“She wanted to tell it, and we wanted to hear it,” Patsy said. “It’s been a weird night, hasn’t it?”
“Weird, yes; altogether too weird. Go to bed every one of you, and lock your doors!”
“Where will Dolores sleep, Auntie? She can’t go home. She hasn’t any home now. She’ll have to stay with us. Won’t that be fine?” exulted Patsy.
“Dolores will remain here with me. We’ll discuss her future later. This is certainly not the time to discuss it. Good night, or, rather, good morning. Off to bed, all of you.”
Miss Martha fairly shooed her flock out of the room. They departed with laughter, their cheerful voices echoing through a corridor lately filled with sounds of an entirely different nature.
“Enter without fear, my dear Miss Forbes,” salaamed Patsy, bowing Bee into the room in which had been staged the first act of the night’s drama. “The ghost is forever laid.”
Laughing, Bee stepped over the threshold. The laugh suddenly trailed into a gasp. At the precise spot where Patsy had lassoed Rosita lay a sinister memento of the mad “ghost.” It was a long, sharp, two-edged knife.