A bad night, a very bad night, but for all that I was down early the next morning. Bess must have her box and I a breath of fresh air before breakfast, to freshen me up a bit and clear my mind for the decisive act, since my broken rest had failed to refresh me.
As I reached the parlor floor Nixon came out of the reception-room.
“Oh, Miss!” he exclaimed, “going out?” surprised, doubtless, to see me in my hat and jacket.
“A few steps,” I answered, and then stopped, not a little disturbed; for in moving to open the door he had discovered that the key was not in it and was showing his amazement somewhat conspicuously.
“Mrs. Packard took the key up to her room,” I explained, thinking that some sort of explanation was in order. “She is nervous, you know, and probably felt safer with it there.”
The slow shake of his head had a tinge of self-reproach in it.
“I was sorry to go out,” he muttered. “I was very sorry to go out,”— but the look which he turned upon me the next minute was of a very different sort. “I don’t see how you can go out yet,” said he, “unless you go by the back way. That leads into Stanton Street; but perhaps you had just as lief go into Stanton Street.”
There was impertinence in his voice as well as aggressiveness in his eye, but I smiled easily enough and was turning toward the back with every expectation of going by way of Stanton Street, when Letty came running down the stairs with the key in her hand. I don’t think he was pleased, but he opened the door civilly enough and I gladly went out, taking with me, however, a remembrance of the furtive look with which he had noted the small package in my hand. I pass over the joy with which Bess received the box and its desired contents. I had lost all interest in the matter, which was so entirely personal to herself, and, declining the ten dollars which I knew she could ill afford, made my visit so short that I was able to take a brisk walk down the street and yet be back in time for breakfast.
This, like that of the preceding day, I took alone. Mrs. Packard was well but preferred to eat up-stairs. I did not fret at this; I was really glad, for now I could think and plan my action quite unembarrassed by her presence. The opening under the vestibule floor was to be sounded, and sounded this very morning, but on what pretext? I could not take Mrs. Packard into my counsel, for that would be to lessen the force of the discovery with which I yet hoped to dissipate at one blow the superstitious fears I saw it was otherwise impossible to combat. I might interest Ellen, and I was quite certain that I could interest the cook; but this meant Nixon, also, who was always around and whose animosity to myself was too mysteriously founded for me to trust him with any of my secrets or to afford him any inkling of my real reason for being in the house.
Yet help I must have and very efficient help, too. Should I telegraph to Mayor Packard for some sort of order which would lead to the tearing up of this end of the house? I could not do this without fuller explanations than I could give in a telegram. Besides, he was under sufficient pressure just now for me to spare him the consideration of so disturbing a matter, especially as he had left a substitute behind whose business it was, not only to relieve Mrs. Packard in regard to the libelous paragraph, but in all other directions to which his attention might be called. I would see Mr. Steele; he would surely be able to think up some scheme by which that aperture might be investigated without creating too much disturbance in the house.
An opportunity for doing this was not long in presenting itself. Mr. Steele came in about nine o’clock and passed at once into the study. The next moment I was knocking at his door, my heart in any mouth, but my determination strung up to the point of daring anything and everything for the end I had in view.
Fortunately he came to the door; I could never have entered without his encouragement. As I met his eye I was ashamed of the color my cheeks undoubtedly showed, but felt reconciled the next minute, for he was not quite disembarrassed himself, though he betrayed it by a little extra paleness rather than by a flush, such as had so disturbed myself. Both of us were quite natural in a moment, however, and answering his courteous gesture I stepped in and at once opened up my business.
“You must pardon me,” said I, “for this infringement upon the usual rules of this office. I have something very serious to say about Mrs. Packard — oh, she’s quite well; it has to do with a matter I shall presently explain — and I wish to make a request.”
“Thank you for the honor,” he said, drawing up a chair for me.
But I did not sit, neither did I speak for a moment. I was contemplating his features and thinking how faultless they were.
“I hardly know where to begin,” I ventured at last. “I am burdened with a secret, and it may all appear puerile to you. I don’t know whether to remind you first of Mayor Packard’s intense desire to see his wife’s former cheerfulness restored — a task in which I have been engaged to assist — or to plunge at once into my discoveries, which are a little peculiar and possibly important, in spite of my short acquaintance with the people under this roof and the nature of my position here.”
“You excite me,” were his few quick but sharply accentuated words. “What secret? What discoveries? I didn’t know that the house held any that were worth the attention of sensible persons like ourselves.”
I had not been looking at him directly, but I looked up at this and was astonished to find that his interest in what I had said was greater than appeared from his tone or even from his manner.
“You know the cause of Mrs. Packard’s present uneasiness?” I asked.
“Mayor Packard told me — the paragraph which appeared in yesterday morning’s paper. I have tried to find out its author, but I have failed so far.”
“That is a trifle,” I said. “The real cause — no, I prefer to stand,” I put in, for he was again urging me by a gesture to seat myself.
“The real cause —” he repeated.
“— is one you will smile at, but which you must nevertheless respect. She thinks — she has confided to us, in fact — that she has seen, within these walls, what many others profess to have seen. You understand me, Mr. Steele?”
“I don’t know that I do, Miss Saunders.”
“I find it hard to speak it; you have heard, of course, the common gossip about this house.”
“That it is haunted?” he smiled, somewhat disdainfully.
“Yes. Well, Mrs. Packard believes that she has seen what — what gives this name to the house.”
“A ghost?”
“Yes, a ghost — in the library one night.”
“Ah!”
The ejaculation was eloquent. I did not altogether understand it, but its chief expression seemed to be contempt. I began to fear he would not have sufficient sympathy with such an unreasoning state of mind to give me the attention and assistance I desired. He saw the effect it had upon me and hastened to say:
“The impression Mrs. Packard has made upon me was of a common-sense woman. I’m sorry to hear that she is the victim of an hallucination. What do you propose to do about it? — for I see that you have some project in mind.”
Then I told him as much of my story as seemed necessary to obtain his advice and to secure his cooperation. I confided to him my theory of the unexplainable sights and sounds which had so unfortunately aroused Mrs. Packard’s imagination, and what I had done so far to substantiate it. I did not mention the bonds, nor tell him of Bess and her box, but led him to think that my experiments in the cellar had been the result of my discoveries in the side entrance.
He listened gravely — I hardly feel justified in saying with a surprise that was complimentary. I am not sure that it was. Such men are difficult to understand. When I had finished, he remarked with a smile:
“So you conclude that the floor of this place is movable and that the antiquated ladies you mention have stretched their old limbs in a difficult climb, just for the game of frightening out tenants they did not desire for neighbors?”
“I know that it sounds ridiculous,” I admitted, refraining still, in spite of the great temptation, from mentioning the treasure which it was the one wish of their lives to protect from the discovery of others. “If they were quite sane I should perhaps not have the courage to suggest this explanation of what has been heard and seen here. But they are not qu............