"About six o'clock, you say?" said Barnes, greatly interested.
"It was a quarter after six when I got back to the house. I spoke to Mr. Bacon about what I'd seen and he said he believed they were German spies, up to some kind of mischief along the Canadian border. Everybody is a German spy nowadays, Mr. Barnes, if he looks cross-wise. Then about half an hour later you came to the Tavern. I saw Roon sneak out to the head of the stairs and listen to your conversation with Jones when you registered. That gave me an idea. It was you they were watching the road for. They saw you long before you got here, and it was—"
Barnes held up his hand for silence. "Listen," he said in a low voice, "I will tell you who they were looking for." As briefly as possible he recounted his experience with the strange young woman at the cross-roads. "From the beginning I have connected this tragedy with the place called Green Fancy. I'll stake my last penny that they have been hanging around here waiting for the arrival of that young woman. They knew she was coming and they doubtless knew what she was bringing with her. They went to Green Fancy to-night with a very sinister purpose in mind, and things didn't turn out as they expected. What do you know about the place called Green Fancy?"
He was vastly excited. His active imagination was creating all sorts of possibilities and complications, depredations and intrigues.
Bacon was the one who answered. He drew the blanket closer about his lean form and shivered as with a chill.
"I know this much about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of these jays,—big huskies too,—say they wouldn't go near the place after dark for all the money in the state."
"That's just talk to scare you, Ague," said Dillingford. "People live up there and since we've been here two or three men visitors have come down from the place to sample our stock of wet goods. Nothing suspicious looking or ghostly about them either. I talked with a couple of 'em day before yesterday. They were out for a horseback ride and stopped here for a mug of ale."
"Were they foreigners?" inquired Barnes.
"If you want to call an Irishman a foreigner, I'll have to say one of them was. He had a beautiful brogue. I'd never seen an Irishman in slick riding clothes, however, so I doubted my ears at first. You don't associate a plain Mick with anything so swell as that, you know. The other was an American, I'm sure. Yesterday they rode past here with a couple of swell looking women. I saw them turn up the road to Green Fancy, so that knocks your ghost story all to smash, Bacon."
"It isn't MY ghost story," began Mr. Bacon indignantly. The arrival of four or five men, who stamped into the already crowded hallway from the porch outside, claimed the attention of the quartette. Among them was the doctor who, they were soon to discover, was also the coroner of the county. A very officious deputy sheriff was also in the group.