"Now Eli, don't be foolish," and Thorpe shook his head. "How could a spook kill two folks at onct,--right out in the open, as you may say?" "For that matter, how could anybody murder two people at once? Nobody was around but their own crowd, and that lot of people ain't for murderin' each other! I know that!" "It was spooks," declared Hester, with an air of settling the matter; "I've smelled 'em of late. That smell of bitter almonds is been in the air a heap, and I ain't had none for flavourin' or anything. Land, I'd never flavour a cake with that! I put vanilla even in my 'Angel Food.'" "I've smelled it too," spoke up Nannie, a helper of the older woman's; "when I've been a-dustin' round in that there ha'nted room, I've smelled it--not strong, you know, but jest a faint whiff, now'n then. I skittled out 's fast's I could, I kin tell you!" "Nope, you're all wrong," insisted old Thorpe. "'Tain't spooks, it's murder. That's what it is." "Who done it, then?" demanded his wife. "That I dunno. But I have my s'picions. How,--I dunno, either. But that's neither here nor there. Murder's been done, but I'll bet that mutton-headed Crawford ain't got brains enough to see it." "He ain't got brains enough to go in when it rains," agreed Stebbins, "but you're 'way off, Thorpe, a surmisin' murder. Why, jest f'r instance, now, how _could_ it 'a' been done?" "Now how can I tell that!" Thorpe spoke with fine scorn. "I don't know all the goin's on of them hifalutin folks, but if you'd heard 'em talkin' 's much as I have, you'd know that they're up to lots of things such as us ignorant people don't know nothin' about." "They do talk awful hifalutin," corroborated Hester. "I've heard 'em say things that hadn't no meanin' whatsoever to me, and yet they was plain English too." "Well, if you ask me," and Thorpe looked important, "I'd jest say keep your eye on one of them women." "You mean that red-headed varmint, I know," said his wife. "Well, she's a handful, all right, but I don't believe she'd go so far's to kill anybody." "You don't, don't you? Well, she'd go just so far as there was any goin' at all,--an' then she'd go right on. Oh, I kin read character," and Thorpe plumed himself so evidently on his mental powers that Stebbins snorted outright. "You're, a hummer, you are! I s'pose you're clairvoyant, yourself! Well, let me advise you to keep your trap shut about Miss--that lady you referred to. This is my house, and those are my tenants, and I won't stand any talk from _you_ about 'em." "That's right, Thorpe," admonished his wife. "Mr. Stebbins, he's right. An' he's right about the ghosts, too. Why, I happen to know that the spooks warned that little Reid girl she'd die at four o'clock, and die she did, jest at four! Can you beat it? Spooks? Why, of course it was spooks! What else?" "Yes, and the message was that two of 'em 'd die, and two of 'em did," added Stebbins. "How could any mortal human bein' bring that about? I ask you?"