whatever. But now that I found myself actually looking at one—or at least looking at what, in that frightful moment, I potently believed to be one—I was petrified with terror.
"It was sitting at my desk, right where I'd been sitting all evening, and its back was toward me. The moon had risen and was shining through the windows, brightening the room with a pale half-light.
"The figure at the desk appeared to be writing. In fact, I could hear the scratching of the pen. I could also hear the ticking of a small clock on the desk. That's how still everything was.
"Well, it sat there writing—a blurred, shapeless object in the silvery moonlight—for I don't know how long. It seemed an age! And all the time I was conscious—terrifyingly so—that I was alone in that great house with it!"
Mrs. Peyton paused and took the photograph from the desk.
"Instinctively, I tried to scream," she went on, "but my throat was parched and I seemed unable to utter a sound. However, I must have made some sort of noise, for the thing suddenly turned and looked at me over its shoulder. And for the first time, I saw its face."
"What was the face like?" asked Barry.
She handed him the photograph.
"That's a picture of it," she said.
It was a kodak "snapshot" of an aged man with flowing white hair and a patriarchal beard. Turning it over, Barry saw written on the back, "Willard Clayberg, December, 1922."
"It's Mr. Clayberg's last picture," said Mrs. Peyton. "I obtained it this morning from one of his grandsons. It was taken last winter, shortly before the dreadful tragedy at our house."
"Getting back to last night?" reminded Barry.
"Oh, yes! Well, the thing sat there, quite silent and motionless, staring at me through the moonlight. Its face was the same as the one in that picture, only, somehow, it didn't seem real. It was peculiarly pallid and lifeless—like the face of a dead person.
"Finally I found my voice and cried out: 'Who are you? What are you doing here?'
"Instantly the thing rose from the desk, without making a particle of sound, and glided swiftly and silently. across the room—and disappeared!
"That seemed to revive my courage—the thought that I had frightened it away—and I sprang from bed and ran to the door.
"The door was still locked! I tried the windows. They were still bolted. Neither the door nor the windows had been touched. Everything in the room, in fact, was just as I had left it upon going to bed.
"Then I crossed to my desk and lit the lamp there and found—this!" Mrs. Peyton offered the sheet of note paper, which she had been nervously. fingering.
Barry unfolded it and read the words scrawled upon its blue surface:
"Again I warn you to leave this house. This is the last—"
"When I interrupted him," explained Mrs. Peyton, "he apparently had just written the word, 'last.'"
Barry nodded and narrowly examined the handwriting. It was old-style script, angular and shaky, indicative of a very aged and infirm person.
"Have you the notes received by Mr. Peyton and the cook?"
"No; but I saw them. Both were written in the same hand as that," indicating the sheet of blue paper.
Barry again looked at the photograph, holding it to the light and inspecting it closely. Suddenly he asked:
"What sort of clothing did your visitor wear?"
‘*Why, as I remember, he wore a sort of long gray robe and a queer little cap—a skullcap, maybe. But it was all very blurred and indistinct. He seemed to be enveloped in a kind of gray mist. With his white hair and beard, the effect was quite 'creepy.'"
"Anything else happen last night?"
"Nothing—except that I passed the rest of the night trying to solve the riddle. The first thing I did, after finding the note, was to try the door and windows again—and I again made sure they hadn't been touched. I knew positively that nobody could get in the room except through the door or windows, so how had the old man entered?
"I was still hunting an answer to that question, and growing more perplexed than ever, when I heard a heavy footfall on the front porch; then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and my husband came bounding noisily upstairs. I knew from this he had seen the light at my window, even before he called to me reprovingly through the bedroom door: 'Haven't you turned in yet? It's 'way after one o'clock.'
"It was then I decided to say nothing to him about what happened. And I haven't.
"But this morning, as soon as he'd left for the office, I called on Mrs. Parker and told her everything. She suggested that I see you. I hesitated, at first to do this, because only yesterday I spoke to Mr. Peyton about calling in the police or employing a detective to investigate the mystery, and he vigorously objected. He really believed the thing was supernatural and declared that no living person could overcome it. The only thing to do, he said, was to leave the house as the 'spirit' commanded.
"I finally decided, however, to follow Mrs. Parker's suggestion, particularly as she recommended you so highly—and so, quite unknown to my husband, here I am!
"And now, Mr. Barry," said Mrs. Peyton, sitting back in her chair for the first time and moving her white hands in a pretty gesture of relief, "what do you make of it all?"
Barry, examining the feeble handwriting beneath a reading-glass, discerned what appeared to be a startling solution of the mystery; but, deeming it best for the moment to say nothing of this, he offered an obvious answer to her question:
"From what you have told me, Mrs. Peyton, it would seem that an unknown person, concealed in your house, is bent on frightening you away."
"But I've thoroughly searched the house," she protested, "not once, but several times; and I know positively that nobody is hidden there—and that nobody has broken in. Besides, even if the old man was in the house, or had broken in, how did he enter my room last night?"
"Perhaps, after I've inspected the room—"
"Can you do it, without Mr. Peyton knowing?"
"Quite easily, I think, with our help. Since you are in need of servants, my presence can readily be explained—"
"Why, of course!" she eagerly interrupted. "Our new houseman! It will seem quite, plausible, too," she added, rising and glancing at her watch, "particularly since I've just engaged a new cook—who is waiting for me now, by the way, in my car. We had best start at once, Mr. Barry. It’s nearly one, and my husband is usually home before six."
. . . . A little later, as the Peyton limousine smartly threaded its way through the downtown streets, Barry, sitting on the front seat beside the chauffeur, planned a procedure that would either substantiate, or explode, his tentative explanation of the white-bearded "ghost."
His first step was taken immediately: At a State Street department store he secretly bought a pad of cheap writing paper, a package of ungummed envelopes, ten two-cent stamps, a thick lead
