The House 'Round the Corner. Louis Tracy

to the gate a second time, and looked along the bold curve of the moorland road. She shook her head. Her mother joined her, and the two went to their cottage.

      Armathwaite smiled, and resolved to keep his knowledge of the Jacksons' behavior to himself. He did not wish to quarrel with the women, who would be useful in many ways. In a day or two, when he had won their confidence, they would doubtless explain their queer proceedings; most likely, the explanation would prove so simple that it would never occur to a suspicious mind.

      Having waited to fill his pipe, he entered the village, and walked up the narrow path to Mrs. Jackson's abode. He was met at the door by Betty. She seemed to be rather alarmed by the visit, yet pleased to see him.

      "Can we do anything for you, sir?" she said. "Mother and I went to the house a while ago, but you were out."

      In the oblique Yorkshire way she had partly told the reason of the visit. Mrs. Jackson, too, came and stood near her daughter, and it was curious to note the underlook of alarm, of poignant anxiety, in both faces.

      "I wish to make your acquaintance, and to inquire about milk, butter, and eggs," he said pleasantly. "Mr. Walker suggested that you might be willing to attend to household matters, and that would take a burden off my mind."

      "We'll be pleased to do it, and reasonable, too, sir," said Mrs. Jackson promptly.

      "Very well. Come and see me in the morning. Meanwhile, can you arrange for a quart of milk, a pound of butter, and a few eggs to be sent in immediately?"

      "Oh, yes, sir," said both together, and the expression of relief in the one face was mirrored in the other.

      "You'll be wanting something cooked now, sir?" went on the older woman, with a new cheerfulness of tone, and Armathwaite would have been a far less capable student of human nature than he was had he failed to see that a much desired entry to the house was now regarded as an assured thing. Suddenly he made up his mind to solve the enigma, whatever it might be, since the theory of a spare bed being in request did not seem to fit the case.

      "No," he said carelessly, treating the proposal as of slight import, one way or the other. "I wish to be alone this evening. But you can come in early to-morrow. Isn't there a spare key?"

      "Yes, sir," broke in the girl, for her mother was utterly nonplussed again. "It's on the bunch with the others."

      He produced the keys from his pocket, and saw that there were two alike.

      "One of these?" he inquired, meeting the girl's eyes in a steady glance. Then he was sure of his ground. She was so excited that she could hardly answer. He gave her the key, ascertained that she would bring the milk and the rest in a few minutes, and left the two women staring after him.

      Betty was as good as her word. She made no attempt to prolong her stay, but deposited her purchases on the hall-table, and promised that she or her mother would come about seven in the morning.

      "Will you need to be called, sir?" she inquired, as an afterthought.

      "Well, yes. I'm a sound sleeper," he assured her gravely.

      The statement was true, but it required qualification. A man who had slept many a night under conditions that demanded instant wakefulness if any sinister sound threatened his very existence, did not rank in the class of sound sleepers known to quiet Elmdale.

      Thereafter he cooked a meal of eggs and bacon, tea and toast, smoked, rambled in the garden, read, thought a good deal, and went to bed.

      The light in his room was extinguished soon after ten o'clock. About half-past eleven, little more than twelve hours from the time he had first heard of "the house 'round the corner," he was aroused by a loud crash in the hall. He was up in an instant, laughing at the success of a booby trap compacted of the Burmese gong, some thread, and a piece of wood set as a trigger. His feet were not on the floor before the front door banged, and, hurrying to the window, he saw Betty Jackson flying down the path for dear life. He could not be mistaken. In that northern latitude a midsummer night is never wholly dark. He not only recognized the girl, but could note her heaving shoulders as she sobbed hysterically in her flight.

      "I'm sorry if you're badly scared, my country maid, but you asked for it," he said aloud. "Now I think I'll be left to undisturbed slumber till seven o'clock."

      Therein he erred. He had not quitted the window, being held by the solemn beauty of the gray landscape, ere a heavy thud, and then another, and yet a third, reached his ears. He might not have localized the first, but its successors came unmistakably from the attic. After a few seconds, the three knocks were repeated, and now he adjudged them to the precise bounds of the trap-door.

      Slipping an automatic pistol into the pocket of his pyjama suit—merely as a precaution against the unforeseen, though he was a man devoid of fear, he took an electric torch from a drawer, but knew better than to bring it into use until its glare would disconcert others—not himself. He thrust his bare feet into slippers, unlocked the bedroom door, and passed out on to the landing.

      "Now to unveil Isis!" he thought, as he felt for the first step of the upward stairway. It needed one of steel nerve and fine courage to creep about a strange house in the dark—a house where ill deeds had been done, and in which their memories lurked—but Robert Armathwaite had gone through experiences which reduced the present adventure to the proportions of a somewhat startling prank, closely akin to the success of the stratagem which had routed Betty Jackson.

      And, as he mounted the stairs, keeping close to the wall, and thus preventing the old boards from creaking, again came those ominous knocks, louder, more insistent; but whether threatening or merely clamorous he could not decide—yet.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

A MIDNIGHT SEANCE

       Table of Contents

      Armathwaite had a foot on the upper landing when a stifled sob reached his ears, and a determined, almost angry, stamping or hammering shook the trap-door. One element, then, of the mystery attached to this reputedly ghost-ridden house was about to be dispelled. When James Walker shot the bolt which rendered the door as unyielding as the stout rafters which incased it, he had unwittingly imprisoned someone in the attic loft; and the someone, tiring of imprisonment, was making loud demand for release. Moreover, Betty Jackson was in the secret. She knew of the intruder's presence, but had not learnt the particular mode of concealment adopted—hence her renewed efforts to gain admission, her use of the ladder, and her somewhat daring visit during the dead hours of the night.

      Now, Armathwaite scouted the notion of a couple of village women like Mrs. Jackson and her daughter being in league with midnight robbers, or worse. Even if some thievery was in prospect, they could not possibly have arranged that certain unknown miscreants should hide beneath the roof, since the arrival of Walker with an unexpected tenant was evidently the last thing they had dreamed of.

      Therefore, smiling at the humor of the incident, he had to simulate a sternness he was far from feeling when he cried:

      "Stop making that noise! Who are you, and how did you come to get yourself locked in in this way?"

      "Please let me out!" came the muffled reply. "I'll explain everything—I will, indeed!"

      Thereupon, Armathwaite was more surprised than ever. The appeal, though tearful and husky, was precisely opposite in character to that which he anticipated. He looked for gruff entreaty in the accents of the country of broad acres. What he actually heard was a cultured voice, a voice with a singularly soft and musical enunciation, and its note was of complaint rather than petition.

      "All right!" he cried, hardly suppressing a laugh. "I'll bring a chair and draw the bolt. I suppose you can lower the ladder yourself?"

      "Of