Mrs. Packard was still out,—­so much Nixon deigned to tell me in answer to my question.  Whether the fact displeased him or not I could not say, but he was looking very sour and seemed to resent the trouble he had been to in opening the door for me.  Should I notice this, even by an attempt to conciliate him?  I decided not.  A natural manner was best; he was too keen not to notice and give his own interpretation to uncalled for smiles or words which contrasted too strongly with his own marked reticence.  I therefore said nothing as he pottered slowly back into his own quarters in the rear, but lingered about down-stairs till I was quite sure he was out of sight and hearing.  Then I came back and took up my point of view on the spot where the big hall clock had stood in the days of Mr. Dennison.  Later, I made a drawing of this floor as it must have looked at that time.  You will find it on the opposite page.

[transcriber’s note:  The plan shows the house to have two rows of rooms with a hall between.  In the front each room ends in a bow window.  On the right the drawing-room has two doors opening into the hall, equally spaced near the front and rear of the room.  Across the hall are two rooms of apparently equal size; a reception room in front and the library behind it, both rooms having windows facing on the alley.  There is a stairway in the hall just behind the door to the reception room.  The study is behind the drawing-room.  Opposite this is a side hall and the dining-room.  The library and dining-room both open off this hall with the dining room also having doors to the main hall and kitchen.  The side hall ends with a stoop in the alley.  A small room labeled kitchen, etc. lies behind the dining-room and the hall extends beyond the study beside the kitchen with the cellar stairs on the kitchen side.  There is a small rectangle in the hall about two-thirds of the way down the side of the drawing-room which is labeled A.]

Near the place where I stood (marked A on the plan), had occurred most of the phenomena, which could be located at all.  Here the spectral hand had been seen stopping the clock.  Here the shape had passed encountered by Mr. Weston’s cook, and just a few steps beyond where the library door opened under the stairs Mr. Searles had seen the flitting figure which had shut his mouth on the subject of his tenants’ universal folly.  From the front then toward the back these manifestations had invariably peeped to disappear—­where?  That was what I was to determine; what I am sure Mayor Packard would wish me to determine if he knew the whole situation as I knew it from his wife’s story and the record I had just read at the agent’s office.