The Lantern Room
Lindsay and Cicely might well cry out with surprise. A most peculiar
thing had happened. A part of the back of the cupboard had opened like a
door, revealing a narrow passage behind. Here at last was the
hiding-place for which they had sought so long in vain.
They had never suspected the cupboard. It looked so ordinary, with its
rows of shelves, that no one would have dreamt it concealed a secret
exit. By a clever arrangement the lantern evidently worked a spring, and
when pulled down caused the door to unclose automatically. Somebody in
days gone by had no doubt constructed it thus to form a refuge in time
of danger. The girls were in raptures of delight.
"This, of course, was where Mrs. Wilson vanished," said Lindsay.
"And what Merle saw," added Cicely.
[Illustration: THE SECRET DOOR]
It was an intense satisfaction to have found it out for themselves,
especially when they had come upstairs with such small expectation of
success. Where did the passage lead? That was naturally the first
question they asked each other.
"It looks very dark," said Cicely, peering rather nervously into the
opening.
"I wish we had a candle," said Lindsay. "There isn't even an end left
inside the lantern, and we've no matches either."
"Shall I go downstairs and fetch some?" suggested Cicely.
"No, no! You might meet 'The Griffin' on the way. We'd better explore
now, as quickly as we can, while the coast is clear."
It needed a little screwing up of courage to plunge into the dim
obscurity before them. Lindsay went first, with Cicely clinging
particularly closely on to her arm behind. The passage seemed to lead
along the inside of the wall for about two yards, then took a sharp
turn, and ended at the foot of a kind of ladder stairway.
One gleam of light fell from above, as if through some small chink in
the roof, just sufficient to allow them to distinguish their
surroundings and enable them to scramble up the rough steps. At the top
they found themselves in a huge garret, how big they could not tell, for
the corners were completely lost in black nothingness. The floor was
thick with dust (such old dust!), and was so worm-eaten and rotten that
it felt quite soft and crumbling under their feet.
They were close beneath the tiles, to judge from the rafters overhead.
The air was hot and stifling, and had that stale, mouldy smell
noticeable in places long shut up. They began to walk cautiously along,
peering on all sides as their eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness.
"It's just the place for them to have put the treasure," said Cicely.
"If we only had a light!" sighed Lindsay. "I want to go nearer the wall,
and see if I can find any heaps of money or silver tankards."
She groped her way a little more boldly across the room, and, putting
out her foot, began to feel about.
"Do be careful!" begged Cicely.
It was a most necessary warning. The ancient, rotten boards could not
stand the strain of Lindsay's weight, and down went her leg, making a
great hole in the floor. Luckily she was not seriously hurt, only
scratched and considerably frightened. With Cicely's help she managed to
extricate herself, and withdrew to the safer middle of the garret.
"The old house must be almost ready to tumble down," she declared.
"Monica said parts of the Manor were very much out of repair," replied
Cicely. "Besides, if this is a secret place, no one could ever come up
to mend it."
"I wonder where my leg went to?" said Lindsay.
"Perhaps into some room below."
"In that case Mrs. Wilson will notice a hole in the ceiling, and will
know somebody has been up here."
It was not an encouraging incident, but they were determined to venture
farther all the same.
"We couldn't think of turning back now," said Lindsay.
At the far end of the room there was a door that seemed to lead into an
attic even darker than the first.
"It's not much use going in there without a light," said Cicely.
"Just a few steps," said Lindsay.
She entered, and put up her hand to feel the height of the roof above.
Instantly there was a tremendous rushing sound around them. The air
seemed filled with flapping, shadowy forms, which brushed lightly
against their cheeks. In an agony of fear poor Cicely shrieked and
shrieked again, and clung to Lindsay desperately, as to the one
substantial and human thing in the midst of what was horrible and
unknown.
"All right, they're only bats," gasped Lindsay, in a rather quavering
voice. "We've disturbed them, I expect."
Slightly reassured, Cicely dared to raise her head from her friend's
shoulder and look round. They were surrounded by the fluttering wings
of the bats. These little denizens of the darkness must have been
hanging in numbers from the ceiling, and Lindsay's entrance had
disturbed them. With strange squeaks and hisses they flitted to and fro
for a few moments, then flew off to seek some safer retreat.
"I hope they've really gone," said Cicely, heaving a sigh of relief.
"Don't go any farther in there, Lindsay. You can't see an inch before
your face."
"But it may be the one important place," said Lindsay, yielding
reluctantly as Cicely pulled her back into the outer garret. "I'd
exchange all my next birthday presents for a candle."
"Hush! I want to listen. I thought I heard something."
"What?"
"A kind of rustling."
"I expect it was the bats, or a rat."
Cicely gave an apprehensive glance behind. Her nerves were not so strong
as Lindsay's. Though she had had time to grow accustomed to scratchings
inside the wainscots at the Manor, she could not overcome her dread of
rats. Perhaps Lindsay was less valiant in her heart of hearts than she
would have liked to confess. After all, it was little satisfaction to
explore a room where she could see nothing.
She was just deciding to go, when Cicely once more clutched her arm.
"Oh, what is it?"
The exclamation burst simultaneously from the lips of the two girls.
Close, almost, as it seemed, in their ears, echoed that horrible low
groan which had so terrified them twice before. Heard amidst such
strange and dim surroundings, it was more than flesh and blood could
stand. Without waiting to make any further investigations, they turned
and fled.
They hardly knew afterwards how they had stumbled across the rotten
floor and scrambled down the ladder. With blinking eyes they looked into
each other's scared faces as they emerged from the dark passage into the
bright daylight of the lantern room again.
"What a dreadful place!" shuddered Cicely. "I'm thankful we've got
safely away from it. I don't believe I'd venture up there again for all
the fortunes in the world."
"We must close the entrance," said Lindsay anxiously. "We must take care
to leave everything as we found it."
The secret door shut with a spring, and in a moment there was nothing to
be seen again but the innocent-looking cupboard. The lantern had
ascended to its former place in the ceiling; the chain worked on a
pulley, and, as it ran up or down, it fastened or unloosed the lock.
Cicely, at any rate, was not sorry to descend to the more civilized
portions of the house.
"I wonder if Merle explored as far as we did," she said.
"I hardly think so," returned Lindsay. "She couldn't have had time. I
believe she must have met 'The Griffin' coming out, and have been
frightened into not telling."
The more the girls talked the matter over, the more complicated seemed
the mystery. Though they had found Mrs. Wilson's hiding-place, they were
no nearer ascertaining whether the treasure was concealed there or
elsewhere. Out in the sunshine Lindsay's courage returned, and she began
to reproach herself for having given up the search so soon.
"We'll go some other day, and take two candles and a box of matches with
us," she announced.
"Is it really any good?"
Cicely's spirit quailed at the prospect of once more encountering the
unknown horrors that might be lurking in that dark attic. She could not
forget the groans she had heard there.
"Of course it is! I didn't think you'd be the one to draw back," said
Lindsay reproachfully. "We've both pledged ourselves to do everything in
our power to help Monica. It would be mean and cowardly to give in just
because we felt afraid. If you don't care to come with me, I shall have
to go alone. I'm only waiting for a good opportunity."
For several days the opportunity tarried. Mrs. Wilson was too often
about the passages to make the expedition safe. On one occasion Cicely
went to act scout, but found the housemaid sweeping the top landing, and
had to beat a hasty retreat.
They were not able to discover where Lindsay's leg had descended so
suddenly through the rotten floor, or whether any of the ceilings in the
upper rooms had suffered in consequence. If Mrs. Wilson had found out
the damage, she kept her own counsel. When at last they managed to seize
a favourable chance, and to steal up the winding staircase, a sad
checkmate awaited them. The door of the lantern room was securely
fastened with a padlock.
"Scott said he was going to put one on," said Lindsay, after staring
blankly at the unwelcome impediment. "Don't you remember, when he was
talking to 'The Griffin' in the picture gallery, and she told him we had
been here?"
"I'm certain they suspect us," returned Cicely. "Perhaps they only took
part of the silver or jewellery away in that sack, and the rest is still
up in the garret."
The sole plan of action they could think of after this last
disappointment was to keep a watch upon Scott. If he had really
concealed a portion of the treasure in the garden, he would probably go
to look at it occasionally, to make sure of its safety. At Cicely's
urgent request they had already made a careful examination, with a
trowel, of the bank where Scott had been digging when they surprised him
in the dark. It was fruitless work, however; nothing was there.
"I told you beforehand they wouldn't be so foolish," said Lindsay.
"I thought they might have dropped a piece of money, or an ear-ring
perhaps, in their hurry--just something to show us what had actually
been here," said Cicely, grubbing about in the loose soil.
"Trust Scott and Mrs. Wilson! They're an uncommonly clever couple. You
may be sure they'd take care not to leave even a sixpence behind them."
"I've heard that criminals can't keep away from a place where they've
buried anything," continued Cicely. "They always haunt the spot."
"Then we must notice where Scott goes most frequently," replied Lindsay.
For the present, Scott seemed to be particularly attracted to the
cucumber frames.
"He's there constantly," said Cicely.
"Far oftener than is necessary, I'm sure," agreed Lindsay.
"It might be a likely place, too," added Cicely meditatively.
Several small incidents seemed to confirm their surmises.
"He was so cross last night when Marjorie Butler sent her ball over the
hedge into the kitchen-garden, and went to fetch it," said Lindsay.
"Yes, he said she might have broken the glass in one of the frames; but
I don't suppose that was the real reason. She may have gone near him
just when he was putting something back."
"I heard Miss Russell asking him when the cucumbers would be ready, and
he answered in a great hurry: 'Not for ever so long yet'. And then he
said it was 'best not to be lifting the frames, and disturbing them more
than needful'."
"He was evidently afraid she was going to ask to see them."
The idea that silver cups, jewels, or spade-guineas might be lying
hidden under the glossy leaves of the cucumber plants began to obtain
possession of the girls' minds.
"If we could only manage to look while he's out of the way," suggested
Cicely eagerly.
Scott's close attention to his duties was most annoying. There really
appeared to be something in Cicely's theory of criminals haunting a
particular spot. He seemed never absent from the kitchen-garden, at any
rate when they were in its vicinity. They could hear him mowing the lawn
during lesson hours, but when recreation arrived, and they ran out
hopefully to reconnoitre, he would be weeding the strawberries, or
gathering peas within a few feet of his cherished hotbeds.
"There's only one way for it," said Lindsay. "We shall have to make a
plot. You must hide near the kitchen-garden, and I'll do something to
take him off; then, while he's gone, you must rush to the frames and
open them."
"That would be grand! What will you do?
"I shall have to think it over. I know! We'll wait till this evening,
when he's watering the cucumbers. I'll stand on the pipe of the hose;
that will stop the water, and he'll go to see what's the matter."
"Capital!" agreed Cicely.
It took a little scheming to arrange their plan satisfactorily. They
were much afraid lest Scott should do his watering earlier than usual,
and greatly relieved when they ran out after preparation to find him
only just beginning to uncoil his hose. He used a small tank on wheels,
which he generally left on the gravel walk outside the kitchen-garden,
bringing the indiarubber tubing through the hedge.
To the girls' extreme annoyance, Marjorie Butler spied them, and, coming
up, insisted upon reading aloud to them a letter she had received that
morning from a sailor cousin. Would she never go away? It was too
tiresome of her to confide in them at such an inappropriate time.
"Don't let us keep you, if you want to play tennis," begged Lindsay,
with cold politeness.
"Oh, I don't mind at all, thank you! I thought you'd be interested to
hear about Cousin Cyril," replied Marjorie.
Lindsay wished sincerely that Cousin Cyril had been at the bottom of the
sea, instead of sailing over it and writing long descriptions of its
charms. The precious moments were passing by. She could hear the gentle
swish of the water as Scott applied the hose; if they were not quick, he
would have finished, and the opportunity would be gone.
"I believe Miss Russell is coming out to play croquet to-night," she
ventured desperately.
"Is she? Oh! she promised I might be on her side next time. I wonder if
she's there yet? I must go and see at once."
"Thank goodness!" ejaculated Lindsay, as their classmate's blue-linen
dress disappeared along the avenue. "Now, I'm going to put this heavy
stone on the hose pipe, just where it goes through the hedge. Then we'll
both creep through that hole into the kitchen-garden."
Without wasting another minute, Lindsay hastily did as she had said,
concealing the stone among the long grass, after which both girls
crawled through the hedge into the midst of a bed of Jerusalem
artichokes. As they had expected, their plot answered admirably. Scott
gave a grunt of vexation, and looked at his hose. His water supply had
undoubtedly failed him. He stumped away, grumbling, to examine the tank.
"I don't believe he'll ever look amongst the grass. He'll think
something's wrong with the tap," chuckled Lindsay.
The moment Scott had vanished through the gate, they dashed (regardless
of the artichokes!) in the direction of the frames. Lindsay slid her
hands rapidly in a search under the large, vine-like leaves; and Cicely,
armed with a trowel, began to dig furiously. All in vain! Though they
prodded the soil with sticks they could not feel anything particularly
solid underneath, and there was no time to make very deep excavations.
"He's coming back!" panted Lindsay. "Smooth the earth over in that
corner, and place that leaf to hide it. Quick, or he'll catch us! Don't
go through the artichokes; we must run the other way!"