“Tonight,” went on Viney Tucker, “when I feared some of you would roam about the place, I slipped over here through the tunnel to lock that closet door so you couldn’t get in. I heard footsteps up here. I looked out in the hall and saw the two ghosts—ghosts whose parts I had often played myself. I was so frightened that I screamed and ran back in here to hide. I couldn’t understand it. Then in my fright I touched the hidden spring and fell down the chute. But the trapdoor, through some defect, closed down on me and then sprang open again. And that ends the mystery. I suppose the tearing down of the Hall can now go on, and the chute and trapdoor will be destroyed with all the other things. Well, I don’t care, now that Hannah will get her money.”
“There is no further need for ghosts,” said Arden.
“Viney, I don’t know what to say to you!” exclaimed Granny. Her face was serious but not for long. She laughed and added: “What will people think when all this comes out?”
“There is no need for it to come out,” said Harry. “There is no need for anyone except ourselves knowing that Mrs. Tucker was the ghost. As for the old stories, they will always be told, I suppose—stories of Nathaniel Greene and Patience Howe. But they will gradually die down when the Hall is gone. So there is no reason why Mrs. Tucker need be exposed. We can keep the secret among ourselves.”
“I think that would be best,” Granny said. “Oh, what a wonderful Christmas this has been!” and again her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Just wonderful! Thank you all, my dear friends. For it was you who brought all this about. Thank you, so much!”
The fire was dying. The simple little gifts had been presented. The candles were spluttering down into the sockets. It was growing cold. The party was over.
Granny gave the precious papers to Harry Pangborn to keep for her. Then, when Granny and her cousin, with Betty and Dick, had departed for the little cottage, over the moonlit snow, just an hour before it would be Christmas, Arden Blake and her friends left the old Hall.
“There’s only one thing I’m still puzzled over,” Arden said as they gathered in Sim’s house to quiet down a bit. “Of course, I suppose we all, at different times, suspected different persons of playing the ghost—for we knew that’s what the mystery was—some tricky human. But at one time I heard some talk as I was passing some men in the street, which made me think Mr. Ellery might be the guilty one. Mention was made of a man named Nick.”
“I think I can explain that,” said Harry. “I talked to Dick about it. It seems that there were some rather valuable fittings, like hand-made locks, closet hooks and other things, in the Hall that a contractor would, very likely, save out to sell. Ellery was trying, as the boys say, to double-cross Mr. Callahan and get some of these antiques. Nick was in with him and once or twice tried his game with some cronies. But the ghost scared them away as it did the contractor’s honest workmen. So I think it’s all cleared up now.”
“Another mystery ended,” sighed Arden Blake. “I wonder if it will be the last in our lives?”