tly been
a fresh outburst--an attack almost, it seems,--quite recently. There is
evidence, of course, plenty of it, or I should not feel the interest I
do feel, but--" he hesitated a moment, as though considering how much he
ought to let me know, "but the fact is that three men this summer, on
separate occasions, who have gone into that barn after nightfall, have
been _accosted_--"

"Accosted?" I repeated, betrayed into the interruption by his choice of
so singular a word.

"And one of the stablemen--a recent arrival and quite ignorant of the
story--who had to go in there late one night, saw a dark substance
hanging down from one of the rafters, and when he climbed up, shaking
all over, to cut it down--for he said he felt sure it was a corpse--the
knife passed through nothing but air, and he heard a sound up under the
eaves as if someone were laughing. Yet, while he slashed away, and
afterwards too, the thing went on swinging there before his eyes and
turning slowly with its own weight, like a huge joint on a spit. The man
declares, too, that it had a large bearded face, and that the mouth was
open and drawn down like the mouth of a hanged man."

"Can we question this fellow?"

"He's gone--gave notice at once, but not before I had questioned him
myself very closely."

"Then this was quite recent?" I said, for I knew Shorthouse had not been
in the house more than a week.

"Four days ago," he replied. "But, more than that, only three days ago a
couple of men were in there together in full daylight when one of them
suddenly turned deadly faint. He said that he felt an overmastering
impulse to hang himself; and he looked about for a rope and was furious
when his companion tried to prevent him--"

"But he did prevent him?"

"Just in time, but not before he had clambered on to a beam. He was very
violent."

I had so much to say and ask that I could get nothing out in time, and
Shorthouse went on again.

"I've had a sort of watching brief for this case," he said with a smile,
whose real significance, however, completely escaped me at the time,
"and one of the most disagreeable features about it is the deliberate
way the servants have invented excuses to go out to the place, and
always after dark; some of them who have no right to go there, and no
real occasion at all--have never been there in their lives before
probably--and now all of a sudden have shown the keenest desire and
determination to go out there about