The cries of mingled astonishment and relief which greeted this simple
elucidation of the mystery were broken by a curiously choked, almost
unintelligible, cry. It came from the man thus appealed to, who,
unnoticed by them all, had started at her first word and gradually, as
action followed action, withdrawn himself till he now stood alone and in
an attitude almost of defiance behind the large table in the centre of
the library.
“I am sorry,” he began, with a brusqueness which gradually toned
down into a forced urbanity as he beheld every eye fixed upon him in
amazement, “that circumstances forbid my being of assistance to you in
this unfortunate matter. If the paper lies where you say, and I see no
other explanation of its loss, I am afraid it will have to remain there
for this night at least. The cement in which that door is embedded
is thick as any wall; it would take men with pickaxes, possibly with
dynamite, to make a breach there wide enough for any one to reach in.
And we are far from any such help.”
In the midst of the consternation caused by these words, the clock
on the mantel behind his back rang out the hour. It was but a double
stroke, but that meant two hours after midnight and had the effect of a
knell in the hearts of those most interested.
“But I am expected to give that formula into the hands of our manager
before six o’clock in the morning. The steamer sails at a quarter
after.”
“Can’t you reproduce a copy of it from memory?” some one asked; “and
insert it in its proper place among the pages you hold there?”
“The paper would not be the same. That would lead to questions and the
truth would come out. As the chief value of the process contained in
that formula lies in its secrecy, no explanation I could give would
relieve me from the suspicions which an acknowledgment of the existence
of a third copy, however well hidden, would entail. I should lose my
great opportunity.”
Mr. Cornell’s state of mind can be imagined. In an access of mingled
regret and despair, he cast a glance at Violet, who, with a nod of
understanding, left the little room in which they still stood, and
approached Mr. Van Broecklyn.
Lifting up her head,--for he was very tall,--and instinctively rising on
her toes the nearer to reach his ear, she asked in a cautious whisper:
“Is there no other way of reaching that place?”
She acknowledged afterwards, that for one moment her heart stood still
from fear, such a change took place in his face, though she says he did
not move a muscle. Then, just when she was expecting from him some harsh
or forbidding word, he wheeled abruptly away from her and crossing to a
window at his side, lifted the shade and looked out. When he returned,
he was his usual self so far as she could see.
“There is a way,” he now confided to her in a tone as low as her own,
“but it can only be taken by a child.”
“Not by me?” she asked, smiling down at her own childish proportions.
For an instant he seemed taken aback, then she saw his hand begin to
tremble and his lips twitch. Somehow--she knew not why--she began to
pity him, and asked herself as she felt rather than saw the struggle in
his mind, that here was a trouble which if once understood would greatly
dwarf that of the two men in the room behind them.
“I am discreet,” she whisperingly declared. “I have heard the history
of that door--how it was against the tradition of the family to have
it opened. There must have been some very dreadful reason. But old
superstitions do not affect me, and if you will allow me to take the way
you mention, I will follow your bidding exactly, and will not trouble
myself about anything but the recovery of this paper, which must lie
only a little way inside that blocked-up door.”
Was his look one of rebuke at her presumption, or just the constrained
expression of a perturbed mind? Probably, the latter, for while she
watched him for some understanding of his mood, he reached out his hand
and touched one of the satin folds crossing her shoulder.
“You would soil this irretrievably,” said he.
“There is stuff in the stores for another,” she smiled. Slowly his touch
deepened into pressure. Watching him she saw the crust of some old fear
or dominant superstition melt under her eyes, and was quite prepared,
when he remarked, with what for him was a lightsome air:
“I will buy the stuff, if you will dare the darkness and intricacies of
our old cellar. I can give you no light. You will have to feel your way
according to my direction.”
“I am ready to dare anything.”
He left her abruptly.
“I will warn Miss Digby,” he called back. “She shall go with you as far
as the cellar.”
V
Violet in her short career as an investigator of mysteries had been in
many a situation calling for more than womanly nerve and courage. But
never--or so it seemed to her at the time--had she experienced a greater
depression of spirit than when she stood with Miss Digby before a small
door at the extreme end of the cellar, and understood that here was her
road--a road which once entered, she must take alone.
First, it was such a small door! No child older than eleven could
possibly squeeze through it. But she was of the size of a child of
eleven and might possibly manage that difficulty.
Secondly: there are always some unforeseen possibilities in every
situation, and though she had listened carefully to Mr. Van Broecklyn’s
directions and was sure that she knew them by heart, she wished she had
kissed her father more tenderly in leaving him that night for the ball,
and that she had not pouted so undutifully at some harsh stricture he
had made. Did this mean fear? She despised the feeling if it did.
Thirdly: She hated darkness. She knew this when she offered herself for
this undertaking; but she was in a bright room at the moment and only
imagined what she must now face as a reality. But one jet had been lit
in the cellar and that near the entrance. Mr. Van Broecklyn seemed not
to need light, even in his unfastening of the small door which Violet
was sure had been protected by more than one lock.
Doubt, shadow, and a solitary climb between unknown walls, with only
a streak of light for her goal, and the clinging pressure of Florence
Digby’s hand on her own for solace--surely the prospect was one to tax
the courage of her young heart to its limit. But she had promised, and
she would fulfill. So with a brave smile she stooped to the little door,
and in another moment had started her journey.
For journey the shortest distance may seem when every inch means a
heart-throb and one grows old in traversing a foot. At first the way
was easy; she had but to crawl up a slight incline with the comforting
consciousness that two people were within reach of her voice, almost
within sound of her beating heart. But presently she came to a turn,
beyond which her fingers failed to reach any wall on her left. Then came
a step up which she stumbled, and farther on a short flight, each tread
of which she had been told to test before she ventured to climb it, lest
the decay of innumerable years should have weakened the wood too much to
bear her weight. One, two, three, four, five steps! Then a landing with
an open space beyond. Half of her journey was done. Here she felt
she could give a minute to drawing her breath naturally, if the air,
unchanged in years, would allow her to do so. Besides, here she had been
enjoined to do a certain thing and to do it according to instructions.
Three matches had been given her and a little night candle. Denied all
light up to now, it was at this point she was to light her candle and
place it on the floor, so that in returning she should not miss the
staircase and get a fall. She had promised to do this, and was only too
happy to see a spark of light scintillate into life in the immeasurable
darkness.
She was now in a great room long closed to the world, where once
officers in Colonial wars had feasted, and more than one council had
been held. A room, too, which had seen more than one tragic happening,
as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van
Broecklyn had told her; but she was warned to be careful in traversing
it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall
till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner
turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak
of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of the blocked-up
door. The paper should be somewhere near this streak.
All simple, all easy of accomplishment, if only that streak of light
were all she was likely to see or think of. If the horror which was
gripping her throat should not take shape! If things would remain
shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and not force themselves in shadowy
suggestion upon her excited fancy! But the blackness of the passage-way
through which she had just struggled was not to be found here. Whether
it was the effect of that small flame flickering at the top of the
staircase behind her, or of some change in her own powers of seeing,
surely there was a difference in her present outlook. Tall shapes were
becoming visible--the air was no longer blank--she could see--Then
suddenly she saw why. In the wall high up on her right was a window.
It was small and all but invisible, being covered on the outside with
vines, and on the inside with the cobwebs of a century. But some small
gleams from the star-light night came through, making phantasms out of
ordinary things, which unseen were horrible enough, and half seen choked
her heart with terror.
“I cannot bear it,” she whispered to herself even while creeping
forward, her hand upon the wall. “I will close my eyes” was her next
thought. “I will make my own darkness,” and with a spasmodic forcing of
her lids together, she continued to creep on, passing the mantelpiece,
where she knocked against something which fell with an awful clatter.
This sound, followed as it was by that of smothered voices from the
excited group awaiting the result of her experiment from behind the
impenetrable wall she should be nearing now if she had followed her
instructions aright, freed her instantly from her fancies; and opening
her eyes once more, she cast a look ahead, and to her delight, saw but a
few steps away, the thin streak of bright light which marked the end of
her journey.
It took her but a moment after that to find the missing page, and
picking it up in haste from the dusty floor, she turned herself quickly
about and joyfully began to retrace her steps. Why then, was it that in
the course of a few minutes more her voice suddenly broke into a wild,
unearthly shriek, which ringing with terror burst the bounds of that
dungeon-like room, and sank, a barbed shaft, into the breasts of those
awaiting the result of her doubtful adventure, at either end of this
dread no-thoroughfare.
What had happened?
If they had thought to look out, they would have seen that the
moon--held in check by a bank of cloud occupying half the heavens--had
suddenly burst its bounds and was sending long bars of revealing light
into every uncurtained window.