“The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.  This is almost probable.  I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it.  I cannot imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action of which I have just told you.  He was enormously without fear of any kind for himself as you can see.

“The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse galloping ’round the house, we must have been deceived.  No one was very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage the belief.

“The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first suspicion into Parsket’s mind that there was something more at work than his sham haunting.  The neighing was done by him in the same way that he did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which frightened the man himself.  Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he had been getting fanciful.  Of course, I must not forget that the effect upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.

“Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away.  I hate to think this, but I’m bound to.  Anyway, it is obvious that the man was temporarily a bit off his normal balance.  Love’s a queer disease!

“Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the butler’s bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away naturally to clear it.  This also gave him the opportunity to remove one of the passage lamps.  Then he had only to smash the other and the passage was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.

“In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took the key (it was in his pocket).  This prevented the Captain from bringing a light and coming to the rescue.  But Captain Hisgins broke down the door with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.

“The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is one of the things that I am less sure about.  It might have been faked by Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy enough, to anyone who knew how.  But, you know, it does not look like a fake.  Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the other.  It is certainly a horrible photograph.