THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE.
Lucius had a keen desire to explore those premises at the back of Cedar
House, with a vague notion that his examination of them might throw
some light upon the mystery which now filled his mind.
If these Winchers were indeed innocent, which the old man’s manner and
conduct inclined him to believe they must be, who was the guilty one?
In that house—with the exception of its master, who in his feebleness
counted for nothing—there were but three persons, Mr. and Mrs. Wincher
and Lucille. One of those three must have opened the door last night;
one of those three must have placed that candle in the upper window—the
candle which was evidently meant for a signal.
Lucille! Was reason deserting him? Was this perplexity of mind verging
upon madness, when _her_ name would suggest itself in connection with
that secret admittance of the stranger, and that theft which was no
doubt its direct consequence? Lucille, that gentle and innocent girl!
What had she to do with the solution of this dark enigma?
The mere thought of her in connection with this nefarious business
tortured him. Yet the idea, once having occurred to him, was not easily
to be dismissed.
He remembered all the stories of secret crime that he had heard and
read of, some stories involving creatures as seemingly innocent and
as fair as Lucille Sivewright. He recalled his own professional
experience, which had shown him much of life’s darker side. He
remembered with a shudder the infinite hypocrisy, the hidden sins, of
women in all outward semblance as pure and womanly as the girl he loved.
What if Lucille inherited the fatal taint of her father’s infamy? What
if in this fair young girl there lurked some hidden drops of that
poison which corrupted the parent’s soul? Could an evil tree produce
good fruit? Could grapes come of thistles? The very Scripture was
against his fond belief in Lucille Sivewright’s goodness. Could such a
father give life to a pure and innocent child?
This doubt, once having entered into his mind, lingered there in spite
of him. His heart was racked by the odious thought, yet he could not
dismiss it. He followed Mr. Wincher to inspect the back part of the
house in a very absent-minded condition; but the practical side of his
character soon got the upper hand as the investigation proceeded, and
he was alert to make any discovery that might be made from the position
of doors and windows.
In his evening walks with Lucille in the barren old garden he had
always come out of the house by a glass door opening out of a
long-disused back parlour, in which there were only a few wooden cases,
which might for aught Lucius knew be full or empty. Jacob Wincher now
led him into the kitchen, a spacious chamber, with a barn-like roof
open to the rafters, showing the massive timbers with which the house
was built. From the kitchen they descended three shallow steps into a
vault-like scullery, out of which, ghastly in their dark emptiness,
opened various cellars. Lucius peered into one of them, and saw that a
flight of steep stairs led down into a black abyss.
‘Bring a light,’ he said; ‘the man may be hiding in one of these
cellars. We’d better explore them all. But first let us lock the doors,
and cut off his chances of escape.’
He suited the action to the word, and locked the door leading to the
kitchen, and thence to the interior of the house.
‘Where do you and your wife sleep?’ he asked Mr. Wincher.
‘In a little room off the kitchen. It was built for a storeroom, I
believe, and there’s shelves all round. My good lady keeps our Sunday
clothes on them, and our little bit of tea and sugar and such-like, for
we board ourselves.’
‘One would think you must hear any one passing through the kitchen at
night, when the house is quiet,’ said Lucius meditatively.
‘I don’t feel so sure of that, sir. We’re pretty hard sleepers both of
us; we’re on the trot all day, you see, and are very near worn out by
the time we get to bed.’
‘Strange,’ said Lucius. ‘I should have thought you must have heard
footsteps in the next room to that you sleep in.’
Jacob Wincher made no farther attempt to justify his hard sleeping,
but led the way to the boothouse, a small and darksome chamber,
chiefly tenanted by members of the beetle tribe, who apparently
found sufficient aliment in the loose plaster that fell from the
mildew-stained walls. Thence they proceeded to the brewery, which was
almost as large as the kitchen, and boasted a huge copper, and a still
huger chimney-shaft open to the sky. There were three doors in this
place—one narrow and low, opening to an obscure corner of the garden;
a second belonging to a spacious cupboard, which may have been used
for wood in days gone by; and the third a mysterious little door in an
angle.
‘What does that belong to?’ asked Lucius, pointing to this unknown
door, after examining the one leading to the garden, which was securely
locked and barred, and, according to Mr. Wincher’s account, was very
rarely unfastened. ‘That door yonder in the corner,’ he asked again, as
the old man hesitated. ‘Where does that lead?’
‘I can’t say as I know very well,’ answered Jacob Wincher dubiously.
‘There’s a kind of a staircase leads up somewhere—to a loft, I suppose.’
‘Why, man alive,’ cried Lucius, ‘do you mean to tell me that you have
lived all these years in this house and that there is a staircase in it
which leads you don’t know where?’
‘You can’t hardly call it a staircase, sir,’ answered the other
apologetically; ‘it’s very little more than a ladder.’
‘Ladder or staircase, you mean to say you don’t know where it leads?’
‘No, sir. I’m not particular strong in my legs, and there’s a great
deal more room than we want in this house without poking into holes and
corners; so I never troubled about it.’
‘Indeed, Mr. Wincher; now I am more curious than you, and I propose
that before examining the cellars we find out where this staircase
leads.’
‘I’m agreeable, sir.’
‘You talk about a loft; but the roof of this brewhouse shows that there
can be nothing above it.’
‘Very true, sir.’
‘And the kitchen is built in the same way?’
‘Yes, sir. But there’s the boothouse. I took it for granted that
staircase led to a loft or a garret over that.’
‘Can you see nothing from outside?’
‘Nothing, except the sloping roof.’
Lucius opened the door in the angle, and beheld a curious cramped
little staircase, which, as Jacob Wincher had told him, was verily
little better than a ladder. It was by no means an inviting staircase,
bearing upon it the dust and cobwebs of ages, and leading to profound
darkness. To the timid mind it was eminently suggestive of vermin and
noxious insects. But Lucius, who was determined to discover the ins
and outs of this curious old house, ascended the feeble creaking steps
boldly enough.
The stairs were steep, but not many. On reaching the topmost, Lucius
found himself, not in a room as he had expected, but in a passage so
narrow that his coatsleeves brushed against the wall on either side.
This passage was perfectly dark, and had a damp mouldy odour. It was
low, for he could touch the roughly-plastered ceiling with his hand.
He went on, treading cautiously, lest he should come to a gap in the
rotten flooring, which might precipitate him incontinently to the
lowest depth of some dark cellar. The passage was long; he stumbled
presently against a step, mounted three or four stairs, and went on
some few yards farther on the higher level, and then found himself
at the foot of another staircase, which, unlike the one below, wound
upwards in spiral fashion, and demanded extreme caution from the
stranger who trod its precipitous steps.
This Lucius mounted slowly, feeling his way. After the first step
or two he saw a faint glimmer of light, which seemed to creep in at
some chink above. This got stronger as he ascended, and presently he
perceived that it came from a crack in a panelled wall. Another step
brought him to a small chamber, not much larger than a roomy closet.
He felt the wall that faced him, and discovered bolts, which seemed to
fasten a door, or it might be a sliding panel in the wall.
Scarcely had he done this when he was startled by a sound which was
very familiar to him—Mr. Sivewright’s sharp short cough.
He drew back amazed. This secret staircase—or if not exactly a
secret staircase, at least one which nobody had taken the trouble to
explore—had led him directly to Mr. Sivewright’s room.
He waited for a few minutes, heard the old man sigh as he turned
wearily in his bed, heard the crackle of a newspaper presently as he
turned the leaf, and convinced himself of the fact that this closet
communicated with Homer Sivewright’s room. Whether its existence were
known to Mr. Sivewright or not was a question which he must settle for
himself as best he might.
He went back as noiselessly as he had come, and found Jacob Wincher
waiting in the brewhouse, patiently seated upon a three-legged stool.
‘Well, sir, you didn’t find much, I suppose, to compensate for having
made such a figure of your coat with plaster and cobwebs—only rubbish
and such-like, I suppose?’
‘My good Mr. Wincher, I found positively nothing,’ answered Lucius.
‘But I extended my knowledge of the topography of this queer old house,
and in doing that recompensed myself for my trouble. Yes,’ he added,
glancing disconsolately at his coat, ‘the whitewash has not improved my
appearance; and the cost of a coat is still a matter of importance to
me. Now for the cellars. You are sure all means of exit are cut off?’
‘Quite sure, sir.’
‘Then we may find our thief snugly stowed away underground perhaps,
with the booty upon him. Come along.’
They groped their way into the various cellars by the light of a
candle, and examined their emptiness. Two out of the four had contained
coals, but were now disused. The small quantities of coal which Mr.
Sivewright afforded for his household were accommodated in a roomy
closet in the kitchen. The remaining two had contained wine, and a
regiment of empty bottles still remained, the fragile memorials of
departed plenty. They found beetles and spiders in profusion, and
crossed the pathway of a rat; but they discovered no trace of the thief.
This exploration and the previous conversation with Jacob Wincher
occupied nearly two hours. Lucius left the house without again seeing
Lucille. He would have been unable to account for his occupation during
those two hours without giving her fresh cause for alarm. But before
going he contrived to see Mrs. Wincher, and from that matron, now
perfectly placable, he received the pleasing intelligence that Lucille
was fast asleep on a sofa in the parlour.
‘I brought her in a ramshackle old sofy belonging to the bricklebrack,’
said Mrs. Wincher; ‘Lewis Katorse, my good gentleman calls it. And she
laid down when I persuaded her, and went off just like a child that’s
worn out with being on the trot all day. But she does look so sad and
worried-like in her sleep, poor dear, it goes to my heart to see her.’
‘Sad and worried,’ thought Lucius; and he had added to her anxieties
by arousing her childish fears of an unknown danger. And then at the
very time when she was broken down altogether by trouble and grief,
had taken it into his head to suspect her. He hated himself for those
shameful doubts which had tortured him a little while before.
‘Come what may,’ he said to himself, ‘let events take what shape they
will, I will never again suspect her. Though I had forged the chain of
evidence link by link, and it led straight to her, I would believe that
facts were lies rather than think her guilty.’