  That evening Barry Stannard was not at home, and Natalie declared her intention of trying to learn something by psychic or clairvoyant revelation. The three women sat in the Billiard Room, and were for the thousandth time discussing the tense situation. “Why, if you want to try it, Natalie, go ahead,” said Joyce, wearily. “It certainly can’t do any harm. Barry only objects because he thinks it will get you into a nervous state——” “Nonsense! It makes me more nervous to be forbidden to do what I wish. Come on, let’s go in the studio, and try it, at any rate.” “I’d rather not,” said Beatrice Faulkner. “In a way, Barry has asked me to keep you from this sort of thing, and I feel a certain responsibility——” “I understand,” said Natalie; “and you needn’t take any part. Just sit by and look on.” “No, I’d rather not If you don’t mind, I’ll go to my room. I’ve letters to write, and I’m sure you’ll get along better without a disturbing element.” “I agree with Beatrice,” Joyce said, after she had gone. “If you can do anything at all, you can do it better with only approving minds present. What are you going to do, anyway? I mean, how are you going to attempt it?” “I’m not sure, but I think I can go into a trance, like Orienta did——” “She didn’t go into a trance.” “Not exactly. But she had a sort of trancelike condition come over her. Well, come on in the studio, and I’ll see.” The two went into the big room, and Natalie sat down in a small chair, directly facing the chair in which Eric Stannard had died. She held in her hand the scratched and defaced etched picture of herself. “You sit beside me, Joyce. I somehow feel if you hold my hand it will help. Now I’ll concentrate on the etching, and perhaps there will be a manifestation of some sort from Eric, or I may have a vision—of the truth.” Interested, but not very hopeful of success, Joyce sat beside the girl, and they concentrated their thoughts on the empty chair in front of them and the man who used to use it. For ten minutes they sat in silence. Natalie quivered and occasional shudderings shook her slender frame, but there was no trance or vision. And then, just as Joyce was about to exclaim that she could bear it no longer, her nerves were giving way, they heard a sound that was exactly the same as the sighing groan that had reached their ears when Eric was dying. Startled, they gazed wildly at each other, then back to the great armchair. Was his spirit still hovering about the place it had last been in the flesh? Again they waited, and again they heard that ghastly sound. Faint, almost inaudible, but unmistakably the voice of the dying man. It seemed to say “Help!” but so low was the tone they could scarce be sure. And then the light went out and they were in utter darkness. Natalie gasped out a faint scream, and Joyce gripped her hand, with a whispered, “Hush! Don’t scream! The servants will come in. I’ll make a light.” She rose and tremblingly made her way across the room to the main switch. It was turned off, and with a twist, she flashed on the light. Quickly she stepped out into the hall. There was no one there but Blake, and as the door had been closed, he had noticed nothing. He said nobody had passed through the hall. Upstairs Joyce ran, conscious only of a desire to find some one who would admit having turned off the light. She ran to Beatrice Faulkner’s room and entered without knocking. “What is it?” said Mrs. Faulkner, looking up from the letter she was writing, “Oh, Joyce, what has happened?” “Somebody turned off the studio lights! Beatrice, who could have done it?” “Turned off the lights! What do you mean?” “Yes, Natalie and I sat there, Natalie thought she would go into a trance, you know——” “That foolish girl! Did she?” “No. But we heard—oh, I can’t tell you now! Come with me back there, do!” Rising hastily from her desk, Beatrice followed Joyce downstairs and into the studio. There they found Natalie standing by a table in the middle of the room, looking with a staring gaze at a large leather case that was on the table. “The jewels!” cried Joyce. “Eric’s jewels! Where did you find them, Natalie?” “Right here on this table. I haven’t touched them.” “What do you mean?” and Beatrice looked curiously at the girl. “How did they get there?” “I don’t know,” said Natalie, dully. She seemed as one bereft of her senses. “When Joyce turned on the lights——” “Who turned them off?” put in Beatrice, unable to hold back the question. “Eric did,” said Natalie, her eyes wide with awed wonder. “He—that is, his spirit, was here—we heard him sigh—and he turned the lights off and then put the jewels on the table——” “Oh, Natalie, what nonsense! It couldn’t have been Eric’s spirit that brought that box in here!” “Then who did?” Beatrice looked at the girl, and said, “Did you do it, Natalie? Did you know where they were all the time?” “No, I didn’t do it. Neither did Joyce. We sat right there by Eric’s chair—and Eric was present—we heard him, didn’t we, Joyce?” “We did, Beatrice, we surely did. I’d know that voice among a thousand. It was the same groan—the same cry for help that he uttered that—that awful night. Can it be that he came back at Natalie’s wish?” “It’s too incredible,” returned Beatrice. “I can’t believe it. Joyce, it must have been one of the servants, who turned off the light and put the box in here. One who had stolen it.” “No, Blake saw nobody.” “Was he in the hall?” “Yes, just where he was that other night. Oh, it’s too weird. I don’t know what to think!” “Maybe some one came in from outside——” “No, we were as silent as death itself. We would have heard a window or door open. There was no sound whatever, was there, Natalie?” “No. Spirits make no sound.” The girl was still in a half-dazed state. Almost in a trance she was, even now, or, rather, she appeared so. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I feel giddy. I’ll go to my room.” She went away, and the two other women stood, looking at each other. “It must have been Natalie,” said Joyce, reluctantly. “You see, she did know where the jewels were and got them out of some hiding-place when I ran up to your room.” “But how could she turn off the lights?” “I don’t know, unless she has an accomplice among the servants. Sometimes I think Blake——” “No, Joyce, don’t implicate Blake. I feel sure he is entirely innocent. Did you hear that voice clearly?” “Not clearly, but unmistakably. As I say, it was so still that every sound seemed exaggerated. But I heard Eric’s voice as truly as I stand here. Explain it, Beatrice.” “How can I? Except to say that there must have been some human agency. I don’t believe for a minute that Eric’s ghost returned the jewels.” “But Natalie says he has haunted this studio ever since he died. She says he will continue to do so, until his murderer is found and punished.” “I have heard of such things, but I can’t believe it in this case.” “What will Barry say? He was so imperative that Natalie should not try the trance business.” “I know it. But I can’t see that she has done any real harm. The jewels are here—isn’t it marvellous, Joyce? How could they have been brought in without your knowing it?” “Oh, as to that, I’m sure Natalie produced them after I left the room. I wish now I’d stayed here. My one thought was to get somebody else to corroborate the mysterious happenings.” “You’re sure the jewels were not here on the table when you went out of the room?” “I can’t say positively. They might have been. You see, I never thought of looking for them. I looked about the room to see if any person were present, and I looked thoroughly, too. But I didn’t look on the table.” “Nobody could have come in at the Billiard Room door?” “No, we sat right there, you know. The case is just the same as on the night of the murder. That’s why Natalie insists that Eric’s spirit turned off the lights and put the jewels on the table.” “Are the jewels all there? Are any missing?” “I’ve not looked them over. At a first glance, they seem to be all right.” “It must be that some one stole them, and just now returned them. There’s no other possible explanation, Joyce. It throws suspicion back to Mr. Truxton or——” “Or Eugene Courtenay, you were going to say! Now, he didn’t do it, Beatrice—I know he didn’t.” Weary and afraid, full of nameless horrors and uncertainties, Joyce locked the jewels in her dressing-room safe, and went to bed. She and Beatrice both felt they could stand no more that night, and notifying the police of the finding of the jewels must wait until the next day. And next day, when Bobsy Roberts came and heard the strange story he was probably the most bewildered man on the force. “Tell it all over again,” he said, after hearing the tale from Joyce. Patiently she repeated the details. “Where is Miss Vernon?” he asked abruptly. “You can’t see her to-day,” returned Joyce, “the poor child is prostrated.” “What did she hope to gain by her trance performance?” asked Roberts, mulling over Joyce’s story. “She hoped to get some sort of manifestation that would tell her who was the murderer. She never thought of having the jewels restored.” “Now, Mrs. Stannard, there’s no use trying to dodge the issue. We’ve been pretty suspicious of Miss Vernon from the first. This last matter settles it, to my mind. You know that unsent letter found in Mr. Stannard’s desk was without doubt meant for Miss Vernon. You know it said that she knew where the jewels were hidden. Now, she has proved that she did know, and she produced them in this hocus-pocus way, to hide her theft.” “No, no, Mr. Roberts, I cannot believe it! Natalie is not bad enough for all that maneuvering; nor would she, I’m sure, be capable of it. Again, granting you’re right in suspecting her of making up last evening’s events, how could she imitate Mr. Stannard’s voice——” “Oh, that was hypnotism. Miss Vernon is psychic, and, too, she evidently possesses the power of hypnotising at will. She made you believe you heard those sounds. She made you believe the lights went out——” “Oh, I know the light went out! I couldn’t be mistaken as to that!” “No, but I mean she went and turned them out while you thought she still sat by your side. Weren’t your eyes closed?” “No, they were wide open. She did not leave her seat. The lights were turned off by a hand other than hers, whether mortal or spirit, I cannot say.” “Well, the whole affair was of her invention and carrying out. She is responsible for your husband’s death, Mrs. Stannard. There is no doubt whatever of Miss Vernon’s guilt.” “Just take that back, Roberts,” and Barry Stannard came into the Reception Room where the speakers were sitting. “Miss Vernon is as innocent as an angel in this business. I’m ready to confess. I killed my father, and I own up to it, rather than have Natalie suspected. If you had been any sort of a detective you would have known from the first that I did it. But you had your head set in one direction and nothing could change you. You know perfectly well I had motive and opportunity. It was not premeditated, I did it on the spur of sudden indignation.” “Barry,” cried Joyce, “what are you saying? You didn’t kill Eric!” “Yes, I did. I thought it might blow over, and remain an unsolved mystery. But if Natalie is to be suspected of my crime, I would be less than a man to keep still. Take me along, Roberts, I give myself up.” Bobsy Roberts stared at him. “My plan worked,” he said, slowly. “I thought it was you, really, all along, but I thought, too, the only way to get a confession from you, was to seem to suspect Miss Vernon. As you say, no man could sit still and see a woman bearing the blame that belongs to him. You came in through the Billiard Room?” “Yes,” said Barry. “Mrs. Stannard didn’t see or hear me pass her. I went on through to the studio. I accused my father of persecuting Miss Vernon, and he turned on me in a furious rage. We are both impetuous, we said little, but those few low words roused all my worst nature, and, snatching up the etching needle, I stabbed him, scarce knowing what I did. It was all over in a moment, and I had but one thought, how to escape from that room. I flew across and turned off the lights as a precautionary measure, and then——” “Then how did you get out?” asked Bobsy, breathless with interest. “I was behind the hall door, when Blake opened it, and after he turned on the light, I slipped behind him and Mrs. Faulkner out into the hall. They were so bewildered at the sudden flash of light—and—what it revealed, that they didn’t see me at all.” “Barry!” exclaimed Joyce, “I would have seen you if you had done that.” “No, you had eyes for nothing but Eric’s wounded body. You couldn’t have torn your gaze from that if you had wanted to.” “What did you do after leaving the room?” asked Roberts. “I went out and walked about the lawn. My head was spinning round from excitement and shock at my own deed.” “You stayed near the house?” “Yes, Halpin came out and found me. He told me what had happened and I went right back into the studio.” “You have kept this secret so long. Why?” “Surely you can understand. I love Miss Vernon. I want to marry her. Can I ask her to marry a murderer?” “You mean if she knows it?” “I mean if she knows it. I wanted to keep the secret forever, I hoped to do so. When she was suspected last week, I felt sure she would be cleared. Then when the will was seen to be changed——” “One moment. Did you change the will?” “I did.” “What for?” “Because of what has just now happened. If I had to confess, of course, I could never marry Miss Vernon. And in that case, I wanted her to be provided for.” “That will cannot stand.” “I don’t care anything about that. I’ve confessed now, my life is practically ended. I can will my own fortune to Miss Vernon.” “And the jewels? Did you return those last night? And the emeralds to Mrs. Stannard last week?” “No,” said Barry, slowly. “I don’t know anything about the jewels. Perhaps there was a robber, after all. Say a jewel fancier——” “Or say a little girl who was fond of jewelry.” “No,” and Barry shook his head, “Miss Vernon knew nothing of the jewels.” “But the letter to her——” “That letter wasn’t to her, it was to some woman my father knew and feared. He never would have given the emeralds to Natalie. The idea is preposterous.” “That must be found out. Then the rigamarole the clairvoyant told was true, about a man coming into the studio——” “Yes, it was all true. I was the man.” Barry’s voice was infinitely sad and despairing. Joyce looked at him pityingly. His white face was drawn and his eyes were full of grief. “I think, Mr. Stannard, if all you’ve told me is true, I must ask you to go with me to Headquarters.” “I am ready,” said Barry, simply, and the two men went out. |
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