“If your wrist happens to turn in exactly the right position——” The man moved his wrist, and all at once the boy heard the watch ticking out an emphatic, muffled stroke. Again the wrist moved, and the timepiece was no longer audible. The artist laughed. “Not bad, eh, Joe?”
Joe said “Gosh!” and looked at his uncle. Dr. Stone had ceased to smoke.
“It’s going to be a bad night, Doctor,” Frederick Wingate went on. “There’s snow in the air. I’d advise you to sit snug and let Tucker do his ghost-hunting alone. It will be wasted time.”
“Why are you so sure of that, Fred?”
“Come, come, Doctor. You know how I feel about goblins.”
“Of course. I was wondering. Last night you insisted we hadn’t heard sounds. Tonight you become more positive. You predict we’re not going to hear anything. Why this added certainty? Is it because you had removed the cable running between your house and Farley’s?”
Joe Morrow suddenly found himself tight and expectant. The good humor had been washed from the artist’s face.
“It was hard,” the doctor said serenely, “to locate exactly where the sound originated. Lady, though, took me to one wall. After that, the trick was plain. A blind man’s touch is sensitive, Fred. I felt the vibration in the wall. I asked Joe if the wall looked at all strange. He said it didn’t. Who could break into a wall and then doctor it so it would let out sound freely and still look untouched? Who but an artist accustomed to skilfully blending colors?
“But at first I suspected Sweetman. The man’s anxiety to take advantage of a ghost scare and buy cheaply fooled me. We all stumble at times. I should have seen from the start it couldn’t be Sweetman. He was greedy, but he didn’t have the brains. Then, too, there were no creepy manifestations whenever you appeared. By the way, who told Sweetman the ghost would invade his house if he pulled down Farley’s? You?”
“You’re stumbling now, Doctor, aren’t you?” the artist asked. Joe saw that his eyes had become sharp and watchful.