Near the place where I stood (marked A on the plan), had occurred most
of the phenomena, which could be located at all. Here the spectral hand
had been seen stopping the clock. Here the shape had passed encountered
by Mr. Weston's cook, and just a few steps beyond where the library door
opened under the stairs Mr. Searles had seen the flitting figure which
had shut his mouth on the subject of his tenants' universal folly.
From the front then toward the back these manifestations had invariably
peeped to disappear--where? That was what I was to determine; what I
am sure Mayor Packard would wish me to determine if he knew the whole
situation as I knew it from his wife's story and the record I had just
read at the agent's office.

Alas! there were many points of exit from this portion of the hall. The
drawing-room opened near; so did Mayor Packard's study; then there was
the kitchen with its various offices, ending as I knew in the cellar
stairs. Nearer I could see the door leading into the dining-room and,
opening closer yet, the short side hall running down to what had once
been the shallow vestibule of a small side entrance, but which, as I had
noted many times in passing to and from the dining-room, was now used as
a recess or alcove to hold a cabinet of Indian curios. In which of these
directions should I carry my inquiry? All looked equally unpromising,
unless it was Mayor Packard's study, and that no one with the exception
of Mr. Steele ever entered save by his invitation, not even his wife.
I could not hope to cross that threshold, nor did I greatly desire to
invade the kitchen, especially while Nixon was there. Should I have
to wait till the mayor's return for the cooperation my task certainly
demanded? It looked that way. But before yielding to the discouragement
following this thought, I glanced about me again and suddenly
remembered, first the creaking board, which had once answered to the
so-called spirit's flight, and secondly the fact which common sense
should have suggested before, that if my theory were true and the secret
presence, whose coming and going I had been considering, had fled by
some secret passage leading to the neighboring house, then by all laws
of convenience and natural propriety that passage should open from
the side facing the Quinlan domicile, and not from that holding Mayor
Packard's study and the remote drawing-room.

This considerably narrowed my field of inquiry, and made me immed