"That is very kind and considerate of you," said Grant gratefully.
"Don't halloo till you're out of the wood." said Furneaux, sitting back suddenly and nursing his left knee with clasped hands. "I can't control other people's actions, you know. What I insist on to-night is that you shall envisage this affair in its proper light. We have a long way to travel before counsel rises with his smug 'May it please you, me lud, and gentlemen of the jury.' But, having persuaded you to agree that, willy nilly, Miss Doris is the hub of our little universe for the hour, I now swear you and this fire-eater in as assistants. There must be no more speeches, no punching of heads, very little love-making, and that by order—"
"Has the postmaster's daughter a delectable sister, O Liliputian cop?" demanded Hart.
"No. Two of 'em would have caused a riot long since. Mr. Grant will do all, and more than all, necessary in that direction."
Grant leaned forward. He spoke very earnestly.
"I want you to believe me when I tell you," he said, "that I never gave serious thought to the notion of marrying Miss Martin until such a possibility was suggested last night by that swab, Ingerman."
"Ah, Ingerman! You kept a record of what he said, I gather?"
"Yes, here it is."
Grant rose, and went to a writing-desk with nests of drawers which stood against the wall on the left of the door. He never used it for its primary purpose. When the table was laid for meals, Minnie or her mother had orders to remove all papers and books to the top of the desk. The house contained no other living-room of size. The hall was spacious; a smoking den next the dining-room had degenerated into a receptacle of guns, fishing-rods, golf-clubs, Alpenstocks, skis and other such sporting accessories. The remainder of the ground-floor accommodation was given up to the Bateses.
Unlocking a drawer, Grant produced a notebook, which he handed to Furneaux. The detective laid it on the table. He was sitting with his back to the large window. Hart faced him. Grant's chair was between the two.
"By the way, as you're on your feet, Mr. Grant," said Furneaux, "you might just show me exactly where you were standing when you saw the face at the window."
"For the love of Mike, what's this?" gurgled Hart. "'The face at the window'; 'the postmaster's daughter.' How many more catchy cross-heads will you bring into the story?"
"Poor Adelaide Melhuish undoubtedly came here on Monday night and looked in at me while I was at work," said Grant sadly. "You know the history of my calf love three years ago, Wally."
"Shall I ever forget it? You bored me stiff about it. Then, when the crash came, you walked me off my legs in the Upper Engadine. Ugh! That night on the Forno glacier. It gives me a chill to think of it now. Furneaux, pass the port. Your name is wrongly spelt. It should be fourneau, not Furneaux. A little oven. Hot stuff. Got me?"
"My dear Hart, you flatter me," retorted the detective instantly.
"How long am I to pose here?" snapped Grant.
"Sorry," said Furneaux. "These interruptions are banal. Is that where you were?"
"Yes. I had my hand outstretched for a book. It's dark in this corner. When I want to find a book I light a candle, which is always placed on the ledge of the window for the purpose. The blind was not drawn that night. It seldom is. I had the book in my hand, and had found the required passage when I chanced to look at the window and saw her face."
"Do you mind reconstructing the scene. This lamp was on the table, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Well, pull up the blind, light your candle, and find the book. Act the whole incident, in fact."
Grant obeyed. He held the candlestick until he had picked out the particular volume; then he placed it in the recess of the window, and searched through the pages of the book.
Furneaux bent forward so as to watch the rehearsal and catch the effect of the light externally. The hour was not so late as when Adelaide Melhuish, or her ghost, gazed in through one of those narrow panes, but the night was dark enough to lend the necessary vraisemblance. Hart, deeply interested, looked on with rapt, eager eyes. For a full minute the tableau remained thus. Then, with a rapidity born of many a close 'scape in wild lands, Hart drew a revolver from a hip pocket, and fired at the window.
He alone was in a position to see through all parts of it. Grant was still thumbing a small brown volume in the manner of one who knew that a certain passage would be found therein but was ignorant of its exact place in the text. Furneaux, intent on his every movement, had only a side-long view of the window, which, it will be remembered, formed a tiny rectangle in a thick wall.
The revolver was a heavy-caliber weapon, and the explosion blew out the lamp. The flame of the candle flickered, owing either to the passage of the bullet or the disturbance of the air. But it burnt steadily again within the fifth part of a second, and they all saw a starred hole in the center pane of glass of the second tier from the bottom.
"What fool's game are you playing?" shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window, there to snatch at the blind and turn the knob which controlled a lever bolt.
"Laying another ghost—one with whiskers," said Hart coolly. "I got him, too, I think."
"You must be mad, mad!" shrieked the detective, tearing open the window, and vanishing.
"For Heaven's sake, Wally, no more shooting!" cried Grant, running after Furneaux.
Minnie and her mother appeared at the dining-room door. Finding the place in semi-obscurity, and reeking with gunpowder, they screamed loudly.
"You Steynholme folk are all on the jump," said Hart. "Cheer up, fair dames! Thunder relieves the atmosphere, you know, and one live cartridge is often more effective than an ocean of talk."
"Bub-bub-but who's shot, sir?" gasped Minnie.
"A ghost, a most scoundrelly apparition, with fearsome eyes, offensive whiskers, and a hat which is a base copy of mine."
"Owd Ben!" sighed Mrs. Bates, collapsing straightway in a faint.
Luckily, Minnie caught her mother and broke her fall, because the housekeeper was large and solid, and might have been seriously injured otherwise. Hart was distressed by this development, but, being eminently a ready person in an emergency, he rose to the occasion by extracting the empty case from the revolver, and holding it to the poor woman's nostrils, while supporting her with an arm and a knee.
"This is far more effective than burnt brown paper, Minnie," he said. "Now, don't get excited, but mix some brandy and water, and we'll have your mother telling us who Owd Ben is, or was, before Hawk-eye comes back to disturb us. Judging by the noises I hear, he's busy outside."
"That's father!" shrieked Minnie hysterically.
"Good Lord! Has your father—"
For an instant, Hart was nearly alarmed, but Grant's voice came authoritatively:
"It's all right, Bates. Let go, I tell you!"
"Phew!" said Hart. "I was on the point of confusing your respected dad with Owd Ben ... That's it, ma! Sniff hard! As a cook you're worth your weight in gold, which is some cook."
Meanwhile, Furneaux, seeing that no dead body was stretched on the strip of grass beneath the window, dashed into the shrubbery to the right, and was clutched in a mighty embrace by an older but much more powerful man in Bates, who had hurried from the front of the house on hearing the pistol-shot. Most fortunately, the gardener, deeming his vigil a needless one, had not armed himself with a stick, or the consequences might have been grave. As it was, no one except Hart had been vouchsafed sight or sound of the latest specter, which, however, had left a very convincing souvenir of its visit in the shape of a soft felt hat with two bullet