'Well!' I exclaimed, when my plan had been examined and replaced by a fresh sheet of paper, 'this is an extraordinary outfit! I hope we shan't have to carry this case home after dark.'
It was certainly a most sinister collection of appliances that Thorndyke had assembled in the suitcase. There was a brace and bits, and auger, a bunch of skeleton keys, an electric lantern, a pair of telescopic jemmies, and two automatic pistols.
'What on earth are the pistols for?' I demanded.
'Those,' he replied, 'are just an extra precaution. Many of these hiding-holes are fitted with snap locks, and it is quite possible to find oneself caught in a trap. Then, if there should be no room to use a jemmy, it might be necessary to blow the lock to pieces.'
'Well,' I remarked, 'it is as well to take all necessary precautions, but if Blake sees those pistols they will need a good deal of explaining, especially as he will certainly recognise us as the two suspicious visitors.'
'We need not exhibit them ostentatiously,' said Thorndyke. 'We can carry them in our pockets, and the jemmies as well. Then if the necessity to use them arises, they will explain themselves.'
The rest of the evening we spent in a course of instruction in the arrangement and design of the various kinds of secret chambers, hiding-holes, aumbries, and receptacles for documents, sacred vessels, and other objects that, in times of political upheaval, might need to be concealed. On this subject Thorndyke was a mine of information, and he produced a note-book filled with descriptions, plans, sections, and photographs of most of the examples that had been examined, which we went over together and studied in the minutest detail. By the end of the evening, I had not only acquired an immense amount of knowledge on an obscure out-of-the-way subject, but I had become in so far infected with Thorndyke's enthusiasm that I found myself looking forward almost eagerly to the romantic quest on which the following day was to see us launched.
17. THE SECRET CHAMBER
It was close on half-past eleven when our train drew up in Wendover Station. We had just finished our rather premature lunch and had packed up the luncheon baskets and placed them on the seats; and now, lifting down the suitcase and the plane table with its folding tripod, stepped out on to the platform.
'I wonder,' said I, 'if Blake has sent any kind of conveyance for us. I don't suppose he has.'
My surmise turned out to be correct. When we went out into the station approach, the only vehicle in sight was a closed fly, which we decided to charter; and having stowed our impedimenta on the front seat and given the driver the necessary directions, we entered and took possession of the back seat. The coachman climbed to the box and started the horse at a quiet jog-trot, turning into the Aylesbury, or London Road to avoid the steep hill down which we had come to the station on the last occasion. As we passed the fine, brick-towered windmill and came out on the country road, Thorndyke leaned forward and opened the suitcase.
'We had better put the more suspicious-looking objects in our pockets,' said he. 'We may not want them at all, and then they won't have been seen, whereas if they are wanted, the necessity will explain our having provided ourselves with them.'
He took out the bunch of skeleton keys and slipped them into his coat pocket, and then picked out the two telescopic jemmies, one of which he handed to me while he bestowed the other in some kind of interior pocket—into which, I noticed, it disappeared with singular completeness, suggesting a suspicious suitability of the receptacle. Finally he took out the two automatic pistols, and having pocketed one, handed me the other after a careful and detailed explanation of its mechanism and the proper way to hold and fire it. I took the weapon from him and stowed it in my hip-pocket, very gingerly and with some reluctance, for I detest firearms; and as I placed it carefully with the muzzle pointed as far as possible away from my own person, I reflected once more with dim surprise on the circumstance that Thorndyke, whose dislike of these weapons was as great as my own, should have adopted this clumsy and dangerous means of dealing with a somewhat remote contingency. It seemed an excessive precaution, and I found creeping into my mind a faint suspicion that my colleague might possibly have had something more in his mind than he had disclosed, though that was even more incomprehensible, considering the very peaceful nature of our quest.
I was still turning these matters over in my mind when the fly reached the crossroads and entered the lane. Here the appearance of the inn just ahead recalled me to our immediate business, and old Brodribb's observation recurred to me.
'How are you going to start, Thorndyke?' I asked. 'I presume you have got some definite programme?'
'I shall be guided by what Blake has to tell us,' he replied. 'He may have a good plan of the house, and it is possible that he has made some explorations of his own which will give us a start. There is our old friend, the lodge-keeper, mightily surprised to see us.'
I caught a passing glimpse of the sleuth, staring at us in undisguised astonishment; then we swung round into the drive, and the old house came into view. We were evidently expected, for as we approached the house a man came out of the main entrance and stood on the wide threshold awaiting our arrival. Just as the fly was about to draw up opposite the portico, Thorndyke said in a low voice:
'If we are offered any refreshments, Anstey, we had better decline them. We have had lunch, you know.'
I glanced at him in amazement. It was a most astonishing remark. But there was no time to ask for any explanation, for at that moment the fly drew up, the driver jumped down from his seat, and the squire came forward to receive us.
'We have met before, I think,' said the latter as we shook hands. 'If I had known who you were I should have invited you to look at the house then. However, it isn't too late. I see you have brought your traps with you,' he added, with a glance at the plane table and its tripod.
'Yes,' said Thorndyke, 'we are prepared to make a regular survey, if necessary. But perhaps you have a plan of the house?'
'There is a plan,' replied Blake, 'though I fancy it is not very exact. I will show it to you. Probably it will give you a hint where to begin.'
As I had now settled with the fly-man, we entered the house, and Blake conducted us into a large room, furnished as a library and containing a considerable collection of books. On a table by one of the windows was a plan spread out and held open by paperweights.
'You see,' said Blake, 'this is an architect's plan, made, I think, when some repairs were contemplated. It is little more than a sketch, and doesn't give much detail. But it will help you to take a preliminary look round before lunch.'
'We have had lunch,' said Thorndyke. 'We got that over in the train so that we should have a clear day before us. Time is precious, and we ought to get to work at once. I suppose you have not made any sort of investigation on your own account?'
As Thorndyke mentioned our premature meal, the squire gave him a quick glance and seemed to look a little resentful. But he made no comment beyond answering the question.
'I have not made any regular examination of the house, but I have poked about a little in the old part and I have found one secret chamber, which I have utilised as a photographic dark-room. Perhaps you would like to see that first. There may be some other hiding-places connected with it which I have overlooked. There is a tall cupboard in it which I have used to store my chemicals.'
'We may have to empty that cupboard to see if there is anything behind it,' said Thorndyke. 'At any rate, we had better begin by overhauling it.'
He opened the suitcase and took from it the surveyor's tape, which he put in his pocket.
'Hadn't we better take the lamp?' said I.
'You won't want that,' said Blake. 'There is a portable lamp in the room.'
I was half-inclined to take it, nevertheless, but as Thorndyke shut the suitcase and prepared to follow our host, I let the matter rest.
From the library we passed out into a long gallery, one side of which was hung with portraits, presumably of members of the family, and som
e of them of considerable antiquity, to judge by the style of the painting and the ancient costumes. Then we crossed several rooms—fine, stately apartments with florid, moulded ceilings and walls of oaken panelling, on which I noticed a very respectable display of pictures. The rooms were fully furnished—very largely, I noticed, with the oak and walnut furniture that must have been put in when the new wing was built. But they were all pervaded by a sense of desolation and neglect; they were dusty and looked faded, unused, and forgotten. Nowhere was there a sign of human occupation, nor, I noticed, did we meet, in the whole course of our journey across this part of the house, a single servant or retainer, or, indeed, any living creature whatever.
A door at the end of a short passage, on being unlocked and opened, revealed a short flight of wooden stairs, and when we had descended these we found ourselves in a totally different atmosphere. This was the old timber house, and as we crossed its deserted rooms and trod its uncarpeted oaken floors, our footsteps resounded with dismal echoes among the empty chambers and corridors, conveying a singular sense of remoteness and desolation. The gloomy old rooms with their dirt-encrusted casements, the massive beams in their ceilings, the blackened wainscoting, rich with carved ornament but shrouded with the dust and grime of years of neglect, the gouty-legged Elizabethan tables and ponderous oaken chairs and settles; all these dusty and forgotten appurtenances of a vanished generation of men seemed to have died with their long-departed human associates and to be silently awaiting their final decay and dissolution. It was an eerie place, dead and desolate as an Egyptian tomb.
And yet, strangely enough, it was here that I saw the one solitary sign of human life. We were passing along a narrow gallery or corridor when I noticed, high up in the panelled wall, one of those small interior windows which one sees in old houses, placed opposite an exterior window to light an inner chamber. Looking up at this little window, I saw the face of some person looking down on us. It was the merest glimpse that I caught, for the window was coated with dust and the room behind it in darkness. But there was the face of some human creature, man, woman, or child, and its appearance in this remote, sepulchral place, so far from the domain of the living household, smote upon me strangely and seemed to make even more intense the uncanny solitude of the empty mansion.
I was still speculating curiously on who this watcher might be, when our host halted by the wall of a smallish room.
'This is the place,' said lie, pointing to the wall. 'I wonder if you can find the door.'
The wainscoting in this room was nearly plain, the only ornament being a range of very flat pilasters and a dado moulding, enriched by a row of hemispherical bosses. Thorndyke ran his eye over the wainscoting, noting more particularly the way in which the pilasters were joined to the intervening panels.
'I suppose,' said he, 'we had better try the most obvious probabilities first. The natural thing would be to use one of these bosses to cover the release of the lock.'
Blake assented (or dissented) with an inarticulate grunt, and Thorndyke then proceeded to pass along the row of bosses, pressing each one firmly in turn. After about a dozen trials, he came to one in the middle of a pilaster which yielded to the pressure of his thumb, sinking in some two inches, in the fashion of a large electric-bell push. Holding the 'push' in with his thumb, he pressed vigorously against the adjoining panel, first on one side of the pilaster and then on the other, but in neither case was there any sign of the panel moving, though I added my weight to his.
'You haven't quite hit it off yet,' Blake informed us.
Thorndyke reflected for a few seconds. Then, keeping the boss pressed in, he put his other thumb on the next one of the series, which was at the edge of the panel, and gave a sharp push, whereupon this boss also sank in with an audible click and then the whole panel swung inward, disclosing a narrow and wonderfully well-concealed doorway.
'Good,' said Blake. 'You've solved the problem more quickly than I did. Just hold the door open a moment. It has rather a strong spring, and I generally prop it open with this block.' As he spoke he fetched a small block of wood from under an adjacent table and set it against the foot of the door.
'I had better go first,' said he, 'as I know where to find the lamp.' With this he entered before us, striking a wax match and shading it with his hand. The dim illumination showed a narrow, passage-like room, apparently a good deal more lofty than the low-ceiled room from which we had entered it, and dimly revealed a very high cupboard near the farther end. We had grouped our way after him a few paces when he turned suddenly. 'How stupid of me!' he exclaimed. 'I had forgotten that I had left the lamp in the next room. Excuse me one moment.'
He slipped past us, and kicking the block away, ran out, pulling the door sharply after him, when it slammed to with a loud click of the latch.
'What the deuce did he kick that block away for,' I exclaimed, 'and leave us all in the dark?'
'We shall probably find out presently,' replied Thorndyke. 'Meanwhile, stand perfectly still. Don't move hand or foot.'
'Why do you say that?' I demanded with something like a thrill of alarm, for there was something rather disturbing in the tone of Thorndyke's sharply-spoken command. And standing there in the pitchy darkness, locked in a secret chamber in the very heart of this great, empty mansion, there came to me a flash of sudden suspicion. I recalled Thorndyke's mysterious warning to take no food in this house; I remembered the loaded pistol that he had put into my hand, and I saw again that unaccountable face at the window, watching us as Blake led us—whither? 'You don't think Blake is up to any mischief, do you?' I asked.
'I can't say,' he replied. 'Perhaps he will come with the lamp presently. But we may as well see where we are while we are waiting.'
I heard a rustling as if he were searching his pockets. Then, suddenly, there broke out a bright light that flooded the little room and rendered all the objects in it plainly visible.
It was a queer-looking room, almost more like a rather irregularly-shaped passage, for none of the walls were straight, and the ceiling sloped up from a height of about eight feet at one end to nearly twelve at the other. Near the farther end was a very high wall-cupboard, and at the extreme end, facing us, was a small door, about three feet above the floor level and approached by a flight of five wooden stairs.
The appearance of the light was reassuring, and still more so was the evidence that it afforded of Thorndyke's foresight in having provided himself with this supplementary lamp. But much less reassuring was his next observation after having flashed his light all over the room.
'I suspect we have seen the last of our host—for the present, at any rate. Look at the top of the cupboard, Anstey.'
I looked at the cupboard. It was between eight and nine feet high, and was fitted with folding doors, of which the leaf nearest to us was half open; and on the top of the half-open door, near the free corner, a little board had been placed with one end resting on the door and the other insecurely supported by the moulding at the top of the cupboard; and on the board, delicately balanced over the door, was a large chemical flask, filled with what looked like water and fitted with a cork.
'What do you make of it?' Thorndyke asked, keeping his powerful inspection-lamp focused on the flask as I gazed at it.
'It looks like some sort of booby-trap,' said I. 'It is a wonder that flask wasn't shaken down when Blake slammed the door.'
'He probably expected that it would be, and it very nearly was, for you can see that it has jarred to the extreme edge. But failing the slam of the door, he no doubt assumes that we, being as he imagines in total darkness, shall grope our way along the wall until we come to the cupboard. Then, the instant we touch the door, down will come the flask. It is quite an ingenious plan.'
'But what is the purpose of it?' I demanded. 'It can't be a practical joke.'
'It isn't,' said he. 'Far from it. I should say it is very deadly earnest. Unless I am mistaken, that flask is filled with some volatile poison. The instant that i
t falls and breaks, this room will become a lethal chamber.'
At these words, uttered by Thorndyke in tones as calm and emotionless as if he were giving a demonstration to his students, a chill of horror crept over me. My very hair seemed to stir. It was an appalling situation. I stared in dismay and terror at the flask, poised aloft and ready, as it seemed, at the slightest movement, or even a loudly-spoken word, to come crashing down and stifle us with its deadly fumes.
'Great God!' I gasped. 'Then we are in a trap! But is there nothing that we can do? The flask is too high up for us to reach it.'
'It would be sheer insanity to go near it; said Thorndyke. 'But I don't think we need be very disturbed. There must be some way of getting out of this chamber. Let us go and reconnoitre the door, though I daresay our friend has attended to that.'
We tiptoed cautiously back to the door and examined its construction. The mechanism was very simple, but like most old locksmith's work, extremely massive. The two bosses outside evidently were the ends of two sliding bars and bolts of wood. The one which Thorndyke had pressed first apparently had a slot which, when it was brought opposite the massive latch, allowed the latter to rise. That at least was what Thorndyke inferred, for, as the latch was in the thickness of the great oaken doorpost (which had a slot to let it escape, when raised) the actual mechanism could not be seen. The second sliding bar, when pushed in, raised the latch itself by means of an inclined plane. Both the sliding bars had been provided with knobs on their inner ends, so that they could be pulled in from inside as well as pushed in from without; but whereas the knob still remained on the bar which raised the latch, that of the bar which released the latch and allowed it to rise had been removed. The end of the bar could be seen, nearly flush with the surface of the doorpost, and in it a small hole in which the knob had evidently been screwed.
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