As they were about to go upstairs, Patsy whispered to Bee: “Don’t say a word about—well, you know. I’ll tell you why, later.”
“Robert,” began Miss Martha severely, when the little company had settled themselves in the sitting-room, “I insist now on your speaking to that Carlos man of yours about this ghost story he told Mammy Luce. Someone is evidently trying to play practical jokes upon the servants. I believe he knows something about it. It may be he who is doing it.”
“That can’t be. Only yesterday morning Carlos asked me for two days off. His brother, in Miami, died and he felt it his duty to go there to console the family and attend the funeral. So you see he had nothing to do with to-night’s affair. It’s more likely one of my black boys has done a little ghost walking just to be funny. You notice that no one except the servants has been visited by apparitions.”
“There is no telling how soon the rest of us may be startled half out of our senses,” acidly reminded Miss Martha. “You had better hire a guard to patrol the grounds around the house at night. He ought to be able to catch this scamp who has frightened the servants.”
“I’ll do it,” promised Mr. Carroll. “I’ll have a plain clothes man from Palm Beach up here to-morrow evening. He’ll stay here, too, until we catch the rascal who is causing all this commotion.”
“And will you speak to Carlos?” persisted Miss Carroll. “I am more suspicious of him than of your blacks.”
“As soon as he comes back,” reassured her brother.
The serious part of the discussion having come to an end, Mabel and Eleanor hurled a volley of eager questions at Bee and Patsy concerning what had happened before they reached the hallway. Patsy therewith proceeded to convulse her hearers with a description of Bee’s and her own untimely collision with Celia. Mabel giggled herself almost hysterical and had to be playfully shaken into sobriety by Eleanor, who declared that the ghost walk had gone to Mab’s head.
The will to sleep overcoming their dread of living midnight visitants in ghostly garments, the ways and means committee adjourned in favor of rest. As a last word, Miss Martha cautioned the Wayfarers to lock their doors, which had hitherto been allowed to remain unlocked.