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 A MIDNIGHT SEANCE 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
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