"It's gone!" he said, reappearing, "Vernie's body is gone!" "Impossible!" cried Landon, "what do you mean? Why, we've all been right here all the morning! How could it be gone?" "See for yourself," and Hardwick stepped aside. There was no denying the fact. Scrutiny of the whole room showed no presence of the cold, still form that had been reverently laid on that bed. Everybody entered and peered around, fruitlessly. They shook the heavy hangings and looked behind them, but to no avail. Vernie's body had utterly disappeared! CHAPTER X Was It Supernatural? Late that afternoon Braye returned from New York. He looked weary and exhausted, as if under hard and continuous strain. Norma and Eve had both been watching for him from different windows and met on the stairs in their sudden rush to meet him in the hall. It was easily apparent that both girls desired to see him first and tell him the further awful development of the disappearance of Vernie's body. "What!" he exclaimed, "more horrors! Wait a minute, till I get off this dust coat." Before Eve or Norma could say more, the others, hearing Braye, came trooping to the hall, and all began to talk at once. "I can't understand----" and Braye wearily passed his hand across his brow,--"tell me all that happened after I left last evening." "Nothing especial," said Tracy, quietly. "We all went to bed early, at least, we went to our rooms. Professor Hardwick and I sat up half the night, talking. But we left Thorpe on guard in the hall here, and of course, it never occurred to any of us there was need of further precaution." "Nor was there," said Eve, fixing her great eyes on Braye. "Nobody could possibly come in from outside and take that child away. The house is too securely locked for that, as we all know." "Why should any one want to?" queried Braye, his face blank with amazement. "No one did want to,--no one did do it," returned Eve. "You must admit, Rudolph, that the whole thing is supernatural,--that----" "No, Eve, I can't do that." Braye spoke positively. "When I'm up here with you psychists, and in this atmosphere of mystery,--and Lord knows 'Black Aspens' is mysterious!--I get swayed over toward spiritualism, but when I go down to the city and talk with rational, hard-headed men, I realize there's nothing in this poppycock!" "Oh, you do!" and Eve's penetrating glance seemed to bore into his very soul, "then, pray, how do you explain the fact that Vernie--isn't there?" "I don't know, Eve,--I don't know. But some fiend in human shape must have managed to get into the house----" "And get out again?" said Tracy, "and carry the body with him,--when Thorpe sat right here in the hall----" "Where was Thorpe?" asked Braye, suddenly. "In a chair there, by that table," and Eve indicated a position well back in the great hall.