“I agree with you, Nashby—as to the first. Very curious things do happen in some places—yes, very curious things. But as to there being no explaining them, or clearing them up—why I don’t go with you there. Now look here—I don’t say it to brag—but given time, and no interference, and it being made worth my while, I undertake to dis-ghost every haunted house in England.”
His keen face had lighted up. Nashby looked at him rather admiringly. The latter was an ordinary square-headed, broad-built policeman, who, unarmed, would have advanced to arrest an armed criminal without the smallest hesitation or wavering. But he was country born and bred, and country superstition is an ingrained thing.
“Well, Mr Varne, at that rate there’s a new line in front of you, and no mistake, and it ought to be a paying one,” he rejoined. “Why not begin on Heath Hover for one?”
“Because none of my conditions would apply to it. Time—that might—no interference, that certainly would not, for I should have to stay in the house for a while. And—making it worth it, would apply less still, since this Mervyn is only a tenant, doesn’t seem to care a damn about the haunting part, and is poor into the bargain you say?”
“Yes. He’s hasn’t got too much rhino. He was something in India and retired on a pension. He commuted about half of it to run an invention which he thought would make his fortune, and it didn’t.”
“Of course not. Inventions have been known to make fortunes, but practically never for the inventor. Now how could I get a look in at Heath Hover? It wouldn’t do as being concerned in this case, you know.”
“Oh Lord, no,” said the other, with some alacrity. “Why, it’s supposed to be dead and forgotten, and that’s just the stage at which we expect to be able to get something out of it—if we ever do at all, that is.”
“Hasn’t he got any old oak in the place? Panelling, doors—that sort of thing? Might work in on the connoisseur, scientific lay, don’t you see?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. Yes, now I think of it there’s rather a rum old fireplace. It’s in the room where the door is, too, and, now I think of it again, the door itself is rather a quaint affair, with a curious handle, and lock, and all that. You could ‘make up’ a bit. You know—look like a sort of scientific professor, and all that.”
“No. I don’t think I’ll make up. I’ll just chance it as I am. And I think, Nashby, that within the next day or two I shall have found out all about the inside of Heath Hover—as far as it concerns our case.”