LITMIR.BIZ

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in the afternoon.

      “Mrs. Pond had been out riding. When she returned she hurried up to her room to dress for dinner.

      “She took off some of her jewelry—some rings, pins and that sort of thing—and laid them on the dressing-table. Then she went into her sitting-room.

      “Remember, I’m telling this just as she told it. How much of it is fact and how much is hysterics I can’t say. She was scared half out of her wits by what happened afterward, and may have got mixed up in her narrative.

      “This is what she told us: When she had been in the sitting-room about a minute she turned toward the bedroom and saw the door slowly shutting.

      “She was surprised at this, for she had locked the other door of the bed-room, and it did not seem possible for anybody to be in there.

      “In fact, such a thing did not come into her mind. She supposed that a draught of air was swinging the door.

      “She hastened toward it, but it closed before she got there.

      “She turned the knob and tried to open the door, but was unable to do so. It did not seem to resist firmly, as it would if it had been fastened. Instead it gave slightly, as if some person had been holding it.

      “If that was the case, he was stronger than she was, for she didn’t succeed in opening the door.

      “Then she screamed. Such a yell I never heard a woman utter. I was in my own room, which is over hers, and I jumped nearly out of my skin, it startled me so.

      “I was dressing, and was in my underclothes, so it took me a minute, I should say, to get a pair of pantaloons on.

      “Then I ran out into the hall and down the stairs. At the same moment my uncle ran up from the ground floor.

      “I mention these facts, because they seem to me to be important. You see, we approached that room by two ways—by the only two ways except that by which Mrs. Pond came.

      “Just as I got to the hall door of her bed-room she opened it, and fell into my arms in a faint.

      “She lost consciousness only for a moment, and, on coming to herself, she cried out that a thief had been in her room.

      “By this time there were three or four servants in the hall below. One of them staid there by my uncle’s orders. The others went outside and made a circuit of the house.

      “We led Mrs. Pond back into her room, and she pointed to her dressing-table.

      “There lay two or three rings and a pin, but the most valuable ring that she had put there was gone.

      “It was a queer, old-fashioned ring in the form of a snake, and in its mouth was a ruby worth about two hundred and fifty dollars. The eyes were made of small diamonds.

      “She declared that she had left the ring there. She told us how the door between the two rooms had closed.

      “It appears that after she had struggled to open it for several minutes it suddenly yielded, and she almost fell into the room.

      “Of course, she expected to rush straight upon the thief. He had been holding the door, and naturally he couldn’t have gone far after releasing it.

      “She was inside just as soon as the pressure on the other side was removed. But the room was empty.

      “She thought of her jewels at once. She rushed to her dressing-table, and instantly missed the ruby ring.

      “Now, that’s all there is to it. We hunted high and low for the thief, and did not find a trace of him.

      “How did he get away? That’s where I give up the riddle. The door in the hall was locked on the inside, and practically guarded by my uncle and myself. At the other door stood Mrs. Pond.

      “There is only one window. It looks out on a sort of court with the house on three sides of it.

      “A man with a wagon was almost under the window all the time. He was delivering groceries to the cook.

      “It’s absurd to suppose that anybody got in or out by that window. No thief would have been fool enough to try it at that time of day, and, as I’ve told you, there were two persons who would have been perfectly sure to see him if he had. And he couldn’t have got in or out without a ladder.

      “I admit that it looked very queer. What do you make of it, Mr. Carter?”

      “Are you sure the ring was really taken? Couldn’t she have been mistaken about it?”

      “That’s the idea that occurred to me. But it happens that when Mrs. Pond came back from the drive my uncle banded her out of the carriage, and he distinctly remembers seeing the ring on her finger.

      “She went straight to her room, and she couldn’t have lost the ring by the way, for there was a guard ring on the outside of it, and that we found on the dressing-table.

      “Of course, we hunted for the ruby ring. We took up the carpets; we made such a search as I never saw before. The ring was not there.

      “I don’t think there’s a shadow of doubt that the ring was stolen, but I can’t form an idea of how it was done.

      “The more I think about it the more confused I get. To my mind the queerest part of it is that somebody held the door, and then let go of it and vanished in a quarter of a second. How are we going to explain that?”

      “Didn’t the thief put something against the door?”

      “I thought of that, and tried to work out that theory, but it’s impossible. Not a piece of furniture was out of place, and there wasn’t a stick or a prop of any kind in the room that could have been used for such a purpose.”

      “Well, that’s strange, I must admit,” said Nick. “I guess it will be necessary for me to go down and look the ground over.”

      “That’s just what we want.”

      “Come along, then. I’m ready.”

Chapter II.

       Nick Is Boldly Challenged

       Table of Contents

      Nick knew the old Plummer mansion well. There is not a house to match it in this country.

      A hundred years and more ago it must have been the scene of strange adventures. It was built, certainly, by one who did not expect a peaceful and quiet life within it.

      The thick stone walls, which look so unnecessarily massive, are really double. There are secret passages and movable panels and trap-doors enough in that house to hide a man, if a regiment of soldiers was after him.

      Evidently such a place offered every chance to shrewd criminals who might have a motive for playing upon the superstitious beliefs of the present proprietor.

      Anybody who couldn’t get up a respectable ghost in the old Plummer house must be a very poor fakir.

      The mere fact that all the doors and windows of a room were closed did not prevent any person from going in or out at will, if he knew the secrets of the house.

      Nick thought of these things as he rode down there in the cars, and he prepared himself for an interesting time, chasing bogus ghosts through secret doors and panels.

      But a surprise awaited him on his arrival. Colonel Richmond met him at the door, and, by Nick’s request, took him at once to the room from which the articles had been stolen.

      It was a modern room in a new part of the house.

      Nick was entirely unprepared for this. He did not know that the colonel had built any additions to the old mansion.

      Colonel Richmond spoke of this remarkable

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