"I saw written on the paper, in a sprawling hand, the words, 'Leave this House!' and I knew then that somebody had been in the room.
"I got up and tried the door. It was still locked and the key was in the hole, just as I had left it. The windows hadn’t been touched, apparently. How, then, had the person entered our room?
"My husband, of course, insisted it was not a living being, but a ghost, who could pass through a locked door as though it didn't exist. And, as before, he refused to look for it.
"Next day, however, with our cook and houseman, I thoroughly searched the house from top to bottom—and found nothing. No trace of anybody having entered the house. Nothing wrong anywhere.
"On Saturday night I was awakened again—this time by a frantic knocking on our bedroom door. I sat up, startled. My husband was sleeping soundly, exhausted after two sleepless nights.
"I slipped quietly from bed, without disturbing him, and tiptoed to the door and whispered through the panel:
"'Who's there?'
"The cook's voice answered, and I could tell by her tone she was terribly frightened:
"'It's me, ma'am. I'm leavin' this house tonight. I won’t stay here another minute!'
"I opened the door and stepped out in the hall—taking care not to awake Mr. Peyton—and found Clara fully dressed and holding her traveling-bag. It was evident she had dressed in considerable haste, and it was equally plain that she was almost paralyzed with fear.
"'I just seen a spook!' she gasped. 'An old man with white hair and whiskers. He come right in my room while I was asleep. I woke up and seen mm. And he writ somethin' on my dresser. You c'n see for yerself, ma'am, what he writ there.'
"FEARFUL of awakening my husband, I had drawn her away from the bedroom door; and now, with some difficulty, I persuaded her to follow me to her room, where I found, written in white chalk across the bureau mirror, the command: 'Leave here at once!'
"Clara was determined to obey this 'message from the dead' by leaving instantly. I couldn't induce her even to stay until morning. Despite my protests and entreaties, she fled from the house and passed the remainder of the night, as I later discovered, in the Hubbard Woods railroad station, taking an early train for Chicago.
"I tried to keep the occurrence from my husband, inventing an excuse for Clara's hasty departure, but he wormed the truth from me, and of course that further harassed his already overwrought nerves. Also, it gave him the right to say, 'I told you so!'
"He renewed his pleading to abandon the house; but I still refused to give it up—still refused to admit that it was 'haunted,' or that there was anything supernatural in what he and Clara had seen.
"It didn't end there, unhappily. On the very next night—that was night before last—the houseman was visited by the mysterious 'thing.' He said he saw it in his room, after midnight, stooping over his table, that he shouted at it and it disappeared. Then, so he told us, he got up and struck a light and discovered the 'ghost' had been trying to send a message to him by arranging some matches on the table.
"He showed us these matches, saying he had left them just as they were found. They were so placed as to spell the word, 'LEAVE,' in capital letters. Evidently the 'ghost' was frightened away before he could finish his sentence. Needless to say, the houseman left us.
"Well, in spite of all these things, I simply couldn't bring myself to believe that the mysterious visitations were supernatural. I was sure there must be some logical explanation. But last night—!"
"What happened last night?" asked Barry, as Mrs. Peyton paused.
Mrs. Peyton, still sitting forward in her chair, was searching in her reticule. Barry noticed her fingers were unsteady and that her underlip was caught between her teeth to still its quivering.
"Last night," she went on, with a transparent effort at lightness, "I saw the 'ghost'! Please don't smile! I was quite wide awake when I saw it—as wide awake as I am this moment—and in full possession of all my wits. And I can't understand yet how it got in my room, or how it got out, or even what it was.
"I was alone in the house, too," she continued, taking a photograph from the reticule and placing it, face down, on the desk. "Yesterday afternoon Mr. Peyton telephoned from his office that he must stay downtown rather late to attend a meeting of building contractors and suggested that I come in to the city for dinner, and bring a friend and 'take in a show,' and meet him afterward. But I wasn't in the mood and told him I'd prefer to stay at home.
"'But I won't be home before twelve o'clock,' he said, 'and I don't like the idea of your being all alone in that house at night, without even a servant on the place.'
"I reminded him that the chauffeur and gardener were still with us (they sleep in the garage and hadn't been alarmed by the 'spook'), and with these two and Mitch, our Scotch collie, to guard me I felt perfectly safe. As for the 'ghost,' I laughingly told him, I really would enjoy meeting it and having a chat on its astral adventures.
"He declined to unbend from his seriousness and became irritated when I refused to leave the house. We had quite a tiff, but I finally had my way, and the best he could get was a promise from me to lock myself in before going to bed. He said he would sleep in one of the guest chambers.
"After a pick-up meal in the kitchen, I went upstairs to our room and wrote letters until ten o'clock. Then I prepared for bed.
"For a moment I regretted not having done as my husband asked. The house did seem eerie; no denying that—big and dark and silent, and not a living creature in it except myself.
"But I quickly shook off this feeling, assuring myself there was no such thing as a ghost, and, even if there was, that it couldn't possibly harm me. However, remembering my promise, I locked the door and put the key under my pillow, and bolted all the windows, and, as an additional precaution, I looked under the bed and inspected both closets. And I knew absolutely, when I put out the light and got into bed, that I was the only person in that room.
"I was soon asleep," said Mrs. Peyton, again feeling in her handbag, "and it seemed only a few minutes later—though I know now it was several hours—when I found myself wide awake. I suppose it was the lack of fresh air that awoke me. I'm accustomed to sleeping with the windows open.
"I was on the point of getting up to open a window when, all at once, my blood seemed to freeze. I discovered, quite suddenly, I was not alone in the room!"
MRS. PEYTON paused and drew from the handbag a sheet of blue linen notepaper. Nervously creasing the paper in her slender white fingers, she continued, with heightening agitation, her large brown eyes earnestly watching the detective's face: "I won't deny, Mr. Berry, that I was frightened. In fact, I confess that I was so terrified I seemed utterly powerless to move or speak. I had always supposed if I ever should see a ghost I would feel no fear
