Tommy stared at us both. Then he whistled.
"No!" he said, and fell into a deep study, with his hands in his heavy thatch of hair. After a minute he got off the bed and sauntered toward the door.
"I'll just wander in and have a look at it," he said, and disappeared.
It was Tish's suggestion that we put the light: out and sit in the dark. Probably Tommy's nearness gave us courage. As Tish said, in five minutes it would be midnight, and almost anything might happen under the circumstances.
"And as honest investigators," she said, "we owe it to the world and to science to put ourselves en rapport. These things never happen in the light."
We could hear Tommy speaking in a low tone to Miss Lewis, but soon that stopped, although he did not come back. Even with the door open, a dimly-outlined rectangle, I wasn't any too comfortable. Tish sat without moving. Once she leaned over and touched my elbow.
"I've got a tingle in both legs to the knee," she whispered. "Do you feel anything?"
"Nothing but the slat across the back of this chair," I replied, and we sat silent again. I must have dozed almost immediately, for when I roused, the traveling clock was striking midnight, and Tish was shaking my arm.
"What's that light?" she quavered.
I looked toward the hall, and sure enough the outline of the door was a pale and quavering yellow.
The door frame is moving!" gasped Tish. "Fiddle!" I snapped, wide awake. "Somebody's out there with a moving light. Where's-Tommy?"
"He hasn't come back. Lizzie, go and look out. I can't find my cane."
"Go yourself!" I said sourly.
Well, we went together, finally, tiptoeing to the door and peering out. The light was gone; only a faint gleam remained, and that came down the staircase to the upper floor.
"Damnation!" said Tommy's voice, just at our elbow. And with that he darted along the hall and up the stairs, after the light.
Now Tish is essentially a woman of action. She's only timid when she can't do anything.'
And now she hobbled across to the foot of the stairs, with me at her heels.
"That was no earthly light, Lizzie!" she said in a subdued tone. "Do you remember what Aggie said, about the light when Mr. Wiggins died?"
I'd been thinking about it myself that very moment.
"I'd feel better with some sort of weapon, Tish," I protested, as we started up, but Tish only looked at me in the darkness and shook her head. I knew perfectly well what she meant: that no earthly weapon would be of any avail. Considering what we thought, I think that we got up the staircase at all is very creditable.
The light was there, coming from one of the empty rooms, and streaming out into the dark hall. There was somebody moving in the room. We heard a window closing, and then the footsteps coming toward the door. The next moment the light itself came into the hall. It was a candle, and Miss Blake was carrying it!
I made out Tommy's figure flattened in a doorway, and then the light disappeared again as Miss Blake went into the next room, the one where Johnson had been found. She was there a long time, and once we heard her exclaim something and the light from the doorway wavered, as if the candle had almost gone out.
She went into each private room, then into the ward, and finally there remained only the mortuary. Tish clutched my arm. Would this bit of a girl, in her long white wrapper, her childish braid, her small bare feet thrust into bedroom slippers, would she dare that grisly place?"
She did not keep us in doubt long. She went directly to the foot of the mortuary steps and stood, her candle held high, looking up. Then she began to mount them, slowly, as if every atom of her will were required to urge her frightened muscles. Tommy stirred uneasily in his doorway.
The large double doors to the mortuary stood partly open. She pushed them back quietly and hesitated, candle still high. Then she went in, and by the paling light we knew she had gone to the far end of the room. Tommy came out from the doorway and tiptoed down the hall. We could see his outline against the gleam.
The stillness was terrible. We could hear her moving around that awful place, could hear, even at that distance, the soft swish of her negligee on the floor. And then, without any warning, she spoke. It was uncanny beyond description, although we heard nothing she said.
"My God!" said Tish, forgetting herself.
There was a sound immediately after. Tish said it was a thud, as if a chair had been upset, but I insisted that it sounded more like a window thrown up with terrific force. The light went out immediately, and we heard footsteps running away from us.
"Tommy!" Tish called. But nobody answered. We were left there alone in the darkness, shivering with fright.
I am very shaky about what happened next. I remember Tish fumbling for her cane, and saying she was going to follow Tommy, and my holding her back and telling her not to be a fool—that the boy was safe enough. And I remember seeing a light behind us and the old night watchman coming up the staircase with his electric flash, and trying to tell him something was wrong in the mortuary.
And then, as my voice gave way, we heard a shout overhead, and immediately the crash of broken glass and a thud into the hall just ahead of us. The watchman pushed us aside and ran.
Tommy was lying unconscious on the floor with the pieces of a broken skylight all around him.
Chapter VII.
Insinuations and Recriminations
Miss Lewis had heard the crash and came running, with the hall nurse from the floor below. Tish was sitting on the floor among the pieces of glass, with Tommy's head on her knee, crying over him, when they got there. He opened his eyes just then, and lay staring up at the hole in the skylight above, as if he was puzzled. Then he turned his head and saw who was holding him, and made an effort to sit up.
"You—needn't look so tragic, Aunt Tish," he said. "I'm—I'm all right,'' and fell back on her lap again.
Miss Lewis got down and began to feel him for broken bones.
"Skull's whole, thank goodness!" she muttered. "Can you move your legs. Doctor?"
Tommy lifted them in turn, making grimaces of pain. Then he lifted his right arm. It fell as if he couldn't support its weight
"I've bruised my shoulder," he said, and lay back with his eyes closed.
"Get his coat off," ordered Miss Lewis, and I knelt to help her. But Tommy resisted.
"I'm all right," he said crossly. "I'll look after it later myself."
"Tommy!" said Tish. "Let them take your coat off."
"I won't have it off," he insisted, and when she persisted he was almost vicious.
Miss Lewis sat back on her heels and shook her head at me.
"He's a little dazed," she said. "How in the world did it happen?"
"I was walking on the roof," said Tommy more agreeably, "and I stepped on the skylight by mistake. It was dark underneath. It was a dam fool thing to do!"
The hall nurse and Miss Lewis exchanged glances, and the hall nurse looked at me and smiled.
"He is still dazed," she said, smiling. "How could he step on the skylight? It has a four-foot fence around it!"
We waited for him to explain further, but he let it go at that, and lay