"I don't believe in spirits either," said Bella promptly, "and so I wish to know, Mrs. Tunks, how you learned all you said."
"All what?" mumbled the witch-wife vacantly.
"All about the jewels and the murder and the——"
"I don't remember saying a word," interrupted Granny, rising slowly and with a lack-lustre look in her beady eyes. "When I go into a trance I don't recall what I say. But let me go into a trance again and I'll tell you where the jewels are if you will give me a share," and her eyes began to glitter in an avaricious manner.
"No," said Vand, in his most peremptory tones, "we have had enough of this rubbish."
"Oh," sneered his wife, "you admit then that it is rubbish?"
"Yes, now that I know Miss Huxham played the ghost. Granny"—he turned to the old woman—"all your teachings of the unseen have proved false, so you can take yourself out of this house, and never come near it again."
Bella, quite believing that the old woman was a fraud, and knew the truth of what she had spoken when in her so-called trance, expected to see her defy the man she had accused. But in place of doing so Granny Tunks flung the tail of her white cloak over her head and moved towards the door. Seeing her retreat, Mrs. Vand, after the manner of bullies and cowards, became suddenly brave. Leaping towards the old creature, and before her husband could restrain her, she struck her hard once or twice between the shoulders. "Get out of this, you lying cat! Go to the devil, your master, you vile animal!"
Vand caught back his infuriated wife with a fierce oath, but Granny still continued on her way out of the room. As she passed into the dark hall she turned and sent a glance at Mrs. Vand which made that triumphant tyrant shiver in her shoes. But she did not defend herself in any way, and shortly the three in the vast drawing-room heard the front door open and shut. Granny Tunks was gone, and with her seemed to disappear the malignant influence which had hung over the house for so long. Bella did not believe in witchcraft, but she could not help thinking that the old woman must have exercised some evil spell, and now had departed taking her familiar with her. At all events, the air seemed to be clearer for her absence.
"Now then," said Vand, addressing Bella in his usual courteous way, "as you are satisfied, Miss Huxham, perhaps you will go also."