Free Ghost Stories and Mysteries by Ernest Favenc Page B

before, Harris?”
    “Never that I know of,” was the answer.
    Jackson was silent the rest of the way.
    When Jackson and Harris were alone in the room, Mrs. Harris having gone upstairs to remove her bonnet, etc., Harris drew forth the two questions, his own and Jackson’s. He handed his to Jackson. It was—
    “ If the spirit of my first wife is really present let her sign her name. ”
    “Here is the answer,” he said.
    “ Mary Delaney. ”
    Jackson looked very scared and excited as he almost whispered, “Look at my question, then we will look at the answer.”
    Harris read—
    “ Who was the murderer of James Starr? ”
    Jackson opened the paper, the writing on which no one but the unhappy seer had as yet seen.
    On it was written in a good, bold hand, differing entirely from the writing on Harris’ paper—
    “ Rudolph George Rawlings, known to you under the name of Haughton ”
    “It was him! I knew it!” exclaimed Jackson, in a voice which brought Mrs. Harris into the room in a fright.
    “Who? Who?” cried Harris, nearly as excited as his friend.
    “Haughton himself; I thought I knew him. No wonder he should faint; he wrote and handed to me his own death warrant.”
    Harris still held the paper in his hand.
    “Look Jackson,” he said, “it is Starr’s handwriting,”
    He went to a bookcase and took down a book, on the fly-leaf was written, “T. C. Harris, from James Starr.” The handwriting was identical!
    “Let us go at once and get a warrant, and have him arrested,” said Jackson, whose excitement could scarcely be controlled.
    “We have no evidence to do so,” replied Harris; “we are no nearer towards doing justice on Starr’s murderer than we were before. This may carry conviction to you and me, but what magistrate would issue a warrant on such a lame story. We can inform the police that suspicious circumstances connect this medium—who you may be sure is well known to them—with the Haughton who was mixed up with Starr’s murder. They may find out some further evidence, but we are powerless. “
    A knock at the door. Mrs. Harris, who was listening with a white face, went and opened it. The servant said that a woman wanted most particularly to see Mr. Jackson. Harris looked at him, then told the servant to show her up. She came in, a faded-looking woman, who handed a slip of paper to Jackson.
    He read on it— “Come and see me before I die. R. Rawlings.” He passed it over to Harris; his wife read it over his shoulder.
    “I will come with you,” said Jackson to the woman.
    “And so will I,” said Harris.
    She led them back to the house of the séance, to a room with a miserable bed in it, wherein lay the man they had seen acting the part of medium. He gazed wistfully at Jackson and spoke very feebly, and in abrupt sentences.
    “I am dying, but I will tell you how it was done.”
    The woman left the room, and closed the door.
    “That night, which you remember as well as I, I went out on the verandah to sleep. I did not go to sleep until long after you all went to bed. I heard every word you said. I heard Harris tell the story of his marriage, which enabled me to make the lucky answer I did today. I knew you both directly you came in. I heard Starr expose me about the cards in a contemptuous sort of way that made me hate him. This led me on to recall your talk about the gold. I determined to rob him, but I was a coward, and assassinated him. I had not the courage even of a common bushranger to stick him up. I knew the exact day he would be back, as you know. I feigned sickness the next morning, and only went as far as the shepherd’s hut. The next day I went on a short distance past Harris’ place and camped. That night after dark I started back to Yorick’s Lagoon.
    “I meant to conceal myself behind the bushes growing on the bank, and shoot him as he rode along the road, which, as you know, is close to the lagoon. I reached the neighborhood of the lagoon about daylight. My