“Like a story book!” added Dick.
“And to think,” said Arden, “that if it hadn’t been for the little prank of Dot and Harry all this would never have been discovered.”
“My part as a ghost wouldn’t have,” said Viney grimly, “for I was planning to keep on scaring those men away if I could. I wasn’t going to give up until the Hall was so torn apart I couldn’t work my tricks any more. But I didn’t know anything about those hidden papers.”
“I guess no one did except the foolish man, now long dead, who hid them there,” said Granny. “Oh, why didn’t he have sense enough to put them in a bank or give them to a lawyer and then we wouldn’t have had all this trouble!”
“It wasn’t really trouble, Granny!” laughed Sim.
“No, we’ve had a wonderful time!” agreed Terry.
“I suppose you did play tricks in this ghost masquerade, Mrs. Tucker,” Harry said. “But how did you manage to get in and out of the house without being seen—especially when there was snow on the ground.”
“I went in and out through a secret tunnel that ends here in an old wine bin and outside in the smokehouse,” Mrs. Tucker said with a smile at the girls, who had once surprised her in the place where hams and bacon were cured.
“Oh, so you found the old secret passage, did you, Viney?” asked her cousin. “I never could.”
“Well, I did!” Once more Viney smiled. “And I kept it secret. There are two passages,” she went on. “One the tunnel and the other the chute I fell down just now.”