THE HIDDEN CHAMBER
Was this Wellington and was Jane Allen, the darling of the gym and
the record maker for basket-ball, now so prone on solving a
perplexing noise mystery that her games were cancelled and even her
riding hours filled in with mundane matters, while her companions
flew away to gather mountain nuts and wonderful complexions?
Jane's defiant laugh answered this very personal question. She was
proud and she was fiery, and someone had been trying to discredit
her father's scholarship. Of course that "someone" was Dolorez
Vincez, the expelled junior of the previous year. Every clue pointed
its accusing finger at Dol Vin. She it was who brought those two
freshmen, Shirley and Sarah, together at her beauty shop. It was she
also who "took care" of Shirley's folks when they came in to see the
"darter," and everyone who knew Dol knew, also, that these little
attentions must have been rather costly to the country folks, for
Dol always made things pay.
In the back of Jane's mind there was growing the germ of suspicion
toward that same triangle in the spook alarms. Dol, Shirley and
Sarah must be somewhere in that demonstration, but Jane had to admit
the clues were not developing with such speed as she usually counted
on in college mysteries.
But perhaps this one more day would unearth something tangible. At
any rate, the parties and teas and sorority dances were getting into
swing, and even a fascinating ghost would soon have to be turned
over to the proper authorities, thought Jane, if he did not quickly
become more co-operative with the juniors.
Work was serious and exacting. Every period had a record of its own,
and while Jane was specializing in sociology she was also keeping up
with the regular college course for her A. B. degree.
Promptly after logic dismissed, at two-thirty, she sought out Dozia.
"Come along, Doze," begged Jane, "don't let us waste a moment. The
girls are all busy now, and perhaps we can make a survey without
having a ballet de follies dancing around." Dozia made her notebook
safe and swung into Jane's trot for Lenox. Warburton Hall, one of
the larger buildings, was just emptying a class from lecture but
Jane and Dozia made a complete detour of it to escape attention.
Lenox was deserted, but in less than half an hour it was sure to be
swarmed with freshmen running in after classes for a change of
blouse, or some other requirement of the day now three-fourths
spent.
"Let us get a line on that old tower," suggested Jane, surveying the
secretive old building. "I know the racket was in that wing, and see
how the round tower begins here and shoots up past all that outside
plumbing? I know Lenox was one time a show building here, but
freshies have got to have some place to sleep, hence the
retrogression."
"Things are pretty well trodden down around here," reported Dozia,
sending a critical eye over the little terrace that supported the
old stone tower. "Squirrels do not usually wear French heels. See
those footprints, Jane?"
In the strong sun a film of soft earth showed the impress of
something quite like the pivoted French heel. This was in a small
space from which floral bulbs had been removed and where the
sheltering round tower had kept off the early winter frosts.
"Seems to me," said Jane, "there is some sort of cubby hole under
here." She was poking around the vine-roped foundation.
"Oh, you see they take cellar stuff out that window," explained
Dozia. "It saves steps. See the trail of ashes over there?"
"Yes, but that doesn't come from this point, that does come from the
window. But I mean this spot here," she was tapping on a frame in
which the squares formed the foundation of the building, and where
the wooden arches had been originally painted a contrasting color
for the sake of trimming.
"You can always push those lattice pieces in," said Dozia. "That was
the charmed spot for hide and seek I'll guess, when Wellington was
in rompers."
"Just look here!" ordered Jane in a very definite tone of voice.
"This is more than a cubby hole." She was pulling at a piece of rope
strung through a broken staple. Nothing remained but the iron loop
over which the old time outside padlock was usually snapped. Jane
pulled so vigorously she opened the hidden door and toppled over
backward with the broken rope in her hand. Dozia was in front of the
opening before Jane could get to her feet.
"Well, of all--things!" she drawled. "If here isn't some sort of old
elevator!"
"A dumb-waiter!" cried Jane. "There are my groaning ropes. Pull,
Doze, and let's see if it carries a car."
A couple of jerks at the big cables and the car came down to earth
with a bump.
"Now!" exclaimed Jane gleefully. "There's the mystery. This airship
goes right up into that tower!"
"But don't you dare ask me to make the ascent," warned Dozia. "The
tower may be thick with ghosts as a chimney with swallows."
"But think of it," rattled on Jane. "That old hidden dumb-waiter!
Why have we never discovered it before?"
"Didn't need it," said Dozia. "Wouldn't have a bit of use for it now
except to save you from getting gray headed and daffy over spooks.
Come along indoors and look at the tower from the other end. This
elevator must have a 'last stop, all out' platform some place,"
drawled Dozia, as calmly as if a great part of the mystery had not
just been successfully cleared up.
"But I'm not afraid to go up," declared Jane, almost dancing with
excitement, "and the elevator works by pulling the ropes from the
inside."
"Don't you dare, Jane Allen!" cautioned the imperturbable Dozia.
"You might get half way up and stick in a smoke stack, or a rope
might break or anything of a large variety of possibilities might
occur. I can't be a party to your suicide pact. Walk right up the
red carpeted stairs with little bright-eyed Dozia, and view the
tower from the objective." She took Jane's arm and dragged her
around to the side door, which stood invitingly opened.
By way of the red carpeted stairs they went as far as the attic
flight, and from that point tramped plain unvarnished and well worn
"treads" which Dozia took two at a time.
In the attic, daylight dispelled many of the night's fancies. For
instance, the big black things in the corner were only stored
trunks, those shadowy forms hanging from rafters were Miss Gifford's
best summer togs in their tailored moth bags, and the thing that
glistened in the moonlight like horrible eyes in a ghastly face,
were almost that very thing, for some hallow'een trappings hung
right under the window, a veritable trap for spectral moonlight.
Jane smiled. "These things had Judy and me scared blue last night.
They actually seemed to point long bony fingers at us, but behold!
nothing more sinister than a lot of storage stuff."
Dozia was over in the other end of the low raftered room looking for
the dumb-waiter "objective," but there appeared to be nothing of the
sort either in bricked chimney wall or along weather-boarded
partitions.
"I can't see where that tower ends," she said, "See, Jane, this is
nothing but a straight wall, and the tower surely is built round."
Jane surveyed the brown boarded wall. "But this is not all the
attic," she exclaimed. "See how narrow this room is and gauge the
size of the building. There must be another attic back of those
boards and that fire brick wall. Now, how do you suppose one reaches
the other side?"
"Via dummy," said Dozia. "But no little jaunt in that flivver for
me. No indeed, Janie, not even to bag a real, live, active, untamed
spook." They were both tapping along the boarded partition but had
found no evidence of an opening. "Say, Jane," whispered Dozia, her
brown eyes wide with pretended fright, "suppose some awful creature
is hidden in there and that she has her meals served from the old
dumbwaiter?"
Jane howled at this and danced around in cruel imitation of a
possible "awful creature." That she tore a hole in her skirt from
contact with an unfriendly nail mattered little, for the dance took
in the length of the attic between trunks, boxes, disabled chairs
and even dodged an ancient sewing machine.
"An attic party is attractive under certain conditions," Jane
repeated. "I thought once I saw something move over this way. Let me
look there more carefully."
"Look away," replied Dozia, falling limply into a very uncertain old
willow porch rocker.
Jane pulled aside some curtain stretchers, then pried from its
corner an old Japanese screen.
"There!" she yelled. "There's the door, now we're getting to it.
Dozia, look, a real door into the other attic," and she paid no
attention to the noise of falling articles swept aside in her wild
rush to open the low door, so completely hidden by the old Japanese
screen.
"Jane! Jane!" begged her companion. "Really do go carefully. How can
you tell what's in that other place?"
"I can't till I see," insisted Jane, her hand on the iron latch that
held the door in place.
"At least wait until I get a club or something," begged Dozia
inadequately. "I've heard of queer animals being shut up in such
quarters and they have often made splendid ghosts of themselves,
too."
But Jane had no ears for warnings, and while Dozia held on to the
blue plaid skirt Jane yanked away into the great unknown!
"Oh, look!" she cried in that tragic way girls discover things.
"Just look!"
They had opened up a big storeroom forgotten and abandoned, and in
it--were all sorts of college paraphernalia, such as is used in
theatricals. The room literally groaned with the stuff, and from the
mass one object stood out boldly and significantly:
It was a suit of Japanese armor!
Jane yelled in delight at the discovery and pointed it out to Dozia.
"Don't touch it!" whispered Dozia. "It may be inhabited!"
"Bosh!" roared Jane, laying hold of a dangling armlet.
As she did so the chains rattled! The metallic clangings clanged and
the whole array of ghostly noises sounded out in the unholy hour of
three o'clock broad daylight!
"The ghost! The ghost!" boomed Jane. "Dozia, see, this thing is hung
so it goes off at a touch. Oh, isn't it delicious! To have found it
and this way."
"I'm nervous watching that disappearing door," whined Dozia.
"Suppose we should get walled up in here, just two babes in the
tower?"
"I'm going to get this thing down and show it to the girls," defied
Jane. "Oh, Dozia, look there--a companion. One for you and one for
me. Let's get into them and go down stairs. The girls will be there
and--"
"Say, little girl!" drawled Dozia. "Do you expect me to get in under
that scrap iron works?"
"It's all padded," interrupted the excited Jane. "Here," she had the
armor off its big hook and simply made Dozia hold the tumbling
parts. "There's the helmet, the visor and these---"
"The trunks," said Dozia. "Cute little rompers, aren't they?"
"Called tonlets," said the intelligent Jane, sighing under the
weight of the outfit she was trying to shift to a trunk and a couple
of boxes.
"I'd hate to have to get in that for a fire," remarked Dozia. She
was, however, trying on the scaly breastplate, and attempting to
poke her head into the helmet. "Are you sure this stuff is no
world's war relic? I wouldn't care to rub shoulders with some old
Prussian guard."
"Why, girlie, aside from bagging the ghost, I think we have made a
great discovery. Think of this acquisition to Wellington!" and then
Jane proceeded to dress up.
But things rattled and fell off almost as often as they were put on,
and it was not an easy matter to get inside of anything pertaining
to this dilapidated costume.
When an old sword dropped from its hook on a rafter, Jane danced in
glee and declared "a ghost did it," although Dozia insisted she had
cut a piece of cord on that very hook. Finally Jane was "canned," as
Dozia described the state of being inside of tin things, and an
attempt was made to move.
"If we should fall--" suggested Jane.
But they didn't.