“Get some more whiskey!” said the Judge. “I’ll go with you”—he added, following her into the dining room, mopping the perspiration from his brow.
“I’ll go up there in a minute and find out the truth!”
“Better keep outen dat attic I tells ye. Dey say dat de ghosts er de livin’ is wuss dan de dead.” They had scarcely passed from the hall when the oak panel again opened and a white masked figure peered through, and quickly entered.
The dress was an exact duplicate of the masqueraders down to its minutest details, and only the closest observer would have noted the awkward way in which the figure moved as though not in the habit of walking in his disguise.
He quickly glanced about the hall, listened a moment to the sounds of revelry in the ballroom, closed the door of the small hall leading into it, reopened the panel and signalled.
In rapid succession eight more silent figures filed through the panel door. The leader whispered to his followers:
“He’s in the dining room. Guard every entrance now but that.”
In a moment a masked man stood guard at each door and the leader lowered the lamp on the table until only the dim outlines of the forms could be seen, and stepped back himself into the shadows of the alcove by the dining room door.
Aunt Julie Ann returned to the kitchen, and the Judge, afraid to go upstairs, came back into the hall to enter the ballroom as he promised Stella.. As he passed through the door of the dining room the shrouded figure standing in the alcove quickly followed, cutting off this retreat.
The Judge stopped, blinked his eyes around the dim hall and muttered: