“Though there is another force there,” Georgeanne said.

Carolyn was nodding. “The baby.”

“The baby?” Douglas asked. “What baby?”

Carolyn looked over at them. “In Kip’s notes, there was mention of a baby. That some in the family reported seeing the apparition of a baby.”

“Uncle Howie didn’t tell me anything about a baby,” Douglas said.

Kip sighed and stood from his chair, walking over to the edge of the deck. “It appears that Mr. Young picks and chooses the details he shares. For example, we never knew about the man with the pitchfork until other family members reported him to us. Then Mr. Young admitted he knew about him as well. We also did not know the manner of Beatrice’s death. Mr. Young only said that it was a tragic accident.”

“That was the same for me,” Carolyn said.

“So how did you find out?” Douglas asked.

Kip smiled. “Luckily, ten years ago, there were still a few old-timers in Youngsport who remembered the events of seventy years earlier. I’d doubt if you’d find any of them still alive today.”

“Why didn’t you include any of this in your report?” Carolyn asked. “I had no idea of the manner of Beatrice’s death either. There was nothing of it in your notes.”

“I discovered it at the very end of my research,” Kip told her. “By then, events were proceeding quickly. We had already cast Beatrice out of the room-or thought we had. I never had time to go back and write a conclusive report.”

Carolyn thought that was odd. Kip was one of the most thorough psychic investigators she knew. But for the moment, she let it go. “What did these old-timers tell you about what happened?” she asked.

“I could tell you,” Kip said, “but I think it would be better in their own words.”

Once again he stepped back inside the cottage. This time he returned with a much more conventional tape recorder. Placing it beside the other device, he switched it on.

“I had it ready in anticipation of your visit,” Kip said. “Listen.”

Kip’s voice floated from the machine.

“Will you state your name and age, please?”

“Harry Noons, and I’m eighty-eight,” came another voice from the tape recorder. It was a fragile voice, as dry as old leaves.

“And will you tell me everything you remember about the night in question and the events that took place at the Young mansion in September 1930?”

“Ayuh. I’ll tell ya what I know and what I can remembuh.” Harry Noons cleared his throat, a loud rattling sound that went on for nearly thirty seconds. “I was working up on the estate as a groundsman. I was a young man, barely eighteen, and times were tough. We had the Depression back then, you know. And old Mr. Young, the current Mr. Young’s father, he hired me and gave me some work trimming hedges and the like, and I was very grateful. And I noticed the girl they had working there. She was very beautiful. I admit I kind of fancied her myself. All the men who saw her did. She was just that kind of girl. To see her was to make your heart stop for a moment.”

“And her name was?” Kip asked on the tape recorder.

“Beatrice. I never knew her last name. She lived at the house. She did the housework and all that. She was very young. And here’s why she caused such a stir in town in them days. She wasn’t married. But she was in the family way.”

“She was pregnant?” Kip asked.

“Ayuh, sir, she was. And all the busybodies gossiped in town, wondering why Mr. and Mrs. Young, such pillars in the community, would keep her on. They thought she should have been cast out for disgracing their house in that way. But Beatrice stayed, and I’d see her walking around fluffing clothes and hanging them on the line, and she had her big belly right there, plain as day, for anyone to see it.”

“This was how many months before September?”

“Well, I think she had the baby sometime in the late spring. By September, of course, the baby was born and living there in the house with her.”

“Mr. Noons,” Kip asked, “there is no record at town hall of a birth of a child born to a woman named Beatrice in that year. Moreover, there’s no mention of a child in the newspaper notice of Beatrice’s death. Why is that?”

“Dunno. Guess they never filed no birth record. And if Mr. Young didn’t want something mentioned in the newspaper, it wasn’t.”

“Okay. Please proceed with your story.”

Harry Noons cleared his throat again, leading to a major coughing fit. The sound of phlegm being hacked up in his throat was plainly audible on the tape. Finally he found his voice again.

“It was getting near to fall, you know, kind of like now. Still hot enough most days to call it summer, but a chill would come in now and then. And I remembuh it was chilly that day. Windy. The skies were gray. And Miss Beatrice, she was crying. All day long, every time I seen her, she was crying. And so I asked Clem-”

“Who’s Clem?”

“Well, he was the one who done it.”

“Done what, Mr. Noons?”

“Killed her.”

“Who was he, and why did he kill Beatrice?”

“Well, that’s what I’m telling ya! Clem was kind of a slow-witted man, you know. Big and thick. Body and head, you know. Thick-headed. Clem worked on the grounds, like me, though he did the heavy work and was in charge of the barn. He was always chopping wood or hauling hay for the horses. Those were his jobs. Clem hoped to marry Beatrice, even though that baby was not his. He said he didn’t care, that he loved Beatrice and would be a good father to her baby. So one day I asked him what was wrong with Beatrice. He said he didn’t know. I believe he was telling me the truth then. But later I saw them arguing.”

“Where were they arguing?”

“Outside her room down in the basement,” Harry Noons said. “Back in those days the basement was the servants’ quarters, and there was an entrance from the back of the house. Nowadays that’s been closed off, and you can only get to the basement from the inside of the house. That’s because Mr. Young doesn’t have any servants who live there anymore. After what happened to Beatrice, all the servants were turned into day staff. No servant ever lived in that house again. The servants’ entrance was sealed off.”

“But you were inside the servants’ quarters to witness this argument?”

“Ayuh, I most certainly was. I had gone inside to wash my hands. I was done for the day and I was going home. And I saw Beatrice and Clem arguing. She was saying she’d never marry him, that she was going to marry a much better man than he was, and it was making Clem angry. He didn’t like to be told that anyone was better than him. He was a dumb animal, but like any animal that gets cornered, that gets provoked, he got angry. And I remembuh Beatrice was holding her baby in one arm as she shouted at Clem, and Clem called the baby a bastard. She slapped him then, right across the face.”

“What did you do?”

“I was just trying to mind my business, you know, so I didn’t say nuthin’. I finished washing my hands and got the hell out of there. I went up the stairs back outside and then walked across the terrace to the kitchen entrance. I stepped inside for just a moment to tell Mrs. Young that I was done for the day. The sun was starting to set, I remembuh. The sky was a bright blood red. Mrs. Young told me that Mr. Young would be down in a moment to give me my pay. He was good like that. Always paid me at the end of each day. But then we heard the screams from downstairs. They were horrible. Really bloodcurdling. Mrs. Young turned all white, and I immediately ran back outside and headed down the stairs into the servants’ entrance. There I found Beatrice…”

The old man’s voice faltered.

“How did you find her, Mr. Noons?”

“I found her impaled on the wall with a pitchfork.”

He began coughing again, the horror of the memory overtaking him.

“And where was the baby?”

“Don’t know that. Nowhere that I could see. But Beatrice…she was hanging there on the wall, dripping blood everywhere…”