“There’s only one house on the island,” the garage man stated. “Built more than a hundred years ago. They say highwaymen used to hide their stuff there. When I was a kid, we used to go over and dig around. We never found nothing, though.
“Then some fellow from the city bought the place — fifteen years ago, I reckon. Lived there in the summer. Only a couple of years, though. He was murdered there.
“After that, nobody went around the place, until this here professor took it, last year. Queer old duck, he is. Well, he’s welcome to the place. I wouldn’t take it if it was given to me.”
“Why not?” questioned Harry.
“Well, for one thing,” the man replied, “folks say it’s haunted. I ain’t no believer in ghosts — but if ghosts would hang out anywhere, it would be on Death Island.
“Some folks say it was ghosts killed the fellow who come there fifteen years ago. An’ lately — well, I’ve heard things said by people who ain’t superstitious.”
“What, for instance?”
“Strange kinds o’ noises out over the lake. Little blinkin’ lights, up over the island.
“One fellow — I ain’t sayin’ who — tells me he was out in a rowboat, one cloudy night. Somethin’ come right up outa the water, an’ hissed over his head. Then it plopped in again.”
“It might have been a large fish.”