“Go to bed this minute!”
“Yes'm. But how do you 'spose he's goin' to—”
Miss Phipps conducted her to the foot of the back stairs and, returning, closed each door she passed through behind her. Then she answered her lodger's unspoken question.
“Lulie will go with her father and help him up to his room,” she said. “After he is out of the way Nelson can come out and Zach, I suppose, will let him out by the side door.”
Galusha smiled faintly. “The poor fellow must have been somewhat disturbed when that—ah—medium person announced that the 'evil influence' was in the house,” he observed.
Martha sniffed. “I guess likely we were all disturbed,” she said. “Especially those of us who knew. But how did Marietta know? That's what I can't understand. Or did she just guess?”
Before Bangs could answer there was a rap on the windowpane. Martha, going to the door, admitted Nelson Howard himself. The young man's first speech was a question.
“Do you know what became of my hat?” he asked. “Like an idiot I hung my hat and coat in that entry off the dining room when I went in. When I came out just now the hat was gone.”
Martha looked troubled.
“It wasn't that cap you wear so much, at the station and everywhere?” she asked. “I hope no one took THAT; they'd know whose 'twas in a minute.”