The effect of this on the constable was not quite what they had hoped. His jaw dropped, and he sat staring at them in round-eyed horror. "My Gawd, sir, it's the Monk!" he gasped. "You don't suppose I can go making inquiries about a ghost, do you? I wouldn't touch it - not for a thousand pounds! And here's me taking down in me notebook what you told me about Mr. Titmarsh and them two up at the Inn, and all the time you've seen the Monk!" He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. "If I was you, sir, I'd get out of that house," he said earnestly. "It ain't healthy."
"Thanks very much," said Charles. "But it is my firm belief that someone is behind all this Monk business. And I suspect that that skeleton was put there for our benefit by the same person who got into the cellars."
"Hold hard!" said Peter suddenly. "It's just occurred to me that we didn't hear the groan of that stone-slab being opened on the night the picture fell."
They stared at one another for a moment. "That's one up to you," Charles said at length. "Funny I never thought of that. We couldn't have missed hearing it, either. Then…' he stopped, frowning.
The constable shut his notebook. "I'd get out of the Priory, sir, if I was you," he repeated. "The police can't act against ghosts. What you saw that night was the Monk, and the noise you heard…'
"Was caused by the stone-block opening," finished Charles. "We proved that."
Mr. Flinders scratched his chin again. A solution dawned upon him. "I'll tell you what it is, sir. Maybe you're right, and what you saw in the cellars was flesh and blood. I shall get on to that, following up the line you've given me. But there wasn't any flesh and blood about that skeleton."
"I'm thankful to say that there wasn't," said Charles. "Dry bones were quite enough for us."
"What I meant," said Mr. Flinders, with a return to his official manner, "was that no human being caused that skeleton to be put into this hole you speak about. What you've done, sir, is you've found out the secret of the Priory. That's what you've done. Now we know why it's haunted, and my advice to you is, "Pull it down."'
"You won't mind if we don't follow it, will you?" Charles said, sarcastically.