Page:Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car.djvu/221

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EXPLANATIONS
209

not without a look over her shoulder, though it was broad daylight.

"That was when he stirred the stuff in the brass mixing kettle."

"What about the queer blue light, and the smell of sulphur?" asked Cousin Jane.

"That was the burning of sulphur which he used in the preparation. Sulphur is often used in hair-tonics I believe, though I don't know that this man used it to any advantage. At any rate he burned it, making the ghostly flashes of blue fire, and the smell. The flashes were reflected from the room where he worked into the smaller house, by the big window panes."

"But why did he dress like a ghost?" asked Mollie.

"That was a big white garment he put on to avoid soiling his colthes when he made his hair-tonic mixture. And he really did mistake you for Carrie, Mollie. He admitted as much, and asked to be forgiven. It was his lunch you ate. He had prepared for a long stay in the house."

"Well, I guess we won't bother to pay for it," said Betty. "He's made trouble enough. Then the mansion isn't haunted, after all?"

"No, and never was. It was simply the making of his hair-tonic there nights that produced the effect. He says he never even knew that the