He was vastly excited. His active imagination was creating all sorts of possibilities and complications, depredations and intrigues.
Bacon was the one who answered. He drew the blanket closer about his lean form and shivered as with a chill.
"I know this much about the place from hearsay," he said in a guttural whisper. "It's supposed to be haunted. I've heard more than one of these jays,--big huskies too,--say they wouldn't go near the place after dark for all the money in the state."
"That's just talk to scare you, Ague," said Dillingford. "People live up there and since we've been here two or three men visitors have come down from the place to sample our stock of wet goods. Nothing suspicious looking or ghostly about them either. I talked with a couple of 'em day before yesterday. They were out for a horseback ride and stopped here for a mug of ale."
"Were they foreigners?" inquired Barnes.
"If you want to call an Irishman a foreigner, I'll have to say one of them was. He had a beautiful brogue. I'd never seen an Irishman in slick riding clothes, however, so I doubted my ears at first. You don't associate a plain Mick with anything so swell as that, you know. The other was an American, I'm sure. Yesterday they rode past here with a couple of swell looking women. I saw them turn up the road to Green Fancy, so that knocks your ghost story all to smash, Bacon."
"It isn't MY ghost story," began Mr. Bacon indignantly. The arrival of four or five men, who stamped into the already crowded hallway from the porch outside, claimed the attention of the quartette. Among them was the doctor who, they were soon to discover, was also the coroner of the county. A very officious deputy sheriff was also in the group.
Before rejoining the crowd in the tap-room, Barnes advised his companions, especially the girl, to say as little as possible about what they had heard and seen.
"This thing is going to turn out to be a whacking sensation, and it may be a great deal more important than we think. You don't want to become involved in the investigation, which may become a national affair. I'd like to have a hand in clearing it up. My head is chock- full of theories that might--"
"Maybe Roon was right," said Dillingford, slowly, as he edged a step or two away from Barnes.
"In what respect?"
"He certainly thought you were a detective or something like that. Maybe he thought you came with that young woman, or maybe he thought you were shadowing her, or--"