“I thought I saw him sneaking across the hall that night. And as you know, none of us would have done it, and I don’t think Mr. Bruce did. I thought that at first, but since Mr. Bruce’s death, I know he never played any tricks on us.”
“Oh, that doesn’t follow,” objected Hardwick. “I always suspected Bruce would trick us if he could, but when it came to his own death, I’ve no notion that he compassed that!”
“No,” agreed Braye, “whatever the truth may be, there was no suicide.”
And so they talked, discussed, surmised, argued and theorized, without getting any nearer a positive belief, or proof of any sort to uphold their opinions.
Each seemed to have marked out a certain line of thought and doggedly stuck to it.
Professor Hardwick was, perhaps, the one most positive regarding supernatural causes, though Eve and Norma were almost equally certain.
Braye and Landon were not entirely willing to accept these beliefs, but confessed they had no plausible substitutes to suggest. Tracy, as a clergyman, was loth to accept what seemed to him heathen ideas, but he was more or less influenced by the talk of the Professor and of Eve Carnforth, who was exceedingly persuasive in manner and argument.
Milly had little thought of her own about the matter, but was always ready to believe as her husband did, though, she, too, was swayed by the strong statements and declarations of Eve Carnforth.
But Dan Peterson paid no more heed to ghost lore of any sort or kind than as if the words had not been spoken. Miss Carnforth’s glib recital of wonders she knew to be true, Miss Cameron’s quiet statements that she vouched for as facts, the Professor’s irascible arguments, all were as nothing to the practical, hard-headed detective.
“No, ma’am,” he said to Eve; “it ain’t that I doubt your word, but those things don’t go down. I’ve seen criminals before, try to get out by blaming ghosts, but they couldn’t put it over.”