Ferral dropped down in a chair in the front hall and drew his hand across his forehead.
"I'll be box-hauled if I can twig this layout, at all!" he muttered. "Those fellows couldn't get out and leave those doors and windows locked on the inside."
"And they couldn't have got past us on the stairs and got out the way we came in," added Matt, equally nonplused. "We looked carefully as we came down from the upper floor, and the rascals must have been driven ahead of us. I'm knocked all of a heap, and that's a fact."
Carl cantered forward.
"Der shpooks vas blaying viggle-vaggle mit us," he averred in a stage whisper. "Led us say goot-by, bards, und shkin oudt. It vas pedder so, yah, so helup me."
"Are you getting cold feet, matey?" queried Ferral.
"I peen colt all ofer," admitted Carl, "efer since dot shpook pubble vented off indo nodding righdt vile ve look. Den der man-shpook meldet oudt, und dese oder shpooks faded. Yah, you bed my life, ve vill go oop in shmoke ourselufs oof ve shtay here long."
"Carl does a lot of foolish talking, Dick," spoke up Matt, "but he's as game as a hornet, for all that. Don't pay any attention to his spook talk. I saw a lantern in the kitchen, and a padlock and key lying on a shelf. While you two are trying to solve this riddle, I'm going out to the barn and get a lock and key on the Red Flier. I can't afford to let anything happen to that machine."
"I vill go mit you, Matt," said Carl.
"You stay here with Dick," Matt answered. "I'll not be gone more than a minute."