Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (122 page)

"And
you're
perfectly
sure
he
was
real—I
mean,
wasn't
human?"

The
distinction
made
me
smile,
though
the
question
irritated
me. "You
can
see
that
if
his
object
was
murder
he
made
a
poor
job.
You found
all
your
silver,
didn't
you?"
Then
I
played
my
trump-card. "And
do
you
suppose
that
a
burglar
would
wander
round
this countryside
in
a
nose-ring
and
a
loin-cloth?
Nice
disguise!"

Lithway
looked
disturbed.
"But
the
other
one,"
he
murmured.
"I don't
understand
the
other."

"She
seems
much
easier
to
understand
than
mine,"
I
protested.

"Oh,
I
don't
mean
her.'"
he
said.
"I
mean
it."

For
the
first
time
I
began
to
be
afraid
that
Lithway
had
left
the straight
track
of
common
sense.
It
was
silly
enough
to
have
two ghosts
in
a
new
house—but
three!

"It?"
I
asked.

"The
one
Wender
saw."

"Oh!
Wender
has
seen
one?"

"Six
months
ago.
I've
never
been
able
to
get
him
here
since.
It
was rather
nasty,
and
Wender—well,
Wender's
sensitive.
And
he's
a
little dotty
on
the
occult,
in
any
case."

"Did
he
see
it
at
eleven
in
the
morning?"

Lithway
seemed
irritated.
"Of
course!"
he
snapped
out.
He
spoke as
if
the
idiosyncrasy
of
his
damned
house
had
a
dignity
that
he was
bound
to
defend.

"And
what
was
it?"

"A
big
rattlesnake,
coiled
to
strike."

Even
then
I
could
not
take
it
seriously.
"That's
not
a
ghost;
it's
a symptom."

"It
did
strike,"
Lithway
went
on. "Did
he
have
a
scar?"

"No.
He
couldn't
even
swear
that
it
quite
touched
him."

"Then
why
did
it
worry
him?"

Lithway
hesitated.
"I
suppose
the
uncertainty
----
"

"Uncertainty!
If
there's
anything
less
dreadful
than
an
imaginary snake
that
has
struck,
it
is
an
imaginary
snake
that
hasn't
struck. What
has
got
into
Wender?"

"Fear,
apparently,"
said
Lithway
shortly.
"He
won't
come
back. Says
a
real
rattlesnake
probably
wouldn't
get
into
a
house
in
Braythe more
than
once,
but
an
unreal
rattlesnake
might
get
in
any
day.
I don't
blame
him."

"May
I
ask,"
I
said
blandly,
"if
you
are
so
far
gone
that
you
think rattlesnakes
have
ghosts?"

Lithway
lost
his
temper.
"If
you
want
to
jeer
at
the
thing,
for
God's sake
have
the
manners
not
to
do
it
in
this
house!
I
tell
you
we
have all
three
seen
ghosts."

"The
ghost
of
a
rattlesnake,"
I
murmured
to
myself.
"It
beats everything!"
And
I
looked
once
more
into
the
mirror.
The
scar
that the
knife
had
made
was
still
perceptible,
but
very
faint.
"Did
you hunt
the
house
over
for
the
snake?"

"Of
course
we
did."

"Did
you
find
it?"

"Of
course
we
didn't—any
more
than
we
found
your
Zulu."