You manage to convince the man not to resort to violence. The waiter offers to let them have the meal and their lodging on the house, and they settle down and agree. Later, when you are enjoying a drink to wash down your dessert, he comes over to your table, and asks if he can sit down for a few minutes. You nod your head, and he sighs deeply, sinking into a chair and shaking your hand. "My name's Tony," he tells you. "Thank you for helping me out earlier," he says. "who knows what those people would have done to me? They looked like pretty rough types. I don't blame them for being angry, but this isn't my fault."

"What exactly is going on here?" you ask.

"I'm not sure," Tony replies, "but what you saw tonight is typical of the way things have been here for the past month. The only thing we're sure of is that The Swan is haunted. I don't know why, or why this ghost never showed up before about a month ago, but it keeps throwing tantrums and demanding to be put back somewhere."

"Have you ever asked it where?" you ask.

"No, I've never thought about talking to it," he admits.

"Well, did anything happen that might cause the place to be haunted? Was someone killed here about that time?" you ask.

"No, no one died," he answers, shaking his head. "I don't know what it could be."

The lone man in the corner approaches your table slowly. "I couldn't help overhearing your woes," he says to Tony. "I have something of an interest in ghosts and such things. Perhaps there is something which can be done to help you out. But you'll have to figure out why this ghost is haunting your hotel, before it can rest and leave you alone.

"Like I said, I have no idea," Tony sighs.

"Did anything happen around the same time the ghost arrived?" the stranger asks. Tony frowns for a minute, then slowly nods his head. "There was an adventurer here right around the same time I first remember the ghost. He looked a little rough compared to our usual clientele, but he paid his bill up front, and he kept to himself and didn't cause any trouble, at least at first. He talked to Nereia a lot, and he had only been here for a couple of days when the Sheriff from the next county arrived one night and dragged him off to jail. It must have been just after that that the ghost first started bothering people."

"Well, then, we are a little farther ahead," you say. "I wonder if he said anything to Nereia which would help us?"

You determine that you will ask her about this adventurer.

You get your first opportunity the next morning, when she arrives with hot water for your wash basin, and a hand towel.

"Nereia, I know you don't feel like talking about what is happening here at the hotel, but I really wish I could help out," you say.

She looks at you, and smiles bitterly. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter what I say to you now, since you've already seen the ghost at work. I'm not supposed to talk about it to guests, in case it drives them away, but it's too late for that, since you've seen it. What did you want to know?"

"Well, I was talking to one of the waiters downstairs, and he told me that it first appeared about the time someone was arrested here, maybe a month ago."

Nereia scrunches up her face for a moment, thinking. "Yes," she nods her head slowly, "that would be about the same time. He wasn't killed here, though, just taken away by the law from another county. I don't think arresting people makes ghosts haunt places."

"That's true enough. It may have something to do with it though; we've got nothing else to go on," you point out. "I just wondered; you meet all the guests, and you have some opportunity to talk to them. Did you ever get into any conversations with him, or did he keep pretty much to himself?"

"Oh, I talked to him, alright," she tells you. "He did mostly keep to himself, but he kept asking me about things when I was in his room. At first I thought maybe he was a little forward, but he was always a perfect gentleman when I was up in his room drawing a bath or something. He mostly seemed to want to know about local history."

"Do you remember what you told him?"

"Well, not all of it. He seemed the most interested by the stories of the secret passages in the hotel."

"Secret tunnels?" you prompt her, hoping to learn more.

"Yes, I've heard that there were secret tunnels or rooms somewhere under the hotel. Something to do with smuggling wine without paying duty on it or something like that. Kershaw, the innkeeper, would know more about it than I do. The man was definitely fixated on the tunnels, though."

You decide to ask Kershaw more about the tunnels.

Kershaw nods his head when you ask him if he knows anything about tunnels or secret rooms. At first he seems reluctant to talk about it, but finally he tells you that the hotel used to have a tunnel which led to the river, back in his grandfather's time. They smuggled wine and other liquors in that way, and stored the illicit goods in a wine cellar somewhere under the hotel in order to avoid paying duties or taxes on it.

You ask Kershaw if he minds if you have a look around the place

You decide to have a look around that night, when everyone else is in bed

You decide that the ghosts at the inn are Kershaw's problem, not yours