He had only

received her telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating

bore-dom; but the moment he touched her hand and kissed her apple-skin

wrinkled cheek, he caught the first wave of her electrical condition.

The impression deepened when he learned that there were to be no other

visitors, and that he had been telegraphed for with a very special

object.

Something was in the wind, and the “something” would doubtless bear

fruit; for this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for psychical

research, had brains as well as willpower, and by hook or by crook she

usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon

after tea, when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along

the sea-front in the dusk.

“I’ve got the keys,” she announced in a delighted, yet half awesome

voice. “Got them till Monday!”

“The keys of the bathing-machine, or—?” he asked innocently,

looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her so quickly to

the point as feigning stupidity.

“Neither,” she whispered. “I’ve got the keys of the haunted house

in the square—and I’m going there to-night.”

Shorthouse was conscious of the slightest possible tremor down his

back. He dropped his teasing tone. Something in her voice and manner

thrilled him. She was in earnest.

“But you can’t go alone—” he began.

“That’s why I wired for you,” she said with decision.

He turned to look at her. The ugly, lined, enigmatical face was

alive with excitement. There was the glow of genuine enthusiasm round

it like a halo. The eyes shone. He caught another wave of her

excitement, and a second tremor, more marked than the first,

accompanied it.

“Thanks, Aunt Julia,” he said politely; “thanks awfully.”

“I should not dare to go quite alone,” she went on, raising her

voice; “but with you I should enjoy it immensely. You’re afraid of

nothing, I know.”

“Thanks so much,” he said again. “Er—is anything likely to

happen?”

“A great deal has happened,” she whispered, “though it’s been most

cleverly hushed up.

Three tenants have come and gone in the last few months, and the

house is said to be empty for good now.”

In spite of himself Shorthouse became interested. His aunt was so

very much in earnest.

“The house is very old indeed,” she went on, “and the story—an

unpleasant one—dates a long way back. It has to do with a murder

committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in

the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and

when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants’ quarters,

chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come

to the rescue threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall

below.”

“And the stableman—?”

“Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder; but it all happened

a century ago, and I’ve not been able to get more details of the

story.”

Shorthouse now felt his interest thoroughly aroused; but, though he

was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his

aunt’s account.

“On one condition,” he said at length.

“Nothing will prevent my going,” she said firmly; “but I may as

well hear your condition.”

“That you guarantee your power of self-control if anything really

horrible happens. I mean— that you are sure you won’t get too

frightened.”

“Jim,” she said scornfully, “I’m not young, I know, nor are my

nerves; but with you I should be afraid of nothing in the world!”

This, of course, settled it, for Shorthouse had no pretensions to

being other than a very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his

vanity was irresistible.