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He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A heavy-shouldered, bull-necked man stood outside in the dusk.

“Good evenin’.”

“Evenin’,” said the stranger. “My name is Coyne an’ you must get out o’ this.”

“I don’t see as it follows,” answered Mr. Jope meditatively. “But hadn’t you better step inside?”

“I don’t want to bandy words–” began the publican, entering as though he shouldered his way.

“That’s right! Bill, fetch an’ fill a glass for the gentleman.”

“No, thank you. . . . Well, since you have it handy. But look here: I got nothin’ particular to say against you two men, only you can’t stop here to-night. That’s straight enough, I hope, and no bones broken.”

“Straight it is,” Mr. Jope agreed: “and we’ll talk o’ the bones by an’ by. Wot name, sir?–makin’ so bold.”

“My name’s Coyne.”

“An’ mine’s Cash.” Mr. Jope fumbled with the fastening of a pouch underneath his broad waistbelt. “So we’re well met. How much?”

“Eh?”

“How much? Accordin’ to your darter ’twas forty pound a year, an’ money down: but whether monthly or quarterly she didn’ say.”

“It’s no question of money. It’s a question of you two clearin’ out, and at once. I’m breakin’ what I have to say as gently as I can. If you don’t choose to understand plain language, I must go an’ fetch the constable.”

“I seen him, up at the village this afternoon, an’ you’d better not. Bill, why can’t ye fill the gentleman’s glass?”

“Because the jug’s empty,” answered Mr. Adams.

“Then slip down to the cellar again.”

“No!” Mr. Coyne almost screamed it, rising from his chair. Dropping back weakly, he murmured, panting, “Not for me: not on any account!” His face was pale, and for the moment all the aggressiveness had gone out of him. He lifted a hand weakly to his heart.

“A sudden faintness,” he groaned, closing his eyes. “If you two men had any feelin’s, you’d offer to see me home.”

“The pair of us?” asked Mr. Jope suavely.

“I scale over seventeen stone,” murmured Mr. Coyne, still with his eyes closed; “an’ a weight like that is no joke.”

Mr. Jope nodded.

“You’re right there; so you’d best give it over. Sorry to seem heartless, sir, but ’tis for your good: an’ to walk home in your state would be a sin, when we can fix you up a bed in the house.”

Mr. Coyne opened his eyes, and they were twinkling vindictively.

“Sleep in this house?” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do it, not for a thousand pound!”

“W’y not?”

“You’ll find out ‘why not,’ safe enough, afore the mornin’! Why ’twas in kindness–pure kindness–I asked the pair of ye to see me home. I wouldn’t be one to stay in this house alone arter nightfall–no, or I wouldn’t be one to leave a dog alone here, let be a friend. My daughter didn’t tell, I reckon, as this place was ha’nted?”

“Ha’nted?”

“Aye. By females too.”

“O–oh!” Mr. Adams, who had caught his breath, let it escape in a long sigh of relief. “Like Symonds’s,” he murmured.

“Not a bit like Symonds’s,” his friend corrected snappishly. “He’s talkin’ o’ dead uns–ghosts–that is, if I take your meanin’, sir?”

Mr. Coyne nodded.

“That’s it. Ghosts.”

“Get out with you!” said Mr. Adams, incredulous.

“You must be a pair of very simple men,” said landlord Coyne, half-closing his eyes again, “if you reckoned that forty pound would rent a place like this without some drawbacks. Well, the drawbacks is ghosts. Four of ’em, and all females.”

“Tell us about ’em, sir,” requested Mr. Jope, dropping into his seat. “An’ if Bill don’t care to listen, he can fill up his time by takin’ the jug an’ steppin’ down to the cellar.”

“Damned if I do,” said Mr. Adams, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the statues.

“It’s a distressin’ story,” began Mr. Coyne with a very slight flutter of the eyelids. “Maybe my daughter told you–an’ if she didn’t, you may have found out for yourselves–as how this here house is properly speakin’ four houses–nothing in common but the roof, an’ the cellar, an’ this room we’re sittin’ in. . . . Well, then, back along there lived an old Rector here, with a man-servant called Oliver. One day he rode up to Exeter, spent a week there, an’ brought home a wife. Footman Oliver was ready at the door to receive ’em, an’ the pair went upstairs to a fine set o’ rooms he’d made ready in the sou’-west tower, an’ there for a whole month they lived together, as you might say, in wedded happiness.