Ghost Beyond the Gate

by Mildred A. Wirt

With no show of haste, Penny followed the woman from the bus. Pretending to enter a grocery store at the corner, she waited and watched.

Apparently the woman lived nearby, for she started off down a narrow, winding road which ran at right angles to the main highway.

“Why that’s the road that runs past the Harrison place,” Penny thought. “Wonder if she can be going there?”

Waiting until the woman was nearly out of sight, she trudged after her. Walking was difficult for the road had not been cleared by a snow plow. Fortunately for Penny, the woman did not once glance behind her. She kept steadily on until she came within view of the big estate house on the hill. Just before she reached the boundary fence, she cut across a field, approaching the dwelling from the rear.

Penny remained at the road, watching. The woman took a key from her pocket, unlocking a small, padlocked gate at the rear of the grounds. She snapped the lock shut again, and disappeared into the house.

Penny perched herself on top of an old-fashioned rail fence to think over what she had seen. The woman, whoever she was, obviously lived at the estate. Yet the cheap quality of her clothing suggested that she could not be the owner of such an expensive establishment.

“Probably a servant or caretaker,” Penny reasoned. “But is she the one who ran away last night?”

Far over the hills in a lonely grove of pines stood Oakland Cemetery. On either side of Baldiff Road stretched dense woods, a growth that crept to the very boundaries of the Harrison estate. Penny instantly noted that it would be possible for a person to flee from the cemetery to the very door of the estate without once leaving the shelter of trees.

“Perhaps it was the same woman!” she thought. “If she lives here, it would be logical for her to specify Oakland Cemetery as a meeting place! And escape would be easy for her, too!”

Penny slid down from the fence. It would do no good to question the woman. Rather, if she were guilty, questions might serve to place her on the alert. Far better, she reasoned, to bide her time.