THE GRIFFIN AND THE ROSE
Although the Hartleys had practically given up all hope of ever finding
the hidden money, they couldn't help being imbued with Patty's
enthusiasm.
Indeed, it took little to rouse the sleeping fires of interest that never
were entirely extinguished.
But though they talked it over by the hour there seemed to be nothing to
do but talk.
One day, Patty went out all by herself, determined to see if she couldn't
find some combination of an oak tree and a group of firs that would
somehow seem especially prominent.
But after looking at a score or more of such combinations, she realised
that task was futile.
She looked at the ground under some of them, but who could expect a mark
of any kind on the ground after nearly forty years? No. Unless Mr.
Marmaduke Cromarty had marked his hiding-place with a stone or iron
plate, it would probably never be found by his heirs. Search in the house
was equally unsatisfactory. What availed it to scan a wall or a bedstead
that had been scrutinised for years by eager, anxious eyes? And then
Patty set her wits to work. She tried to think where an erratic old
gentleman would secrete his wealth. And she was forced to admit that the
most natural place was in the ground on his estate, the location to be
designated by some obscure message. And surely, the message was obscure
enough!
She kept her promise to help Bob in his self-appointed task of going
through all the books in the library. This was no small piece of work,
for it was not enough to shake each book, and let loose papers, if any,
drop out. Some of the old papers had been found pinned to leaves, and so
each book must be run through in such a way that every page could be
glanced at.
Nor was this a particularly pleasant task. For Mrs. Hartley had made it a
rule that when her own children went over the old books, they were to
dust them as they went along. Thus, she said, at least some good would be
accomplished, though no hidden documents might be found.
Of course, she did not request Patty to do this, but learning of the
custom, Patty insisted on doing it, and many an hour she spent in the old
library, clad in apron and dust-cap. Her progress was rather slow, for
book-loving Patty often became absorbed in the old volumes, and dropping
down on the window-seat, or the old steps to the gallery, would read
away, oblivious to all else till some one came to hunt for her.
At last, one day, her patient search met a reward. In an old book she
found several of what were beyond all doubt Mr. Marmaduke Comarty's
papers.
Without looking at them closely, Patty took the book straight to Mrs.
Cromarty.
"Dear me!" said the old lady, putting on her glasses. "Have we really
found something? I declare I'm quite nervous over it. Emmeline, you read
them."
Mrs. Hartley was a bit excited, too, and as for Patty and Mabel, they
nearly went frantic at their elders' slowness in opening the old and
yellow papers.
There were several letters, a few bills, and some hastily-scribbled
memoranda. The letters and bills were of no special interest, but on one
of the small bits of paper was another rhymed couplet that seemed to
indicate a direction.
It read:
"Where the angry griffin shows,
Ruthless, tear away the rose."
"Oh," exclaimed Patty, "it's another direction how to get the fortune!
Oh, Mabel, it will be all right yet! Oh, where is the angry griffin? Is
it over a rosebush? You're only to pull up the rosebush, and there you
are!"
Mabel looked bewildered. So did the older ladies.
"Speak, somebody!" cried Patty, dancing about in excitement. "Isn't there
any angry griffin? There must be!"
"That's the trouble," said Mrs. Hartley; "there are so many of them. Why,
there are angry griffins on the gates, over the lodge doors, on the
marbles in the gardens, and all over the house."
"Of course there are," said Mabel. "You must have noticed them, Patty.
There's one now," and she pointed to a bit of wood carving over the door
frame of the room they were in.
"I don't care! It means something, I know it does," declared Patty.
"We'll work it out yet. I wish the boys were home."
"They'll soon be here," said Mrs. Cromarty. "I can't help thinking that
it does mean something--Marmaduke was very fond of roses, and it would be
just like him to plant a rosebush over his buried treasure."
"That's it," cried Patty. "Now, where is there a rosebush growing, and
one of the angry griffins near it?"
"There probably are some in the rose garden," said Mrs. Cromarty. "I
don't remember any, though."
"Come on, Mabel," said Patty, "let's go and look. I can't wait another
minute!"
Away flew the two girls, and for the next hour they hovered about the
rosebushes with more energy than is often shown by the busiest of bees.
"I wish old Uncle Marmaduke had been less of a poet," said Mabel, as they
sat down a moment to rest, "and more of a--a----"
"More straightforward," suggested Patty. "If he'd only written a few
words of plain prose, and left it with his lawyer, all this trouble
needn't have been."
"Well, I suppose he did intend to make it plain before he died, but he
went off so suddenly. Oh, here are the boys."
Sinclair and Bob came bounding down toward the rose garden, followed more
sedately by their mother and grandmother.
"Not a sign of a griffin a-sniffin' of a rose," said Patty, disconsolately.
"Oh, you haven't looked all round yet," said Bob. "It's such fun to have
something to look for besides fir trees and beds, I'm going to make a
close search."
"Of course," said Sinclair, "the same rose bush wouldn't be here now that
was here thirty or forty years ago."
"But it would have been renewed," said Mrs. Cromarty. "We've always tried
to keep the flowers as nearly as possible the same."
"Then here goes to interview every griffin on the place," declared Bob.
"Jolly of old uncle to mark the spot with a rosebush and a griffin.
That's what I call decent of him. And you're a wonder, Patty, to find the
old paper."
"Oh, that's nothing," said Patty. "I just followed your orders about the
books. If you'd kept at it yourself, you'd have found the same book."
"I s'pose so. But I'm glad you helped the good work along. Oh, dear! no
rosebush seems to be near a griffin; and the griffins seem positively
afraid of the rosebushes." And try as they would, no angry griffin could
they find, with a rosebush near it. Griffins there were in plenty; both
angry and grinning. Also were there plenty of roses, but they were
arranged in well-laid-out beds, and in no case were guarded or menaced by
angry griffins.
"Never mind," said Sinclair, as they returned to the house for dinner,
"it's something to work on. I shall stay at home to-morrow and try to
find that particular rosebush, or the place where it used to be."
"Maybe it's a stone rose," said Patty, as she touched a rose carved in
stone that was part of an ornamental urn whose handles were the heads of
angry griffins. Sinclair stared at her.
"You're right," he said, slowly, as if grasping a great thought. "It's
much more likely to be a rose of stone or marble, and when that's
ruthlessly torn away the secret will be revealed. Oh, mother, there _is_
hope!"
Patty had never seen the placid Sinclair so excited, and they all went to
their rooms to get ready for dinner, with a feeling that something was
going to happen. Conversation at dinner was all on the engrossing
subject.
Everybody made suggestions, and everybody recalled various partly-forgotten
griffins in odd nooks and corners, each being sure that was "just the place
uncle would choose!"
After dinner, the young people were anxious to go out and search more,
but it had begun to rain, so they all went into the library and again
scrutinised the old papers Patty had found.
They looked through more books, too, but found nothing further of
interest.
At last, wearied with the hunt, Patty threw herself into a big armchair
and declared she would do no more that night.
"I should say not," said Bob. "You've done quite enough in giving us this
new start."
Although, as Patty had said, the looking through all the old books was
Bob's plan, he generously gave her the credit of this new find. Sinclair
threw himself on a long leather couch, and began to sing softly some of
their nonsense songs, as he often did when tired out. The others joined,
and for a time the fortune was left to take care of itself.
Very pleasant were the four fresh young voices, and the elders listened
gladly to their music.
In the middle of a song, Patty stopped, and sat bolt upright, her eyes
staring at a door opposite her as if she had never seen it before.
"Gracious, goodness! Patty," said Mabel, "what is the matter?"
"What is it, little one?" said Sinclair, still humming the refrain of the
interrupted song.
Patty pointed to the door, or rather to the elaborately carved door
frame, and said slowly, "I've been reading a lot in the old architecture
books--and they often used to have secret hiding places in the walls. And
look at that door frame! There's an angry griffin on one jamb, and a
smiling griffin on the other, and under each is a rose. That is it's a
five-leafed blossom, a sort of conventional flower that they always call
a rose in architecture."
"Though I suppose," said Sinclair, "by any other name it would look as
sweet. Patty, my child, you're dreaming. That old carving is as solid as
Gibraltar and that old griffin isn't very angry anyway. He just looks
rather purse proud and haughty."
"But it's the only griffin that's near a rose," persisted Patty. "And he
is angry, compared to the happy-looking griffin opposite to him."
"I believe the girl is right," said Bob, who was already examining the
carvings in question. "The rose doesn't look movable, exactly, but it is
not quite like this other rose. It's more deeply cut."
By this time all had clustered about the door frame, and one after
another poked and pushed at the wooden rose.
"There's something in it," persisted Bob. "In the idea, I mean. If
there's a secret hiding-place in that upright carved beam, that rose is
the key to it. See how deeply it's cut in, compared to the other; and I
can almost see a crack all round it, as if it could be removed. May I try
to get it out, Grandy?"
"Certainly, my boy. We mustn't leave a stone unturned."
"A rose unturned, you mean. Clair, what shall we ruthlessly tear it away
with? I hate to take a chisel to this beautiful old door."
"Try a corkscrew," said Mabel.
"You mean a gimlet," said Bob. "That's a good idea."
Fetching a gimlet, he bored a hole right in the centre of the carved
blossom, but though it turned and creaked a little it wouldn't come out.
"It must come," said Sinclair. "It turns, so that proves it's meant to be
movable. It probably has some hinge or spring that is rusted, and so it
doesn't work as it ought to. We'll have to take hammer and chisel; shall
we, Grandy?"
The boys were deferential to Mrs. Cromarty, for they well knew that she
was tired of having the old house torn up to no avail. But surely this
was an important development.
"Yes, indeed, boys. If your uncle's words mean anything, they mean that
it must be ruthlessly torn away, if removed at all."
For quite ten minutes the two boys worked away with their tools,
endeavouring to mar the carving as little as might be, but resolved to
succeed in their undertaking. At last the wooden rose fell out in their
hands, leaving a round opening.
Peering in, Sinclair saw a small iron knob, which seemed to be part of a
rusty spring.
Greatly excited, he tried to push or turn it, but couldn't move it.
"Anyway, we're getting warm," he cried, and his glowing face corroborated
his words.
The boys took turns in working at the stubborn spring, trying with
forceps and pincers to move it, until at last something seemed to give
way, and the whole front of the door jamb fell out as one panel.
Behind it was a series of small pigeon holes one above the other, all
filled with neatly piled papers.
Though yellow with age, the papers were carefully folded, labelled, and
dated.
"Patty!" cried Mabel, as she embraced her friend, "you've found our
fortune for us!"
"Don't be too sure," said Patty, laughing, and almost crying at the same
time, so excited was she. "Your Uncle Marmaduke was of such uncertain
ways I shouldn't wonder if these were merely more files of his immortal
verse."
"They're bills," declared Sinclair, as he ran over a packet he took from
a shelf.
"Let's look them all over systematically," said Bob. "Let's all sit round
the table, and one of us read out what the paper is about. Then if we
come to anything important, we'll all know it at once."
This plan was adopted, and Sinclair, as the oldest, was chosen to read.
He sat at the head of the long library table, and the others were at
either side.
But the packets of bills, though interesting in a general way, had no
bearing on the great question of the fortune. The papers were all bills.
"Not even a bit of poetry," sighed Patty, as Sinclair laid aside one
after another of the receipted bills for merchandise, household goods,
clothing, and labour.
"These might interest a historian," said Sinclair, "as they throw some
light on the prices of goods at that time. But we'll keep on, we may come
to something of interest yet."
"I hope so," said Bob. "I'm so anxious, that nothing less than a straight
direction to the fortune would satisfy me."
"Well, here's something," said Sinclair, "whatever it may mean."
The paper he had just unfolded was a mason's bill, containing only one
item. The bill was made out in due form, by one Martin Campbell, and was
properly receipted as paid. And its single item read:
"To constructing one secret pocket.... Three Guineas."
"Oh!" cried Patty, breathless with excitement. "Then there is a secret
pocket, or poke as your exasperating uncle calls it."
"There must be," said Sinclair; "and now that we know that, we're going
to find it. Of course, we assumed there was one, but we had only that
foolish doggerel to prove it. Now this regular bill establishes it as a
fact beyond all doubt. Do you know this Martin Campbell, Grandy?"
"I know there was a mason by that name, who worked here several times for
your uncle. He came down from Leicester, but of course I know nothing
more of him."
"We'll find him!" declared Bob. "We'll make him give up the secret of the
pocket."
"Maybe he's dead by this time," said Sinclair. "Was he an old man,
Grandy?"
"I don't know, my dear. I never saw him. He worked here when I was away
in London. I fear, however, he is not alive now."
"Oh, perhaps he is. It was only about thirty-five years ago, or forty,
that he built this 'secret pocket.' Thirty-eight, to be exact. The date
on the bill proves that."
"Well, to-morrow you must go to see him," said Mrs. Hartley, rising. "But
now, my children, you must go to bed. You can't learn any more to-night,
and to-morrow we will pick up the broken thread. Patty, my dear child,
you are doing a great deal for us."
"It isn't anything yet," said Patty, "but oh, if it only leads to
something, I shall be so glad!"