There was a jagged mark where a portion of the branch had been ripped away and when Cardona fitted the twig that he had brought from the seance room, it corresponded exactly!
Certainly this made it seem that Madame Mathilda had viewed the actual scene upon the cliff above the pool and that in departure, the phantom had projected a souvenir of the occasion into Mathilda’s parlor.
To emphasize his testimony, Reilly led the investigators back to the spot from which he had first seen the banshee. Pointing to the rock, he declaimed:
“‘Twas there she stood, reaching for the branch, which as any eye can see, was a good bit above her head. What she was wearing I wouldn’t know, after seeing her from this distance only, but ‘twas scanty. The moon is higher now, but right then it was bucking traffic over from across the park and against it I could see the banshee’s hair, all waving with the black glisten of a raven’s wings.
“Only half way there I was, when she gave the banshee screech and vanished. Mind you, there is nowhere else she could have gone except into nowhere, as others here will testify. Some saw her from the bridge, others heard her from the bridle path and the drive. It’s their word, not mine that you can take, though nobody lives that has ever questioned the word of a Reilly.”
At Weston’s suggestion, they went around to the bridge and studied the rock from there, only to find the mystery even tighter. Though the top of the rock was dim because of the overhanging tree, the front surface caught the full glisten of the moonlight.
Except for slight crevices and the tough, stunted bushes that grew from them, the rock was almost sheer until it reached the water’s edge. It certainly couldn’t have hidden a random figure, but Weston’s doubts concerned the brow of the rock. With a cautious look at Reilly, to make sure that the patrolman wouldn’t feel that his own testimony was being criticized, Weston spoke to persons who had been on the bridge.
“Regarding the woman on the rock,” said the commissioner. “Are you sure you really saw her there? It’s dark up there from this angle. You didn’t have as good a view as Reilly.”
“There was moonlight then,” returned one of the witnesses. “It was shining straight at the rock top. The lower part was darker at that time.”
Another witness corroborated this statement. In addition there were some who had arrived when they heard the wild departing shriek of the creature that was more and more assuming the proportions of a banshee. Some had heard the crackling of the lilac bough; others had glimpsed the sylphlike figure that had flung the tree branch. All admitted that their view was vague, but that the shape was real until the moment that it dwindled, as if swallowed by the rock itself.