Boarded-Up House Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  THE ROOM OF MYSTERY

  It was, indeed, Goliath. He was an enormous cat, and his purr was asoversized as his body. That was the hoarse sound that they had thoughtwas heavy breathing. His footfalls too could be distinctly heard whenall else was quiet, and he had evidently rubbed against some lightarticle of furniture in the outer room and moved it. In the reaction ofrelief, Cynthia seized Goliath, sat down on the floor, and--cried!having first deposited her candlestick carefully on the table. Joyce didquite the opposite, and laughed hysterically for several minutes. Thetension of suspense and terror had been very real.

  "How _did_ he get in here?" sobbed Cynthia, at length.

  "Why, through the window, of course. And he must have been in before wecame. Don't you remember, we found the door at the head of the cellarsteps open? I closed it when we came up, so he couldn't have got hereafterward." Joyce bent down and scratched Goliath's fat jowls, at whichhe purred the louder.

  "Well, let's let him stay, since he's here," sighed Cynthia, wiping hereyes. "He'll be sort of company!" So Goliath was allowed to remain, andthe two girls, escorted by him, proceeded on their voyage of discovery.Back across the drawing-room and hall they went, and through thedining-room. There for a moment they stood, surveying anew the curiousscene.

  "Does it strike you as strange," Joyce demanded suddenly, "that there'sno silver here, no knives, forks, spoons, sugar-bowls, or--or anythingof that kind? Yet everything else in china or glass is left. What do youmake of it?"

  "Somebody got in and stole it," ventured Cynthia.

  "Nonsense! Nobody's been here since, except ourselves, that's perfectlyplain. No, the people must have stopped long enough to collect it andput it away,--or take it with them. Cynthia, why _do_ you suppose theyleft in such a hurry?" But Cynthia, the unimaginative, was equallyunable to answer this query satisfactorily, so she only replied:

  "I don't know, I'm sure!"

  A room, however, beyond the dining-room was awaiting their inspection.In a corner of the latter, two funny little steps led up to a door, andon opening it, they found themselves in the kitchen. This bore signs ofas much confusion as the neighboring apartment. Unwashed dishes andcooking utensils lay all about, helter-skelter, some even broken, in thehurry with which they had been handled. But, apart from this furtherindication of the haste with which a meal had been abandoned unfinished,there was little to hold the interest, and the girls soon turned away.

  "Now for up-stairs!" cried Joyce. "That's where I've been longing toget. We will find something interesting there, I'll warrant." WithGoliath scampering ahead, they climbed the white, mahogany-railedstaircase. On the upper floor they found a wide hall corresponding withthe one below, running from front to back, crossed by a narrower oneconnecting the wings with the main part of the house. Turning to theirleft, they went down the narrow one, peering about them eagerly. Thedoors of several bedrooms stood open.

  Into the first they entered. The high, old-fashioned, four-post bed withits ruffled valance and tester was still smoothly made up andundisturbed. The room was in perfect order. But Joyce's eye was caughtby two candlesticks standing on the mantel.

  "Here's a find!" she announced. "We'll take these to use for ourcandles. They're nicer and handier than our tin one. We will keep thatfor an emergency."

  "But ought we disturb them?" questioned Cynthia.

  "Oh, you are _too_ particular! What earthly harm can it do? Here! Takethis one and I'll carry the other. This must have been a guest-room,and no one was occupying it when--it all happened. Let's look in the oneacross the hall." This one also proved precisely similar, bed untouchedand furniture undisturbed. Another, close at hand, had the sameappearance. They next ventured down a narrower hall, over what wasevidently the kitchen wing. On each side were bedrooms, four in all,with sparse, plain furnishings and cot-beds. Each room presented atumbled, unkempt appearance.

  "I guess these must have been the servants' rooms," remarked Cynthia.

  "That's the first right guess you've made!" retorted Joyce,good-naturedly, as she glanced about. "And they all left in a hurry,too, judging from the way things are strewn about. I wonder--"

  "What?" cried Cynthia, impatient at the long pause.

  "Oh, nothing much! I just wonder whether they went off of their ownaccord, or were dismissed. I can't tell. But one thing I can guesspretty plainly--they went right after the dinner-party and didn't stayover another night. 'Cause why? Most of their beds are made, and theyleft everything in a muss down-stairs. But come along. This isn'tparticularly interesting. I want to get to the other end of the hall.Something different's over there!" They turned and retraced their steps,emerging from the servants' quarters and passing again the rooms theyhad already examined.

  On the other side of the main hall they entered an apartment that wasnot a bedroom, but appeared to have been used as a sitting-room and forsewing. An old-fashioned sewing-table stood near one window. Two chairsand another table were heaped with material and with garments in variousstages of completion. An open work-box held dust-covered spools. Butstill there was nothing special in the room to challenge interest, andJoyce pulled her companion across the hall toward another partially opendoor.

  They had scarcely been in it long enough to illuminate it with the paleflames of their candles, before they realized that they were very nearthe heart of the mystery. It was another bedroom, the largest so far,and its aspect was very different from that of the others. The highfour-poster was tossed and tumbled, not, however, as if by a night'ssleep, but more as if some one had lain upon it just as it was, twistingand turning restlessly. Two trunks stood on the floor, open andpartially packed. One seemed to contain household linen, once fine anddainty and white, now yellowed and covered with the dust of years. Theother brimmed with clothing, a woman's, all frills and laces and silks;and a great hoop-skirt, collapsed, lay on the floor alongside. Neitherof the girls could, for the moment, guess what it was, this queerarrangement of wires and tape. But Joyce went over and picked it up,when it fell into shape as she held it at arm's-length. Then they knew.

  "I have an idea!" cried Joyce. "This hoop-skirt, or crinoline, I thinkthey used to call it, gave it to me. Cynthia, we must be in the roombelonging to the lovely lady whose picture hangs in the library."

  "How do you know?" queried Cynthia.

  "I don't _know_, I just suspect it. But perhaps we will find somethingthat proves it later." She held the candle over one of the trunks andpeered in. "Dresses, hats, waists," she enumerated. "Oh, how queer andold-fashioned they all seem!" Suddenly, with a little cry of triumph,she leaned over and partially pulled out an elaborate silk dress.

  "Look! look! what did I tell you! Here is the very dress of thepicture-lady, this queer, changeable silk, these big sleeves, and thevelvet sewed on in a funny criss-cross pattern! _Now_ will you believeme?"

  Truly, Cynthia could no longer doubt. It was the identical dress, beyondquestion. The portrait must have been painted when the garment was new.They felt that at last they had taken a long step in the right directionby thus identifying this room as belonging to the lovely lady of theportrait down-stairs. Joy grew so excited that she could hardly containa "hurrah," and Cynthia was not far behind her in enthusiasm. But theroom had further details to be examined.

  An open fireplace showed traces of letters having been torn up andburned. Little, half-charred scraps with faint writing still layscattered on the hearth. On the dressing-table, articles of the toiletwere littered about, and a pair of candlesticks were set close to themirror. (There were, by the way, no traces of _candles_ about the house.Mice had doubtless carried off every vestige of such, long since.) Agreat wardrobe stood in one corner, the open doors of which revealedsome garments still hanging on the pegs, woolen dresses mostly, reducednow to little more than rags through the ravages of moths and mice andtime. Near the bed stood a pair of dainty, high-heeled satin slippers,forgotten through the years. Everywhere a hasty departure was indicated,so hasty, as Joyce re
marked, "that the lady decided probably not to takeher trunks, after all, but left, very likely, with only a hand-bag!"

  "And now," cried Joyce, the irrepressible, "we've seen everything inthis room. Let's hurry to look at the last one on this floor. That'sright over the library, I think, at the end of the hall. We'vediscovered a lot here, but I've a notion that we'll find the best of allin there!" As they were leaving the room, Goliath, who had curledhimself up on a soft rug before the fireplace, rose, stretched himself,yawned widely, and prepared to follow, wherever they led.

  "Doesn't he seem at home here!" laughed Cynthia. "I hope he will comeevery time we do. He makes things seem more natural, somehow." Theyreached the end of the hall, and Joyce fumbled for the handle, thisdoor, contrary to the usual rule, being shut. Then, for the first timein the course of their adventures in the Boarded-up House, they foundthemselves before an insurmountable barrier.

  The door was locked!