Chapter 7

Haven't heard a word since I wrote you from home to say I was coming to Baltimore to study medicine, but suppose you're too busy rushing the lady you're going to marry. Say, old man, I'm clean gone myself. Prettiest girl I ever looked at. Saw her two Sunday nights in church when I first came, and then was lucky enough to meet her at a church social. I wish you could have seen her. No, I don't, because if you had I should have had you for a rival. Anyway, she looked a vision. She's tall, with a stunning figure and a graceful way of holding herself. She's a blonde, her hair glinted with gold, her eyes as blue as--I was going to say indigo, but nothing about her is as blue as that. I never did take to blondes, you know, but this one has got me, because she has vivacity and unbends most delightfully. I talked to her half an hour the night I met her. Gee, but the fellow who brought her looked sour! I must have made some kind of an impression, for when she was bidding me good-night she asked me to call. She lives on a street called Guilford avenue, in North Baltimore. I was over there last Tuesday night. Asked her if I might come when I saw her at church Sunday. I tell you she was a dream in a pink gown, with her golden hair all done up on her head in some kind of a way I can't describe, but looking magnificent. She told me about a fellow who wanted to come see her that night, but she let him know she had another engagement, and the way she told me, looking at me with those splendid blue eyes, just made me feel I was cutting some ice there. She can tickle the ivories in great shape, and spent most of the evening at the piano. She goes to the theatre a lot, and she had all the latest comic opera songs, like those of Anna Held and Marie Cahill, and she can play ragtime out of sight. I tried to get her to play some sentimental things, but she said she wasn't in that mood. I'd like to catch her when she is.

Tomorrow afternoon I expect to be a great occasion. She studies painting at the Maryland Institute, an art school here, and she has asked me to go sketching with her out in the country. I'll have to cut some of my college work, but you can bet I'm going to do that all right.

Yours, HUGH.

VI.

To MR. CLARENCE ROWAN, Raleigh, N.C. Baltimore, Nov. 1, 1906.

Dear Old Chum:

Glad to hear from you so soon, and glad to hear you are interested in Miss Edith Wolfe. No, I don't think you'd better come to Baltimore. But, if you're good and stay away, I'll send you a photo of her she has promised to give me and let you see what she looks like. No picture of her can do her justice, however, for she's just the liveliest girl you ever knew, beside being so handsome.

I've been up to her home twice in a week, took her to the theatre last night and went to church with her Sunday. But the bulliest time of all was that sketching trip last Friday, of which I wrote you. It was a magnificent October afternoon, and the country was simply superb, with the trees all tinted to glorious hues by a frost two weeks ago. I carried her little easel and canvas stool, and we got in a car near her home and rode out to a suburb called Mount Holly. I had no idea there was such beautiful scenery near Baltimore, so bold and mountainous looking. We strolled first along a path beside a millrace, high up on a hillside, a path overhung by arching trees, with Gwynn's Falls tumbling over the rocks in cascades far beneath, and a beautiful outlook across the valley to some handsome wooded country estates. After that we went down beside the stream and sat under a great rock, while Miss Wolfe made a sketch of the Falls. It didn't take her long--just a rough painted outline, you know. She's going to fill it in at home, and she has promised me a copy for my room. She was in the jolliest mood imaginable, and we had a merry hour there "far from the madding crowd." I shall always call it a "red day," because then I got my first kiss from her. It came about in this way. She dropped her paint brush while we were sitting on a rock at the water's edge, and it floated down stream. She said she wouldn't lose it for worlds. "Will you reward me if I recover it?" I asked. She said she would. "A kiss?" I asked. "Oh! stop your nonsense, you foolish boy!" she said, with a laugh. I ran down the bank, clambered out on some rocks, steered the brush in with a stick and took it to her. Then we wrangled for ten minutes gaily about whether she had or had not promised me that kiss. Suddenly she leaned forward and met my lips with hers. "There, let that end it," she cried, as she blushed. It didn't end it, for it was so good I wanted more out of the same package. But she wouldn't let me have any more. Aren't girls mean? I suppose I'll have to make more bargains with her or I'll get no more kisses. She says she always sticks to a bargain.

You have no idea how clever she is in dodging if I try to steer the talk to sentimental ground. I have called her an arrant flirt a score of times, but she just laughs. And such a laugh!

The show last night hit me $3.20, counting car fares, and my allowance from the old man is running short. I'm glad she didn't accept my invitation to go to the Rennert to eat after "The Lion and the Mouse." She said she would like to, but we'd better go straight home from Ford's, as her mother would prefer it that way.

Wish me success, old fellow, with my love affair. I tell you, that girl has got me going so I can't get interested in dry old stuff about bones.

Yours, HUGH.

VII.

To MISS GRACE IREDELL, Summerfield, N. C. Baltimore, Nov. 21, 1906.

Dear Little Sis:

I wish you had been with me last night to see the largest dance you ever set your eyes on. It was a regimental hop at the Fifth Regiment Armory, an enormous big building that can accommodate, they say, about 15,000 people. They hold there all the biggest conventions that Baltimore has. It was a grand sight, with a crowd of girls in pretty clothes and fellows in uniform and dress suits, dancing to the music of the regiment band. Edith Wolfe's brother is a lieutenant in the regiment, and she invited me to be her escort. We had our own party--Lieutenant Wolfe, another soldier boy, a third chap not in uniform and a couple of girl friends of Edith, petite, pretty, sweet-natured sisters, whom I liked very much. I danced with all three girls, but especially with Edith, who looked radiant in a black sequin gown that was unusually well suited to her blonde type. One waltz to the dreamy music of "Mlle. Modiste" was Heaven itself.

The only drawback to me was the expense. I had to pay $4 for a carriage and $3 for roses. Besides, I had to hire a dress suit, as I could not have gone without one. Some of the students sent me to a place kept by twin brothers, identical in appearance, and it was a funny sight to see them making me into one of their swallow-tails, taking in here and letting out there. Anyhow, it took the last dollar I had, and I've got to borrow to get along for two weeks.

Yours lovingly, HUGH.

VIII.

To MR. HUGH IREDELL, College of Physicians and Surgeons. Baltimore, Nov. 27, 1906.

Dear Sir:

The faculty desires to notify you that your record is unsatisfactory, both in regard to attendance and preparedness in class, and it expects you to show improvement therein or suffer the consequences.

Respectfully yours, W. TALBERT, Secretary.

IX.

To MRS. JOHN IREDELL, Summerfield, N. C. Baltimore, Dec. 2, 1906.

Dear Mother:

I want you to do me a great favor. I do not dare write Father about it, but I find I must have a black dress suit in order to look as well as the other fellows when I go around of an evening. It will cost $40, I learn, and, of course, I cannot pay for it out of the small monthly sum Father sends me for my board. Tell him it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY and urge him please to let me have it. If he will not send the money, I shall have to borrow it or get the suit somewhere on the instalment plan.

Your devoted son, HUGH.

X.

To MR. HUGH IREDELL, 641 North Calvert street, Baltimore. Summerfield, N. C., Dec. 6, 1906.

My Son:

What is this nonsense about you must have a black swallow-tail? You had a black suit when you went away. It was good enough to go to parties here. Are your Baltimore friends so much more aristocratic? Besides, didn't you go there to study and not to play? You are writing home too much about girls and society and dances and theatres, and nothing about work. Remember, I am footing the bills. When I was your age I got up at 4 in the morning and toiled away in the fields till sundown, and then I was too tired to spruce up and play at being a gentleman. If you're going to be a doctor, you'd better take a different course.

Yours, FATHER.

XI.

To MR. CLARENCE ROWAN, Raleigh, N. C. Baltimore, Dec. 10, 1906.

Dear Old Chum:

You're right for complaining I have neglected you, but I have been having the time of my life. Edith and I have been going it heavy for nearly two months. I am hit harder than ever. She's a wonderful girl. I manage to see her every day--meet her down on Lexington street shopping, take long walks with her out Charles-Street extended, go to church with her, take her to the theatre and elsewhere at night. She has invited me into a euchre that meets every three weeks--fine crowd. You ought to see me in a swell dress suit. Went broke to get it, but it's worth it for style. You wouldn't know me for a country "Tarheel."

Edith's as cute as they make them. Last night, at the euchre, she found a double almond, and we ate filopena for a box of candy against a kiss. I got caught, of course, but she gave me the kiss on her doorstep as we parted. Then she dropped a hint that it was for a five-pound box. Just think of that! You remember that line out of "A Texas Steer," "I wonder if it cost Daniel Webster a hundred to kiss her mother."

Bye bye, old chap; got a date to bowl with Edith at the Garage tonight. Ought to be studying for "exams," but simply can't.

Yours, HUGH.

XII.

To MR. JOHN IREDELL, Summerfield, N. C. Baltimore, Dec. 20, 1906.

Dear Sir:

I am requested by the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons to say that the record of your son is so poor that he cannot be permitted to continue his studies here. He has more than 50 absences charged against him, continued unpreparedness in classes and a wretched showing in the recent examinations.

Respectfully yours, C. F. B. EVAN, Dean.

XIII.

(Telegram.)

To HUGH IREDELL, 641 N. Calvert St., Baltimore. Summerfield, N. C., Dec. 21, 1906.

Come home at once. Letter from faculty.

FATHER.

XIV.

(Telegram.)

To JOHN IREDELL, Summerfield, N. C. Baltimore, Dec. 21, 1906.

Wire me $75 first. Owe that much board, etc.

HUGH.

XV.

(Telegram.)

To HUGH IREDELL, 641 N. Calvert Street. Baltimore. Summerfield, N. C., Dec. 21, 1906.

Sell dress suit and pawn watch. Wait till I see you.

FATHER.

XVI.

(Special Delivery.)

To MISS EDITH WOLFE, 1746 Guilford Ave., Baltimore. Pennsy Depot, Washington, Dec. 22, 1906.

Dearest Girl:

Sorry I can't see you tonight. Called home suddenly by my father. Don't know why. Will write long letter when I get home. Hope to be back soon. Until then fond love and kisses, from

Your Own, HUGH.

XVII.

(Special Delivery.)

To MRS. CLARA YANCY, The Yadkin, Baltimore. Washington, Dec. 22, 1906.

Dear Madam:

I regret very much leaving you so abruptly today. I will send you money for the board owing as soon as I can. Until then will you please take good care of my trunk.

Respectfully, HUGH IREDELL.

_The Pink Ghost of Franklin Square_

The Ghost appeared very modestly at first. Some children sitting on a bench just before dark saw it in the second-story window of one of those big old brownstone fronts on Fayette street, on the south side of Franklin Square. It seemed so uncanny and weird to them that they talked a lot about it when they went that evening to their homes on South Stricker street. The parents pooh-poohed it, of course, and told the children there was no cause for alarm. But when one of the little girls, after a restless, troubled effort to get to sleep, had had a strenuous nightmare, and had alarmed the household by shrieking that the woman in pink was beckoning, the older folk decided to investigate.

The next night there was no ghost. Two fathers sat with the children in the Square from supper time until after 9 o'clock, but nothing happened. Naturally, the fathers thought it a pure case of nerves. But the children were so insistent and so circumstantial in their story that the older heads wavered and returned on the following evening.

And then they saw the Ghost!

Just after the June sun had left the trees and a few dying gleams were coloring the tops of the tall houses on Carey street, on the east side of the Square, the Ghost showed itself at the window the children had pointed out. It was a figure nebulous and hazy, but undeniably pink. It appeared right at the window, and after standing still for a moment began to wave its long arms with fantastic gestures, and to make other movements which the children interpreted as beckoning to them. Then it evaporated, but in another moment reappeared and went through more gyrations.

The exclamations of the children attracted the attention of others in the Square, and soon a score of people stood fascinated and puzzled by the weird vision. It lasted perhaps five minutes more, quite up to when darkness settled down on the Square, and none was able to explain or give any reasonable solution of what all had undeniably seen. They continued to watch, and continued to discuss, but the vanished Ghost came no more that evening.

The next night, the news having spread, there were a hundred persons or more in the southeast part of the Square. The Ghost came on time and went through the same antics. The wonderment and the mystery grew. And still none could explain, though a resident of the block stated that the house under watch was temporarily without occupants, as the family who dwelt in it had been gone to Europe for some weeks.

It was four days after this before the police heard of it. By that time, with the exception of the "cops," it seemed as though everybody in Southwest Baltimore was discussing the Ghost. A reporter worked up a lively tale about it for an afternoon paper, and Round Sergeant Norman, as he left the station-house that evening, was instructed to "lay the Ghost." You know the police don't believe in the supernatural. Too often etherealized ghosts turn out to be most mundane burglars and housebreakers.

The Sergeant found a thousand eager watchers in the Square when he arrived. The afternoon paper had evidently been digested well. Each watcher was straining his eyes at the brownstone mansion on Fayette street. From the windows of several Carey-street houses curious persons leaned out, and even on the west, at the Franklin-Square Hospital, there were other interested observers.

"It's either a 'fake' or a burglar," declared the Sergeant positively, as he took the "cub" reporter to task for making such capital out of the Ghost. He was just about to narrate some of his own experiences with bogus spooks when the Pink Ghost became visible, and the Sergeant started and uttered a surprised exclamation. A thousand other pairs of eyes had seen it, and a thousand throats called out, in varied strength of sound:

"There it is! There it is!"

A hush fell over the crowd as they watched the figure in pink. The deepening shadows toned the dark-brown front of the mansion until it framed the outlines in the window with considerable positiveness. But the uncanny nature of the appearance was also in evidence, for one could see right through the figure in pink to the room behind it. Those near the Round Sergeant saw him remove his helmet and mop the increasing perspiration from his forehead.

"That beats the devil," he muttered.

The Ghost began to wave its arms, to bend over and then straighten up; to beckon and then to make gestures as if of denial. The Sergeant's awe was great, but no whit more intense than that of the crowd. They were face to face with a bit of the supernatural, puzzled, wondering, doubting, scoffing, fascinated, alarmed.

"By Jiminy!" exclaimed the Sergeant. "That's the strangest thing I've ever seen, Howard. We'll have to go into that house."

But their visit that night was destined to be futile. Some minutes were lost in gaining access to the rear roof through the house next on the west, and some minutes more in prying open a shutter and forcing a carefully locked sash. By this time the twilight had deepened into night, and the Sergeant lit a borrowed lantern to make the trip down the stairway to the second-story front. There was nothing strange or supernatural in the room; no sign of a pink ghost or any other being, human or spiritual. The furniture and other fittings seemed undisturbed and as regularly arranged as they had probably been when the owners went away. And when Howard, the reporter, raised a window, a hundred watchers in the street and Square were ready to vouchsafe the information that the Ghost had been gone quite ten minutes.

The Sergeant swore. Then he muttered: "It certainly is queer." Then he took Howard on a thorough inspection of the house, from cellar to roof. They poked into cupboards, turned over mattresses, peeped into bureau drawers and boxes and a score of other articles too small to have hidden anything human. But nary a sign was there of ghost, burglar or joker. "It beats the devil," again remarked the Sergeant as he and Howard, perspiringly hot, left the house about 9 o'clock.

The following morning the papers were full of it. Southwest Baltimore no longer mortgaged the new sensation. All Baltimore discussed it and speculated what it might be. And, as a result, the crowd of watchers as the June day drew to a close numbered not one, but many, thousands. Around at the Concord Club they said it beat any political mass-meeting ever seen. The Square was overrun, and everybody talked "Pink Ghost." Captain Delany ordered out the police reserves to keep the crowd in check and give the cars a chance to get by. With Round Sergeant Norman, the Captain personally superintended the preparations to lay the ghost.

The Pink Ghost did not disappoint them. It came to the window on scheduled time--just as the shadows deepened in Franklin Square--and it waved its arms from the window and beckoned to the awed and puzzled multitude. Captain Delany gave a signal, and from front and rear his picked men swarmed into the empty house and rushed up the stairway. The Round Sergeant was in the van. He had been berated and ridiculed for not solving the mystery the night before, and he determined to be in at the death now. But as he crossed the threshold of the front room he started back in amazement and fell against the bluecoat behind him. The Pink Ghost was not in the window, but swaying and frantically waving on the west wall of the room.

"My God! what is it?" cried the man behind.

Norman could only point to the wall. His own hair was, he felt, actually raising his helmet off his head, and there was a curious contraction in his throat. In an instant, however, this had passed, and, with club in hand, he charged bravely upon the Ghost. As he neared it, however, a surprise awaited him. Instead of waving arms, he saw his own burly form shadowed on the outer edge of the pink nebula. He turned upon his heel, quickly bent over, and then burst into loud laughter. For him the riddle of the Pink Ghost was solved.

"What is it, Norman? What is it, man? Is he crazy?"

The other policemen pushed into the room to be enlightened, but the Sergeant only laughed the more immoderately. Delany became angry and started to seize Norman by the shoulder. This brought the Captain into the pink nebula and he understood Norman's hilarity.

"By gad, that's funny," he cried, and he entered upon a joint spasm of mirth. The other bluecoats drew near, and as each came into the pink glow the chorus swelled. Such a lot of uproarious policemen had rarely been known in Baltimore.

* * * * *

Five minutes later Captain Delany and Sergeant Norman, having at last controlled themselves, left the closing of the house to subordinates and crossed the square to a house on Carey street, where they asked to see a young lady abiding there. She was a very stately and fine-looking young woman, and when she tripped down into the parlor the attractiveness of her face was heightened by a slight flush, due most likely to her wonderment at a visit from two policemen. When they left her ten minutes later her face was rosy red and her stately carriage had given way to a combination of mirth and embarrassment. But Delany had her positive assurance that there would be no more Pink Ghost.

"For, you see, it was this way," he explained to the reporters who stopped him outside. "The young woman seems to have a steady beau every evening, for whom she likes to do a bit of fixin' up and primping. And after supper she makes her way to her room, which is in the front of the top floor, and there she combs and rearranges her hair and puts on gew-gaws and trimmings. And in these long summer days, when the sun has left the square, it is still comin' into those high windows."

"But what has she to do with the Ghost?" asked one irrepressible.

"I was a-comin' to that, youngster," retorted the man in blue; "but if ye're overanxious, it may satisfy yer to know she was the Pink Ghost. Leastwise, the sun's reflection was the ghost and she was the movin' figure that made the shadow do such queer antics. She had a bureau in the back of her room so fixed that when the rays of the dying sun come into the window on the north they are reflected in the bureau glass and pass out of the south window and across the square to that there brownstone front where you all saw the Ghost. Every time she raised her arms to her hair or made any other movement in dressing before the mirror she butt into the reflection and caused your Pink Ghost to do stunts."

"And you say there won't be any more Pink Ghost?"

"Not unless the young woman gets careless and leaves up that south blind. For she sort o' has an idea tonight that the whole of this end of town has been watching her get ready to meet her beau."

_The Vanished Mummy_

In the detective headquarters in the Courthouse they have mistakenly built up a very high notion of my sleuth qualities. Personally I have always felt that such help as I have been able to render them in two or three different cases was most largely due to luck, and only in a small degree to the exercise of logic and common sense in making deductions of subsequently proven importance from apparently trivial facts. Nevertheless, the good fortune that attended me in those cases fixed my reputation with them as the Sherlock Holmes of Baltimore, while the generosity with which I permitted them to take all the glory of solving the mysteries made me solid and caused them to consult me the more frequently in hours of perplexity. At the same time, I confess it, the love of the game made me eager to be in it and I not only installed a 'phone in my apartment in the Arundel, but I was always careful, in absenting myself from my office or my flat, to leave word where I would most likely be found during the next few hours. In this way the puzzled Vidocqs were usually able to reach me when my help was needed.