Well, if you must know the truth, I felt sort of weak as the “ghost” turned his face. For who do you think it was? Yah, you guessed it—nobody but old Ivory Dome himself!
As I say, the discovery sort of amazed and stunned me. And yet, I thought, my mind jumping back to the housekeeper’s crazy story, who besides old Ivory Dome could better have played the “ghost” here? Dumb in his wife’s eyes, the finest chance in the world had been given him to fool her. And he had fooled her, all right! More than that, he had fooled all of us. He let on that he didn’t know where the granddaughter was. But he did. He knew the gander’s secret, too. In fact he knew a hundred things in the mystery that his sharp-tongued wife never suspected, with all of her wonderful family smartness! She was a Danver, was the way she had patted herself on the back, and he was a Doane. A thick-headed lot, the Doanes!—to hear her tell it. Say, she was good. Hip-hip-hurray for old Ivory Dome, I thought, glad at the moment, though fooled, too, that old henpecked was coming out ahead.
Of course, to a point of detail, a number of things needed explaining—for instance the old man’s trick of slamming the death-chamber door every night at ten o’clock. As for the “queer smell,” he probably carried a bottle of it in his pocket. How simple everything was now! Yet we had let the “mystery” bewilder us! Fine detectives, we were.
“Pa! Pa!” Above me the woman’s shrill voice rang through the house. Boy, was she ever yipping it off! “Pa! Where are you? Pa!”
Quick as scat, the light went out in the kitchen. Then I heard the old man coming toward me in the dark, sort of muttering angrily to himself. He was breathing hard, too. Like a cornered animal. I got to one side, flat against the wall. And hurrying up the stairs, the older one passed me without touching me. But it was a close shave, I want to tell you. Phew! Was I ever sweating.
Here a key turned in the kitchen lock. It was Poppy. The spy had gotten away from him, he told me, starting to strip off his wet clothes. Then, stopping, he looked at me and grinned. I don’t know—when he grins at me that way, as though I mean so very much to him, like a ton of chewing gum, or something, it just seems to me as though I love him a million times. Oh, gee, he’s a peachy kid. I hope I always have him for a pal.
“What happened to you and the flashlight?” he inquired. “Did you both go to sleep?”
I quickly ran through my story.
“I’m not surprised,” came the thoughtful nod, when I wound up. “For, to tell the truth, I half suspicioned the old man of putting on, though I think he was dizzy enough right after the accident. Later on I noticed a sort of crafty look in his eyes, which set me to thinking. He’ll bear watching, all right.”
“Shall we tell Mrs. Doane?”