“He certainly kept everything under his bed,” thought Jannet, in no hurry to touch the dusty things. But under the wooden box she saw the corner of something made of leather sticking out. With the tips of her fingers the stooping Jannet drew out a queer old portfolio. This promised to be of interest. Jannet decided to investigate it right on the spot, though she wished that she had brought a dust cloth.
But she sacrificed her clean handkerchief to the cause and after blowing off some of the dust she wiped off most of the rest. Opening out the decaying leather, she found that one pocket had a few papers in it. There was a torn paper, conveying some property, that she thought would be interesting to Uncle Pieter, as she glanced at the old writing and the Dutch names. But what was this—oh, how perfectly wonderful!
For the next ten minutes there was perfect silence in the box of a room, while the candle fluttered a little and Jannet, wrapt in what she was reading, almost lost sight of where she was. Many and many a long year before, some one had read those little notes tucked away in the old portfolio with as much interest and more anxiety. “Dere Father,” ran the first that Jannet pulled from the sticky leather at the side. “It is hard to get the food to the attic without being seen. The Captin watches us or some one is there while we are cooking. But they watch my mother more than they watch me. I put the food on the stair and tapped, but you were asleep, perhaps. I heard a noise and I hastened to go up and closed the trap. There was no one here. Now I will drop this down quickly. It is a good thing that I keep my dolls in the attick. They let me play here. I was eating some bread and having my table spread for my dolls when the Captin looked within the door to see what I was doing this morning. I put my old doll’s head on the flagon of water and wrapped it in the plaid coat that Mistress Patience made for the doll that you brought from England.” (And Jannet had found little dishes and dolls in the pretty box of dark wood, whose key had been discovered!)
No name was signed to this. It had been folded tightly to be dropped at the entrance, Jannet thought, for it was greatly mussed and difficult to read.
A small piece of paper with a large grease spot bore a short message. “I made these for you. Mother says that they are tasty.”
“Probably doughnuts,” smiled Jannet, looking at the grease spot.
But here was a longer letter and in another, older hand. It began without address, or was but a part of the entire message.
“I can only pray that you may not be discovered. Your rash act in opening the panel and entering the room where the captain was sleeping to get the covering, was successful in a way that you may not have considered. The captain did make a to-do about it when he saw that it was not a dream. The men will not go into the room nor will they go into the attic since the wind has been making music there. The tale is that a gaunt ghost, with a clank of sword, appeared by the bed and snatched the quilt from upon the captain. The door was locked and the guard outside saw no one, yet the quilt was gone. For my sake, Pieter, do not be rash. I will continue to leave word of their movements. It will be safer to visit the attic now, I hope. Noises there are thought to be the ghost. Jannetje pretended to be frightened, but she can yet visit her dolls at times. No very good word comes from our troops. Our Tory neighbor doth rejoice in unseemly fashion for one who pretended to be our friend and he is oft at our door in converse with the captain. I am watched at all times, but I lock my door and write when I am thus alone, putting my messages inside the little waists of Jannetje, who was ten years of age but yesterday.”
The writing stopped at the bottom of the sheet.
One more large piece of paper was written in the childish hand, but contained only a short message. The paper had been wrapped about something, Jannet thought. So Jannetje was another ancestress of the name. She spelled and composed well for a child of ten, Jannet decided.
“Mother sends this,” the message said. “Trupers leave to-day. She thinks that they were only searching for you or waiting for messages from spies. Wait, she says, till she can come to the attick after the Captin goes away.”
This was all. It had happened in Revolutionary times, of course. Jannet’s imagination could supply the missing information, or some of it. Her ancestor had perhaps been visiting his family when the group of British soldiers came upon them too soon for him to escape. Or perhaps he was, indeed, in the work of a spy for General Washington’s troops. Wouldn’t her uncle and Andy be delighted to read these old messages, so yellowed with age! Carefully Jannet put them again inside of the portfolio, though that, too, was ready to fall apart.
Thinking that there might be some further scrap of information somewhere, Jannet began to examine the dusty articles under the shelf or bed. Any bedding that had once been there had probably been removed as soon as the fugitive had found it no longer necessary to stay there. These other things were of no particular value.
But Jannet had scarcely begun to move the round pewter pot from its long resting place when she heard a sound that startled her. She jumped to her feet with a moment’s panic. Suppose Vittoria, for she was almost sure that the ghost was Vittoria, was hiding somewhere and—but a voice assured her, before she was fairly on her feet. There was Cousin Andy’s dear head at the top of the secret stairs and peeping in. “What’s all this?” he cheerily inquired. “Are you trying to burn up the house with a candle?”
“Oh no; I’m ever so careful—but do look out, Cousin Andy, for those are bad stairs!”
“Would you care, then, if the old wreck got hurt again?”
“‘Old wreck’, indeed! You’re the best first cousin that I’ve got, and I’m proud of your scars, if you have any!”
Andrew Van Meter entered and looked curiously around. “I see that there is a sliding door on this side, too, though Nell did not mention it. She had a telephone message from home, by the way, and left word for you that she was riding over later in the day if she could. She did not know where you were, she said, but when I heard the story I could pretty well guess.”
“I did not realize that you all would be up, I’ve stayed longer here than I intended to. Oh, Andy—Cousin Andy—I’ve found the most interesting messages in this old portfolio!”
“Take it with you, then, but I want to see first the way to the attic.”
Cousin Andy needed no help up the little steps, but looked down at the ladder and the dark descent. “You were wise not to attempt that, Jannet,” said he. “Yes, that must be an opening to the old tool house. That was a pretty clever stunt of the old codger who built this, with three ways of exit, through the attic, the tool house, and your mother’s room. But I would not have cared to occupy that little room for any length of time. A six footer would almost graze the ceiling. Yet he could sit comfortably, or stretch out on that shelf.”
“Do you suppose that Jan ever found this?” Jannet asked, while they made their way to the other end of the attic, after Andy had viewed the partition, and the old carpet, and other things kept over the trap door.
“I do not think so. He would have told us. But it is a wonder that Paulina, with her tendency to clean up, has not found the trap door some time during all these years.”
“She was afraid of ghosts, Cousin Andy, but I should think that the workmen might have found it when they wired the house for lights.”
“It is strange, but they missed it somehow.”
Andrew viewed with some amusement the little bed made comfortable for the night and the rocking chair with its comforter and little pillow. The pitcher, which had held the lemonade, and the cooky plate still remained on the floor. “You missed some of your fudge,” said Andy, picking up a piece and putting it in his mouth as he sat down on the bed and looked around. “It is some time since I have been in this attic. I never cared for attics; I was always for outdoor sports. Did you know that I can ride again, Jannet?”
“Yes, and I’m so glad. Did you know that I had a long talk with Uncle Pieter,
and that I’m going to stay in the family and not go back to school?”
“Good. Sensible girl. Dad and I need somebody like you around.”
“I shouldn’t think that Uncle Pieter needed any more responsibility, and I heard Miss Hilliard say once that every young person was.”
“Dad doesn’t regard you in that way, I guess. I think that you are an opportunity.”
“Why, aren’t you nice! Oh, it is so good to have a family! Shall you feel like going if Uncle takes me traveling a little bit?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised, if it will make me well. I had no hope of ever being well again until a few weeks ago, Jannet, but things look very different now.”
Jannet, looking at the more hopeful face, was delighted within herself, for did she not know of someone that was coming this summer, if Cousin Di could manage it? Dear Cousin Andy would be happy yet.
But another surprise was at hand for Jannet, for as Andrew spoke they heard some one in the little hallway, and there in the door stood Cousin Diana and—of all things—Jan!
“Hello, Jannetje,” said Jan’s none too gentle voice. “So you beat me to it! I’m provoked that I could not have discovered the secret room. How do you get there? I just got in and surprised Mother. Say, I was the fellow that took the blue comforter, but I got in a different way. I was home the night before you all knew I was there and I had no idea that there was any one in the room. It was always kept locked anyhow. So I just sneaked in and got a cover. The closet didn’t seem to have any and my bed had only one blanket.”
“Why, Jan! And you never saw me or anything?”
“Never even thought of your being there. I knew the way to the bed and I helped myself. If you will be good, I’ll show you how I got in after I see all this.”
Jan was off to investigate on his own account, but Jannet detained Mrs. Holt long enough to ask her if Vittoria had come in yet.
“No, she has not reported at all. You feel pretty sure that it was she?”
“Yes, Cousin Di. I’ll tell you all about it the first chance I have. But I suppose that Nell gave you a good description of our night up here.”
“She did, indeed. You poor children! I slept on peacefully after our late drive home, not knowing that you youngsters were having such a time. You should have called us.”
“No use in waking you up, I thought. Where is Uncle Pieter?”
“He had to go out on the farm, but he talked with Paulina and he wants to see you as soon as he comes in. Here he comes now!”
Stooping and brushing off dust, Mr. Van Meter came from the back, or more properly the front of the attic. He was smiling and remarked that he passed an excited boy on the way. “This is a new place for a family conference,” he added. “We have come up in the world, I see.”
But Jannet, tired as she was after her experiences of the night, liked this close gathering with its entire loss of all formality. She jokingly offered him the rocking chair, but slipped a hand in his as she told him of the portfolio and its amazing notes. “Nobody could have made them up and put them there, could they?”
Uncle Pieter, surprised, put on his glasses and looked at the leather portfolio with its old pockets. “I think not, Jannet, but let us go down to the library and you shall tell me the whole story from the first. I can not get a very connected narrative from Paulina.”
Andy threw back his head and laughed at this remark. “Imagine any one’s getting a connected narrative from P’lina about anything!”
Jannet displayed the old dolls and dishes which the small box contained. “If they prove to be the ones referred to,” said Uncle Pieter, “I may have a case made for them and the portfolio.”
CHAPTER XVIII
UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES
Uncle Pieter and Cousin Andy were no less interested than Janet in the notes which she had found in the secret room, now no longer a secret from the family. But Mr. Van Meter had given direction that all entrances should be closed and that the affair should not be made the matter of gossip.
Having before deciphered the often blurred writing on the old paper, Jannet was commissioned to read the messages to her uncle and cousin in the library. She did so, and they lost none of their point by being read by the still excited Jannet. She had often been told at school that she read with expression, but she did not see the approving, smiling glance with which her uncle looked at her cousin, as she read.
When she had finished, her uncle said, “It all fits in nicely with the genealogy so far as we have it. This house, the old one, I mean, was finished about the time of the Revolution and this room may have been an afterthought, very convenient for the owner, as it happened. I know that it was often headquarters for our troops, and probably it harbored the necessary spies. I will commission you, Jannet, to look carefully through all the trunks for old letters or messages of any sort that may tell us more of the history than we already know. From some source your mother knew much about the old stories, but I can not think that she knew of this secret way.”
“She would have told you,” said Jannet.
“I am not so sure,” said Mr. Van Meter, soberly. “She would have told my father, perhaps.”
A rap on the door interrupted the conversation at this point. It was Old P’lina who entered at Mr. Van Meter’s invitation of “Come in.”
Paulina stood unbendingly just inside the door. “I saw the woman Hepsy sent me to and she says that Vittoria was not there last night. Then I went to see Herman at the shop and he acted as though it was none of my business where Vittoria was. That was all.”
Without waiting for comment or question, Paulina turned and went away. Andy, looking at Jannet, smiled at her. “You can scarcely get used to our gentle P’lina, can you, Jannet?’
“She is certainly the most sudden person I ever saw!”
Mr. Van Meter did not smile. He sat in thought for a moment, then arose. “I shall see the young man himself. I want to talk to Vittoria and I do not propose to wait until she may have gone away. If she is going to marry Herman, he certainly will have some news of her soon.”
With this explanation, Mr. Van Meter left the room. Jannet remained, talking to her cousin till she heard Jan’s rapid footsteps in the hall. “He’s looking for me, I suspect, Cousin Andy,” she said, hurrying out. “Here I am, Jan, if you want to see me.”
“You are the very little Dutchwoman I’m looking for. Come on. I want to show you how I got into your room. I didn’t go that round-about way through the attic, nor up a ladder through a tool house! Our ancestor had one more way of getting in and out.”
“But it was so funny, Jan, that you should have come to that particular room on that particular night!”
“Not so very. I intended to stay all night with Chick and then changed my mind. But we fooled around, and I didn’t want to wake anybody up. So I opened the back door with a key I have and went to bed. Then I was too cold and I got up to prowl around after a blanket or something. There wasn’t a thing in the closet where Paulina keeps all the extra things, and I could get into your room, I knew, though it was always kept locked. I didn’t even try the door, but went in, without a light, fumbled around and finally drew off a comforter that was over the foot. I knew, you see, that you were expected, but I didn’t have the least idea that you were there. If I had happened to touch your face—wow!”
“Was the bed kept made up, that you knew you would find something?”
“No, but I took a chance that it was made up for you. See?”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”
“I didn’t know how you would take it till I got acquainted with you. Then, to tell the truth, I rather hated to do it.”
“You need not have hesitated. You needed that comforter and I had enough without it anyhow. But I surely did wonder about it, and with all the ghost stories and all, well, I haven’t known what
to make of everything.”
The next few minutes were most engaging, for Jan showed his cousin how one portion of a panel apparently dropped down into the floor and made a low opening large enough for one person to enter from the hall into the room. “Mercy, Jan, I’ll never sleep in peace now, if there are two ways of getting in beside the door!”
“Put bolts on ’em, Jannet. I’ll fix it.”
“Ask Uncle Pieter first, Jan. Then I’ll be glad to have you do it. But I want it kept possible to open in this way. It’s so thrilling, you know.”
“Yes, isn’t it? But it is hard to forgive you, Jannet, for finding this out about the secret room first.”
“I only followed the ghost, Jan. But you don’t know how I wondered what the secret was that you had with Paulina, and oh, did you send a little message to your mother by Paulina that you were home?”
“Yes, how did you know that?”
“Oh, I just remember that your mother read something and looked as cross as she ever looks and she was a little embarrassed, I thought, when she excused herself. And then you came just as if you had just arrived, and told me a whopper about coming from Chick’s!”
“That was no whopper. I had come. I rode over there early, but of course it wasn’t the first time I had come from there.”
The matter of his early appearance at this time had also to be explained, but Jan related how school was closing early and how he and Chick decided not to wait a minute after examinations if they could get permission to leave, from parents and school authorities. “Think of all that was going on at the farm and I missing it! Mother expected me this time, but I wrote her to let me surprise you.”
The Third Girl Detective Page 14