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[Illustration: The children leant forward and peered down into this
wonderful box. _Page 113._]
UNDER PADLOCK AND SEAL
BY HAROLD AVERY
Thomas Nelson and Sons
London, Edinburgh, Dublin
and New York
_CONTENTS._
_I. Downstairs in the Dark_, 9
_II. The Lost Carving-Knife_, 19
_III. Uncle Roger's Box_, 30
_IV. The Box Opened_, 41
_V. A Naval Disaster_, 51
_VI. More Mystery_, 61
_VII. Sad News_, 71
_VIII. Elsie has a Fright_, 82
_IX. A Fresh Discovery_, 93
_X. Elsie's Confession_, 103
_XI. Uncle Roger's Legacy_, 112
_XII. The Riddle Solved_, 122
UNDER PADLOCK AND SEAL.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
DOWNSTAIRS IN THE DARK.
Elsie pushed away the bed-clothes which were covering her ear, and
listened; then she sat up in bed, and listened again.
[Illustration]
There was no doubt that it was an actual sound, and not mere
imagination. How long it had been going on, or when it first began to
mingle in a confused manner with her dreams, she could not say; but now
she heard it plainly enough, and recognized what it was--the peculiar,
grating hiss of a grindstone, punctuated every now and then with a
subdued little squeak made by the treadle.
Who on earth should want to be grinding anything at that time of night?
The Pines was a rambling old house; the girls always slept with their
window open; and just below was an outbuilding, part of which was used
as a tool-house, in which stood the grindstone; and thus the sound had
reached Elsie at a moment when perhaps her slumber was not as deep as
usual. The noise continued, with pauses at regular intervals, when
whatever was being sharpened was removed from the stone. Taking care not
to disturb her elder sister, Ida, whose heavy breathing showed that she
was sound asleep, the little girl slipped out of bed, and crept softly
over to the window. By straining her neck, and pressing her cheek close
against the pane, she could just get a glimpse of the tool-house window,
which she noticed was faintly illuminated, as it might have been by the
feeble rays of a night-light.
A sudden thought occurred to Elsie that it must be her cousin, Brian
Seaton, who lived at the Pines, and went to school with her brother
Guy. Brian was always boat-building; sometimes he sat up later than he
ought to have done, and continued to work long after every one else was
in bed. No doubt the rascal was doing so now, and had stolen down to put
a fresh edge on his chisel. Elsie was a spirited young monkey, and she
and Brian were great chums.
"I'll just creep down and show him I've found him out," she said to
herself. "What fun to take him by surprise!"
To put on dressing-gown and slippers was but the work of a few moments.
Softly opening the bedroom door, she passed out on to the landing, and
groping in the darkness until she found the rail of the banisters, she
proceeded down the stairs.
How still and quiet the house seemed! Nothing broke the silence but the
solemn "tick-tack" of the big clock in the hall, which had been ticking
in the same sedate manner since the days when Elsie's grandmother had
been a little girl. Feeling her way down the length of the hall, not
without an occasional bump against chairs and other such obstacles,
Elsie came to a little lobby or cloak-room, having at the farther
end a half-glass door, which opened on the yard, and from which the
tool-house was distant not more than a dozen paces. She quite expected
to find this door open, and was surprised to discover that it was not
only shut, but locked on the inside.
"What a beggar Brian is!" thought the girl. "He must have climbed out of
his window, and come down the water-pipe, as he did one day last summer."
She laid her hand on the key, when a low growling noise gave her quite
a little fright, until she remembered that it was the old clock in the
hall preparing to strike--"clearing his throat," as Ida called the
operation. The next moment the bell struck--
"Ting! ting!"
Elsie listened with a gasp of astonishment; the old clock ignored the
halves and quarters, so the time must be two o'clock in the morning!
She never remembered having been up so early or so late before, and the
thought that she was wandering about the house at that unearthly hour
made her feel quite queer.
"What can Brian be about?" she murmured. "He can't have been sitting up
working till this time."
She turned the handle of the door, and stepped across the threshold. The
cold night air made her shiver, the whir of the grindstone came clear
and distinct from the tool-house, and the window still gleamed with
the same subdued, ghostly light. Elsie had intended to rush across the
flagstones, fling open the door, shout "Brian, go to bed!" and then
herself beat a hasty retreat; but, just when she was on the point of
doing so, she hesitated.
What if it shouldn't be Brian after all? And if it were not her cousin,
who or what could be there in the tool-house turning the grindstone at
two o'clock in the morning?
It is when we pause to think that fear often takes hold of us. Elsie was
a brave child; but, somehow, just then her courage seemed to desert her.
She remained for an instant listening to the whispering of the night
wind, and the mysterious sound which had first roused her from her
slumbers; then she drew back in sudden panic, locked the door as if in
the fear of some lion, and went quickly back the way she had come.
"Tick-tack! tick-tack!" muttered the old clock. He never felt afraid at
having to stand alone all night in the darkness. Elsie hurried past him,
and after one or two stumbles on the stairs, regained her bedroom.
"Ida! Wake up!"
"Every one of my sums is right," murmured Ida drowsily. "You can always
get them right with a blue pencil."
"Wake up, Ida! I want to tell you something."
"Oh, bother!" grumbled the elder girl. "What's the matter, Elsie? What
d'you want to keep shaking me for when I'm sound asleep?"
"Why, I want to tell you there's some one turning our grindstone."
"Well, what if they are? I suppose it's meant to be turned."
"But not now. It's two o'clock in the morning. No one ought to be about
there at this time."
Ida sat up, rubbed her eyes, and yawned.
"What d'you mean?" she exclaimed.
"Listen!" was the answer. "You'll hear the noise. Some one was working
the grindstone. Why, I heard the little squeak of the treadle as plainly
as anything."
"You have been dreaming, you little silly!"
"No, I _haven't_! What I say is quite true."
There was something in the speaker's tone which showed that she was very
much in earnest.
"And you mean to say that you've been all the way downstairs?"
"Yes; I went to the yard door. I meant to have gone across to the
tool-house, but I was frightened."
"Well, if any one was there, it must have been Guy or Brian--probably
Brian, for he's the only one who can sharpen tools. I'll go across and
ask."
Throwing the dressing-gown over her shoulders, Ida left the room. She
still did not believe that either of the boys had been up at that
unearthly hour using the grindstone, but she wished to prove to Elsie
that it was all imagination. As she passed the head of the stairs she
suddenly stopped. Somewhere, down below, she distinctly heard a soft
noise like the patter of slippered feet. Ida leant over the banisters.
"Brian!" she cried in a whisper. "What are you doing?"
There was a scuffling noise, and a moment later, to the girl's
astonishment, a black dog came jumping up the stairs as fast as it could
go.
[Illustration]
"Why, Bob, you rascal, whatever brings you in here?"
The dog capered about with a whining noise, which showed his delight.
"Hush! don't bark!" commanded the girl; "you ought to be in your kennel.
Go downstairs, and lie on the mat."
The dog obeyed, and pattered off down the stairs, while Ida went on and
tapped at the door of the room in which the two boys slept. The knocking
had to be repeated several times before there was any answer. At last
there came a sleepy, "All ri'. What 'er want?"
"Have you been down turning the grindstone in the tool-house, Guy?"
"No, of course not."
"Has Brian?"
"No; he's here asleep."
"Have either of you been down there?"
"No, you stupid!"
"Well, some one's let Bob into the house."
"Oh, bother Bob! I say, Ida, you are a fool to go waking a fellow up
like this. What's the joke?"
"It's no joke," she said. "Good-night; go to sleep."
"You are a little noodle, Elsie!" Ida exclaimed as she jumped back into
bed, her teeth chattering with the cold. "The boys are both in bed, and
haven't been near the tool-house. And d'you know what you've done?
You've let in Bob."
"I'm sure I didn't."
"But you _did_. He's just run upstairs. He must have slipped in when you
opened the yard door. His collar's broken, and he gets loose sometimes."
"I'm sure he didn't come into the house when I opened the door,"
persisted Elsie. "I only stood there half a minute. The servants must
have let him in when they were locking up."
"Well, if it was a robber working the grindstone," answered Ida
jokingly, "he can't get into the house without Bob barking and waking
everybody up. Now, good-night; don't wake me up again."
Ida's breathing soon showed that she was once more in the land of
dreams, but try as Elsie would she could not get off to sleep. As
often as she closed her eyes she seemed to see the dark outline of the
tool-house, the single window illuminated with a ghostly glimmer, and
again she heard the hiss and whir of the grindstone as she had heard it
before.
Who could have been at work there, if Guy and Brian were both in bed? If
she had run across and opened the door of the little den, what would
she have seen? She was still lying awake thinking, when the old clock
downstairs struck three. Gradually her excitement gave place to a
sensation of drowsiness, and at length she fell asleep. Even now her
puzzled brain was not quite content to let her rest. In her dreams she
once more went downstairs, and this time the door of the tool-house
opened, and out came the grindstone of its own accord, staggering along
on its wooden stand, and whizzing round all the time with a buzzing
sound like a big angry bee. It chased her along endless passages, and up
and down countless flights of stairs. Then Brian appeared on the scene;
she rushed forward to beg his help, and in doing so awoke to find that
she was in bed.
[Illustration: THE 'GRINDSTONE']