sting interview."

Beth, Rob, and I made frantic and appealing gestures to her behind
Silvia's back, but she didn't seem to notice them.

"Whom did you interview, the ghost?" asked Silvia.

"No, indeed. Some very interesting and unusual people who are staying
there."

I threw her a wildly beseeching glance and Beth and Rob began at the
same time to ply her with distracting questions. I think she seemed to
divine that there was something in the situation that was not to be
explained, but Silvia interrupted them.

"Do let Miss Frayne tell us about her interview," she said. "We all
seem to be very talkative today."

I saw there was no way to dodge the denouement, so I awaited the
finale in dread desperation. It proved to be more of a stunner than I
had expected.

"I went down the lane," she said, "and through the grove, up the
little hill, and laughed at myself for the hallucinations of the night
before. There were no ghosts visible and the door to the haunted
house was hospitably open. I stood on the hill long enough to make
some pictures and then went on. I walked up the steps fearlessly and
looked within. A woman, an untidy, disheveled-looking woman, sat at a
table writing furiously in just the same breathless way I write when I
have a scoop, and the presses are waiting open-mouthed for my copy.

"She looked up and scowled at my intrusion.

"'Don't bother me,' she said, and continued writing.

"I went through the house and came outside again where I met an
absent-minded, spectacled man. I told him who I was and of my object
in coming to the house. Then he showed signs of coming to.

"'Oh, the ghost!' he said. 'That is what brought me here. My wife is
interested in more tangible, more material things. We have just
returned from a long journey, and when we were nearly to our
destination, our place of residence, I happened to read in a paper
about this haunted house and its apparition, so we came right up here
this morning to remain overnight and see if the article were true.'

"I told him how successful I had been and he became quite alert and
enthusiastic. He showed me why I should not have been alarmed, because
ghosts, he said, were scientific facts. He then explained to me at
length how the gases from the dead arise and form a nebulous vapor or
a vaporous nebula. It sounded very simple and plausible when he told
me, but I can't seem to remember it. Fortunately I have it all down in
writing."

Silvia's