Of course, I had men from Scotland Yard, and others searching for a long time. But they did no good except to prove that my father had left the fair at Longtown in good time, carrying with him (what was very curious) not the money in gold or notes, but a cheque payable to bearer on the bank at Thorsby. Well, that cheque had never been presented. This was fatal to our theory. For if my father had been killed for booty, he could only have had an old silver watch on him, with the guard made of porpoise bootlaces, and perhaps five or six shillings in silver; because he always gave trysts and fairs and markets a bad name, especially those so near the border as Longtown. They gathered, he declared, all the riffraff of two countries, besides all the Molly Malones and cutpurses that ever were born to be hanged. This was all that could be got out of these wise men from London for the money I spent--my father's money, rather. They never traced him beyond half-way, where, at a lonely inn on the Crewe Moss, he had stopped to drink a cup of coffee and break a bite of bread before going farther. Oh, I tell you that our big house, with its bricked yard, and all the fine, new outhouses, barns, storages for grain and fodder, was a lonesome place those days! And how much more lonesome the nights! I tell you that, after the men had gone home, the horses been foddered and bedded down in the stable, and the doors were locked (except the big centre one, which my mother would not allow to be touched), Bob Kingsman and I went about with a permanent crick in each of our necks, got by looking over our shoulders for a thing with a master-key, that could let in horses, and open doors, and leave no tracks behind it on the snow. It lurked in the dark when we turned corners, and many's the time we felt it spring on our shoulders out of the dusk of the rafters. My, but Bob was scared! Me, too, when it came to pass--as it often did--that mother, in her moanings and wailings, sent me down to the yard gate to look for father. If anybody had spoken too suddenly to me then, I should have dropped. And as for Bob Kingsman, he slept in his little room with shuttered windows on both sides and barricaded doors, besides a perfect armoury of deadly weapons ready to his hand. He nearly shot himself more than once, monkeying with them. I used to tell him that it was all nonsense. For, at any rate, a ghost wouldn't care for repeating rifles, or even 12-inch guns, let alone his old horse pistols, that would go off but one time in four. But he only said, "Fudge, Joe! Ghosts don't need master-keys. They use keyholes, as a rule." To which I answered that they couldn't put Dapple through a keyhole, as she, at least, was not a ghost, but hearty, and taking her oats well. He did not know exactly what to reply to this, but contented himself with saying, with the true Bob Kingsman doggedness-- "Well, if he comes, I will plug him."