The Boarded-Up House

by C. Clyde Squires

  “Is it the key?” cried Cynthia.

  “No, it’s this!” And before Cynthia’s astonished eyes Joyce dangled a large gold locket, suspended on a narrow black velvet ribbon. In the candle-light the locket glistened with tiny jewels.

  “Do you recognize it?” demanded Joyce.

  “Recognize it? How should I ?”

  “Why, Cynthia! It’s the very one that hangs about the neck of our Lovely Lady in the picture down-stairs!” It was, indeed, no other. Even the narrow black velvet ribbon was identical.

  “She must have dropped it accidentally, perhaps when she took it off, and it rolled under the bed. In her hurry she probably forgot it,” said Joyce, laying it beside the curious disk they had raked from the fireplace. “Isn’t it a beauty? It must be very valuable.” Cynthia bent down and examined both articles closely.

  “Did you notice, Joyce,” she presently remarked, “that those two things are exactly the same shape, and almost the same size?”

  “Why, so they are!” exclaimed Joyce. “Oh, I have an idea, Cynthia! Can we open the locket? Let’s try.” She picked it up and pried at the catch with her thumb-nail. After a trifling resistance it yielded. The locket fell open and revealed itself—empty. Joyce took up the disk and fitted it into one side. With the gold back pressed inward, it slid into place, leaving no shadow of doubt that it had originally formed part of this trinket.

  “Now,” announced Joyce, “I know! It was a miniature, an ivory one, but the fire has entirely destroyed the likeness. Question: how came it in the fire?” The two girls stood looking at each other and at the locket, more bewildered than ever by this curious discovery. Goliath, cheated of his plaything, was making futile dabs at the dangling velvet ribbon. Suddenly Joyce straightened up and looked Cynthia squarely in the eyes.

  “I’ve thought it out,” she said quietly. “It just came to me. The miniature was taken out of the locket—on purpose, to destroy it! The miniature was of the same person whose picture is turned to the wall down-stairs!”

  CHAPTER VI

  JOYCE’S THEORY

  CYNTHIA, what’s your theory about the mystery of the Boarded-up House?”

  The two girls were sitting in a favorite nook of theirs under an old, bent apple-tree in the yard back of the Boarded-up House, on a sunny morning a week later. They were supposed to be “cramming” for the monthly “exams,” and had their books spread out all around them. Cynthia looked up with a frown, from an irregular Latin conjugation.

  “What’s a theory?”

  “Why, you know! In Conan Doyle’s mystery stories Sherlock Holmes always has a ‘theory’ about what has happened, before he really knows; that is, he makes up a story of his own, from the few things he has found out, before he gets at the whole truth.”

  “Well,” replied Cynthia, laying aside her Latin grammar, “since you ask me, my theory is that some one committed a murder in that room we can’t get in, then locked it up and went away, and had the house all boarded up so it wouldn’t be discovered. I’ve lain awake nights thinking of it. And I’d just as lief not get into that room, if it’s so!”

  Joyce broke into a peal of laughter. “Oh, Cynthia! If that isn’t exactly like you! Who but you would have thought of such a thing!”

  “I don’t see anything queer about it,” retorted Cynthia. “Doesn’t everything point that way?”

  “Certainly not, Cynthia Sprague! Do you suppose that even years and years ago any one in a big house like this could commit a murder, and then calmly lock up and walk away, and the matter never be investigated? That’s absurd! The murdered person would be missed and people would wonder why the place was left like this, and the—the authorities would get in here in a hurry. No, there wasn’t any murder or anything bloodthirsty at all; something very different.”

  “Well, since you don’t like my theory,” replied Cynthia, still nettled, “what’s yours? Of course you have one!”

  “Yes, I have one, and I have lain awake nights, too, thinking it out. I’ll tell you what it is, and if you don’t agree with me, you’re free to say so. Here’s the way it all seems tome:

  “Whatever happened in that house must have concerned two persons, at least. And one of them, you must admit, was our Lovely Lady whose portrait hangs in the library. Her room and clothes and locket show that. She looks very young, but she must have been some one of importance in the house, probably the mistress, or she would n’t have occupied the biggest bedroom and had her picture on the wall. You think that much is all right, don’t you?” Cynthia nodded.

  “Then there’s some one else. That one we don’t know anything at all about, but it is n’t hard to guess that it was the person whose picture is turned to the wall, and whose miniature was in the locket, and who, probably, occupied the locked-up room. That person must have been some near and dear relation of the Lovely Lady’s, surely. But—what? We can’t tell yet. It might be mother, father, sister, brother, husband, son, or daughter, any of these.

  “The Lovely Lady (I’ll have to call her that, because we don’t know her name) was giving a party, and every one was at dinner, when word was suddenly brought to her about this relative. Or perhaps the person was right there, and did something that displeased her,—I can’t tell which. Whatever it was,—bad news either way,—it could only have been one of two things. Either the relative was dead, or had done something awful and disgraceful. Anyhow, the Lovely Lady was so terribly shocked by it that she dismissed her dinner party right away. I don’t suppose she felt it right to do it. It was not very polite, but probably excusable under the circumstances!”

  “Maybe she fainted away,” suggested Cynthia, practically. “Ladies were always doing that years ago, especially when they heard bad news.”

  “Good enough I” agreed Joyce. “I never thought of it. She probably did. Of course, that would break up the party at once. Well, when she came to and every one had gone, she was wild, frantic with grief or disappointment or disgust, and decided she just couldn’t stay in that house any longer. She must have dismissed her servants right away, though why she didn’t make them clear up first, I can’t think. Then she began to pack up to go away, and decided she wouldn’t bother taking most of her things. And sometime, just about then, she probably turned the picture to the wall and took the other one out of her locket and threw it into the fire. Then she went away, and never, never came back any more.”

  “Yes, but how about the house?” objected Cynthia. “How did that get boarded up?”

  “I have thought that out,” said Joyce. “She may have stayed long enough to see the boarding up done, or she may have ordered some one to do it later. It can be done from the outside.”

  “I think she was foolish to leave all her good clothes,” commented Cynthia, “and the locket under the bed, too.”

  “I don’t believe she remembered the locket—or cared about it!” mused Joyce. “She was probably too upset and hurried to think of it again. And I’m sure she lay on the bed and cried a good deal. It looks like that. Now what do you think of my theory, Cynthia?”

  “Why, I think it is all right, fine—as far as it goes. I never could have pieced things together in that way. But you haven’t thought about who this mysterious relative was, have you?”

  “Yes, I have, but, of course, that’s much harder to decide because we have so little to go on. I’ll tell you one thing I’ve pretty nearly settled, though. Whatever happened, it wasn’t that anybody died! When people die, you’re terribly grieved and upset, of course, and you may shut up your house and never come near it again. I’ve heard of such things happening. But you generally put things nicely to rights first, and you don’t go away and forget more than half your belongings. If you don’t tend to these things yourself, you get some one else to do it for you. And one other thing is certain too. You don’t turn the dead relative’s picture to the wall or tear it out of your locket and throw it into the fire. You’d be far more likely to keep the picture always near so that you cou
ld look at it often. Isn’t that so?”

  “Of course!” assented Cynthia.

  “Then it must have been the other thing that happened. Somebody did something wrong, or disappointing, or disgraceful. It must have been a dreadful thing, to make the Lovely Lady desert that house forever. I can’t imagine what!”

  “But what about the locked-up room?” interrupted Cynthia. “Have you any theory about that? You haven’t mentioned it.”

  “That’s something I simply can’t puzzle out,” confessed Joyce. “The Lovely Lady must have locked it, or the disgraceful relative may have done it, or some one entirely different. I can’t make any sense out of it.”

  “Well, Joy,” answered Cynthia, “you’ve a theory about what happened, and it certainly sounds sensible. Now, have you any about what relative it was? That’s the next most interesting thing.”

  “I don’t think it could have been her father or mother,” replied Joyce, thoughtfully. “Parents aren’t liable to cause that kind of trouble, so we’ll count them out. She looks very young, not nearly old enough to have a son or daughter who would do anything very dreadful, so we’ll count them out. (Isn’t this just like the ‘elimination’ in algebra!) That leaves only brother, sister, or husband to be thought about.”

  “You forget aunts, uncles, and cousins!” interposed Cynthia.

  “Oh, Cyn! how absurd! They are much too distant. It must have been some one nearer than that, to matter so much!”

  “I think it’s most likely her husband, then,” decided Cynthia. “He’d matter most of all.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought of that, but here’s the objection: her husband, supposing she had one, Would probably have owned this house. Consequently he wouldn’t be likely to allow it to be shut up forever in this queer way. He’d come back after a while and do what he pleased with it. No, I don’t think it was her husband, or that she was married at all. It must have been either a sister or brother,—a younger one probably,—and the Lovely Lady loved her—or him—better than any one else in the world.”

  “Look here!” interrupted Cynthia, suddenly. “There’s the easiest way to decide all this!”

  “What is it?” cried Joyce, opening her eyes wide.

  “Why, just go in there and turn that picture in the drawing-room around!”

  “Oh, Cynthia, you jewel! Of course it will be the easiest way! What geese we are to have waited so long! Only it will be a heavy thing to lift. But the time has come when it must be done. Let’s go right away!”

  Full of new enthusiasm, they scrambled to their feet, approached the cellar window by a circuitous route (they were always very careful that they should not be observed in this), and were soon in the dim cellar lighting their candles. Then they scurried up-stairs, entered the drawing-room, and set their candlesticks on the table. After that they removed all the breakable ornaments from the mantel and drew another chair close to the fireplace.

  “Now,” commanded Joyce, stepping on the seat of one while Cynthia mounted the other, “be awfully careful. That red silk cord it hangs by is perfectly rotten. I’m surprised it has n’t given way before this. Probably, as soon as we touch the picture the cord will break. If so, let the picture down gently to rest on the mantel. Ready!”

  They reached out and grasped the heavy frame. True to Joy’s prediction, the silk cord snapped at once, and the picture’s whole weight rested in their hands.

  “Quick!” cried Cynthia. “I can’t hold it any longer!” And with a thud, the heavy burden slipped to the mantel. But there was no damage done and, feeling on the other side, Joyce discovered that it had no glass.

  “Now what?” asked Cynthia.

  “We must turn it around as it rests here. We can easily balance it on the mantel.” With infinite caution, and some threatened mishaps, they finally got it into position, right side to the front, and sprang down to get their candles. On holding them close, however, the picture was found to be so coated with gray dust that absolutely nothing was distinguishable.

  “Get the dust-rag!” ordered Joyce. And Cynthia, all excitement, rushed down cellar to find it. When she returned, they carefully wiped from the painting its inch-thick coating of the dust of years, and again held their candles to illumine the result.

  For one long intense moment they stared at it. And then, simultaneously, they broke into a peal of hysterical giggles.

  CHAPTER VII

  GOLIATH MAKES ANOTHER DISCOVERY

  “OH, Cynthia!” gasped Joy at length, “is n’t it too comical! We’re just as far from it all as ever!” And they both fell to chuckling again.

  They were certainly no nearer the solution of their problem. For, facing the room once more, the mysterious picture looked forth—the portrait of two babies! They were plump, placid babies, aged probably about two or three years, and they appeared precisely alike. It took no great stretch of imagination to conjecture what they were—twins—and evidently brother and sister, for one youngster’s dress, being a trifle severe in style, indicated that it was doubtless a boy. These two cherubic infants had both big brown eyes, fat red cheeks, and adorable, fluffy golden curls. They were pictured as sitting, hand in hand, on a green bank under a huge spreading tree and gazing solemnly toward a distant church steeple.

  “The poor little things!” cried Cynthia, “Think of them having been turned to the wall all these years! Now what was the sense of it,—two innocent babies like that!” But Joyce had not been listening. All at once she put down her candle on the table and faced her companion.

  “I’ve got it!” she announced. “It came to me all of a sudden. Of course those babies are twins, brother and sister. Any one can tell that! Well, don’t you see, one of them—the girl—was our Lovely Lady. The other was her twin brother. It’s all as clear as day! The twin brother did something she didn’t like, and she turned his picture to the wall. Hers happened to be in the same frame too, but she evidently didn’t care about that. Now what have you to say, Cynthia Sprague?”

  “You must be right,” admitted Cynthia. “I thought we were ‘stumped’ again when I first saw that picture, but it’s been of some use, after all. Do you suppose the miniature was a copy of the same thing?”

  “It may have been, or perhaps it was just the brother alone when he was older. We can’t tell about that.” All this while Cynthia had been standing, candle in one hand and dust-cloth in the other. At that point she put the candlestick on the table and stood gazing intently at the dust-cloth. Presently she spoke:

  “Joyce, do you think there would be any harm in my doing something I’ve longed to do ever since we first entered this house?”

  “What in the world is that?” queried Joyce.

  “Why, I want to dust this place, and clear out of the way some of the dirt and cobwebs! They worry me terribly. And, besides, I’d like to see what this lovely furniture looks like without such quantities of dust all over it.”

  “Good scheme, Cyn!” cried Joyce, instantly delighted with the new idea. “I’ll tell you what! We’ll come in here this afternoon with old clothes on, and have a regular house-cleaning! It can’t hurt anything, I’m sure, for we won’t disturb things at all. I’ll bring a dust-cloth, too, and an old broom. But let’s go and finish our studying now, and get that out of the way. Hurrah for house-cleaning, this afternoon!”

  Filled with fresh enthusiasm, the two girls rushed out to hurry through the necessary studies before the anticipated picnic of the afternoon. If their respective mothers had requested them to perform so arduous a task as this at home, they would, without doubt, have been instantly plunged into deep despair. But because they were to execute the work in an old deserted mansion saturated with mystery, no pleasure they could think of was to be compared with it. This thought, however, did not enter the heads of the enthusiastic pair.

  Smuggling the house-cleaning paraphernalia into the cellar window, unobserved, that afternoon, proved no easy task, for Cynthia had added a whisk-broom and dust-pan to the outfit. Joyce c
ame to the fray with an old broom and a dust-cloth, which latter she thought she had carefully concealed under her sweater, But a long end soon worked out and trailed behind her unnoticed, till Goliath, basking on the veranda steps, spied it. The lure proved too much for him, and he came sporting after it, as friskily as a young kitten, much to Cynthia’s delight when she caught sight of him.

  “Oh, let him come along!” she urged. “I do love to see him about that old house. He makes it sort of cozier. And, besides, he seems to belong to it, anyway. You know he discovered it first!” And so Goliath followed into the Boarded-up House.

  They began on the drawing-room. Before they had been at work very long, they found that they had “let themselves in” for a bigger task than they had dreamed. Added to that, performing it by dim candle-light did not lessen its difficulties, but rather increased them tenfold. First they took turns sweeping, as best they could, with a very ancient and frowsy broom, the thick, moth-eaten carpet. When they had gone over it once, and taken up what seemed like a small cart-load of dust, they found that, after all, there remained almost as much as ever on the floor. Cynthia was for going over it again.

  “Oh, never mind it!” sighed Joyce. “My arms ache and so do yours. We’ll do it again another time. Now let’s dust the furniture and pictures.” And they fell to work with whisk-broom and dust-cloths. Half an hour later, exhausted and grimy, they dropped into chairs and surveyed the results. It was, of course, as but a drop in the bucket, in comparison with all the scrubbing and cleaning that was needed. Yet, little as it was, it had already made a vast difference in the aspect of the room. Surface dust at least had been removed, and the fine old furniture gave a hint of its real elegance and polish. Joyce glanced at the big hanging candelabrum and sighed with weariness. Then she suddenly remarked:

  “Cynthia, we have the dimmest light here with only those two candles! Why not have some more burning?”