Just as he was beginning to wish that they had not found his unfortunate brother-in-law, a pleasant and agreeable alternative presented itself and he noticed an immediate increase of warmth in his veins. Strange that he had not thought of it sooner. It was most consoling, after all, this finding of the corpus delicti. If they hadn’t found it he would have been obliged to pay all costs arising from the search and investigation. He had agreed to do so. But now that the “body of the crime” had been unearthed he would be relieved of this onerous obligation. The county would have to pay for everything. That was understood. He smiled a little, turned the covers down from his chin, and took up his book. “Hey, Horace!” He lay perfectly still for a few seconds, his eyes glued to the page. An icy chill, starting in his abdomen, spread all over him, slowly at first, then with consuming swiftness. He bit hard on his teeth to keep them from chattering. The voice sounded as if it were just outside his chamber window. He waited. “Hey, Horace!” A deep groan issued through Mr. Gooch’s stiffening lips. He shrank down into the bed and pulled the covers up over his head. He was haunted! There was no other voice in the world like it. He would know it among a million. Oliver Baxter had come to haunt him! He had a horrifying mental vision of the unforgettable figure of his brother-in-law floating in the air just outside—this changed instantly to an even more appalling spectacle: old Oliver emerging from his grave in the swamp and speeding through the black night to pay him a visit—with his skull split wide open— Some one was knocking at the front door. Even through the thick bed-covers he could hear the sharp tapping—not the tapping of flesh-covered knuckles but of bare bones! Mr. Gooch’s grizzled head popped out from beneath the covers. He remembered that his bedroom door was unlocked. Anybody—any_thing_ could walk right in—He climbed out of bed with a spryness that would have amazed him if he had been able to devote the slightest thought to it. Again the voice, but this time reassuringly remote from his window-sill. He stopped irresolute half way to the door. If he waited long enough, he reasoned, the ghost would go away thinking he was not at home. There was not the slightest doubt that it was farther away now than when it spoke the first time. Besides there was something more or less human in this last cry from the night. It wasn’t at all spookish. It seemed to express wrath. “All right! You can go to Jericho.”