“Have you found anything yet?” Arden wanted to know.
“I only arrived a few minutes ago. Well, on with the ghost hunt! Stop in if you come past this way, and I’ll help you carry the holly branches home.”
“Oh, that will be fine!” called Terry. “I was wondering how we could carry enough to make really satisfactory decorations.”
“But I draw the line at a Yule Log!” stipulated the young millionaire, whose car, the girls now noticed, was parked near a big clump of lilac bushes that nearly concealed it. He had driven in from a direction opposite that which they had traversed and so they had not seen the tire marks.
“Did you come here this morning just to investigate?” pressed Arden as young Pangborn started away from the window and she and Terry were about to walk on.
“Well, I came to look into the matter of bird-feeding stations for the sanctuary Dr. Thandu wants to establish here, and so I decided I might also take in the Hall. It’s quite a place.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” quoted Terry tritely.
“Exactly! See you later!”
He waved a hand to them and disappeared back into the strange old house.
It was a little farther to the small grove, where the holly trees and bushes grew, than Arden realized and it was perhaps ten minutes after their good-bye to the ghost-hunter that the two girls found a thicket sufficiently large to ensure a good supply of branches with their lovely red berries and dark, prickly, glossy leaves. Holly is always just holly; hard, sharp, but magnificent on its trees.