SURROUNDED BY ENEMIES.
Although the two men had got past Matt, nevertheless he followed them
to the end of the passage, arriving just in time to see them disappear
through the opening and close the aperture with the slab.
Only two went out. What had become of Sercomb? Had Ferral and Carl
captured him--catching him red-handed and so unmasking his treachery?
In any event, Ferral and Carl had proven more than a match for the two
miscreants who had stolen in upon them. Thankful that the affair had
turned out so fortunately for his friends, although still mystified
as to what Sercomb's purpose was, Matt groped his way back along the
corridor and mounted the steps.
It was a long flight--much longer than the one at the other end of the
passage--and, at the top, Matt was confronted by a blank wall. He ran
his hands over it, and, in so doing, must have touched a spring, for a
section of the wall slid back and a sudden glow of lamplight blinded
him.
"Ach, du lieber!" came the astounded voice of Carl. "Dere vas Matt, py
chincher! Vere you come from, hey?"
Matt stepped from the head of the steps into the room in which Ferral
and Carl had been sleeping. The panel closed noiselessly behind him.
"Sink me!" muttered Ferral, stepping past Matt to run his hands over
the wall. "A nice little trap-door in the wall, or I'm a Fiji!" He
whirled around. "How does it come you stepped through it, messmate?"
"Where's Sercomb?" whispered Matt, peering around.
"What's he got to do with this?"
Just at that moment Sercomb's voice came up from below.
"What's going on up there? Anything happened, Dick?"
"Two men came in and made trouble for us!" shouted Matt. "Didn't you
hear 'em run down the stairs?"
"No, I didn't hear anybody!" answered Sercomb.
"Take a look around, and we'll see what we can find up here."
During this brief colloquy, Ferral and Carl were staring at Matt in
open-mouthed astonishment.
Matt whirled to Ferral.
"Not a word to Sercomb about that hole in the wall," he whispered.
"Tell me quick, what happened in here?"
"I was sleeping full and by, forty knots," answered Ferral, in the
same low tone, "when I felt myself grabbed. It was dark as Egypt, and
I couldn't see a thing. I shouted to Carl, and we had it touch and go,
here in the dark. My eye, but it was a scrimmage! Right in the midst of
it the fellows we were fighting melted away. I had just got the glim to
going when you stepped in on us."
"Wasn't Sercomb in the fight?"
"Why, no. He must have been down-stairs, sleeping like a log. He only
just chirped--you heard him."
"Well, Sercomb came into this room with two other men, through that
hole in the wall----"
"Is that right?" demanded Ferral, his face hardening.
"Yes, but don't say a word about it. Wait till we find out what his
game is."
"How dit you know all dot, Matt?" queried Carl.
Briefly as he could Matt sketched his recent experiences. The
astonishing recital left his two friends gasping.
"The old hunks!" breathed Ferral, scowling. "I can smoke his
weather-roll, fast enough. What did I tell you about the soft-sawdering
beggar?"
Matt stepped into the hall and listened. Apparently, Sercomb was not
in the house. Coming back, he pulled his two friends close together so
they could hear him without his speaking above a whisper.
"Sercomb has gone out to hurry up the repairs on the big car and get
it out of the way. We can talk a little, but we've got to be wary.
Don't let Sercomb know anything about this clue I've picked up. We're
surrounded by enemies, Ferral, and you're the object of some sort of
game they've got on. By lying low, perhaps we can get wise to it."
"Dot shpook auto has dook a hant in der pitzness," murmured Carl,
flashing a fearful glance around. "I don'd like dot fery goot."
"This spook business will all be explained, Carl," said Matt, "and
you'll find that flesh and blood is mixed up in the whole of it.
That white runabout put a shot into one of the tires of that big
touring-car, and no revolver ever went off without a human hand back
of it. We know, too, how those men got away from that room where they
were playing cards. They ran in here, got through the hole in the wall
and went out by way of the tunnel. That shot that was fired at you,
Dick, and put out the lamp, must have come from this room, just before
Sercomb and the others dodged through the wall."
"Sercomb?" echoed Ferral.
"Sure! It's a cinch he was playing cards in that room with the three
men. He came here from Denver, and he must have traveled in that big
car and brought the others with him."
"Oh, he's the nice boy!" commented Ferral sarcastically. "A fine
cousin, that swab is! That phantom flugee is mixing in the game. I
wonder if Sercomb has anything to do with that?"
"No. When the phantom auto showed up in the road, Sercomb and all three
of the others were scared nearly out of their wits. I'll bet that was
the first time Sercomb ever saw it. Besides, the bullet that pierced
the tire of the big car came from the runabout. That wouldn't have
happened if the runabout was here to help Sercomb's plans."
"Right-o. What kind of a bally old place is this, anyhow? Holes in the
wall, tunnels, and all that--it fair dazes me. What could Uncle Jack
have wanted of a secret passage?"
"Didn't you tell me that this was an old Mexican house, and that your
uncle bought it?" asked Matt.
"That's how he got hold of the place, matey."
"Then it must have come into his hands like we find it. The Mexicans
used to build queer houses; I found that out while I was down in
Phoenix."
Matt turned away and took a look at the walls. They were wainscoted in
cedar, all around. Every little way there were panels, and the entrance
to the passage, which Matt had recently used, was by a panel.
"The walls of these adobe houses are always thick," went on Matt, "but
these walls are even thicker than common. There's room in this wall for
that stairway, and no one would ever suspect the wall is hollow, simply
because it's made of adobe."
"How does the door work?" queried Ferral, stepping to the wainscoting
and trying to manipulate the panel. "I'd like to know how to get the
cover off the blooming hatch; the knowledge might come handy."
Along the wainscoting, about five feet from the floor, were arranged
clothes-hooks. Matt, helping Ferral hunt for the secret spring that
operated the panel, pulled on one of the hooks. Instantly the panel
slid open, answering the pull on the hook with weird silence.
"Chiminy grickets!" murmured Carl, stepping back. "Dot looks like der
vay to der infernal blace."
Ferral stepped forward as though he would pass through the opening, but
Matt caught his arm and held him back.
"Don't go down there now, Ferral," said he. "When Sercomb comes we want
him to find us here. He doesn't guess that I'm next to what he's done
to-night, and none of his confederates know it. If we keep mum, the
knowledge may do us a lot of good. If we try to face him down with it,
we'll only show him our hands without accomplishing anything."
"The sneaking lubber!" growled Ferral. "Why, he berthed us in this room
so he and his mates could sneak in on us while we were asleep. But,"
and here Ferral rubbed his chin perplexedly, "what did they want to do
that for?"
"We'll find out," returned Matt, "if we play our cards right."
"You're the lad to discover things," said Ferral admiringly. "I never
had a notion you were going to slip out of the house when you left us."
"And I never had a notion what I was going to drop into," said Matt, "I
can promise you that. But it is a tip-top clue, and we'll be foolish if
we don't use it for all it's worth."
"You've started off in handsome style! Your head-work makes me feel
like a green hand and a lubber."
"Dot's Matt, Verral," declared Carl, puffing up like a turkey-cock.
"He alvays does t'ings in hantsome shdyle, you bed you. He iss der
lucky feller to tie to, dot's righdt. I know, pecause I haf tied to him
meinseluf, und I haf peen hafing luck righdt along efer since, yah,
so. Be jeerful, eferypody, und oof der shpooks leaf us alone, ve vill
all come oudt oof der horn py der pig end. But vat makes Sercomb act
like dot?"
"He wants Uncle Jack's property," scowled Ferral, "and I'll wager
that's what he's working for."
"But how can he be working for it when he's already got it?" put in
Matt. "He claims to have found your uncle, and to have secured the
will."
"That's his speak-easy for it. He's a long-winded grampus, and can talk
the length of the best bower, but that don't mean that there's any
truth in all his wig-wagging."
"Now you're hitting the high gear without any lost motion," said
Matt. "Between you and me and the spark-plug, Dick, I don't think he
ever found your uncle; and, as for the will, if he really has it, and
everything's left to him, what's all this underhand work for?"
A sudden thought came to Ferral.
"Say," he whispered hoarsely, "do you think that sneaking cur could
have handed out any foul play to Uncle Jack? I hate to think it of him,
but----"
"No," answered Matt gravely, "I don't think----"
He was interrupted by some one coming in at the front door, and stopped
abruptly.
"There's Sercomb now," he whispered. "Let's hear what he's got to say
for himself. Mind you don't let out anything about my clue. When you
had your trouble, I ran in here from the other room and lent a hand."
"Are you up there?" came Sercomb's voice. "I can't find a soul about
the place."
From the road the boys could hear the muffled pounding of a motor. And
they knew, even as Sercomb spoke, that he was not telling the truth.