Meredith Nicholson

“ There was a second shot and a heavy blow was struck. Then, through the silence, a man's voice called calmly: "It's all right now; I've got his gun! We'd better look out for Hope!"
As Salder lowered the lantern through the opening Burgess saw that it was Forbes who spoke. Cummings lay crumpled on the floor, his face covered with blood; Forbes was already springing up the cellar steps. When Burges reached the sitting room, he found him bending over the girl, chafing her hands, repeating her name over and over again. ”

“ Shortly after midnight Salder was back at High Ridge, where he found Burgess waiting up for him in the big, comfortable farm-house. "There wouldn't be anything to it," said Saller, "except for the ghost."
"Ah! The ghost isn't just a neighborhood superstition? Tell me all you know."
"Well, the loafers I talked to in the Ortonville garage swallow it whole. After the murder the Carleton house was shut up and nobody has lived there since, but people still go out of their way to look at the ghost, and you can hear all kinds of stories." ”

“ She and Cummings had probably grown up together and possibly she had promised to marry him; and then along came Forbes, an attractive young man from a larger world, and they became interested in each other, and of course the young fellow who had been her lover from school days resented it, and it's possible—of course it's only possible—that Cummings did the shooting."
"Then why didn't Forbes defend himself?" demanded Salder. "I've been in jail a good many times myself and I can't imagine any man just taking what the law hands him without putting up a fight. ”

“ The only heir seems to be the grand-daughter who lived with the old man—Hope Carleton. She was in town spending the night when he was killed and hasn't been back to the farm since the funeral."
"How about the girl? Never suspected, was she?"
"No; and she stands high in Ortonville. Everybody speaks well of her and pitied her for having to live with the old man. They all expected that she would get his money when he died, but the land is poor stuff and hasn't been sold and the murder and the ghost put a blink on it."
"Robbery wasn't in the case against Forbes at all. ”

“ It ain't in human nature."
"We won't generalize too much about human nature," said Burgess. "We are dealing with an unusual case. I think Forbes is innocent, and yet his conduct certainly points to guilt. We have got to find a motive for his silence. He may think the girl shot the old man, or that she put Cummings up to it. Or he may be so deeply in love with this girl that he would ruin his life to protect his successful rival." ”

“ He kicked the rocker into a corner and they went through the rooms, throwing up the sashes where the glass was intact and tearing off the boards that protected them on the outside. They found the upper floor in great disorder. A room that had evidently been the grand-daughter's interested Burgess. The drawers of an old-fashioned bureau stood open, pointing to the young woman's hasty departure.
"We've got to figure out just how a man can sit up and sing hymns in a church fifteen miles from a place where he is committing a murder," said Burgess as they stood on the back porch. ”

“ The same hand that fixed the rocker rigged up a machine to fire the rifle. You've got to hand it to the fellow for having studied the old man's habits so well that he knew he was usually sitting in the rocker by the table reading for an hour or so before be turned in. The smartest thing the assassin did was not to skip; there was the girl to hold him and the hope of finding the money. I tell you Cummings is guilty, and a clever scoundrel he is! ”

“ Burgess replied, and thrust the book back into his pocket.
"You'd better keep away from the scene of the murder," said the Governor. "The Ranger County sheriff dropped in here a week ago and after filing a polite protest against turning Forbes loose gave me the startling information that the Carleton house is haunted. The chair in which the old man sat reading when he was killed rocks whenever anybody looks at it. You might smoke that in your pipe, Mr. Burgess!"
"Thanks ever so much!" replied Burgess. "A haunted rocking chair is a pretty idea and has at least the merit of novelty. ”

“ From all accounts Carleton had a mean temper and was hard to get on with. People say he didn't appreciate at all the sacrifices his granddaughter was making to keep him comfortable in his old age."
"A disagreement about a switch is a very weak motive," remarked Burgess pensively. "You have got to consider that Forbes is a man of education and had been connected with coal mining in different parts of the country ever since he left college. He's not the sort of fellow who would assassinate an old man in the interest of his corporation. ”

“ Governor Baldridge thought he had put Burgess in a hole and, having heard the banker relate many stories of his escapades, he was enormously pleased.
"When a man declines a pardon, what's the answer? If the parole has been granted I suppose the warden will have to chuck him out anyhow," said Burgess, sniffing a cigar the Governor offered, dropping it back into the box and lighting a cigaret. ”

“ Burgess remarked to Governor Baldridge the next day after he had given an account of his adventures at the Carleton farm.
"What will you do with Forbes now?" asked the Governor.
"Oh, he can loaf around High Ridge till after Cummings's trial, and then I'll give him a proper wedding—to which you are now invited—and send him to run some mines I own in Arizona. You've got to admit that he's a pretty high-grade fellow." ”

“ He even calculated the resistance of the rug. Operating a ghost by electricity is certainly going some."
"But you will never pin it on Cummings, I tell you!" Salder protested. "It was absolutely proved by a dozen witnesses that he was in church the night of the murder and be accounted for himself clear up to midnight, when he went home to his mother's house. This ghost business is a joke rigged up by someone who had nothing to do with the murder."
"I don't doubt the first of that," Burgess replied. "The second point must wait a little. Let us smash these other windows and let in the air." ”

“ As I understand it, the ghost didn't begin to rock the chair for some time after Carleton's death. And we may assume that the murderer was afraid to do any searching at once and then, to keep people off the premises, he got the story going that the house was haunted."
Burgess remained on the porch until the flash of the lamp gave him the direction he wanted; then he joined Salder in the barnyard. Mystified by these further investigations, Salder followed Burgess up a rickety ladder into the loft. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”