“It was easy enough to scare the housekeeper. I found out just where the wall of her bedroom stood, and I got close behind it near her bed and groaned. That was quite enough. Two nights, and the miserable thing left. Mrs. Brane got another woman at once, a lazy, absent-minded woman, and I wasted no time getting rid of her. I simply stole near to her bed one pitch-black night, and sighed. She left almost at once.
“Then Mrs. Brane, confound her! sent to New York to Skane for a detective, and he played house-boy for a fortnight. I had to keep as still as a mouse. I was almost starved, for I did n't dare take enough food to hoard, and for a while that detective prowled the house all night. I must have come near looking like a ghost in those days. Thank God, the entire quiet bored Skane's man, and reassured the rest of the household. When he had gone I did n't try ghost-tricks for sometime. I fed myself up, and did a little night-prowling, down in the bookroom, and in some of the empty bedrooms, with no result. Then came the third housekeeper.
“That third housekeeper, my dear daughter, all but did for me. She was a fussy little female with the sort of energy that goes prying about for unnecessary pieces of labor. And she lit upon the kitchen closet. Fortunately, Delia and the other two women were so annoyed by her methods that they did n't take up her instructions to clean out the closet with any zeal. So, one morning, I heard her in the kitchen scolding and carrying on, 'You lazy women, I'll just have to shame you by doing it myself.'
“Now, while I crouched there, listening to her, it occurred to me that I had heard her voice before. I racked my frightened brains. I had never seen the woman, but I was certain that the voice, a peculiar one, belonged somewhere in my memory. I decided there might be some useful association. I risked coming into the closet, and taking a look. Then I fled back and laughed to myself. I had known that little wax-face when she was a very great somebody's maid, and I knew enough about her to send her to the chair. Was n't it luck! I went back into my hole, for all the world like a spider, and sat there waiting for my prey.
“She did a lot of clattering around in the closet; then, I knew by the silence, that she'd lit upon the hole. I crept near, and waited for her, crouched in the dark. She came crawling through the hole—I can see her silly, pale, dust-streaked face now! I pounced upon her with all the swiftness and the silence of a long-legged tarantula. I stopped her mouth before she could squeal, and I carried her back to the end of the passage here, and I talked to her for about five seconds. At the end of that time every bone in her body had turned to water. She had sworn as though to God to hold her tongue, and to get out of the house; to keep her mouth shut forever and ever, amen. And I let her go. She scuttled out of the closet like a rat, and I heard her tell Delia to leave the place alone. The third housekeeper left the next day, and, as I heard by listening to kitchen gossip, she gave no reason for her going.
“But, of course, I had had a terrible experience myself. I was n't going to risk anything like that again. Besides, I was sick of living in the wall. I got out that night—half the time Delia forgot to lock the outside door, and always blamed her own carelessness when she found it open in the morning. I had decent clothes with me, and I tramped to a station at some distance, and went up to New York. I'd decided to take a few of my pals in on the game. I had several old pals in New York, and some introductions. It's a first-class city for crooks, almost as good as London, and not half so well policed. And there, my girl, I took the trouble of hunting you up.
“It was n't because I meant to use you at 'The Pines.' It was just out of curiosity—motherly love”—I wish I could describe the drawling irony of the expression on her lips. “You are one of the people I've kept track of. I always felt you might be useful, that I might be able to frighten you into usefulness. Many's the time I've seen you when you were a child, and, later, when you were working in Paris. Not much more than a child then, but such a slim, little, white-faced beauty. What was it, the work? Oh, yes, you were a little assistant milliner, and you turned down the chance of being Monsieur le Baron's maîtresse, and lost your job for the reward of virtue—little fool! I knew you had gone to America, but I had lost track of your whereabouts. I soon picked up your tracks, though, and found out that you were in New York looking for work. Your beauty has been against you, Janice; it's always against moral and correct living. It's a great help in going to the devil and beating him at his own game, however, as you might discover if I were immoral enough to let you live. The instant I set eyes on you in New York and saw what a ridiculous copy of your mother you had grown to be, I felt that here was an opportunity of some sort if I could only make use of it. I racked my brains, and, as usual, the inspiration came.
“I got Mrs. Brane's advertisement, so far unanswered, and I handed it to you myself in the street. As soon as I was sure that you had got the job, I left for 'The Pines.' I slipped in like a thief at night, one of the nights when Delia forgot to lock the back door. I had shadowed you pretty closely those days between the time you answered the advertisement, and left for 'The Pines,' and it was n't a difficult matter for me to get a copy of your wardrobe. You don't know what a help it was to me that you chose a sort of uniform. I knew that you'd be wearing one of those four gray dresses most of the time.
“After you were in the house, I grew pretty bold, and it was then I decided to get Robbie out of that nursery. So I made myself up as the witch that lives under the stairs, and waked him by bending down over his bed with my hair hanging in his face. I was nearly caught at it, too, by Mary, and I scared the old women out of the house—which I had n't in the least intended to do.
“I didn't half like Mrs. Brane's plan of getting a man and wife to take the place of the old women, and I saw at once the necessity for Jaffrey and Maida. However, I was determined not to let them know that there were two red-haired women in the house. I was fascinated by this plan of using you, Janice, of getting witnesses to swear to your identity as Madame Trème, of baiting a trap—with you for bait—into which all of my accomplices would tumble, as they have tumbled, and, then, as a last stroke, putting an end to you and making a clean get-away myself. If any one swings for your murder, it will be Maida, who left 'The Pines' so hurriedly and secretly to-night.