“No, Eve, I can’t do that.” Braye spoke positively. “When I’m up here with you psychists, and in this atmosphere of mystery,—and Lord knows ‘Black Aspens’ is mysterious!—I get swayed over toward spiritualism, but when I go down to the city and talk with rational, hard-headed men, I realize there’s nothing in this poppycock!”
“Oh, you do!” and Eve’s penetrating glance seemed to bore into his very soul, “then, pray, how do you explain the fact that Vernie—isn’t there?”
“I don’t know, Eve,—I don’t know. But some fiend in human shape must have managed to get into the house——”
“And get out again?” said Tracy, “and carry the body with him,—when Thorpe sat right here in the hall——”
“Where was Thorpe?” asked Braye, suddenly.
“In a chair there, by that table,” and Eve indicated a position well back in the great hall.
“Then he couldn’t see the doors of both rooms——” began Braye, but Professor Hardwick interrupted: “Nonsense, man, both doors were open, if any move had been made, Thorpe must have heard it.”
“Both doors open,” said Braye, “Norma, you said they were closed when you came down to breakfast.”
“I asked Thorpe about that,” said Tracy. “He told me that at daybreak, or soon after, he closed the doors, without looking in the rooms. He was scared, I think, though he won’t admit that. He says, he thought the ladies would be coming down and the doors better be closed.”
“That’s all right, but it’s strange that he didn’t glance into the rooms.”