“I’m going to find out who it is,” he said, grim-like. “Wait here at the window. For you might have to drag me in quick.”
Then he went out through the opening. I leaned over the sill and watched him creep to a corner of the house. The kitchen porch was now within range of his eyes. Suddenly he vanished.
The minutes dragged along. I took to counting the pumping strokes of my heart. Thump! thump! thump! Once Tom sneezed. I almost jumped out of my skin.
My legs went stiff and cramped from crouching in one position. Why didn’t Scoop come back? I hung over the sill to catch possible sight of my daring chum. But nowhere was he within range of my anxious eyes.
“He’s been gone an hour,” Tom said in a queer, hushed whisper.
It came two o’clock; three o’clock; four o’clock. And still Scoop hadn’t returned.
At daybreak we went outside and circled the house. I was sick with worry. For I realized that something had happened to my chum. Maybe he had been murdered. And the ghost was the murderer. [[195]]
But who was the ghost? I thought of the old soap man. Was he the ghost after all? It wasn’t impossible.
Somehow, though, I had the feeling that the soap man wasn’t the ghost. And in trying to probe the confusing mystery I acknowledged bewilderment.
Then we found this message chalked on the mail box: