The Room With The Tassels by Carolyn Wells

Author:Carolyn Wells [Wells, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027223190
Publisher: Musaicum Books
Published: 2017-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XI.

The Heir Speaks Out

Table of Contents

The days that followed were like an awful nightmare to the people most interested. But at last the inquest was over, the body of Gifford Bruce had been sent to Chicago for burial, and a strange quiet had settled down upon the household at Black Aspens.

No new facts had transpired at the inquest. Though the police tried hard to fasten the crime on some individual, there was no definite evidence against any one. All those who had been present at the mysterious death hour, told their stories straightforwardly and unshakably. All agreed as to the circumstances, all remembered and related the story of the Ouija board, which foretold the death of two of the party at four o’clock.

“Who was pushing that board?” the coroner asked.

“Miss Reid and myself,” Tracy spoke up. “We had been playing with it for some time, and having had only uninteresting and trifling results we were about to lay the thing aside, when the message came that two of us would die the next day at four o’clock. Miss Reid seemed frightened, but I thought at the time she had spelled out the message, herself, to get up a little excitement. However, I took the board away from her at once, feeling that she was carrying a jest too far. I think now, that she was innocent in the matter——”

“Well, I don’t,” said the coroner. “If that girl made up that message, she had a reason. Probably she was responsible for both deaths.”

“Impossible!” cried Tracy, shocked at this theory. “Why, she was but a child, she had no thought of suicide or—or murder! If she faked the message, it was merely in fun, and because she had tried all evening to get some message of interest. It is quite possible she made up the message, but it is not possible that she did it otherwise than as a jest.”

“A gruesome jest!”

“As it turned out, yes, indeed. But either it was in jest,—or—the message was from a supernatural source.”

Tracy’s eyes were deeply sorrowful, and his face expressed a sort of awed wonder, that made many who were present, think that after all there might be something in these occult beliefs.

But not so the coroner. He refused to consider the Ouija message with any serious interest, and continued to ply his witnesses with questions both pertinent and wide of the mark.

Elijah Stebbins was put through a grilling inquiry. His manner was that of a guilty man, but no proof of crime could be found in connection with him. The day and hour of the two deaths, he was proved to have been at his home in East Dryden, beyond all doubt. Even granting that the Thorpes, one or both, were in his employ, there was no reason to suspect them. If they had put poison in the cakes or in the tea, it must have been done in the kitchen, and therefore would have affected the whole supply. Suspicion must fall, if

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