The Mystery of the Whispering Witch

die a violent death—”
    “And it was the ghost stories that gave Lewis Gregory his idea,” Trixie went on. “He decided to have Sarah ‘haunt’ the place again. Then, when the time was right, he was going to burn it down in order to collect the insurance money. Fay had already told us that the place and its contents were well insured. But Gregory needed witnesses
    who could back up his story of how the fire started. He’d already begun replacing the real antique furniture with the fake stuff, of course, by this time. And then he hired Mrs. Franklin. He paid her a high salary so she wouldn’t leave.”
    “How foolish I was,” Mrs. Franklin sighed.
    “But you couldn’t have known what he had in mind,” Fay said quickly.
    “And when Mr. Gregory thought the time was right,” Trixie continued, “he hired Mr. Hunter, who really was a psychic investigator—but a crooked one.”
    “And when Gregory offered to pay him well for his services,” Jim put in, “Hunter agreed to help. He was prepared to swear in court that the house was genuinely haunted and that evil spirits can prey on the living—in this case, Fay Franklin.” Trixie nodded. “Yes. Once the two crooks saw the effect the ghostly happenings were having on Fay, they got the idea of blaming her for starting the fire that night. They put the lighted candles right by her elbow. They hoped they could scare her so much that she'd be the one who would make those draperies catch on fire. All of us—” she smiled at the Bob-Whites—“would also be witnesses then that Fay, ‘possessed’ by Sarah, had burned the house down to the ground.”
    “And it might have worked,” Fay said softly.
    “His plan was almost stopped before it began,” Trixie said, “when Mrs. Franklin broke her hip. Lewis Gregory hadn’t meant for that to happen. He was the one I saw outside the mansion when we first arrived at Lisgard House. It wasn’t Zeke at all. Gregory had almost overreached himself that night. What made you fall, Mrs. Franklin? Did you hear strange noises?”
    Mrs. Franklin nodded. “I heard footsteps upstairs, and I knew it wasn’t Fay.”
    Brian stirred. “He must have thought his best witness was gone for good,” he said, “when the ambulance took her to the hospital.”
    “But then,” Honey broke in, “he realized he could go ahead with the frightening climax to the ‘haunting,’ after all—”
    “Because you and Trixie agreed to spend the night with me,” Fay said breathlessly. “Boy, I’ll never forget what happened then.”
    “He let himself in through the back door,” Trixie continued, “to which he also had a key. He used a tape machine to provide all the sound effects, just as I suspected—”
    “And he used my smudge pots,” Zeke said. “He must have got them from my greenhouse. I use them to stop plants from freezing in the cold weather.”
    “And with a fan,” Trixie said, “he blew the smoke under Fay’s bedroom door.”
    Mart frowned. “I still don’t understand something,” he declared. “Why didn’t Gregory just incinerate Lisgard House and tell everyone that it must have been kids playing with matches?”
    Di looked surprised. “Didn’t I tell you? Sergeant Molinson has found out that Gregory had already used that story before.”
    Honey gasped. “I didn’t know that!”
    “It was a warehouse that was burned several years ago,” Di told her. “Gregory had a partner in those days, and it was the partner who was suspected of setting the fire then. But the police think Lewis Gregory didn’t dare tell the same story twice, so that’s why he dreamed up another scheme instead.”
    “And I would have been blamed for the Lisgard House fire,” Fay remarked, shivering.
    “And we might not have been able to save you,” Dan put in. “I wasn’t sure who knocked over the candles at that séance.”
    “But I know,” Trixie said. “Once I suspected what was going to happen, I watched Lewis Gregory all the time. It was his elbow that knocked over the candelabra.”
    Mrs. Franklin sighed. “Just think,” she said. “If Trixie hadn’t seen Mrs. Wheeler’s portrait when she did, Gregory might have been successful!”
    Jim grinned. “I still don’t understand how Mom’s portrait helped our girl sleuth figure everything out.”
    Trixie laughed. “I looked at it,” she said, “and I thought of the Picasso. Then I remembered it wasn’t in the hall when we went back to get Fay’s clothes. Mr.