“What happened last night?” asked Barry, as Mrs. Peyton paused.
Mrs. Peyton, still sitting forward in her chair, was searching in her reticule. Barry noticed her fingers were unsteady and that her underlip was caught between her teeth to still its quivering.
“Last night,” she went on, with a transparent effort at lightness, “I saw the ‘ghost’! Please don’t smile! I was quite wide awake when I saw it—as wide awake as I am this moment—and in full possession of all my wits. And I can’t understand yet how it got in my room, or how it got out, or even what it was.
“I was alone in the house, too,” she continued, taking a photograph from the reticule and placing it, face down, on the desk. “Yesterday afternoon Mr. Peyton telephoned from his office that he must stay downtown rather late to attend a meeting of building contractors and suggested that I come in to the city for dinner, and bring a friend and ‘take in a show,’ and meet him afterward. But I wasn’t in the mood and told him I’d prefer to stay at home.
“‘But I won’t be home before twelve o’clock,’ he said, ‘and I don’t like the idea of your being all alone in that house at night, without even a servant on the place.’
“I reminded him that the chauffeur and gardener were still with us (they sleep in the garage and hadn’t been alarmed by the ‘spook’), and with these two and Mitch, our Scotch collie, to guard me I felt perfectly safe. As for the ‘ghost,’ I laughingly told him, I really would enjoy meeting it and having a chat on its astral adventures.
“He declined to unbend from his seriousness and became irritated when I refused to leave the house. We had quite a tiff, but I finally had my way, and the best he could get was a promise from me to lock myself in before going to bed. He said he would sleep in one of the guest chambers.
“After a pick-up meal in the kitchen, I went upstairs to our room and wrote letters until ten o’clock. Then I prepared for bed.
“For a moment I regretted not having done as my husband asked. The house did seem eerie; no denying that—big and dark and silent, and not a living creature in it except myself.
“But I quickly shook off this feeling, assuring myself there was no such thing as a ghost, and, even if there was, that it couldn’t possibly harm me. However, remembering my promise, I locked the door and put the key under my pillow, and bolted all the windows, and, as an additional precaution, I looked under the bed and inspected both closets. And I knew absolutely, when I put out the light and got into bed, that I was the only person in that room.