate, if we fail, she will have the satisfaction of knowing that all that could be done has been done.”
“And if it fails,” asked Arden, “will she and the young folks have to give up hope?”
“I’m afraid so. But it’s better to give up a hope than to have it linger forever, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. Oh, I do hope it turns out all right!”
“So do I.”
Arden, who happened to answer the telephone to take the message from Harry, reported to the other girls, and Sim said:
“I think we ought to go over to the Hall and see whether Harry’s idea of a warm and cozy room can be carried out in this cold spell.”
“Not a bad idea,” agreed Arden.
“Oh, I wish I could go!” sighed Terry, looking at her bandaged foot.
“Don’t chance it!” warned Dorothy. “You’ll want to be at the party. I’ll stay here with you, Terry, if Arden and Sim want to prance down to the Hall and look it over.”
“Let’s, Sim!” Arden exclaimed. “Only we won’t prance. We’ll go in the car.”
To this Sim agreed and, the housekeeping plans for the day having been disposed of, she and Arden started out in the sturdy little roadster. It had stopped snowing, and the sun was shining brightly with a dazzling luster on the white ground. It was snappy and cold, so the girls wore furs and arctics, for they wanted to walk around near the Hall. That opportunity always fascinated them.
Reaching the Hall, they tramped up the steps. Sim and Arden pushed open the heavy front door and stood with their heads just within the hall, listening before venturing in all the way.
“No use taking any chances,” Sim remarked.
“What chances?” Arden asked, though, as a matter of fact, the same thought was in her own mind.
“Well, ghosts or some irresponsible workmen who might be camping out in here since they had the last séance.”
“Or tramps,” suggested Arden.