yawning case and intensified the horrid appearance of
the skeleton.

For half a minute Spink stood as if frozen in his tracks. If he had known
the old doctor had such a possession as the skeleton, he had forgotten
it. Nor did he see any part of the case that held it, but just the
dangling, grinning Thing itself, revealed by the brilliance of his
spotlight, but with a mass of deep shadow surrounding it.

Professor Spink had perhaps had many perilous experiences in his varied
life; but never anything just like _this_.

He might not have been afraid of a man--or a dozen men; no
emergency--which he could talk out of--would have feazed him; but a
man doesn't feel like trying to talk down a skeleton!

He didn't even stop to pick up the jimmy. He shut off the spotlight; and
he stumbled over his own feet in getting to the door.

_He was running away!_

'Phemie was up immediately and after him. She did not propose for him to
get away with that key.

"Stop! stop!" she shouted.

Perhaps Professor Spink verily believed that the skeleton in the box
called after him--that it was, indeed, in actual pursuit.

He didn't stop. He didn't reply. He went across the small anteroom and out
of the open green door.

But he had made a lot of noise. A big man with the fear of the
supernatural chilling his very soul does not tread lightly.

A frightened ox in the place could have made no more noise. He tumbled
over two chairs and finally went full length over an old hassock. He
brought up with an awful crash against the big davenport in the corridor,
where 'Phemie had tried to keep watch.

And there, when he tried to scramble up, he got entangled in 'Phemie's
quilt and went to the floor again just as a great light flashed into the
corridor.

The Colesworths' door stood open. Out dashed Harris in his pajamas and
a robe. He fell upon the big body of Spink as though he were making a
"tackle" in a football game.

"Hold him! hold him!" gasped 'Phemie.

"I've got him," declared Harris. "What's the matter, Miss 'Phemie?"

"He's got the key," explained 'Phemie. "Make him give it up."

"Sure!" said Harris, and dexterously twitched the entangled Spink over
on his back.

"By jove!" gasped the young man, standing up. "It's the professor!"

"But he's got the key!" the girl reiterated.

"What key?"

"The one to the green door."

"The door of the east wing?" demanded Harris, turning to stare at the open
door, on the threshold of whic