When Last I Died

"She came along with them about supper-time, and locked them up in one of the bedrooms, and said she must get back quickly to the Institution in case she was missed. I ought to say that we were in the haunted house by this time. Tom had rented it for a month 'to test its possibilities,' he told Bella."

"So you were in the haunted house before the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of January," thought Mrs. Bradley; but, afraid of startling this shy song-bird into silence again, she made no remark.

"I didn't like it," Muriel resumed. "I knew what dreadful boys they had at the Institution, and I didn't know what they might get up to, away from all the discipline and that. Tom didn't seem to mind. He took them up some supper, and locked the door again, and I must say they behaved quite quiet and orderly, I was quite surprised and pleased; not that I ever got fond of them, mind you, and right to the end I was afraid of what they might do if they took it into their heads.

"Well, then 'came the news about Aunt Flora. That must have been the next day, I rather fancy. Anyway, Bella sent us the telegram, saying she'd already been sent for by old Eliza Hodge, as the doctor didn't think poor old Aunt was likely to last.

"Tom didn't see any point in going at first. He said we'd never had much to do with Aunt, and that she'd only think we'd gone there to see what we could get. Anyway, I persuaded him—poor Tom!—and then, of course, Aunt began to get better, and then Bella killed her."

"Bella or your husband or you," thought Mrs. Bradley. Aloud she said, "And what were the boys doing while all of you were staying at Aunt Flora's house?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"Oh, yes, you do, Mrs. Turney. They were in the cellar, weren't they?"

"I don't know where they were," repeated Muriel. "I didn't know anything about the cellar then. I asked Tom what had happened to them, and he said not to worry; they were quite all right where they were, and had plenty to eat."

"And had plenty to eat," thought Mrs. Bradley, nodding soberly. "And Aunt Flora had had too much to eat, and was dead." Again she said none of this aloud.

"Bella went back to the Institution for a day or two, but not for long. Then she joined us at the haunted house, and Tom began his séances," Muriel continued. "Well, of course, they were ever so successful, as you know. The boys were really wonderful, I will say that for them. They cottoned on ever so quickly to what was wanted, and thought up all sorts of extra things for themselves. Quite got the spirit of it, Tom said, and he and Bella were getting on like a house on fire, which usually they didn't really do, Bella being sharp and impatient in her manner on account of her work, and being a spinster, I always thought, but never said so, of course, being the last to want to make trouble.

"Well, the cellar was Bella's idea. It seemed she had read up about it before we took on the house, and before even we got there she had had the wooden cover off the well. Of course, she didn't usually put it back, because of the boys getting up and down that way to be able to do their stuff when the spiritualists came, and get away again safely without being seen.

"Well, the next part is all, like, about my fancies, and you needn't believe it unless you like, but, after a bit, the house got on my nerves. Of course, you can say it was really the boys I was scared of, and, in a way, I think it was. You see, when Tom kept saying to Bella at the first that this game was all very well, but where were we going to be when the boys got fed up and left us, she turned round on him one day and said the boys would leave when she was ready, and not a minute before. She said she'd got the tabs on them all right, because if they didn't do what she said she'd only got to give them up to the police and they'd be taken back to the Institution straight away, and well they knew it.

"Well, things went on all right for quite a bit after that, and then I began to get those fancies."

"What fancies?" asked Mrs. Bradley gently, to end a lengthy pause.

"Well, you'll no doubt think me very silly, just like Tom and Bella did," confessed Muriel, "but, the fact is, I began to feel that there was something really funny about the house; not just the boys and their tricks. You see, up to then, I'd always believed that Tom was an honest investigator—lucky, but honest—and that my help wasn't to help him go in for tricking people, but to help with genuine what-do-you-call it——"

"Phenomena?"