Edwin McLaren

“ Peyton continued, her voice betraying her agitation, "he and I were motoring along the North Shore when we espied this old Clayberg estate. The quaint charm of the old-fashioned place at once enchanted me; and when we alighted and strolled through the grounds my enchantment grew. It seemed as if Nature had outdone herself in lavishing picturesque beauty there. ”

“ He was up and dressed at seven o'clock; and when the Peytons came downstairs about eight he had an appetizing breakfast awaiting them. As soon as her husband had left for his office, Mrs. Peyton, returning from the front door, looked at the detective with anxious inquiry in her large brown eyes.
"Have you discovered anything at all, Mr. Barry?"
Barry took a crumpled napkin from the breakfast table and folded it thoughtfully between his long fingers. He was thinking: "Yes, Mrs. Peyton; I've discovered the identity of your 'ghost,' and you alone have the power to 'kill' it." ”

“ It will seem quite, plausible, too," she added, rising and glancing at her watch, "particularly since I've just engaged a new cook—who is waiting for me now, by the way, in my car. We had best start at once, Mr. Barry. It’s nearly one, and my husband is usually home before six."
. . . . A little later, as the Peyton limousine smartly threaded its way through the downtown streets, Barry, sitting on the front seat beside the chauffeur, planned a procedure that would either substantiate, or explode, his tentative explanation of the white-bearded "ghost." ”

“ In the adjoining room he could hear the voices of Scott Peyton and his wife; and since the door between the two offices stood partly open, he could also see their faces. Himself unobserved, Barry stood silently watching and listening.
"I suppose you're right, Scott," she said, standing beside her husband's desk and looking down at him, "After what happened last night, I'm just about ready to do as you say—give the house up aid move back to town. But I do so hate to leave that old place. I wish—"
"Why should you?" he interrupted, scowling at his desk and avoiding her eyes. ”

“ At the garage, which aforetime had been a stable, he engaged in back-stairs gossip with Frank Dominick, the chauffeur—in the presence of the gardener, John Hart, an uncommunicative person—and learned that both were preparing to "give notice."
"We ain't actually seen old Clayberg's ghost—at least not yet," said Dominick, "but we've heard enough about 'im and I guess he'll be callin' on us next. I guess the only reason we ain't seen 'im before is because we sleep up there," pointing to the upper floor of the garage. "Take my advice, friend, and don't stay here over night. Am I right, John?" ”

“ Barry in?" she asked. "Mr. Herbert Barry?"
"I am Herbert Barry," he said.
"Oh!" Surprised, she eyed the slim young man half incredulously. He seemed scarcely more than a boy. "Mrs. Franklin Parker told me about you—recommended you very highly. Perhaps that is why," she added, with a smile, "I expected to find an older man. . . . I suppose most of the people who come to see you are in trouble of some sort. I am not in trouble, exactly, but—" She glanced around the office. "May I have a word with you in privacy?"
He held open the door to the adjoining room. "Suppose we step in here? ”

“ Mrs. Peyton still sat at the breakfast table in a pensive reverie, her wistful brown gaze lost in the morning sunshine beyond the leaded casements.
AN HOUR later Barry alighted from a train in Chicago and forthwith called on a colleague, whose skill in analyzing handwriting and identifying finger prints had earned him the title of "expert." He spent considerable time with this man; and then he went to his office and wrote his report for Mrs. Peyton.
And when the report was finished he sat gazing at it musingly—somewhat as Mrs. Peyton had gazed from her breakfast-room window this morning. ”

“ I don't think—the ghost—will bother us again. . . ."
At this juncture Barry quietly departed.
A LITTLE LATER he again sat at his desk, gazing again at the report he had written. And he now knew that this report would never be seen by any eye save his.
But while he is sitting here suppose we look over his shoulder and glance at the thing before he tears it up:
"In Re Peyton 'ghost': . . . . Using a King Lear costume, which he put on and off with lightning agility, the 'ghost' hoped, by his nocturnal prowling, to frighten Mrs' Peyton into abandoning the house as her husband desired. . . . ”

“ Then he drew the table to the window, and lighted the lamp, and sat down and began writing letters to mythical persons in Iowa. His door stood open, and so did the window, and anybody passing in the hall, or standing north of the house, could have watched him at his employment.
For upward of two hours he sat steadily writing, his back to the door, his face silhouetted against the window; and when he had written five letters, and had stamped and directed them to his imaginary correspondents, he uncorked the mucilage pot and sealed the flaps of the envelops. ”

“ He deposited the dishes in the kitchen sink. The napkin went into his hip pocket. Then he started upstairs for his other clothes, At her bedroom door he paused, listening. The door stood open. Mrs. Peyton, downstairs, was sitting at the breakfast table, absently crumbling a bit of toast in her fingers, a faraway look in her eyes. Barry, at her bedroom door, was remarking the small mahogany desk, where, two nights ago, the "ghost" had written his warning to her. ”

“ It was a kodak "snapshot" of an aged man with flowing white hair and a patriarchal beard. Turning it over, Barry saw written on the back, "Willard Clayberg, December, 1922."
"It's Mr. Clayberg's last picture," said Mrs. Peyton. ”

“ They lived, as you probably recall, in a quaint old-fashioned home near Hubbard Woods—just the two of them; no children. Following the tragedy, the house was closed up and for a long while remained unoccupied. Despite the scarcity of dwelling places, nobody apparently cared to live there. ”

“ At a State Street department store he secretly bought a pad of cheap writing paper, a package of ungummed envelopes, ten two-cent stamps, a thick lead pencil, a jar of mucilage and an oblong carton of sterilized gauze. ”

“ Peyton—and found Clara fully dressed and holding her traveling-bag. It was evident she had dressed in considerable haste, and it was equally plain that she was almost paralyzed with fear.
"'I just seen a spook!' she gasped. 'An old man with white hair and whiskers. He come right in my room while I was asleep. I woke up and seen mm. And he writ somethin' on my dresser. You c'n see for yerself, ma'am, what he writ there.'
"FEARFUL of awakening my husband, I had drawn her away from the bedroom door ”