Shadow 271 - House of Ghosts 09-01-43, The by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street and Smith
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

THE NOTE FROM NOWHERE

THE next day, Dunninger began to collect the apparatus that he had stationed around Stanbridge Manor. The appliances proved to be more varied than anyone had supposed. Among other things, Dunninger gathered in long lengths of wire connected to micrometer devices.

His cameras, too, were all about, hidden in some very surprising places. A small one, for instance, was under the table in the little upstairs hallway where Jennifer had put the planchette and its pad of loose papers. Another was neatly perched within an old grandfather’s clock in the Colonial Room.

Only Clyde and Margo witnessed this assembling of Dunninger’s devices. It almost seemed that the psychic investigator had marked them as privileged persons among the visitors at Stanbridge Manor. After removing tapes from various doors, Dunninger went over Margo’s notes and asked her to type them in duplicate.

Part of the day, Dunninger was busy developing photographs, while Clyde saw to it that nobody disturbed him. In the dark room, he spent some time examining the stones that had bounced down the stairs. He finally returned the box and its contents to Jennifer, but politely kept the other specimens, because Jennifer denied that they were Donald’s.

In going over Margo’s notes, Dunninger made a few additions, mostly in the form of underlined statements. There was just one point upon which he specially insisted.

“Include the three possibilities,” stated Dunninger. “First, that paranormal entities, otherwise ghosts, are accepted in certain circles as a plausible cause of manifestations.”

“But not in your circle,” put in Margo, with a smile. “Shall I include that statement?”

“Of course,” replied Dunninger, “because they have been satisfactorily disproven in this case. Next, emphasize the explanation that I did give; that of persons in the household playing the ghost.”

“I’ll keep it neutral,” nodded Margo. “Shall I mention that it could have been unconscious fraud?”

“Certainly. It could apply to either Jennifer or Hector, especially if both were involved in it. But don’t forget the third point; that of outside interference.”

Margo added the third point, wondering how much inkling Dunninger had regarding The Shadow’s presence. Personally, Margo was convinced that The Shadow must have been the octorilla that had ruined Gustave’s aim with the shotgun, but she couldn’t understand how Dunninger knew it, considering that he had still been in the kitchen when the gun kicked Gustave about three times as far as it should have.

Late that afternoon, Lamont Cranston arrived in a car, to find if Margo intended to return to New York. It turned out that Margo didn’t, because Dunninger planned to stay another evening, through the hour when ghosts were accustomed to appear. The reporters were staying, too, on the hope that something new might happen, so Margo felt that she ought to remain and complete her notes.

Leaving at dusk, Cranston complimented Margo on her fortitude at remaining another night in Stanbridge Manor. In reply, she said that she wouldn’t stay unless Clyde did; if he left, she would go along.

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