I did not fear these, but was glad, nevertheless, to yield to his suggestion and allow him to pass me.  As he did so, he took out a match from his pocket and in another moment had lit and held it out.  A long, narrow vaulting met our eyes, very rude and propped up with beams in an irregular way.  It was empty save for a wooden stool or some such object which stood near our feet.  Though the small flame was insufficient to allow us to see very far, I was sure that I caught the outlines of a roughly made door at the extreme end and was making for this door, careless of his judgment and detaining hand, when a quick, strong light suddenly struck me in the face.  In the square hollow made by the opening of this door, I saw the figure of Miss Charity with a lighted lantern in her hand.  She was coming my way. the secret of the ghostly visitations which had deceived so many people was revealed.

CHAPTER XV

HARDLY A COINCIDENCE

The old lady’s eyes met ours without purpose or intelligence.  It was plain that she did not see us; also plain that she was held back in her advance by some doubt in her beclouded brain.  We could see her hover, as it were, at her end of the dark passage, while I held my breath and Mr. Steele panted audibly.  Then gradually she drew back and disappeared behind the door, which she forgot to shut, as we could tell from the gradually receding light and the faint fall of her footsteps after the last dim flicker had faded away.

When she was quite gone, Mr. Steele spoke: 

“You must be satisfied now,” he said.  “Do you still wish to go on, or shall we return and explain this accident to the girls whose voices I certainly hear in the hall overhead?”

“We must go back,” I reluctantly consented.  A wild idea had crossed my brain of following out my first impulse and of charging Miss Charity in her own house with the visits which had from time to time depopulated this house.

“I shall leave you to make the necessary explanations,” said he.  “I am really rushed with business and should be down-town on the mayor’s affairs at this very moment.”

“I am quite ready,” said I. Then as I squeezed my way through between the corner of the cabinet and the foundation wall, I could not help asking him how he thought it possible for these old ladies to mount to the halls above from the bottom of the four-foot hole in which we now stood.

“The same way in which I now propose that you should,” he replied, lifting into view the object we had seen at one side of the passage, and which now showed itself to be a pair of folding steps.  “Canny enough to discover or perhaps to open this passage, they were canny enough to provide themselves with means of getting out of it.  Shall I help you?”

“In a minute,” I said.  “I am so curious.  How do you suppose they worked this trap from here?  They did not press the spring in the molding.”