ontinued to the
bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.

"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
beach beyond the church.

"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
hushed up.

"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
from the Revenue people.

"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
he found them.

"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
delighted to learn how it h