The Manor House School (17 page)

"I wish I had a hundred guineas of my own to give them," she thought sorrowfully. "Oh dear! it's such a big sum--one might as well wish for the moon. I'm afraid there's not the slightest chance for poor Mrs. Courtenay unless the legacy turns up."

It was in rather a dejected mood that the girls betook themselves to the upper landing that afternoon, and once more climbed the now familiar winding staircase. The lantern room looked exactly the same as on their two former visits. There was nothing in it to excite interest or arouse curiosity. A more unromantic chamber could not be conceived.

The window was closed, the rusty firegrate contained only a few ashes, and the door of the cupboard stood open, revealing rows of empty shelves. The one object worthy of notice was the ancient lantern, which hung from a hook in the middle of the ceiling. That, at any rate, was curious. It was of a quaint, medieval pattern, and the sides, instead of being of glass, were of thin pieces of horn.

"It's a funny old thing," said Lindsay. "I suppose they used a dip candle for it. I wonder if there's a piece left in it still?"

She stood on tiptoe, and made an effort to open the lantern, but it was hung too high to allow her to peep inside. Reaching up as best she could, she gave it a jerk, to try to lift it down. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly the lantern and hook descended by a chain from the ceiling. There was a strange grating sound, and, turning round, the girls saw a sight which made them gasp with amazement.

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."