“Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with an extraordinarily grey face.

“I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me.  We turned him over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can imagine what a feeling it sent through me.

“I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said: 

“‘That—­That—­That—­’ and I know that he was trying to tell me that Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone down the passage.  I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very steady myself.  And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child.  Then the women came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to them, whilst I over to Beaumont.

“That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.

“Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary.  He was doubtless responsible for some portions of the ‘haunting’; in fact I think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.

“In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket’s intention was to frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him.  I hate to say this, but the facts force me to think so.

“I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont’s arm.  He knew all the details of the so-called ‘Horse Legend,’ and got the idea to work upon the old story for his own end.  He evidently had some method of slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.

“The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to explain away.  But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.

“The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks.  I proved this by an examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.

“The sounds of the horse galloping ’round the house were possibly made also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion.  In any case, I don’t feel perfect certainty on this point.  I failed to find any hoof marks, as you remember.