AN EXCITING DISCOVERY
The autumn of that year ended, the winter months came and went with all
their holiday festivities, and spring entered in her appointed time. The
passing winter had been filled with such varied outside activities for
the two girls, that there was little time to think of the Boarded-up
House, and still less to do any further investigating within it. Added
to that, the cold had been so constant and intense that it would have
been unsafe to venture into the unlighted, unheated, and unventilated
old mansion.
But, in spite of these things, its haunting story was never out of their
minds for long, and they discussed and re-discussed it in many a spare
hour when they crouched cozily by themselves over the open fire during
that long winter. It was a wonderful and appealing secret that they
somehow felt was all their own. It was better, more interesting than the
most engrossing story they had ever read. And the fascination of it was
that, though they now knew so much, they did not yet know all. The
mystery of the locked room always confronted them, always lured them on!
Once, on a day that was unusually mild, they ventured into the old house
for a few moments, and looked long and intently at the Lovely Lady over
the library mantel, and at the two pretty children in the drawing-room.
"Yes, that is the boy," said Cynthia. "You can see, even there, what a
fine young fellow he must have made, with those big brown eyes and that
curly golden hair. Oh, the poor mother!-- How she must have grieved, all
these years! You can see that she has never gotten over it, or she would
have come back here sometime. I wonder if she is alive yet!"
In the library, Joyce picked up the paper that had been discovered
through the help of Goliath, and looked it over curiously.
"Why in the world didn't we _read_ this paper when we found it!" she
exclaimed disgustedly. "Just see here,--the big headlines--'Fort Sumter
Surrenders. War Formally Declared. Troops Rushing To Washington!' Why,
Cynthia, it would surely have given us the clue!"
"I don't think it would have," declared Cynthia, sceptically. "I never
would have connected anything in the paper with what happened here."
"Sherlock Holmes would have," mused Joyce. "Well, anyway, we got at the
story in another fashion. But oh, Cynthia, will we ever know about the
locked-up room?" As Cynthia could cast no further light on this vexed
question, they were forced to drop it.
Then came spring, and the ancient cherry-trees in the enclosure back of
the Boarded-up House blossomed anew. One brilliant Saturday morning
early in May, the girls clambered through the fence with their books and
fancy-work, to spend some of the shining hour under the white canopy of
blossoms. They were reading aloud the "Sign of Four," (they inclined
much toward mystery and detective stories at this time) turn and turn
about, while the one who not have the book sewed or embroidered.
Presently Joyce laid down the volume with a big sigh.
[Illustration: "Oh, I _wish_ I were Sherlock Holmes!"]
"Oh, I _wish_ I were Sherlock Holmes!"
"Mercy! what for?" cried Cynthia. "I'm sure _I_ don't!"
"Why, do you suppose Sherlock would have been all this time getting at
the final facts about our Boarded-up House? Of course not! He'd have had
it all worked out and proved by now!" Joyce got to her feet and began
roaming about restlessly. Suddenly she stopped in front of her
companion.
"I tell you, Cynthia, it _haunts_ me! I can't explain to you why, but I
feel there is something we haven't discovered yet,--something we _ought_
to know. It isn't just 'idle curiosity' as Professor Marlow would call
it! I never knew or heard of anything that went so--so _deep_ in me as
this thing has. That poor, loving, proud mother, and her terrible
misunderstanding with her splendid son!-- He was _right_, too, I can't
help but think. But was she in the wrong? I suppose we can't judge about
how people felt in those days. The whole thing is so different now,--all
forgotten and forgiven! But I've read that the Confederates considered
their cause almost a--a _religion_. So of course she would have felt the
shock of what her son did, terribly. And think how he must have felt,
too!
"And then to lose his life, almost in the beginning! Perhaps he and his
mother might have made it all up after the war was over, if he'd only
lived. It's--it's the saddest thing I ever heard!" Cynthia had risen
too, and they linked arms, strolling up and down the little orchard as
they talked.
"I feel exactly as you do about it, though I don't often speak of it,"
said Cynthia. "But, by the way, did it ever strike you that we might
find it interesting to look over some of the books in that old library?
Some of them looked very attractive to me. And even if it didn't lead to
anything, at least it would be good fun to examine them. I love old
books! Why not do it this afternoon?"
"Just the thing!" agreed Joyce. "I've thought of that too, but we've
never had much chance to do it, till now. This afternoon, right after
lunch!"
So the afternoon found them again in the dim, musty old library,
illuminating the scene extravagantly with five candles. Three sides of
the room were lined with book-shelves, reaching nearly to the ceiling.
The girls surveyed the bewildering rows of books, puzzled where to
begin.
"Oh, come over here!" decided Joyce, choosing the side opposite the
fireplace. "These big volumes look so interesting." She brushed the
thick dust off their backs, revealing the titles. "Look!-- They're all
alike, with red backs and mottled sides." She opened one curiously.
"Why!--they're called 'Punch'! What a strange name! What kind of books
can they be?" And then, on further examination,--"Oh! I see. It's a
collection of English papers full of jokes and politics and that sort
of thing. And this one is from way back in 1850 Why, Cynthia, these are
the most _interesting_ things!--"
But Cynthia had already extracted another volume and was absorbed in it,
chuckling softly over the old-time humor. Joyce grouped the five candles
on the floor and they sat down beside them, from time to time pulling
out fresh volumes, reading aloud clever jokes to each other, and
enjoying themselves immensely, utterly unconscious of the passing
moments.
At length they found they had skimmed through all the volumes of
"Punch," the last of which was dated 1860, and had them piled up on the
floor beside them. This left a long space on the shelf from which they
came, and the methodical Cynthia presently rose to put them back. As she
fitted in the first volume, her eye was suddenly caught by something
back of the shelves, illuminated in the flickering candle-light.
"Joyce, come here!" she called in a voice of suppressed excitement. And
Joyce, who had wandered to another corner, came over in a hurry.
"What is it?"
"Look in there!" Joyce snatched a candle and held it close to the
opening made by the books. Then she gave a long, low whistle.
"What do you make of it?" demanded Cynthia.
"Just what it is! And that's as 'plain as a pikestaff'--a _keyhole_!"
Cynthia nodded.
"Yes, but what a strange place for it--back of those shelves!--" They
brought another candle and examined the wall back of the shelves more
carefully. There was certainly a keyhole--a rather small one--and around
it what appeared to be the paneling of a door, only partially visible
through the shreds of old, torn wall-paper that had once covered it.
"I have it!" cried Joyce, at length. "At least, I think this may be an
explanation. That's a small door, without a doubt,--perhaps to some
unused closet. Maybe there was a time, when this house was new, when
this room wasn't a library. Then somebody wanted to make it into a
library, and fill all this side of the room with book-shelves. But that
door was in the way. So they had it all papered over, and just put the
shelves in front of it, as though it had never been there. You see the
paper has fallen away, probably through dampness,--and the mice seem to
have eaten it too. And here's the keyhole! Isn't it _lucky_ we just
happened to take the books out that were in front of it!"
"But what are we going to do about it?" questioned Cynthia.
"_Do?_ Why, there's just one thing to do, and that is move the shelves
out somehow,--they seem to be movable, just resting on those
end-supports,--and get at that door!"
"But suppose it's locked?"
"We'll have to take a chance on that! Come on! We can't move these books
and shelves away fast enough to suit me!"
They fell to work with a zest the like of which they had not known since
their first entrance into the Boarded-up House. It was no easy task to
remove the armfuls of books necessary to get at the door behind, and
then push and shove and struggle with the dusty shelves. In a
comparatively short time, however, the floor behind them was littered
with volumes hastily deposited, and the shelves for a space nearly as
high as their heads were removed. Then they tore at the mouldy shreds of
wall-paper till the entire frame of the paneled wooden doorway was free.
Handle there was none, it having doubtless been removed when the place
was papered. There seemed, consequently, no way to open the door. But
Cynthia was equal to this emergency.
"I've seen an old chisel in the kitchen. We might pry it open with
that," she suggested.
"Go and get it!" commanded Joyce, bursting with excitement. "I think
this is going to be either a secret cupboard or room!"
Cynthia seized a candle and hurried away, coming back breathless with
the rusty tool.
"Now for it!" muttered Joyce. She grasped the chisel and inserted it in
the crack, pushing on it with all her might. But the door resisted, and
Cynthia was just uttering the despairing cry,--
"Oh, it's locked too!" when it suddenly gave way, with a wholly
unexpected jerk, and flew open emitting a cloud of dust.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Joyce, between two sneezes, "That almost knocked me
off my feet. Did you ever see so much dust!" Snatching the candles
again, they both sprang forward, expecting to gaze into the dusty
interior of some long unused cupboard or closet. They had no sooner put
their heads into the opening, than they started back with a simultaneous
cry.
The door opened on a tiny, narrow stairway, ascending into the dimness
above!