"I saw that from the door-step when I went out to give Rudge his
usual five minutes' breathing spell on the stoop. But you have not
answered my question; whom do you mean by she?"
"Veronica Jeffrey," I replied. "She who was Veronica Moore. She
has visited this haunted house of hers for the last time."
"Last time!" Either he could not or would not understand me.
"What has happened to my niece?" he cried, rising with an energy
that displaced the great dog and sent him, with hanging head and
trailing tail, to his own special sleeping-place under the table.
"Has she run upon a ghost in those dismal apartments? You interest
me greatly. I did not think she would ever have the pluck to visit
this house again after what happened at her wedding."
"She has had the pluck," I assured him; "and what is more, she has
had enough of it not only to reenter the house, but to reenter it
alone. At least, such is the present inference. Had you been
blessed with more curiosity and made more frequent use of the chair
so conveniently placed for viewing the opposite house, you might
have been in a position to correct this inference. It would help
the police materially to know positively that she had no companion
in her fatal visit."
"Fatal?" he repeated, running his finger inside his neckband, which
suddenly seemed to have grown too tight for comfort.
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