Betty considered this speech in bewildered silence. Her ideas of political economy were very hazy. Was it always wrong to get rid of competition, if you were smart enough to do it? she wondered. What in the world did a “corner” have to do with tainted money, and why should Mr. Morton be blamed for any interest he might have in a thing as innocent and necessary as whitewash?
“I didn’t think you’d have anything to say to that,” the Thorn proceeded triumphantly, after a minute. “Besides, I’ve got proof of every word I say. We aren’t going to be happy in this house. It’s haunted—by the spirits of those he has wronged, I suppose.”
“Matilda Thorn—I mean Jones,” began Betty, letting Jim’s name pop out before she thought, in her annoyance, “don’t be so ridiculous. I can’t argue about Mr. Morton’s business methods because I don’t know enough about them, and neither do you. But President Wallace does, and he accepted this house very gladly for Harding College. Furthermore, you accepted a place in it very gladly—yours was the first name on my list. So I think it is very inconsistent of you, as well as very ungracious, to criticize Mr. Morton now. But when you talk about this house being haunted you are simply making yourself ridiculous. Please explain what you mean by saying such a thing.”
The Thorn listened to Betty’s stern arraignment with growing amazement. She had “sized up” the new secretary as “one of the pretty, easy-going kind,” and had vastly enjoyed worrying her with ill-grounded complaints, which had always been treated with a sweet seriousness that the Thorn had found very diverting. Now she realized that she had gone too far, and she rose to retreat, rallying her scattered forces into a semblance of order.
“I’m sorry I’ve offended you, Miss Wales,” she said humbly. “I didn’t remember that Mr. Morton was a friend of yours. I haven’t any friends of his sort—he seems to belong in another world from mine. I didn’t mean to be rude—or ungrateful—or ridiculous.”
Betty held out her hand impulsively. Being perfectly sincere and simple herself, she could never have guessed at the strange complexity of motives that actuated the Thorn. “Then if you didn’t mean it, it’s all right,” she said. “So please sit down and tell me what you think Mr. Morton has done that isn’t honest, and I’ll ask him about it—or I’ll ask President Wallace to explain it to us. And then tell me what makes you say that Morton Hall is haunted.” Betty’s sense of humor nearly overcame her dignity at this point, and the last word ended in a chuckle that she hastily converted into a cough. Ghosts seemed to be dogging her path to-day.
The Thorn sat down again majestically. “Well,” she began uncertainly, “I’m not sure that I know anything in particular about Mr. Morton’s methods. All great fortunes are founded on trickery, in my opinion. A great many other people seem to think so too, according to all that you read. And when the girls on the top floor began to hear ghosts walking and talking and unlocking locked doors, why, I suppose I put two and two together—that’s all. Some way you always associate ghosts with wicked men. Of course it might be Miss Bond who was haunted, instead of Mr. Morton’s money.”
“But Miss Jones,” broke in Betty in amazement, “you don’t really believe in ghosts, do you? My little sister has just been here with a story of how some of Miss Dick’s girls were frightened last night by mysterious noises. It’s bad enough for children as big as she is to think they’ve seen ghosts, but for Harding girls——”
The Thorn shrugged her shoulders dubiously. “That’s what I said myself when I first heard about it, but yesterday in evening study-hour I was up there, and we certainly heard the queerest whisperings and mutterings coming from the tower room. We were sure Miss Bond was in there alone, so we knocked to see if she was sick or wanted anything. She didn’t answer, and we finally tried the door and it was locked, as usual. So we banged and banged, and we were just going to call Mrs. Post when Miss Bond finally came—and she was all alone and hadn’t been studying elocution or reading her Lit. out loud. She said she hadn’t heard anything either, except the racket we made, but I noticed she didn’t act much as if she meant it. She’s so secretive she’d keep even a ghost to herself, probably,” ended the Thorn vindictively.
Betty advanced the mice-in-the-walls theory, only to have it scoffed aside, with a variation of the Smallest Sister’s argument: “Mice do not whisper and mutter; they scramble and squeak.” She suggested that the sounds came from another study; that had been carefully investigated. She hastily dismissed the suspicion that the Mystery had misled them about being alone. In the first place she felt sure that the Mystery was honest; in the second place the Thorn, as if reading her thoughts, explained how they had hunted through the closet and even looked under the bed.