"That's the Professor's," he said, trying to speak unconcernedly. "I remember seeing him in it, many a time." Armathwaite noticed the action, and was aware of a peculiar _timbre_ in Walker's voice. "Now, suppose we lay that ghost, and have done with it," he said quietly. "Where did my worthy and retrospective landlord hang himself?" "There," said Walker, indicating a solitary hook screwed through the china shelf near the clock. "That bronze thing," pointing to a Burmese gong lying on the floor, "used to hang there. He took it down, tied the rope to the hook, and kicked a chair away.... If you come here," and he advanced a few paces, "you'll see why a ghost appears." "Mr. Walker," bleated someone timidly. Mr. Walker unquestionably jumped, and quite as unquestionably swore, even when he recognized Betty Jackson, standing in the porch. "Well, what is it?" he cried gruffly, hoping his companion has missed that display of nerves. "Please, sir, mother thought--" began the girl; but the startled "nut" was annoyed, and showed it. "I don't care what your mother thinks," he shouted. "Refusing me the keys, indeed! What next? I've a good mind to report her to Messrs. Holloway & Dobb." "But, sir, she only wanted to make the house a bit more tidy. It's dusty and stuffy. If you gentlemen would be kind enough to wait in the garden five minutes, I'd open up the rooms, and raise a window here and there." Betty, tearful and repentant, had entered the hall in her eagerness to serve. Walker weakened; he had a soft spot in his heart for girls. "No matter now," he said. "We shan't be here long. This gentleman is just going to look round and see if the place suits him." "The best bedroom is all upside down," she persisted. "If you'd give me three minutes----" "Run away and play, and don't bother us," he answered off-handedly. "As I was about to say, Mr. Armathwaite, someone in the old days put stained glass in that window on the landing. You'll notice it shows a knight in black armor--Edward, the Black Prince, it's believed to be--and, when the sun sets in the nor' west, it casts a strong shadow on the paneling beside the clock. Of course, it can be seen from the porch, and it accounts for this silly story about the ghost----" "Oh!" screamed the girl. "Why talk of such horrid things? There's no ghost!" Her cry was so unexpectedly shrill that Walker yielded to an anger almost as loud-voiced. "Confound you!" he stormed at her; "take yourself off! One more word from you, and your mother loses her job." Armathwaite looked into the girl's troubled face and saw there a fear, a foreboding, which were very real, if not to be accounted for readily. "Kindly leave us," he said. "If I want Mrs. Jackson, or you, I'll call at the cottage."