"Didn't he have a horse?" questioned the child, smiling now.

"No, he was a new sort of Prince-he had a car."

"Oh, how queer! A fairy story with an auto. But I like it. Go on, please."

Dr. Ramsdell bent over the man on the bed. He felt his pulse, put his hand on the heart, and pulled back the closed eyelids.

"Why, he's not badly hurt!" he announced. "My goodness, this is no accident at all! Just a little shock. Here, my man! How are you? Drink this!" He had quickly mixed something in a gla.s.s of water that Arden, with ready foresight, had in waiting for him. "That's better. Now tell me the joke about the ghost house."

"It's Sycamore Hall in Jockey Hollow, where he was working," Arden supplied.

"Oh, there. Yes, I know Sycamore Hall. Old Mrs. Howe claims she ought to have it, but the Park Commission thinks differently. But this is the first I've heard about ghosts. Never mind them. That's the joke. Now, let me look you over."

It did not take Dr. Ramsdell long to ascertain that Jim Danton was not seriously hurt. He was cut and bruised, he had a very slight concussion of the brain, but no fracture of the skull, and a week's rest would make him well again, the physician announced.

"Keep him quiet," the doctor ordered as he left. But Jim was roused now.

He seemed to want to talk. "Let him tell what's on his mind if he cares to," the physician suggested as he left, having set out some medicine from his bag and given orders as to its administration.

And when the doctor had gone Jim falteringly told his story.

"How did it happen?" asked his wife, having heard Nate's version.

"I don't know, Minnie. I was up in the room with another man-I sort of forget his name-and we were sizing it up-getting ready to rip it apart--"

"Why, I was there with you," interrupted Nate.

"Oh, that's right-you were." Jim had to talk very slowly. "Well, I went in the closet to get a crowbar I'd left there."

"I saw you go in," Nate contributed. "But you didn't come out."

"No," said Jim in a curiously dull voice. "I didn't come out. All I know is that I reached for my crowbar that was leaning against the closet wall and then, all of a sudden, it felt as though somebody hit me on the head.

I fell down, and that's all I know-until just now." He sighed gratefully and pressed his wife's nervous hand.

"But what really happened to him? Who hit him?" demanded Mrs. Danton.

"That's what n.o.body knows," said Nate. "After Jim disappeared, we started looking for him. All but gave up when one of these young ladies found him in the cellar-unconscious."

"Neither of us found him," Arden said. "It was the granddaughter of the woman who claims to own Sycamore Hall-Betty Howe."

"Oh, that terrible ghost house!" moaned Jim's wife. "We heard stories about it before Jim went to work there-stories floating around Jockey Hollow-told by the Negro and Italian workmen. A lot of them quit. Then Mr. Callahan-Jim's worked for him before-sent out word for better men.

Jim has been sick, but he decided to go.

"We needed the money so much. We are so poor-so much in debt." She had come out of the sick-room and closed the door. Her husband appeared to be sleeping. "And there was a bonus of a hundred dollars for any man who would work a full week, ghost or no ghost. Jim said he would. He tried, but-the ghost got him!"

She hid her face in her folded arms on the table and sobbed. The little girl looked frightened.

"Stop!" commanded Arden. "You mustn't give way like this. Everything is going to be all right. Your husband isn't badly hurt. He will get well!"

"But how can we live, meanwhile?" She raised her tear-stained face.

"I will see Mr. Callahan about that," said Sim determinedly. "He must carry workmen's compensation insurance. My father does in his stores. You will be looked after. Now, don't cry. See, you are frightening Suzanne."

The little girl had told her name.

"Yes, I must be brave. But, oh, that terrible ghost house. It should be burned down! It almost killed-Jim," Mrs. Danton sobbed.

"It will soon be torn down now," Arden said. "And, really, I don't believe it's a ghost house at all. Those are only silly stories. Your husband's accident is explainable on perfectly natural grounds, I'm sure we'll find out. Now we must go. But you will need help. Can't we get some neighbor in?"

"Yes, Mrs. Johnson-she lives in the next house down the road-she will come in, I think."

"I'll get her," offered Sim. "You wait here, Arden."

Sim soon returned with the kind neighbor, and as the girls had done all they could do, they said good-bye, promising to come again.

"And tell me another fairy story!" stipulated Suzanne.

"I will, my dear. You can tell your father the one I told you when he gets better, as he soon will."

"I'll do that-yes." Suzanne was cute and had fascinating dimples.

Sim and Arden drove away as the sun was beginning to set. They must pick up Terry and Dot.

"Well," remarked Sim as she speeded the little roadster along, "we've got something to think of now."

"I think," said Arden seriously as she recalled the pathetic scene back at Jim Danton's house, "that we have a stronger motive than ever in finding out about this ghost business-I mean a stronger motive than just trying to help Granny Howe prove her right to the place."

"There is something queer under all this, Sim. Men shouldn't be hurt like this just because, possibly, somebody is playing jokes. I'm going to find out the secret of Jockey Hollow!" she declared now.

"And we're all going to help you!" Sim added. "This isn't a ghost story, it's a detective story now."

CHAPTER XVI A Surprise

Thinking over what had taken place that afternoon, and reviewing their own parts in the strange mystery, kept Sim and Arden rather silent on the drive back from Jim Danton's home. Then, as they were almost back at the Hall, where Terry and Dot were waiting, Sim remarked seriously:

"I don't believe it's anyone playing jokes."

"What do you mean-jokes?" asked Arden, her attention, which had wandered far afield, snapping back to the girl beside her in the roadster.

"You said," Sim replied, "that possibly somebody was playing a joke to cause these manifestations. It's a pretty serious joke, if you ask me."

"I agree with you," Arden answered. "But there are persons with a very strange sense of humor."

"I wish some of them had to fall down the ash-chute as Jim did!" Sim exclaimed snappishly. "It would jar some of the humor out of them."

"I don't really believe I meant that, about it being a joke," went on Arden. "But I'm determined to find out what's at the bottom of it all. It must be real and it must have humans in it."