"It is not, Mr. Denzil—it's a fact. You can see the very house in the square for yourself, and No. 13 is just such another."
"Nonsense! Why, I'd sleep in No. 13 to-morrow night, just to prove that your ghostly fears are all moonshine."
Miss Greeb uttered a screech of alarm. "Mr. Denzil!" she cried, with great energy, "sooner than you should do that, I'd—I'd—well, I don't know what I'd do!"
"Accuse me of stealing your silver spoons and have me locked up," said Lucian, laughing. "Make yourself easy, Miss Greeb. I have no intention of tempting Providence. All the same, I don't believe for one minute that No. 13 is haunted."
"Lights were seen flitting from room to room."
"No doubt. Poor Vrain showed me over the house before he died. His candle explains the lights."
"They have been seen since his death," said Miss Greeb solemnly.
"Then, as a ghost, Vrain must be walking about with the old woman phantom who wears brocade and high-heeled shoes."
Miss Greeb, seeing that she had a sceptic to deal with, retreated with great dignity from the argument, but nevertheless to other people maintained her opinion, with many facts drawn from her imagination and from books on the supernatural compiled from the imagination—or, as the various writers called it—the experience of others. Some agreed with her, others laughed at her; but one and all acknowledged that, however it came about, whether by ghostly or mortal means, the murder of Vrain was a riddle never likely to be solved; and, with other events of a like nature and mystery, it was relegated to the list of undiscovered crimes.
After several interviews with Link, the barrister was also inclined to take this view of the matter. He found the detective quite discouraged in his efforts to find the assassin.