"You're sure, Mr. Stebbins," and Eve turned glittering eyes on him, "that you never 'haunted' after that night when you appeared to me! You know a ghost appeared to Vernie after that. Can we believe that was not the work of the same malignant----"
"Malignant is not the word to apply to Mr. Stebbins," Pennington Wise interrupted her, "and it is up to us,--to me, to find who took his place as haunter of this house. Also, who it was that removed the body of Vernie Reid, doubtless through the revolving column, and--who kidnapped and tried to drown Zizi."
"Those are secondary problems," said Braye, thoughtfully gazing at the detective. "But they must be solved, too, of course. What I'm more anxious about, however, is to learn how any one could compass the murders,--if murders they were."
"Of course they were," said Hardwick. "Now that I know as much as I do know, I'm sure we'll learn all. Mr. Wise, I'm of a detective bent, myself, and you may count on me to help you all I can. You needn't laugh----"
"My dear Professor Hardwick, I assure you I've no thought of laughing, or of belittling the help you offer. I'm truly glad of your assistance and it is my habit to be frank with my clients, so we need have no reservations, on either side. The assurance we have received that an intruder could and did enter the house, gives us new directions in which to look and new theories to pursue. I'm sure you will all agree with me that the body of Miss Reid was carried out through the secret column, and not removed by supernatural means."
"Without doubt," said Rudolph Braye, but Eve Carnforth looked a denial.
"I can't agree," she said, "that the discovery of a secret entrance disproves all possibility of the presence of supernatural agencies. I think no human intruder can be held responsible for all we have been through. How do you account for two deaths occurring at the very moment they were foretold?"
Her question was evidently addressed to Wise, and he replied, "I think, Miss Carnforth, that those two deaths were murders, cleverly accomplished by human wills, and it is my immediate duty to prove this. Therefore, I am now going to endeavour to recover the missing body of the unfortunate girl who was killed."