“What about the woman, Bess?” I asked.  “How do you account for her persistency in clinging to a place her employers invariably fled from?  She seems to have been always on hand with an offer of her services.”

“Bess is not a young woman, but she is a worker of uncommon ability, very rigid and very stoical.  She herself accounts for her willingness to work in this house by her utter disbelief in spirits, and the fact that it is the one place in the world which connects her with her wandering and worthless husband.  Their final parting occurred during Mr. Dennison’s tenancy, and as she had given the wanderer the Franklin Street address, you could not reason her out of the belief that on his return he would expect to find here there.  That is what she explained to Mr. Searles.”

“You interest me, Mr. Robinson.  Is she a plain woman?  Such a one as a man would not be likely to return to?”

“No, she is a very good-looking woman, refined and full of character, but odd, very odd,—­in fact, baffling.”

“How baffling?”

“I never knew her to look any one directly in the eye.  Her manner is abstracted and inspires distrust.  There is also a marked incongruity between her employment and her general appearance.  She looks out of place in her working apron, yet she is not what you would call a lady.”

“Did her husband come back?”

“No, not to my knowledge.”

“And where is she now?”

“Very near you, Miss Saunders, when you are at your home in Franklin Street.  Not being able to obtain a situation in the house itself, she has rented the little shop opposite, where you can find her any day selling needles and thread.”

“I have noticed that shop,” I admitted, not knowing whether to give more or less weight to my suspicions in thus finding the mayor’s house under the continued gaze of another watchful eye.

“You will find two women there,” the amiable Mr. Robinson hastened to explain.  “The one with a dark red spot just under her hair is Bess.  But perhaps she doesn’t interest you.  She always has me.  If it had not been for one fact, I should have suspected her of having been in some way connected with the strange doings we have just been considering.  She was not a member of the household during the occupancy of Mrs. Crispin and the Westons, yet these unusual manifestations went on just the same.”

“Yes, I noted that.”

“So her connivance is eliminated.”

“Undoubtedly.  I am still disposed to credit the Misses Quinlan with the whole ridiculous business.  They could not bear to see strangers in the house they had once called their own, and took the only means suggested to their crazy old minds to rid the place of them.”