CHAPTER V Baffled
Still, no one wanted to be the first to enter, and they stood on thestep, frightened but intensely curious.
Arden gave Terry a little push, hinting that she should lead, but Terrysidestepped. Sim sneaked around the others until she was on the edge ofthe step, nearer the car.
"Do you think it could be so terrible?" she questioned.
"We ought to find out. Besides, if it's someone dead--" Dorothystopped--"it couldn't hurt us anyway."
She started cautiously just a few steps, but at least they had begun tomove. The other three, in close formation, followed. At the foot of thestairs they stopped; listened. There was not a sound. The daylightfiltering in through a stained-glass window at the first landing casteerie shadows and even made the girls' faces take on a sickish palecolor.
Dorothy put her hand on the worn old stair rail and slid it up ahead ofher as though to pull herself after it. A deep indentation checked thesliding hand and acted like a brake.
Then Terry, growing a little braver, deliberately went up a few steps,and in this fashion, by starting and stopping every second or two, andlistening, cautiously they reached the first landing.
There they halted. But only for a second, for something drew them on;some power they could not resist urged them up almost against all reason,until they were on the second floor of the weird old house.
There the hall ran the length of the house. All furnishing was gone fromthe hall except an old dusty chest that stood in a dark, dingy corner.
Rooms were on either side of the passage, but the doors were all closedexcept one. Somehow Dorothy felt this was The Room. But to look in wouldbe another matter. What was in there? Nothing at all or----?
They must find out. The old adage, "safety in numbers," came back toDorothy. She motioned to the other frightened girls. They crept forwardon tiptoe.
Now in line with the opened doorway, Dorothy forced herself to look in.She saw a large square room with shuttered windows through which themorning light barely seeped in splintered blades. There was the bed.
The bed! That dreadful possibility!
How could she look? No longer brave, she shut her eyes. Her buzzing headseemed not to belong to her. But the next moment, of its own accord, itturned again to that dreadful resting place. A deep sigh, a gasp, fromone of the girls behind Dorothy startled her further, and she could delayno longer. She opened her eyes.
The bed was empty!
A four-poster that must once have boasted a canopied top, the huge oldbed stood stark and sinister. A dark bedraggled cloth covered themattress, but happily--and how glad they were--nothing else was there.
"Whew!" Terry ran a trembling hand across her forehead. "I feel as if Ihad just gone through a clothes wringer."
"Such suspense! I lived a hundred years coming up those stairs," declaredSim. "Is my face white?"
Arden did not feel like joking. She went closer to the bed.
"Absolutely empty! Those men must have very vivid imaginations," shedeclared with a little laugh. "Seeing things, that way."
"This time three men saw the same thing, or claim they did. The othertime it was two who saw and who also claimed they heard the thudding ofthe soldier's boots. Some complications even for ghosts," Sim remarked.
"It's very queer. The spirits of the departed owners of the Hall must berising in protest against the invasion of the wreckers," Terry suggested,not too merrily.
"Are you sure, my dear friends, you had nothing to do with this?" Dorothyasked, once more skeptical.
That question brought a storm of protest.
"Dorothy!" exclaimed Arden, "do you really think _we_ could have scaredaway those workmen?"
"Well, if you feel that way, Dot," began Terry. But she didn't; she toldthem so. And once more it was a united party that looked for furtherevidence of ghosts, real or imaginary.
The inevitable fireplace was built in the wall not far from the suspectedbed. An old squat rocker stood lonely and forlorn in the center, and apacking box had gathered dust under a window--that was all. The floor wasalso dusty, but Dorothy stooped down and, with royal disregard, swept aspot clean with a dainty lace-trimmed handkerchief.
"Look at the floor, girls," she said. "See how wide the boards are andthe pegs to hold them down. They don't make floors that way any more. Allthese boards were cut and planed and the pegs made and fitted in byhand."
"I wish I knew more about such things," Terry remarked, inspecting thefloor. "All I know is that this must have been a fine old house, and Iwish it wasn't going to be torn down."
"It reminds me of an impending execution." Sim sighed. "It did its duty,and now it has to give up its life for its country." That trite remarkbrought on a giggle, but Sim didn't mind.
Arden and Dorothy were snooping about, looking through the cracks in theshutters, and even peered under the bed.
"If they succeed in demolishing the Hall, I'm going to try and buy thepicture of that girl downstairs," announced Terry. "She fascinates me!I'd like to find out more about her."
"Probably Dick's grandmother could tell you. We must look her up," saidArden, dusting her hands. "Who's that?" she asked suddenly as voices indispute were heard from somewhere.
"Someone downstairs," Dorothy answered. They listened. One voice, aman's, seemed just very ordinary, not the least bit ghost-like.
"Let's go down and see what's happening," Terry suggested. "We're notafraid of workmen."
They all trooped down in much different spirits than they had come up in.Now, like weather vanes turning in the wind, their interest was veeringto the commotion below.
In the hallway stood the three workmen who had so recently rushed out ofthe old mansion. There was another, an older man, obviously theiremployer, with them now.
"Are you men telling me that you're quitting, too?" asked the bosssharply.
"Yes, sir," the leader of the three stated emphatically. "I don't likethis place. I'd rather chop down trees all winter than go up on the topfloor for a day and start tearing this place down."
"But, man, you're wrong! There's nothing there. You told me this samestory last week, and when I looked in, the room was empty," the wreckingcontractor declared.
The girls were on the landing above, and he turned to them, seeminglysurly and surprised.
"That your car outside? What are you doing in here?" he asked bruskly.
"Yes," answered Sim. "We heard someone shout as we were going past andstopped to see--if we could help."
"Well--what did you find?" the contractor asked, apparently hoping thatthe statement of disinterested young ladies would impress the frightenedmen favorably.
"Nothing," Arden admitted. "The room was empty when we looked in.Although _he_ said," Arden indicated the man she had questioned, "thatthere was an old lady up there, dead on the bed."
"Yeah--_he_ said," the contractor shrugged. "I know! He had the samestory last week. All right," he continued, now addressing the men, "go tothe office and get your pay. You're finished! But this house comes downif I have to pull it down myself!"
The laborers turned away and, talking among themselves, gathered up theirlunch boxes and coats and hurriedly walked away.
"You girls want to be careful in here," the contractor warned. "Not thatI worry about ghosts, but you might get hurt if something fell on you.They were working on the roof today. This is the second time men havelaid down on this job. But I'll have this place leveled to the ground ifI have to get my own family to help me." He looked angrily at the ceilingabove him and then, taking a big black cigar from his pocket, he bit theend savagely. Glancing about once more he finally strode after the men,leaving the little group of wondering girls to puzzle it out.