“Rubbish!” said Whiting.
“Rubbish, I admit,” said Coe, placidly, “but what’s a theory that isn’t rubbish?”
Nobody knew of any, and Coe soon departed for the Webb home to put his plan in action.
The Webb ladies liked the pleasant young man, with his winning smile and his good-natured ways.
His request to sleep for a night or two in Kimball Webb’s room met with a willing, though surprised consent.
“What in the world do you hope to learn that way?” Mrs. Webb asked, and Coley returned, gravely: “I want to test your theory, Mrs. Webb. If friend Poltergeist,—is that his name?—carries me through a closed and locked wooden door, I’m ready to drop all else and follow your cult for life!”
“You’re going to lock the door?” asked Henrietta.
“Surely, otherwise it’s no test! All New York city,—I mean any one of its inhabitants, might come in and play at poltering otherwise. Of course, I’m going to lock the door and bolt it, too.”
The broken lock on the inside of Kimball Webb’s door had been replaced with a new one, for no special reason save that the Webb ladies were too orderly by nature to leave anything incomplete in the way of household appointments.
And so, when that night, Coley Coe locked himself into the mysterious room, he was securely entrenched against attack from the hall.