The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(236)

                             “Miss Brooke, another question or two. Can you in any way account for the sudden payment of Mrs. Turner’s debts—a circumstance that led me a little astray in the first instance?”

                “Mrs. Brown explained the matter easily enough. She said that a day or two back, when she was walking on the other side of the vicarage hedge, and the husband and wife in the garden were squabbling as usual over money-matters, she heard Mr. Turner say indignantly, ‘only a week or two ago I gave you nearly £500 to pay your debts in Brighton, and now there comes another bill.’”

                “Ah, that makes it plain enough. One more question and I have done. I have no doubt there’s something in your theory of the hypnotic power (unconsciously exercised) of such men as Richard Steele, although, at the same time, it seems to me a trifle far-fetched and fanciful. But even admitting it, I don’t see how you account for the girl, Martha Watts, seeing the ghost. She was not present at the prayer-meeting which called the ghost into being, nor does she appear in any way to have come into contact with the Rev. Richard Steele.”

                “Don’t you think that ghost-seeing is quite as catching as scarlet-fever or measles?” answered Loveday, with a little smile. “Let one member of a family see a much individualized and easily described ghost, such as the one these good people saw, and ten to one others in the same house will see it before the week is over. We are all in the habit of asserting that ‘seeing is believing.’ Don’t you think the converse of the saying is true also, and that ‘believing is seeing?’





MISSING! by Catherine Louisa Pirkis


                “Now, Miss Brooke, if this doesn’t inspire you I don’t know what will,” said Mr. Dyer. And, taking up a handbill that lay upon his writing-table, he read aloud as follows:

                “Five hundred pounds reward.—Missing, since Monday, September 20th, Irené, only daughter of Richard Golding, of Langford Hall, Langford Cross, Leicestershire. Age 18, height five feet seven; dark hair and eyes, olive complexion, small features; was dressed when she left home in dark blue serge walking costume, with white straw sailor hat trimmed with cream ribbon. Jewellery worn; plain gold brooch, leather strap bracelet holding small watch, and on the third finger of left hand a marquise ring consisting of one large diamond, surrounded with twelve rubies. Was last seen about ten o’clock on the morning of the 20th leaving Langford Hall Park for the high road leading to Langford Cross. The above reward will be paid to any one giving such information as will lead to the young lady’s restoration to her home; or portions of the reward, according to the value of the information received. All communications to be addressed to the Chief Inspector, Police Station, Langford Cross.”

                “Was last seen on the 20th of September!” exclaimed Loveday, as Mr. Dyer finished reading. “Why, that is ten days ago! Do you mean to say that reward has not stimulated the energies of the local police and long ago put them on the traces of the missing girl?”

                “It has stimulated their energies, not a doubt, for the local papers teem with accounts of the way in which the whole country about Langford has been turned upside down generally. Every river, far and near has been dragged; every wood scoured; every railway official at every station for miles round has been driven nearly mad with persistent cross-questioning. But all to no purpose. The affair remains as great a mystery as ever. The girl, as the handbill says, was seen leaving the Park for the high road by some children who chanced to be passing, but after that she seems to have disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened to receive her.”



                             “Cannot her own people suggest any possible motive for her thus suddenly leaving home?”

                “It appears not; they seem absolutely incapable of assigning any reason whatever for her extraordinary conduct. This morning I received a letter from Inspector Ramsay, asking me to get you to take up the case. Mr. Golding will not have the slightest objection to your staying at the Hall and thoroughly investigating the matter. Ramsay says it is just possible that they have concentrated too much attention on the search outside the house, and that a promising field for investigation may lie within.”