Kitabı oku: «Patty's Friends», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XVII
THE GRIFFIN AND THE ROSE
Although the Hartleys had practically given up all hope of ever finding the hidden money, they couldn’t help being imbued with Patty’s enthusiasm.
Indeed, it took little to rouse the sleeping fires of interest that never were entirely extinguished.
But though they talked it over by the hour there seemed to be nothing to do but talk.
One day, Patty went out all by herself, determined to see if she couldn’t find some combination of an oak tree and a group of firs that would somehow seem especially prominent.
But after looking at a score or more of such combinations, she realised that task was futile.
She looked at the ground under some of them, but who could expect a mark of any kind on the ground after nearly forty years? No. Unless Mr. Marmaduke Cromarty had marked his hiding-place with a stone or iron plate, it would probably never be found by his heirs. Search in the house was equally unsatisfactory. What availed it to scan a wall or a bedstead that had been scrutinised for years by eager, anxious eyes? And then Patty set her wits to work. She tried to think where an erratic old gentleman would secrete his wealth. And she was forced to admit that the most natural place was in the ground on his estate, the location to be designated by some obscure message. And surely, the message was obscure enough!
She kept her promise to help Bob in his self-appointed task of going through all the books in the library. This was no small piece of work, for it was not enough to shake each book, and let loose papers, if any, drop out. Some of the old papers had been found pinned to leaves, and so each book must be run through in such a way that every page could be glanced at.
Nor was this a particularly pleasant task. For Mrs. Hartley had made it a rule that when her own children went over the old books, they were to dust them as they went along. Thus, she said, at least some good would be accomplished, though no hidden documents might be found.
Of course, she did not request Patty to do this, but learning of the custom, Patty insisted on doing it, and many an hour she spent in the old library, clad in apron and dust-cap. Her progress was rather slow, for book-loving Patty often became absorbed in the old volumes, and dropping down on the window-seat, or the old steps to the gallery, would read away, oblivious to all else till some one came to hunt for her.
At last, one day, her patient search met a reward. In an old book she found several of what were beyond all doubt Mr. Marmaduke Comarty’s papers.
Without looking at them closely, Patty took the book straight to Mrs. Cromarty.
“Dear me!” said the old lady, putting on her glasses. “Have we really found something? I declare I’m quite nervous over it. Emmeline, you read them.”
Mrs. Hartley was a bit excited, too, and as for Patty and Mabel, they nearly went frantic at their elders’ slowness in opening the old and yellow papers.
There were several letters, a few bills, and some hastily-scribbled memoranda. The letters and bills were of no special interest, but on one of the small bits of paper was another rhymed couplet that seemed to indicate a direction.
It read:
“Where the angry griffin shows,
Ruthless, tear away the rose.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Patty, “it’s another direction how to get the fortune! Oh, Mabel, it will be all right yet! Oh, where is the angry griffin? Is it over a rosebush? You’re only to pull up the rosebush, and there you are!”
Mabel looked bewildered. So did the older ladies.
“Speak, somebody!” cried Patty, dancing about in excitement. “Isn’t there any angry griffin? There must be!”
“That’s the trouble,” said Mrs. Hartley; “there are so many of them. Why, there are angry griffins on the gates, over the lodge doors, on the marbles in the gardens, and all over the house.”
“Of course there are,” said Mabel. “You must have noticed them, Patty. There’s one now,” and she pointed to a bit of wood carving over the door frame of the room they were in.
“I don’t care! It means something, I know it does,” declared Patty. “We’ll work it out yet. I wish the boys were home.”
“They’ll soon be here,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “I can’t help thinking that it does mean something—Marmaduke was very fond of roses, and it would be just like him to plant a rosebush over his buried treasure.”
“That’s it,” cried Patty. “Now, where is there a rosebush growing, and one of the angry griffins near it?”
“There probably are some in the rose garden,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “I don’t remember any, though.”
“Come on, Mabel,” said Patty, “let’s go and look. I can’t wait another minute!”
Away flew the two girls, and for the next hour they hovered about the rosebushes with more energy than is often shown by the busiest of bees.
“I wish old Uncle Marmaduke had been less of a poet,” said Mabel, as they sat down a moment to rest, “and more of a—a–”
“More straightforward,” suggested Patty. “If he’d only written a few words of plain prose, and left it with his lawyer, all this trouble needn’t have been.”
“Well, I suppose he did intend to make it plain before he died, but he went off so suddenly. Oh, here are the boys.”
Sinclair and Bob came bounding down toward the rose garden, followed more sedately by their mother and grandmother.
“Not a sign of a griffin a-sniffin’ of a rose,” said Patty, disconsolately.
“Oh, you haven’t looked all round yet,” said Bob. “It’s such fun to have something to look for besides fir trees and beds, I’m going to make a close search.”
“Of course,” said Sinclair, “the same rose bush wouldn’t be here now that was here thirty or forty years ago.”
“But it would have been renewed,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “We’ve always tried to keep the flowers as nearly as possible the same.”
“Then here goes to interview every griffin on the place,” declared Bob. “Jolly of old uncle to mark the spot with a rosebush and a griffin. That’s what I call decent of him. And you’re a wonder, Patty, to find the old paper.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Patty. “I just followed your orders about the books. If you’d kept at it yourself, you’d have found the same book.”
“I s’pose so. But I’m glad you helped the good work along. Oh, dear! no rosebush seems to be near a griffin; and the griffins seem positively afraid of the rosebushes.” And try as they would, no angry griffin could they find, with a rosebush near it. Griffins there were in plenty; both angry and grinning. Also were there plenty of roses, but they were arranged in well-laid-out beds, and in no case were guarded or menaced by angry griffins.
“Never mind,” said Sinclair, as they returned to the house for dinner, “it’s something to work on. I shall stay at home to-morrow and try to find that particular rosebush, or the place where it used to be.”
“Maybe it’s a stone rose,” said Patty, as she touched a rose carved in stone that was part of an ornamental urn whose handles were the heads of angry griffins. Sinclair stared at her.
“You’re right,” he said, slowly, as if grasping a great thought. “It’s much more likely to be a rose of stone or marble, and when that’s ruthlessly torn away the secret will be revealed. Oh, mother, there is hope!”
Patty had never seen the placid Sinclair so excited, and they all went to their rooms to get ready for dinner, with a feeling that something was going to happen. Conversation at dinner was all on the engrossing subject.
Everybody made suggestions, and everybody recalled various partly-forgotten griffins in odd nooks and corners, each being sure that was “just the place uncle would choose!”
After dinner, the young people were anxious to go out and search more, but it had begun to rain, so they all went into the library and again scrutinised the old papers Patty had found.
They looked through more books, too, but found nothing further of interest.
At last, wearied with the hunt, Patty threw herself into a big armchair and declared she would do no more that night.
“I should say not,” said Bob. “You’ve done quite enough in giving us this new start.”
Although, as Patty had said, the looking through all the old books was Bob’s plan, he generously gave her the credit of this new find. Sinclair threw himself on a long leather couch, and began to sing softly some of their nonsense songs, as he often did when tired out. The others joined, and for a time the fortune was left to take care of itself.
Very pleasant were the four fresh young voices, and the elders listened gladly to their music.
In the middle of a song, Patty stopped, and sat bolt upright, her eyes staring at a door opposite her as if she had never seen it before.
“Gracious, goodness! Patty,” said Mabel, “what is the matter?”
“What is it, little one?” said Sinclair, still humming the refrain of the interrupted song.
Patty pointed to the door, or rather to the elaborately carved door frame, and said slowly, “I’ve been reading a lot in the old architecture books—and they often used to have secret hiding places in the walls. And look at that door frame! There’s an angry griffin on one jamb, and a smiling griffin on the other, and under each is a rose. That is it’s a five-leafed blossom, a sort of conventional flower that they always call a rose in architecture.”
“Though I suppose,” said Sinclair, “by any other name it would look as sweet. Patty, my child, you’re dreaming. That old carving is as solid as Gibraltar and that old griffin isn’t very angry anyway. He just looks rather purse proud and haughty.”
“But it’s the only griffin that’s near a rose,” persisted Patty. “And he is angry, compared to the happy-looking griffin opposite to him.”
“I believe the girl is right,” said Bob, who was already examining the carvings in question. “The rose doesn’t look movable, exactly, but it is not quite like this other rose. It’s more deeply cut.”
By this time all had clustered about the door frame, and one after another poked and pushed at the wooden rose.
“There’s something in it,” persisted Bob. “In the idea, I mean. If there’s a secret hiding-place in that upright carved beam, that rose is the key to it. See how deeply it’s cut in, compared to the other; and I can almost see a crack all round it, as if it could be removed. May I try to get it out, Grandy?”
“Certainly, my boy. We mustn’t leave a stone unturned.”
“A rose unturned, you mean. Clair, what shall we ruthlessly tear it away with? I hate to take a chisel to this beautiful old door.”
“Try a corkscrew,” said Mabel.
“You mean a gimlet,” said Bob. “That’s a good idea.”
Fetching a gimlet, he bored a hole right in the centre of the carved blossom, but though it turned and creaked a little it wouldn’t come out.
“It must come,” said Sinclair. “It turns, so that proves it’s meant to be movable. It probably has some hinge or spring that is rusted, and so it doesn’t work as it ought to. We’ll have to take hammer and chisel; shall we, Grandy?”
The boys were deferential to Mrs. Cromarty, for they well knew that she was tired of having the old house torn up to no avail. But surely this was an important development.
“Yes, indeed, boys. If your uncle’s words mean anything, they mean that it must be ruthlessly torn away, if removed at all.”
For quite ten minutes the two boys worked away with their tools, endeavouring to mar the carving as little as might be, but resolved to succeed in their undertaking. At last the wooden rose fell out in their hands, leaving a round opening.
Peering in, Sinclair saw a small iron knob, which seemed to be part of a rusty spring.
Greatly excited, he tried to push or turn it, but couldn’t move it.
“Anyway, we’re getting warm,” he cried, and his glowing face corroborated his words.
The boys took turns in working at the stubborn spring, trying with forceps and pincers to move it, until at last something seemed to give way, and the whole front of the door jamb fell out as one panel.
Behind it was a series of small pigeon holes one above the other, all filled with neatly piled papers.
Though yellow with age, the papers were carefully folded, labelled, and dated.
“Patty!” cried Mabel, as she embraced her friend, “you’ve found our fortune for us!”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Patty, laughing, and almost crying at the same time, so excited was she. “Your Uncle Marmaduke was of such uncertain ways I shouldn’t wonder if these were merely more files of his immortal verse.”
“They’re bills,” declared Sinclair, as he ran over a packet he took from a shelf.
“Let’s look them all over systematically,” said Bob. “Let’s all sit round the table, and one of us read out what the paper is about. Then if we come to anything important, we’ll all know it at once.”
This plan was adopted, and Sinclair, as the oldest, was chosen to read. He sat at the head of the long library table, and the others were at either side.
But the packets of bills, though interesting in a general way, had no bearing on the great question of the fortune. The papers were all bills.
“Not even a bit of poetry,” sighed Patty, as Sinclair laid aside one after another of the receipted bills for merchandise, household goods, clothing, and labour.
“These might interest a historian,” said Sinclair, “as they throw some light on the prices of goods at that time. But we’ll keep on, we may come to something of interest yet.”
“I hope so,” said Bob. “I’m so anxious, that nothing less than a straight direction to the fortune would satisfy me.”
“Well, here’s something,” said Sinclair, “whatever it may mean.”
The paper he had just unfolded was a mason’s bill, containing only one item. The bill was made out in due form, by one Martin Campbell, and was properly receipted as paid. And its single item read:
“To constructing one secret pocket.... Three Guineas.”
“Oh!” cried Patty, breathless with excitement. “Then there is a secret pocket, or poke as your exasperating uncle calls it.”
“There must be,” said Sinclair; “and now that we know that, we’re going to find it. Of course, we assumed there was one, but we had only that foolish doggerel to prove it. Now this regular bill establishes it as a fact beyond all doubt. Do you know this Martin Campbell, Grandy?”
“I know there was a mason by that name, who worked here several times for your uncle. He came down from Leicester, but of course I know nothing more of him.”
“We’ll find him!” declared Bob. “We’ll make him give up the secret of the pocket.”
“Maybe he’s dead by this time,” said Sinclair. “Was he an old man, Grandy?”
“I don’t know, my dear. I never saw him. He worked here when I was away in London. I fear, however, he is not alive now.”
“Oh, perhaps he is. It was only about thirty-five years ago, or forty, that he built this ‘secret pocket.’ Thirty-eight, to be exact. The date on the bill proves that.”
“Well, to-morrow you must go to see him,” said Mrs. Hartley, rising. “But now, my children, you must go to bed. You can’t learn any more to-night, and to-morrow we will pick up the broken thread. Patty, my dear child, you are doing a great deal for us.”
“It isn’t anything yet,” said Patty, “but oh, if it only leads to something, I shall be so glad!”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE OLD CHIMNEY-PIECE
But Sinclair’s search for the old mason in Leicester was absolutely unsuccessful. He learned that Martin Campbell had died many years ago, and had left no direct descendants. A cousin of the old mason told Sinclair all this, and said, too, that there were no books or papers or accounts of the dead man left in existence.
So Sinclair returned home, disappointed but not entirely discouraged.
“We’ll find it yet,” he said to Patty. “We have proof of a hiding-place, now we must discover it.”
“We will!” declared Patty. “But it’s so exasperating not to know whether the old mason built that ‘pocket’ indoors or out.”
“Out, I think,” said Sinclair. “It’s probably a sunken bin or vault of brick, made water-tight, and carefully concealed.”
“Yes, it’s certainly carefully concealed,” Patty agreed.
Sinclair was entitled to a fortnight’s vacation from his law studies, and he arranged to take it at this time. For now that the interest was revived, all were eager to make search all the time.
“Let’s be systematic about it,” said Bob, “and divide the estate up into sections. Then let’s examine each section in turn.”
This sounded well, but it was weary work. In the wooded land, especially, it was hopeless to look for any indicatory mark beneath the undergrowth of forty years. But each morning the four young people started out with renewed determination to keep at it, at any rate.
On rainy days they searched about the house. Having found one secret panel, they hoped for more, and the boys went about tapping the walls or carved woodwork here and there, listening for a hollow sound.
Bob and Patty went on searching the books. But though a number of old papers were found they were of no value. Incidentally, Patty was acquiring a store of information of various sorts. Though too eager in her work to sit down and read any book through, she scanned many pages here and there, and learned much that was interesting and useful. Especially did she like books that described the old castles and abbeys of England. There were many of these books, both architectural and historical, and Patty lingered over the illustrations, and let her eyes run hastily over the pages of description.
One afternoon she sat cross-legged, in Turk fashion, on the library floor, absorbed in an account of the beautiful old mansion known as “Audley End.” The description so interested her that she read on and on, and in her perusal she came to this sentence:
“There are other curious relics, among them the chair of Alexander Pope, and the carved oak head of Cromwell’s bed, converted into a chimney-piece.”
Anything in reference to the headboard of a bedstead caught Patty’s attention, and she read the paragraph over again.
“Sinclair,” she called, but he had gone elsewhere, and did not hear her.
Patty looked around at the mantel or chimney-piece in the library, but it was so evidently a part of the plan of wall decoration, that it could not possibly have been anything else.
Patty sighed. “It would have been so lovely,” she thought to herself, “if it only had been a bedhead, made into a mantel, for then that bothering old man could easily have tucked his money between it and the wall.”
And then, though Patty’s thoughts came slowly, they came surely, and she remembered that in the great hall, or living-room, the mantel was a massive affair of carved oak.
Half bewildered, Patty dropped the book, jumped up, and went to the door of the hall. No one was there, and the girl was glad of it, for if she really was on the eve of a great discovery she wanted to be alone at first.
As she entered the room, the lines came to her mind:
“Above the stair, across the hall,
Between the bedhead and the wall,”
and she noticed that the chimney-piece stood on a sort of wide platform, which extended across that whole end of the hall. Could it be that Mr. Marmaduke had meant above this platform, calling it a stair, which ran across the great hall? For years they had taken the direction to mean “up the staircase,” and “across the corridor,” or hall which led to the bedrooms.
Slowly, almost as if afraid, Patty crossed the hall, stepped up on the platform, and examined the old chimney-piece. She couldn’t tell, positively, but surely, surely it looked as if it might once have been the headboard of an ancient bed. It certainly was different in its workmanship from the wood carving that decorated the apartment.
The top of it was well above her head, but might it not be that the old rhyme meant between this bedhead and the wall?
Here they had never looked. It must be that it was not generally known that this mantel was, or had been, a bedhead.
Still, as if in a daze, Patty went and sat in a chair facing the old chimney-piece, and wondered. She intended to call the others in a moment, but first she wanted to enjoy alone the marvel of her own discovery.
As she sat there, scrutinising every detail of the room, the lines kept repeating themselves in her brain:
“Above the stair, across the hall, Between the bedhead and the wall.”
If the secret pocket was between that bedhead and the wall, it was certainly above the stair across the hall! Why had that stair or platform been built across the hall? It was a peculiar arrangement.
This question Patty gave up, but she thought it might well have been done when the bedhead was set up there, in order to make the chimney-piece higher and so more effective.
Patty had learned something of architecture in her library browsings.
Above the high mantel was a large painting. It was a landscape and showed a beautiful bit of scenery without buildings or people. In the foreground were several distinct trees of noble proportions.
“They’re firs,” said Patty to herself, for she had become thoroughly familiar with fir trees.
And then, like a flash, through her brain came the words:
“Great treasure lieth in the poke Between the fir trees and the oak.”
The secret was revealed! Patty knew it!
Beside the bedhead evidence, it was clear to her mind that “Between the fir trees and the oak,” meant between these painted fir trees and the old carved oak mantel. Grasping the arms of her chair, she sat still a minute trying to take it all in, and then looked about for something to stand on that she might examine the top of the old mantel-shelf.
But her next quick thought was, that that was not her right. Those to whom the fortune belonged must make the investigation themselves.
“Sinclair,” called Patty, again; “Mabel, Mrs. Hartley, where are you all?”
Bob responded first, and seeing by Patty’s excited face that she had discovered something important, he went in search of the others.
At last they were all gathered in the great hall, and Patty’s sense of the dramatic proved too strong to allow her to make her announcement simply.
“People,” she said, “I have made a discovery. That is, I think I have. If I am right, the Cromarty fortune is within your grasp. If I am wrong—well, in that case, we’ll begin all over again.”
“Tell us about your new find,” said Sinclair, selecting a comfortable chair, and sitting down as if for a long session. “Is it another mason’s bill?”
Nobody minded being chaffed about searching or finding, for the subject was treated jocosely as well as seriously.
Patty stood on the platform in front of the carved oak chimney-piece, and addressed her audience, who listened, half laughing, half eager.
“What is this on which I stand?” she demanded.
“A rug,” replied Mabel, promptly.
“I mean beneath the rug?”
“The floor.”
“No, it isn’t! What is this—this construction across the room?”
“A platform,” put in Bob, willing to help her along.
“Yes. But what else could it be called? I’m in earnest.”
“A step,” suggested Sinclair.
“Yes, a step; but couldn’t it be called a stair?”
“It could be,” said Bob, “but I don’t believe it is one.”
“But suppose your erratic uncle chose to call it that.”
“Oh,” laughed Bob, “you mean the stair in the poem.”
“I do. I mean the stair across the hall.”
“What! Oh, I say, Patty, now you’re jumbling up the sense.”
“No, I’m not. I’m straightening out the sense. Suppose Mr. Marmaduke meant ‘above the stair across the hall,’ and meant this stair and this hall.”
“Yes, but go on,” said Sinclair; “next comes the bedhead.”
“That’s my discovery!” announced Patty, with what was truly forgivable triumph.
“This carved oak chimney-piece is, I have reason to believe, the headboard of some magnificent, ancient bed.”
“Patty Fairfield!” cried Sinclair, jumping up, and reaching her side with two bounds. “You’ve struck it! What a girl you are!”
“Wait a minute,” said Patty, pushing him back; “I’m entitled to a hearing. Take your seat again, sir, until I unfold the rest of the tale.”
Patty was fairly quivering with excitement. Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes shone, and her voice trembled as she went on.
Mabel, with clasped hands, just sat and looked at her. The elder ladies were plainly bewildered, and Bob was trying hard to sit still.
“I read in an old book,” Patty went on, “how somebody else used a carved headboard for a chimney-piece, and I wondered if this mightn’t be one. And it surely looks like it. And then I wondered if ‘above the stair across the hall’ mightn’t mean this platform across this hall. And I think it does. But that’s not all. My really important discovery is this.”
Patty’s voice had sunk to a thrilling whisper, and she addressed herself to Mrs. Cromarty, as she continued.
“I think the other rhyme, the one that says the fortune is concealed ‘between the fir trees and the oak,’ refers to this same place, and means between the painting of fir trees, which hangs over the mantel, and—the oak mantel itself!”
With a smiling bow, Patty stepped down from the platform, and taking a seat by old Mrs. Cromarty, nestled in that lady’s loving arms. The two boys made a spring for the mantel, but paused simultaneously to grasp both Patty’s hands in theirs and nearly shake her arms off. Then they left the heroine of the hour to Mabel and Mrs. Hartley and began to investigate the chimney piece.
“‘Between the fir trees and the oak’!” exclaimed Bob. “Great, isn’t it! And here for thirty-five years we Cromarty dubs have thought that meant real trees! To think it took a Yankee to tell us! Oh, Patty, Patty, we’ll take down that historic painting and put up a tablet to the honour of Saint Patricia. For you surely deserve canonisation!”
“‘Between the bedhead and the wall,’” ruminated Sinclair. “Well, here goes for finding an opening.”
Clambering up on stools, both boys examined the place where the mantel shelf touched the wall. The ornate carvings of the mantel left many interstices where coins or notes might be dropped through, yet they were by no means conspicuous enough to attract the attention of any one not looking for them.
“Crickets!” cried Bob. “There’s a jolly place for the precious poke to be located. I’m going down cellar to see if I can find traces of that mason’s work. Come on, Clair.”
The two boys flew off, and the ladies remained discussing the wonderful discovery, and examining the old chimney-piece.
“I can see it was a bedhead now,” said Mabel; “but I never suspected it before. What a splendid mantel it makes. Didn’t you ever hear its history, Grandy?”
“No, dear. It must have been put there when the house was built, I think. Though, of course, it may have been added later. But it was all before my time. I married your grandfather Cromarty and came here to live in 1855. The building and decorations then were all just as they are now, except for such additions as Marmaduke made. He may have had that mantel set up in earlier years—I don’t know. He was very fond of antique carvings.”
Back came the boys from the cellar.
“The whole chimney is bricked up,” Sinclair explained. “We couldn’t get into it without tearing it all down. And do you know what I think, Grandy? I think it would be wiser to take away the chimney-piece up here, and do our investigating from this end. Then, if we find anything, it will all be in this room, and not in the cellar, where the servants can pry about.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mrs. Cromarty, “and I put the whole matter in your hands. You and Robert are the sons of the house, and it is your right to manage its affairs.”
“Then I say, tear it down at once,” cried Bob. “We needn’t damage the carving itself, and all that we break away of plaster or inner woodwork can easily be repaired, whatever our success may be.”
“Shall we begin now?” asked Sinclair, doubtfully. He was not so impetuous as Bob, and would have been quite willing to study over the matter first.
“Yes, indeed!” cried his impatient brother. “I’m not going to waste a minute. I’m glad I’m a bit of a carpenter. Though not an expert, I can tear down if I can’t build up.”
“But we must take it down carefully,” said Sinclair. “These screws must come out first.” But Bob had already gone for tools, and soon returned with screw-drivers, chisels, gimlets, and all the paraphernalia of a carpenter’s well-appointed tool-chest.
“Here goes!” he cried, as he put the big screw-driver in the first screw. “Good luck to the Cromartys and three cheers for Uncle Marmaduke and Patty Fairfield!”
