Tom Ossington's Ghost

"He came in through the back window and left through the front?"

"That's it."

"And he took nothing?"

"No-but he left something behind him-he left this."

Madge produced the half-sheet of paper which Ella had picked up from the floor.

"You're sure this was his property?"

"I'm sure it isn't ours, and I'm sure we found it in this room just after he left it."

The officer took the paper; read it, turned it over and over; looked it up and down; read it again. Then he gave his mouth a rather comical twist; then he looked at Madge with eyes which he probably intended to be pregnant with meaning.

"Hum!" He paused to cogitate. "I suppose you know there's been a burglary here before?"

"I know nothing of the kind. We have only been here six weeks, and are quite strangers to the place."

"There was. Something more than a year ago. The house was empty at the time. The man who did it was caught at the job-and our chap got pretty well knocked about for his pains. But that wasn't the only time we've had business at this house; our fellows have been here a good many times."

"Neither my friend or I had the slightest notion that the house had such a reputation."

"I daresay not. It's been empty a good long time. I expect the stories which were told about it were against its letting."

"What sort of stories?"

"All sorts-nonsense, most of them."

"Were the people who lived here named Ossington?"

"Ossington?" The officer screwed his mouth up into the comical twist which it seemed he had a trick of giving it. "I believe it was, or, at any rate, something like it. A queer lot they were-very."

"Do you see what's written as a heading on that piece of paper?"

The officer's glance returned to the writing.

"'Tom Ossington's Ghost!'-yes, I noticed it, but I don't know what it means-do you?"

"Except that if the name of the people who lived here last was Ossington, it would seem as if last night's affair had some reference to the house's former occupants."

"Yes-it would look as if it had-when you come to look at it in that way." He was studying it as if now he had made up his mind to understand it clearly. "It looks as if it was some sort of cryptogram, and yet it mightn't be-it's hard to tell." He wagged his head. "I'll take it to our chaps, and see what they can make of it. Some men are better at this sort of thing than others." Folding up the paper he placed it in his pocket-book. "Am I to understand that you can give no description of the burglar-that there's no one you suspect?"

"I don't know that it amounts to suspicion-but there was a man hanging about here in rather a singular fashion whom I can't help thinking might have had a finger in the pie."

"Can you describe him?"

"He was about my height-I'm five feet six and a half-thick set, and I noticed he walked in a sort of rolling way; I thought he was drunk at first, but I don't believe he was. He kept his hands in his trousers pockets, and he was very shabbily dressed, in an old black coat-I believe you call them Chesterfields-which was buttoned down the front right up to the chin-I doubt if he had a waistcoat; a pair of old patched trousers-and I'm under the impression that his boots were odd ones. He had an old black billycock hat, with no band on, crammed over his eyes, iron-grey hair, and a fortnight's growth of whiskers on his cheeks and chin. He had a half impudent, half hang-dog air-altogether just the sort of person to try his hand at this sort of thing."

"I'll take down that description, if you'll repeat it."

She did repeat it-and he did take it down, with irritating slowness. When she had finished he read what he had written, tapping his teeth with the end of his pencil and looking most important.

"I shouldn't be surprised if you've laid your finger on the very man-and if we lay our fingers on him before the day is over. You will excuse my saying, miss, that you've got the faculty of observation-marked. I couldn't have given a better description of a chap myself-and I've been a bit longer at the game than you have. Now I'll just go through the place once more, and then I'll go; and then in due course you'll hear from us again."

He did go through the place once more-and he did go.

"Now," observed Madge to herself, as she watched him going down the road, "all that remains, is for us in due course to hear from you again-to some effect-and that, if you're the sort of blunderbuss I take you to be, will be never."

Turning from the window, she looked about the room, speaking half in jest and half in earnest.

"This is a delightful state of things-truly! It seems as if we couldn't have found a more undesirable habitation, if we had tried Petticoat Lane. Not the first burglar that's been in the place! And the house well known to the police-not to speak of a sinister reputation in all the country side! Charming! Clover Cottage seems to be an ideal place of residence for two lone, lorn young women. The abode of mystery, and, so far as I can make out, a sink of crime, one wonders if it still waits to become the scene of some ghastly murder to give to the situation its crowning touches. I shiver-or, at any rate, I ought to shiver-when I reflect on the horrors with which I may be, and probably am, surrounded!"

Ella returned earlier than the day before, and, this time, she came alone. The question burst from her lips the instant she was in the house.

"Well, has anything happened?"

"Nothing-of importance. It's true the police have been, but as it appears that they've been here over and over again before, that's a trifle. There's been at least one previous burglar upon the premises, and it seems that the house has been known to the police-and to the whole neighbourhood-for years, in the most disreputable possible sense."

Ella could but gasp.

"Madge!"

The statements which the officer had made were retailed, with comments and additions-and, it may be added, interpolations. Ella was more impressed even than Madge had been-being divided between concern and indignation.

"To think that we should have been inveigled into taking such a place! We ought to claim damages from those scamps of agents who let it us without a word of warning. You can't think how I have been worrying about you the whole day long; the idea of our being together in the place is bad enough, but the idea of your being alone in it is worse. What that policeman has said, settles it. Jack may laugh if he likes, but my mind is made up that I won't stop a moment longer in the house than I can help; the notion of your being all those hours alone here would worry me into the grave if nothing else did-and so I shall tell him when he comes."

Madge's manner was more equable.

"He will laugh at you, you'll find; and, unless I'm in error, here he is to do it."

As she spoke there was a vigorous knock at the front door.

CHAPTER VI

THE LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE

"Go," said Ella, as she hastened from the room, "and open the door, while I go upstairs and take my hat off."

Madge did as she was told. There were two persons at the door-Jack Martyn and another.

"This," said Jack, referring to his companion, "is a friend of mine."

It was dark in the passage, and Madge was a little flurried. She perceived that Jack had a companion, and that was all.

"Go into the sitting-room, I'll bring you a lamp in a minute. Ella has gone to take her hat off."

Presently, returning with the lighted lamp in her hand, placing it on the table, she glanced at Jack's companion-and stared. In her astonishment, she all but knocked the lamp over. Jack laughed.