The Room with the Tassels

“You’re all right, Milly,” Norma reassured her, “you let yourself go all you want to. Don’t overdo your restraint. I’ll look after you.”

“Yes, do, Norma. Don’t let Eve come near me. I can’t stand her!”

“Why? You mustn’t be unjust to Eve. She behaved splendidly at that awful time.”

“Yes, I know. But if it hadn’t been for Eve we never would have come up here at all.”

“Oh, Milly, that isn’t fair! We all agreed to come here. It wasn’t Eve’s doing any more than mine!”

“Yes, it was. But, look here, Norma, tell me truly. What do you think killed Mr. Bruce and Vernie?”

“I don’t know, Milly, dear. You know I do believe in psychics and in spiritism and in the return to earth of the souls of people who have died, but – I can’t believe that any such spirit would kill an innocent child, or a fine old man. I can’t believe it!”

“But why not, Norma? If you believe in the return to earth of good spirits, why not bad spirits, as well? And if so, why couldn’t they kill people, if they want to?”

“You sound logical, Milly, but it’s absurd.”

“No, it isn’t. You and Eve believe in good spirits and in their power to do good. Why not, then, in bad spirits and their power to do evil?”

“Let up, Milly,” begged Landon, who stood near by. “She’s been going on like that, Norma, ever since I told her. Can’t you explain to her – ”

“Explain what?”

“Lord! I don’t know! But make her see how impossible it is that the ghost of that woman who killed her husband here so long ago, should have any reason to do away with two modern present-day people!”

“But I want to think so, Wynne,” and Milly’s eyes stared with a peculiar light. “I’d rather think they were killed by that ghost than by a person, – wouldn’t you?”

“What do you mean, Milly? Murdered?”

“Yes, Eve. That’s what it must have been, if not spirits. They had no mortal disease, either of them.”

“Don’t mention that before any one else,” admonished Eve, very seriously. “There are other explanations, Milly. Many deaths have been brought about by sudden fright or by continuous apprehension of imaginary danger. Vernie had been warned twice. True, I didn’t think of four in the afternoon, but doubtless she did, and maybe, seeing the sudden attack of Mr. Bruce, so startled her that she thought of the four o’clock doom and gave way herself.”

“She might give way to the extent of fainting, or a fit of hysterics,” admitted Milly, “but not to the extent of dropping dead! It’s unthinkable, – it’s unbelievable – ”

“It’s almost unbelievable that they should be dead,” Eve said, softly, “but as to how they died, let’s not speculate, dear. I suppose we must have a doctor up from New York, – what do you think, Mr. Landon?”

“Eh? – oh, I don’t know, – I’m sure I don’t know.”

“But you’ll have to take charge, won’t you?” asked Eve. “You two are really the heads of this house – ”

“All I want is to get away,” moaned Milly. “When can we go, Wynne?”

“I don’t know, dear. Say, Eve, won’t you take Milly down to-night? I can’t leave, of course, but I daren’t keep her here, lest she go to pieces. You take her home, – there’s a train in about an hour.”

“Oh, I can’t. I want to stay here. Send Norma, – no, she’s no good, – perhaps Mr. Tracy will take Milly down. He’s awfully kind, and ready to do anything.”

As Milly declared herself now willing, the three went downstairs. They found the others in the hall, the Doctor still there, and the tea things still about. Eve gave Milly some tea, and took some herself.

“I’ll have to call in the coroner,” Doctor Wayburn was saying; “it isn’t apparently a murder, and yet it’s a mysterious death, – they both are. Yes, the county physician must be summoned.”

The Doctor had gotten over the first panic of surprise, and began to feel a sense of importance. Such a case had never come near him before, and the whole affair gave him a pleasant feeling of responsibility and foreshadowed his prominence in the public eye.

The suggestion of a coroner was resented by all who listened, but the Doctor’s word was law in the case, so they unwillingly consented.

“I think I’d better go down to New York to-night,” said Braye. “There are so many things to see to, so many people to notify, the reporters to look after, and – undertaking arrangements to be made. Unless you want to go, Wynne?”

“No,” said Landon, “it’s better for you, Rudolph. But I wish you’d take Milly. Take her to her mother’s and let her get out of this atmosphere. Will you go, Milly?”

“I did want to, Wynne, when I was upstairs. But, now, with people all about, – if Norma will stay here, too, I’d rather stay with you. When are you going down, Wynne?”

“I don’t know, dear. We’ll have to see how things turn out. Well, you go ahead, Rudolph, you’ll have to hustle to get over to the train. And there are a few matters I wish you’d look after for me.”

The two men went off to discuss these matters, and then Doctor Wayburn, who had been telephoning, announced that the coroner could not come until the next day, as he was in another township attending to some duties.

“And I’m glad of it,” said Eve, “for we’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

And so, by ten or eleven o’clock, the house was locked up and the members of the household gone to bed, all except old Thorpe, who sat in the great hall, with the two doors open into the rooms where the still, tragic figures lay. Before him, on a table, Hester had placed coffee and sandwiches, and the old man sat, brooding on the awful events of the afternoon.

CHAPTER VIII

By What Means

The night was full of restlessness. Tracy and Professor Hardwick, in their adjoining rooms, were the only ones in the wing that had the night before also housed Braye and Gifford Bruce.

“Shall we leave the door between open?” Tracy asked, more out of consideration for the Professor’s nerves than his own.

“Yes, if you will. And don’t go to bed yet. I can’t sleep, I know, and I must discuss this thing with somebody, or go mad!”

“All right, sir,” and Tracy took off his coat and donned an old-fashioned dressing-gown.

Hardwick smiled. “That’s the first ministerial garb I’ve seen you wear,” he said. “I’d pick that up for a dominie’s negligé every time!”

“I’m rather attached to the old dud,” and Tracy patted it affectionately. “Queer, how one comes to love a worn garment. No, I don’t wear clerical togs when off on a vacation. I used to, till some one told me it cast a restraint over the others, and I hate to feel I’m doing that.”

“You’d never do that, my friend. You’ve a natural tact that ought to carry you far toward general popularity. But, tell me, as man to man, how do you size up this awful mystery?”

“I don’t know, Professor. At times my mind’s a blank, – and then, I get a hint or, – well, I can’t call it a suspicion, – but a thought, say, in one direction, and it’s so fearfully absurd, I discard it at once. Then comes another idea, only to be dismissed like the first. What do you think?”

“I am a complete convert to the supernatural. You know, Sir Oliver Lodge and many other scientists only believed after they had had undeniable personal experience. Now, here were warnings, – definite, positive prophecies, and they were fulfilled. What more can any one ask?”

Tracy mused over this. “I know that,” he said, at last, “but I can’t quite swallow it whole, like that. Do you mean there was no physical cause? Such as fright, expectant attention, – ”

“Expectant attention is a fine phrase, – much like auto-suggestion. They are all right as far as they go, but they can’t go to the extent of killing people. Then again, suggest even a theory, even a possible means of the death of those two by any human agency. Murder is out of the question, – suicide even more so. And they had no desire to end their lives. A young girl, happily looking forward to gaiety and pleasure, – a man in the prime of life, hale, rich, prosperous – no, they had no wish to die!”

“True enough; but I can’t quite see it. Why did the spirits want to kill them? if spirits did kill them?”

“For interfering with this haunted house, – in a frivolous and flippant way. I’ve always heard that departed souls bitterly resent scoffing, or merely curious investigation.”