He swung the boat around. "Starboard!" I cried. "Don't you know a trump card when you see it?" Again he rested on his oars and stared at me. "What do you mean, Lucien? If you have a grain of hope for me, please let me in." I repeated Silvia's theories. "I am not going to win her that way," he said slowly, "not by playing a part." "Well," I declared, "if you go back to the hotel now, you can't explain Miss Frayne to Beth, because she went for a walk with old Professor Treadtop." He turned the boat again. "Silvia won't come to the Haunted House, will she?" he asked. "No, indeed. Nothing would induce her to." "Then you bring Miss Frayne here tonight and I'll bring Beth. And I'll be sure that there are no double boats lying around loose. I'll have two at the dock, see?" "I see your system," I replied, "but I am not sure how I can explain Miss Frayne to Silvia. Silvia is not in the least narrow-minded, but still to leave the hotel at midnight with a perfectly strange young woman--" "You can tell her I want a clear field for Beth. She will see it is in a good cause." The Polydores greeted us rapturously and roughly. When I had restored order, and they were once more right side up, I addressed the chief of the bandits. "Ptolemy," I began, "a young lady, who is a reporter for a big newspaper, has come from many miles away to write up the haunted house and the ghost, and they will be pictured out in the Sunday edition." Ptolemy's eyes glistened, and "Them Three" were instantly "at attention." "Oh, say, stepdaddy," begged the young chief, "let me play ghost right for her, just once, will you?" "You may for tonight," I said, "but you will have to be very careful and not overdo the matter, for she isn't the kind that is easily fooled. She's had to keep her eyes and wits sharpened, else she wouldn't be on a newspaper, so I want you to be very careful and not bungle. Make a neat job of it." "I'll do it up brown, you bet!" he cried gleefully. "Naw, do it up white," drawled Pythagoras. "Show me your ghost stuff by daylight," I demanded, "and let me see how you are going to rig him up." He brought forth a head and shoulders and arms that were ghastly even in sunlight, and proceeded to explain them. "I got this skull out of father's study, and the arms came off a skeleton mother had in her antiquities. I dressed them up in a pillow case and the white cotton gloves are Huldah's. I can get some phosphorus in the woods and put it in the eyes. And Demetrius bought two electric flashlights yesterday, and Pythagoras can snap them once in a while from the lower windows." "You are some little property man," said Rob in admiration. "But tell me who produces those heart-rending shrieks?" "That was Pythagoras who did the high ones. And Em came in with low groans. Show 'em, boys."