"I did!" Lizzie wailed, "I saw a ghost!" She turned to Miss
Cornelia. "I begged you not to come here," she vociferated. "I
begged you on my bended knees. There's a graveyard not a quarter
of a mile away."
"Yes, and one more scare like that, Lizzie Allen, and you'll have
me lying in it," said her mistress unsympathetically. She moved up
to examine the scene of Lizzie's ghostly misadventure, while
Anderson began to interrogate its heroine.
"Now, Lizzie," he said, forcing himself to urbanity, "what did you
really see?"
"I told you what I saw."
His manner grew somewhat threatening.
"You're not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into leaving this
house and going back to the city?"
"Well, if I am," said Lizzie with grim, unconscious humor, "I'm
giving myself an awful good scare, too, ain't I?"
The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia returned from her
survey of the alcove.
"Somebody who had a key could have got in here, Mr. Anderson,"
she said annoyedly. "That terrace door's been unbolted from the
inside."
Lizzie groaned. "I told you so," she wailed. "I knew something
was going to happen tonight. I heard rappings all over the house
today, and the ouija-board spelled Bat!"
The detective recovered his poise. "I think I see the answer to
your puzzle, Miss Van Gorder," he said, with a scornful glance at
Lizzie. "A hysterical and not very reliable woman, anxious to go
back to the city and terrified over and over by the shutting off of
the electric lights.
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