without shoes or stockings."

"Don't tell me any more," was Furneaux's surprising comment. "I'll do the
rest. But let me remark, Miss Martin, that I experienced great
difficulty, not so long ago, in persuading friend Grant that you were the
only important witness this case has provided thus far. Playing in a
burlesque, were you? We've been similarly engaged to-night. The farce
must stop now. It makes way for grim tragedy. Not one word of to-night's
events to anyone, please.... Are you ready?"

Doris stood up. Hart thrust the negro's head at the detective.

"Fouche," he said, "do you honestly mean slinging your hook without
making any inquiry as to Owd Ben?"

"Oh, the ghost!" said Doris eagerly. "The Bateses would think of him, of
course. An old farmer named Ben Robson used to live in this house about
the time of Napoleon. He was suspected by the authorities to be an agent
of the smugglers, and the story goes that his own daughter quarreled with
him and betrayed him. He narrowly escaped hanging, owing to his age, I
believe, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. At last he was
released, being then a very old man, and he came straight here and
strangled his daughter. It is quite a terrible story. He was found dead
by her side. Then people remembered that she had spoken of someone
scaring her by looking in through that small window some nights
previously. Naturally, a ghost was soon manufactured. I really wonder why
the man who rebuilt and renamed the place in the middle of last century
didn't have the window removed altogether."

"Glad I began the work of demolition tonight," said Hart, and, for once,
his tone was serious.

"Why did you never tell me that scrap of history, Doris?" inquired Grant.

"You liked the place so much that father and I agreed not to mar your
enthusiasm by recalling an unpleasant legend," she said frankly. "Not
that what I've related isn't true. The record appears in a Sussex
Miscellany of those years.... Oh, my goodness, can it be eleven o'clock!"

The hall clock had no doubt on the point. Furneaux pocketed the written
notes regarding Ingerman, and grabbed the hat off the table. Grant, for
some reason, was aware that the detective repressed an obvious reference
to the last occasion on which the girl had heard that same clock
announce the hour.

Furneaux would allow no other escort. He and Doris made off immediately.

When they were gone, Hart stared fixedly at an empty decante