Tom Ossington's Ghost

Madge pursed her lips and frowned.

"I've been thinking about that since, and I don't at all see why we should take it for granted. One thing's certain, the room is honeycombed with possible hiding-places. There are hollows behind the wainscot, the walls themselves sound hollow. That unhappy man can hardly have found a part of the house better adapted to his purpose."

"See there-what's that?" Ella was pointing to a kind of plaster cornice which ran round the room. "What are those things which are cut or moulded on that strip of beading, if it is beading, under the ceiling?"

"They look to me like some sort of ornamental bosses," said Graham.

"They certainly are neither cats or dogs," decided Madge.

"I'm not so sure of that; you know what extraordinary things they tell you are intended to represent things which are not in the least bit like them. Where's that paper? Jack, give me that paper."

Jack gave it her. She glanced at it.

"'Right'-I'll take up a position like you did last night, Mr. Graham, to the right of the door; 'cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-' now-"

"Well?" queried Madge, for Ella had stopped. "Now what?"

"I think," continued Ella, with evident dubitation, "that I'll again do what you did last night, Mr. Graham, and cross right over; though it says nothing about it here, but perhaps that was omitted on purpose." She marched straight across the room. "Now we'll take the first thing upon the beading, or whatever it is, to be a cat, and we'll count them alternately-cat-dog-the fifth dog."

"Very good," said Graham, standing close up to the wall and pointing with his outstretched hand, "Cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-here you are."

"Now, 'left eye-push.'"

"Or shove," suggested Jack.

"But there is no eye-whether left or otherwise."

"That's a detail," murmured Jack.

"Let me see." Ella clambered on to a chair. From that position of vantage she examined the protuberances in question.

"There really does seem nothing which could represent an eye; the things look more like knuckle-bones than anything else."

"What's the odds? Let's all get hammers and whack the whole jolly lot of them in the eye, or where, if right is right, it ought to be. And then, if nothing happens-and we'll hope to goodness nothing will-we'll whack 'em again."

"I'm afraid, Ella," put in Madge, "that your cats and dogs are merely suppositions. I vote, by way of doing something practical, that we start stripping the wainscot. You'll find hiding-places enough' behind that, and it's quite on the cards, something in them."

"Certainly," assented Jack, "I am on. Bring out your hatchets, pickaxes, crowbars, and other weapons of war, and we'll turn up our shirt-sleeves, and shiver our timbers, and not leave one splinter of wood adhering to another. Buck up, Graham! Take off your coat, my boy! You're going to begin to enjoy yourself at last, I give you my word."

Ella, possibly slightly exacerbated by the failure of her little suggestion, endeavoured to snub the exuberant Mr. Martyn.

"I don't know if you think you're funny, Jack, because you're only silly. If you can't be serious, perhaps you'd better go; then, if we do find something, you'll have no share."

"Upon my Sam!" cried Jack, "if that ain't bitter hard. If there's any sharing going on, I don't care what it is, if there's any man who wants his bit of it more than I do, I should like you to point him out. Ella, my dearest Ella, I do assure you, by the token of those peerless charms-"

"Jack, don't be silly."

"I think," insinuated Madge, "that you and I, Mr. Graham, had better go and fetch a chisel and a hammer."

They went. When they returned, bearing those useful implements, however the discussion might have gone, Mr. Martyn showed no signs of being crushed.

"Give me that chisel," he exclaimed. "You never saw a man handle a tool like me-and to the last day of your life you'll never see another. I'm capable of committing suicide while hammering in a tack."

"Thank you, Jack," said Madge; "but I think carpentering may be within the range of Mr. Graham's capacity rather than yours."

At least Mr. Graham showed himself capable of stripping the wainscot, though with the tools at his command-those being limited to the hammer and the chisel, with occasional help from the poker-it was not so easy a business as it might have been. It took some time. And, as none of the hoped-for results ensued-nothing being revealed except the wall behind-it became a trifle tedious. Eleven o'clock struck, and still a considerable portion of the wainscot was as before.

"Might I ask," inquired Jack, "if this is going to be an all night job; because I have to be at the office in the morning, and I should like to have some sleep before I start."

Graham surveyed the work of devastation.

"I will finish this side, and then I think, Miss Brodie, we might leave the rest to another time-till to-morrow, say."

"I really don't see what's the use of doing it at all," said Ella. "I don't believe there's anything hidden in this room; and look at the mess, it will take hours to clear it up. And who wants to live in a place with bare brick walls? It gives me the horrors to look at them."

Madge looked at her, more in sorrow than in anger.

"I think, Mr. Graham, that perhaps you had better stop."

He detected the mournful intonation.

"At any rate, I'll finish this side."

He continued to add to the uncomfortable appearance of the room; for there certainly was something in what Ella said.

He had worked for another quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes, and had torn off three or four more strips of wood-for they had been firmly secured in their places, and took some tearing-and the others were gathered round them, assisting and looking on, momentarily expecting that something would come to light better worth having than dust and cobwebs, of which articles there were very much more than sufficient, when Ella gave a sudden exclamation.

"Madge! Jack!" she cried. "Who-who's this man?"

"What man?" asked Madge.

Turning, she saw.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CAUSE OF THE INTERRUPTION

What she saw, and what they saw, spoke eloquently of the engrossed attention with which they had watched the work of destruction being carried on. So absorbed had they been in Bruce Graham's proceedings that, actually without their knowledge, a burglarious entry had been all but effected into the very room in which they were.

There was the proof before them.

The window had been raised, the blind and curtains pushed away, and a man's head and shoulders thrust inside.

When Ella's exclamation called their attention to the intruder's presence, they stared at him, as well they might, for a moment or two with stupefied amazement; the impudence of the act seemed almost to surpass the bounds of credibility. He, on his part, met their gaze with a degree of fortitude, not to say assurance, which was more than a little surprising.

To the fellow's character his looks bore evidence. The buttoning of his coat up to his chin failed to conceal the fact that his neck was bare, while the crushing of a dilapidated billycock down over his eyes served to throw into clearer relief his unshaven cheeks and hungry-looking eyes.

For the space of perhaps thirty seconds they looked at him, and he at them, in silence. Then Jack moved hastily forward.