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Title: The Brass Keys of Kenwick
Date of first publication: 1947
Author: Augusta Huiell Seaman (1879-1950)
Date first posted: June 5, 2017
Date last updated: June 5, 2017
Faded Page eBook #20170610

This eBook was produced by: Larry Harrison, David T. Jones, Al Haines
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




  THE BRASS KEYS OF

  KENWICK


  BY AUGUSTA HUIELL SEAMAN



  DOUBLEDAY & CO., INC., GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 1947





  CL

  COPYRIGHT, 1931
  BY AUGUSTA HUIELL SEAMAN
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA





  TO

  AGNES and "BOBBIE"

  WHO LENT THEIR PERSONALITIES

  TO THIS BOOK




CONTENTS


CHAPTER      PAGE

I Enter Audrey                                          _1_

II The First Morning at Kenwick                        _17_

III Audrey Gets to Work--and Meets with a Surprise     _39_

IV Wade Newkirk Enters the Mystery                     _53_

V A New Aspect of the Affair                           _67_

VI The Unexpected Steps In                             _79_

VII Within the Forbidden Portal                        _92_

VIII In the Kitchen Wing                              _104_

IX A Council of War                                   _115_

X One Day at Kenwick                                  _126_

XI The News That Prissy Brought                       _139_

XII Wade's Vigil                                      _153_

XIII The Duncan Phyfe Table                           _167_

XIV What Happened in the Office Wing                  _177_

XV Another Turn of Affairs                            _189_

XVI The Beginning of the End                          _200_

XVII The Miracle Happens                              _213_

XVIII The End's Beginning                             _225_

XIX Miss Jenifer Entertains                           _265_




THE BRASS KEYS OF KENWICK



CHAPTER I

ENTER AUDREY


It had been a day of rain. Torrents had fallen since early morning, and
the little town of Chestersmith lay drenched and sodden in the spring
twilight. Just about sunset, however, the clouds had broken in the west
and shafts of golden light had tipped the budding trees and set
millions of pendent raindrops atwinkle.

A breath of warm, sweet-scented spring air was wafted through the
window of an appallingly muddy little sedan car, as the driver lowered
the glass on entering the town. And immediately on its opening, the
beautiful red-brown head of an Irish setter poked itself out of the
aperture and sniffed with keen appreciation. The setter occupied the
space beside the girl who was driving, and a mound of miscellaneous
baggage was piled in the rear of the car.

"Here we are, Susan!" announced the girl, snapping off the windshield
wiper. "Thought we'd never get here, didn't you, old dear?" The dog
turned to lick her face in exuberant delight of arrival and the girl
pushed her off with one hand, while she swung the car in a left turn
around a street corner with the other.

"Have a heart, Susan!" she admonished. "I can't wash my face yet
awhile. We've got to find the whereabouts of these two addresses first.
Better ask at one of the stores, I reckon." The girl often amused
herself by talking to the dog as if it were another person. Susan made
as suitable a reply as possible by thumping her plumed tail on the
seat. They turned into the one street that looked to be the business
section of the sleepy little Maryland town, and the girl alighted and
disappeared into a grocery store. When she emerged and had hopped back
into the car, she chuckled:

"We're aiming straight for Miss Jenifer Kenwick's, old pal--five
streets farther along this road. It's just on the edge of the town and
the Newkirks are right around the corner from it. But he remarked
something that sounded rather odd--said he advised me to wait till
morning before seeing the old lady. Wonder why? Well, anyway, let's go!"

They sped down the street in the deepening twilight. There was a scent
of blossoming things in the air, and some forsythia bushes in a front
yard had flowered into rich bloom.

"My, but it smells fine!" exclaimed the girl, sniffing luxuriously.
"And it's pretty different from what we left up around chilly old
Pennsylvania this morning!" The thump, thump of a plumed tail and
another attempt at a slobbery kiss was Susan's reply.

"Calm yourself, my dear!" cried the girl. "We arrive at Kenwick!" and
she drew to a sudden halt across the road from an odd-looking yet
stately old brick mansion. The dog shifted about restlessly on the seat
and made an effort to get out of the car.

"Wait a minute," half-whispered the girl, laying a soothing and
detaining hand on the glossy brown coat. "Let's just look this
proposition over first." They both sat quiet for several moments, the
girl staring out across the road at the dim façade of the house, not a
window of which showed a light in the deepening darkness. Presently she
drew a long breath.

"It's worth while, all right, Susan, my love! It's a _peach_! Look at
that marvelous doorway--look at those semi-octagonal wings!--look at
the perfect carving of that circular window at the top!--look at the
simple but beautiful lines of the whole thing! The only question is,
can I do it justice? . . . But Dad was right, I couldn't have a
lovelier subject. I wonder why there aren't any lights lit? Maybe 'old
Miss Jenifer,' as the grocer called her, is away. He said she wasn't,
but he might be mistaken. Anyhow, the place looks deserted. I suppose,
according to the Book of Etiquette, we ought to call on 'old Miss
Jenifer' first, but I'm going to take a chance and hunt up the Newkirks
instead. Just this minute I'm more anxious to see what our boarding
place for the next few months is going to be like than anything else.
It must be that house just around the corner. Let's go!"

She switched on the car lights and whirled around the corner toward the
only other house near by--a small, sloping-roofed, dormer-windowed
cottage down a narrower side road. In contrast to the mansion's
complete darkness, this house was attractively lit, with soft-shaded
lamps in several rooms. In the glare of the car's headlights, the girl
could also discern a pleasant garden at the side, sloping down to the
river's edge not far away.

"This must be the Newkirks'. There's no other house around," commented
the girl. "Looks good to us, though--hey, Susan? Now you just remain on
that seat while I go and attack the Newkirk stronghold!"

She shut the car door firmly on the impatient dog and ran up the walk
to thump half-timidly at the brass knocker. Almost immediately a young
girl of fifteen or sixteen opened the door.

"Is Mrs. Newkirk at home?" asked the newcomer. "I think she is
expecting me. I'm Audrey Blake."

"Oh, yes! Come right in. Mother's been expecting you all afternoon.
She'll be down in a minute." And then, a little shyly: "I'm Camilla
Newkirk, but I'm always called 'Cam.' You--you're quite different from
what I--expected." She did not confess that she had been watching with
concentrated though secret eagerness all afternoon for the newcomer's
arrival.

"Yes, I'm used to being a great disappointment," half-chuckled Audrey.
"But just how was it this time? D'you mind telling me what you
expected?"

"Why, I--thought," stammered Cam, a little embarrassed, "that you'd be
quite grown-up--a grown woman, probably--and horribly dignified--and
all that. And you're just a girl--only a little older than I am. I--I'm
terribly glad!"

"Well, I'm glad too, if you are," admitted Audrey. "I can't claim to
being exactly 'grown-up'--I won't be nineteen till November. And as to
being 'dignified'--I've given that up for life--as hopeless!" She
grinned cheerfully at Cam, and they both stood for a silent moment
surveying each other while waiting for Mrs. Newkirk's appearance.

What Camilla saw was a rather tall, thin girl in a well-cut though
mud-bespattered sport suit, a blue beret covering the thick, wavy dark
hair brushed back boyishly--dark grey eyes in which lurked a friendly,
confiding look--a row of white, even teeth, and a mouth whose almost
impish grin betokened a keen and well-developed sense of humor.

While Audrey saw a girl only a trifle shorter than herself, dark-haired
and slight whose chief claim to attractiveness lay in a pair of lovely
and wistful blue eyes. And Audrey, who was training herself to read
faces, traced loneliness and boredom and eagerness to be understood in
those eyes, and was drawn the more to Camilla because of it. But the
moment of mutual scrutiny passed as Mrs. Newkirk descended the stairs
to greet the guest.

"So you're Audrey Blake," she said cordially, when her daughter had
made the introduction. "We're very glad to welcome you, my dear. I hope
you'll be happy and comfortable here. Miss Kenwick has told us a little
about you--what little she knew. She never has seen you, of course, but
I believe she said your father was a distant cousin of hers. But let me
show you to your room. And where, by the way, did you leave your
luggage?"

Audrey explained that she had driven down from her home in Pennsylvania
in her car, which was now standing out in the road. And she added
doubtfully:

"I'll have to confess--I've brought my dog Susan along. I'm terribly
fond of her and we're never parted for very long. She's well-trained
and won't be any trouble, and I'll feed her and all that myself. I do
hope you won't mind!" She looked appealingly at Mrs. Newkirk, across
whose face a troubled expression had flitted at the mention of the dog.

"I don't mind a dog a bit--rather fond of them myself," admitted that
lady, "but I'm wondering how the creature will get along with Lorry's
cat. Lorry's my little seven-year-old son, Loring," she added in
explanation. "And the cat is a dreadful, fighting old tomcat, but Lorry
adores it, and we all put up with the old pest as well as we can, for
his sake. But I'm doubtful how your dog is going to get along with old
'Battle-Axe', as we call the cat!"

She laughed, and Audrey thought she had never encountered a more
attractive personality than this tall, beautiful, stately, yet utterly
simple and friendly Southern lady. "She's _beautiful_," she thought,
"with that prematurely grey hair and lovely eyes! I'd like to make a
portrait of her." But what she said aloud was:

"Oh, I think it will be all right, Mrs. Newkirk, if you really don't
mind. Susan is very obedient, and I'll keep her with me most of the
time. Dogs and cats generally get used to one another after a while,
anyway, don't they? And now I'll go and fetch in Susan and my luggage,
if it's all right."

"And I'll come and help you," chimed in Cam. "We've only old Mandy, our
cook, to help, and she's busy with dinner now. If there's anything
heavy to carry up, she can help with it this evening."

The two girls ran down the path to the car, where Susan and Camilla
made immediate and demonstrative acquaintance.


Audrey thought she had never enjoyed a meal more than her first dinner
that evening with the Newkirk family. They gave her at once the feeling
of being, not a stranger, but a family member with her own folks. Mrs.
Newkirk had the rare and delightful faculty of putting one instantly at
ease. She seemed unruffled by any circumstance, even when her
seven-year-old son Lorry came in late, tousled and grimy, after they
had sat down to dinner, and had resented loudly being sent up to wash
and brush his hair. When later he suddenly produced a hop-toad from his
pocket, in no wise embarrassed, she had laughingly but firmly removed
him and his unwelcome pet from the scene and returned, serene and
smiling, to serve dessert. While they were still sitting comfortably
and idly over after-dinner coffee, she turned to Audrey:

"Tell us, won't you, about what you're going to do at old Miss
Jenifer's, as we always call her. We're all awfully curious about it
and she has given us only the vaguest notion. You know, she's a very
eccentric old lady, and quite touchy about having her affairs 'pried
into,' as she calls it. So we're always very careful never to ask
personal questions. Do enlighten us, if you care to. She was quite
mysterious about it all."

"Why, there isn't anything mysterious about it in the least!" smiled
Audrey. "The whole thing's just this: I've been for a couple of years
an art student at the National Arts School in New York. I intend to
specialize on portrait work in the end, but I'm dabbling in several
other branches, just to try 'em out--caricatures, clay-modeling,
water-colors, and that sort of thing. But there's one thing I've been
fairly successful with, and that's making models of houses.

"I copy every detail, you know, on a tiny scale. It seems to be quite a
fad for wealthy people who have very attractive houses, especially if
they're restored Colonial or that kind of thing, to have a model made.
And they pay quite a lot for it, too. I made two models for two
different society women last year, and what I got for it helped a lot
with my art course.

"Then I heard, just recently, of a wonderful prize that's being offered
by the National Historical Society in Washington for the best model of
a pre-Revolutionary house, to be completed by next November. It seemed
too good a chance to miss. The prize is five thousand dollars, and if I
won it, I could take a two-years' course abroad--and I'd give my head
for _that_!" She grinned her charming, boyish grin.

"My work at the Art School was just about over for the season, so there
seemed no reason why I shouldn't go in for this. Then came the question
of what house I was to model. And it was a mighty important question,
too! I knew two or three others who were going in for it, but they had
chosen to make models of sort of obvious and well-known places like
Mount Vernon or the House of the Seven Gables or Washington's
Headquarters at Valley Forge, or some such thing. But I wanted
something different--something less well-known but perhaps more
beautiful and unusual. I'd thought of several places, but it isn't
easy--it's almost impossible, really--to get permission to do a thing
like that, especially if the house is privately owned. You have to be
allowed to _live_ in it, almost--at least, you have to go about inside
and poke around and take the most accurate measurements and make
sketches, and all that, because it has to be done to scale, both inside
and out. And very few private house owners would allow that.

"I'd begun to feel sort of discouraged about the whole thing, when Dad
suddenly thought of that place called Kenwick. The reason he remembered
it was that Miss Kenwick is a sort of distant cousin on his mother's
side. He remembered being taken there to visit several times when he
was a boy. He said Miss Kenwick was quite fond of him and always made a
fuss over him when he was brought there. He'd always remembered the old
house as being very lovely and unusual. And when he described it to me,
I felt it would be just the thing I wanted.

"So he wrote to Miss Kenwick and told her about me and what I wanted to
do. She and his mother had always been friends and he counted on that,
too, to help along with my case. He even said he thought she might
possibly invite me to stay there with her while I was making the model,
as he'd heard she was living all alone in that big old house now and
might be glad of company." At this point Audrey noticed Camilla and her
mother exchange a swift glance. But as they made no comment she
continued:

"Well, we got a reply from her at last, written in queer, cramped
handwriting and on paper that looked as if it had been torn out of a
blank book. She was very kind about allowing me to do the house, which
she seemed awfully fond of, and said I could use the old office-wing
for my work-shop--'studio' she called it! But we thought it rather
strange when she said she was sorry she couldn't invite me to stay
there, as she didn't entertain any company nowadays and kept very
quietly to herself. But she said she could recommend a very pleasant
house near by where I could board with friends of hers and spoke of you
folks. So that's how it all came about. I guess she must have fixed it
up with you right away, for she wrote us again soon after and said it
was all settled and would I please come not later than the twelfth. So
here I am!"

"That's all tremendously interesting," commented Mrs. Newkirk. "I think
it's quite wonderful that you can do an unusual thing of this kind. And
we're delighted to have you with us. We're a rather quiet family, and
you'll find this a rather dead little town. So your advent is all the
more thrilling to us. And I'm especially glad for Camilla that anyone
so interesting and so near her age is going to be with us. I hope
you'll get to be good friends. But, by the way, I take it that you
haven't seen Miss Jenifer Kenwick yet."

Audrey said no, and explained that she'd been so late getting into
town. "We had two punctured tires on the way down," she grinned, "and I
seem to be a scandalously poor car mechanic! I stopped at the Kenwick
house, though, but it was all dark and I thought she must be away."

"Oh, no, she wasn't out. She's _never_ out at this time of night!"
exclaimed Camilla. And Mrs. Newkirk's handsome face assumed a slightly
troubled expression as she added:

"My dear, we suspect you're going to have a bit of a difficult time
with old Miss Jenifer, and perhaps it's only right to warn you to be
prepared. She's very eccentric, you know. She's liable to make things
rather difficult for you, I'm afraid."

"Why, how do you mean?" asked Audrey, looking considerably disturbed.
"She seemed awfully nice in her letter--very glad to have me do the
house. Why should she make it hard for me?"

"I have an idea," explained Mrs. Newkirk, "that she thinks of your work
as being done in quite a different way from what you've described--like
simply painting a picture from what you see on the outside, or
something like that. What you say about going around inside and taking
all sorts of measurements and poking about, as you _must_, to be able
to get things accurately, is going to disturb her mightily.

"You see, poor old Miss Jenifer is really our town 'character.' She
used to be perfectly all right and normal, I suppose, but she's quite
old now, and as long as I can remember she's been queer, and growing
queerer all the time. No one knows definitely what started her off that
way--it's all quite a mystery--but she gets worse as the years go on.
We're all used to her now and don't think much about it, but I imagine
she'd strike a stranger as most surprising. Wait till you see her with
the _brass keys_! She----"

But the rest of the tale Audrey was not to hear at that time, for,
interrupting Mrs. Newkirk, there arose the most frightful bedlam from
the region of the kitchen--the keen, alarmed howling of a dog, the
hissing, spitting, and yowling of a surprised cat, the shrill scolding
of old black Mandy, and the furious shouting of Lorry, leaning over the
banisters in the upper hall, whither he had been banished from the
table.

Audrey guessed in a moment what had happened. Susan, who had been lying
obediently in a corner of the dining room all through the meal, had
doubtless become weary of waiting and slipped unnoticed into the
kitchen while they were talking so earnestly. There she must have
surprised the redoubtable tomcat, who had become properly enraged and
had flown at her with disastrous results!

They all rushed into the kitchen and the ensuing half-hour was spent in
separating the combatants and smoothing over the situation with
grumbling Mandy and excited Lorry, who had joined the scene in his
pajamas. The remainder of the evening passed for Audrey in unpacking
and getting settled in her pleasant little room and in writing a note
to her mother. Camilla hovered about shyly, offering what assistance
she could render and commenting to Audrey on the exceeding dullness of
the town and how glad she was to have a new friend.

It was not till Audrey, quite healthily tired out, had slipped into bed
near midnight, with Susan on a rug close by on the floor, that a sudden
thought popped into her weary brain:

"Singular--about old Miss Jenifer! What was that about the _brass
keys_, I wonder? I never got a chance to ask."




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST MORNING AT KENWICK


But there was no opportunity to investigate the matter of the brass
keys next morning, for when Audrey came down to breakfast she found the
Newkirk household much occupied in getting started on its daily
routine. Camilla was drifting about, collecting her books for departure
for high school and groaning that she'd be late for the school bus.
Mrs. Newkirk was distractedly endeavoring to get Lorry off to primary
school in the village, and Lorry was complaining loudly to the world at
large about the conduct of Battle-Axe, who had appeared that morning
with his ear half chewed off, after some midnight mêlée with other
feline friends. Mrs. Newkirk saw them both off with a sigh of relief,
but turned a smiling face to Audrey, who was waiting about a little
uncertainly.

"Do you suppose it would be all right for me to call up Miss Jenifer
and ask when she would care to see me to-day?" Audrey asked. Mrs.
Newkirk stopped on her way upstairs and chuckled.

"My dear child, do you suppose old Miss Jenifer has anything so modern
as a _telephone_ in that house of hers? Why, she hasn't even a gas
stove or a bathroom or an electric light! You don't realize the
situation at all, I'm afraid, and I can't think whether it's wiser to
tell you all about it or let you go and see for yourself. Perhaps I
ought to tell you, so that you'll be prepared and won't be too much
bowled over when you come in contact with the situation there." She
turned into the living room and beckoned Audrey to follow her.

"I'll be darning some stockings while I talk," she added, "and so won't
be losing any time. I have a rather busy day ahead of me. You see, it's
this way about poor old Miss Jenifer:

"She is very eccentric, as I've said before. She has this beautiful old
Colonial mansion, which, by the way, contains some marvelous specimens
of antique furniture besides, and she possesses quite a number of
pieces of rare and valuable jewelry also. Yet she's absolutely
impoverished as far as money is concerned. Sometimes we suspect that
she actually doesn't have enough to eat. But she's so proud that she'd
never acknowledge the fact, nor will she part with a single thing she
owns to get ready cash. We worry about her quite a lot in town here,
and we even try to invite her to lunch or dinner every once in a while,
to be sure she has a square meal occasionally. But we'd never dare let
her suspect the reason or she wouldn't come. And I'll admit it's
something of a trial to have her, as she's so peculiar in her ways.

"But what I'm thinking most about in connection with your problem is
whether she's going to allow you the freedom you'll need to go about
the house. I don't mind telling you that we think there must be some
mystery about that house. She's always guarded it rather carefully,
never allowing anyone to roam through it freely or see some parts of
it. But of late years no one who goes there is ever admitted to any but
one of the two front reception rooms each side of the central hall. She
makes the excuse that the others are not in order, that she keeps the
furniture draped to preserve it, and all that sort of thing, but we
think there must surely be some other reason. That is why I think you
are going to find things a bit difficult."

Audrey's expression had been growing more and more worried as Mrs.
Newkirk's explanation went on. At this point she asked:

"This does all sound rather serious for me. What would you advise me to
do, Mrs. Newkirk?"

Her companion sat silent, thinking it over for two or three moments. At
last she said:

"There's just one hopeful feature in the situation, I think. Poor old
Miss Jenifer has rather a soft spot in her heart for young people. I
don't mean small children, but girls and boys nearly grown--like
yourself. It's rather pathetic, too, because the young people around
here are all afraid of her or have rather a dislike for her
peculiarities and won't go near her. Camilla can't bear the sight of
her and usually manages to be out when I ask her to meals. The only one
who's willing to bother with her is my son Wade. He's at St. John's
College, in Annapolis, but whenever he's home here he always makes it a
point to run in and see her and have a chat, and she fairly adores him.

"But what I'm getting at about you is this: If you are nice and
friendly to the old lady and try not to notice her oddities too much
and don't seem to want to explore all over the house just at first, but
let it come gradually, there's a possibility that she may let down the
bars for you later. Otherwise I'm afraid you----"

At this point, a grey woolly head crowned with a white turban was poked
into the doorway, and the querulous voice of old Mandy interrupted:

"'Scuse me, Mis' Newkirk, but how yo' gwine hab de chicken to-night? Ah
done got it picked and Ah been waitin' roun' to fin' out."

Mrs. Newkirk rose and excused herself to Audrey with a smile. "I'll
have to go and pay some attention to Mandy now, but I think I've given
you enough of a hint to work on. You might as well run around right
away to see Miss Jenifer. She's probably expecting you any time. There
was no use to tell her last night, as she usually goes to bed about
dark to save lamps and candles, I imagine. Good luck to you!"

Accompanied by Susan (who had spent an uninteresting morning thus far,
incarcerated in the bedroom), Audrey set out a few moments later, her
heart a bit heavy with misgivings. She had never counted on
encountering any obstacles to her work and resented having to give the
time to placating a cranky and obstinate old lady.

"What possesses her to act that way?" she demanded indignantly of Susan
(whose only reply was to caper the more wildly about her feet in the
renewed joy of freedom). "I see where I'm going to have my hands full!
And at that, I never thought to ask again about the _brass keys_! Well,
here we are."

She turned the corner and the old mansion stood before her, the golden
morning sunlight on the rich mellow brick façade, the exquisite
carvings of window and doorway standing out in clear relief. High,
glossy green magnolia trees shaded the front entrance, and in the rear,
as she had rounded the corner, she had caught a glimpse of a garden
enclosed by a low brick wall sloping down to the river where enormous
old box bushes had been planted in a curious design. Audrey heaved a
big sigh in sheer appreciation of it all, gathered her courage
together, and ascended the front steps. Before she raised the tarnished
old brass knocker, she whispered a few admonitory commands to Susan.

"You're not to go in with me--you understand? The old lady probably
doesn't like dogs, especially on first acquaintance. Sit right here on
the steps till I come out--and don't you dare chase a cat or a chicken
or another dog! You hear me?" Susan looked at her mistress with great,
reproachful brown eyes and sat down resignedly, as Audrey thumped twice
with the old knocker.

It seemed a long, long time before there was any reply. Then light
uncertain footsteps were heard inside, and after a great wrestling with
the huge brass lock, the door opened.

In thinking it over afterward, Audrey wondered how she had managed to
maintain as much calmness as she mustered during that first encounter.
Nothing that Mrs. Newkirk had told her had quite prepared her for the
astounding appearance of old Miss Jenifer Kenwick. She had expected
something rather quaint and curious and out-of-date in the eccentric
old lady, but she was utterly taken aback at what now met her gaze. The
little, wizened creature, with brown, deeply wrinkled skin, and thin,
straggling white hair, stood before her in the doorway, at ten o'clock
in the morning, arrayed in what appeared to be an elaborate _evening
gown_ from far back in the 'eighties or 'nineties. The crushed and
wrinkled tulle and silk and lace bore evidence of little wear but much
long repose packed away in some ancient trunk. Around this strange
little creature's withered neck hung a lustrous and lovely pearl
necklace which, if genuine, Audrey judged to be worth several thousand
dollars. Two large diamond rings twinkled on the clawlike hands, and
twin eardrops, heavily encrusted with pearls in ancient settings, were
visible below the straggling white hair. And, offsetting this untimely
display of finery, there peered out a pair of large and mournful brown
eyes, so pathetic in their expression that Audrey forgot everything
else as she stood looking down into them.

"Good-morning! I--I'm Audrey Blake," she managed to stammer.

The strange old lady's face brightened in an unexpectedly winning
smile. She shook Audrey's outstretched hand, said "How do you do, my
dear! I've been expecting you," and drew her into the hallway, gazing
doubtfully at Susan the while.

"My dog will stay outside," Audrey hastened to explain, "if you're
afraid of her or don't care to have her in the house. But she's very
gentle and always stays close by me."

"Oh, no! Let her come in then. I--I'm rather fond of dogs myself,
though I don't keep any," exclaimed the little old lady, laying one of
her clawlike hands timidly on Susan's brown head. And so Susan gained
her entrée into Kenwick.

Miss Jenifer led the way into the room to the left of the central hall
and Susan followed meekly and seated herself beside Audrey's chair. An
embarrassed moment followed, while Audrey was searching anxiously for
the best way to open the conference. Miss Jenifer herself made the
opening by inquiring about Audrey's trip down, when she had got there,
and whether she was comfortable at the Newkirks'. And these questions
having been duly settled, another silence fell. At last Audrey said:

"You have a very beautiful home here, Miss Kenwick. I know it's going
to be a wonderful pleasure to me to make a model of this charming old
house. It's awfully good of you to let me do it." It was evident that
she had struck the right note, for the old lady immediately appeared
filled with excited interest.

"Tell me what you do," she demanded. "How do you go about it? Do you
paint it--with a canvas and easel--as I've seen many artists do?"

"Now here's where I have to _watch my step_!" thought Audrey. But aloud
she explained:

"No, it's not like that--though I may make several sketches first to
help me in the later work. You see, I want to make a model of the
house--on a very reduced scale--and reproduce it all as accurately as I
can. I'll have to make tiny plaster-of-Paris bricks and try to copy
those wonderful moldings and cornices in the same material, too. It
will be like a doll house, almost--only it will be an exact copy of
this real house, in miniature." Miss Jenifer looked considerably
startled at this explanation and murmured rather doubtfully:

"That--that sounds quite extraordinary--quite different from what I
thought--but very interesting. I--I had thought you were to paint
it--in oils, perhaps. I used to do a little of that myself in my
younger days, so I thought you might want to use one of the out-of-the
way rooms here as a studio, since your room at the Newkirks' is
probably rather small. The old office wing of the mansion--the one they
used in Colonial days--is over on the right. You could work there any
time you wish and not disturb me at all."

"That's awfully good of you, Miss Kenwick. I surely need a place like
that for my work even more than if I were just painting a picture. And
I couldn't possibly do the work at the Newkirks'. When would you care
to have me begin? I could bring my materials over any time, but I'll
probably be doing quite a little sketching outside before I begin the
model."

"You come over any time, my dear. You ought to begin as soon as
possible, especially while this spring weather is so lovely," declared
Miss Jenifer, and she added, "You are very like your father. He was a
dear little boy, I remember. I have always been very fond of children."

There was another uneasy pause, while Audrey glanced about the quaint
and beautiful old room. Secretly she was bursting with admiration for
the wonderful woodcarving and paneling, the exquisite molding of the
ceiling cornices, the age and dignity of its antique furnishings.

"This is a very lovely room, Miss Kenwick," she ventured at last. "Are
all of them as beautiful?" And as soon as she had said it, she knew she
had made a mistake. Miss Jenifer promptly retired into her shell. Her
manner became uneasy and evasive, and she looked away out of one of the
windows toward the towering bulk of the glossy old magnolia.

"Yes--er--this _is_ a fine old room," she hesitated. "The one across
the hall is quite--er--the same. But the rest of the house except the
old kitchen, I--er--have been compelled to--er--make a few--er--changes
in and--er--I do not ask anyone to see them now." She was plainly so
uncomfortable that Audrey, already sufficiently warned on this matter,
made haste to change the subject and rose hurriedly.

"Well, I mustn't keep you, Miss Kenwick. I'll run back to the Newkirks'
and get my working materials and bring them round here in the car
sometime to-day. Then I can begin making the little plaster bricks, and
sketching in between times, and I'll try not to disturb you a bit."

She took her leave of the odd little old lady, who sped her on her way
with a complete return of her former cordiality, and she found herself
with Susan out in the morning sun once more.

But she had scarcely arrived at the corner when she was astonished to
see Camilla wandering along toward her, her big eyes alight with a
smile of greeting.

"Why, how-come you're here at this time of day?" cried Audrey. "Thought
you stayed at high school till late afternoon."

"Oh, I do--usually!" replied Camilla gayly. "But something has
happened. They had a couple of cases of scarlet fever break out among
the pupils and they've closed school temporarily, so that it won't
spread. We're to have a three-weeks' holiday. Isn't that luck? We were
all sent home at once. So I was just prowling around to see if I could
get a glimpse of you. How _did_ you get on with old Miss Jenifer?"

Audrey gave her an account of the interview and ended with an account
of the old lady's astonishing get-up. "Does she always dress like
that--at this hour of the day?" she demanded.

"Oh, no! Usually she wears some drab-looking old black things. But
those clothes she had on to-day are her dress-up things--the only ones
she has, I reckon. She must have put them on in honor of your coming.
She wears them whenever she's asked out to a meal. It always gives me
the shivers to look at her rigged up that way. I usually get out and go
somewhere else."

"Somehow I think it's rather pathetic, though," remarked Audrey, "the
idea of her having dressed in her best--whatever it was--to welcome me.
I sort of appreciate it in her. Poor little old thing! I believe I'm
going to like her."

Camilla's manner grew suddenly mysterious and she drew an arm through
Audrey's and murmured in a lower voice:

"Come and take a walk with me, can't you, Audrey? There are some
awfully pretty places around here I'd like to show you, and you don't
need to get to work right away. Take the rest of the morning off. I've
got some queer things to tell you about that old place and Miss
Jenifer--things that even Mother doesn't know."

The lure was too enticing. Audrey decided that she didn't feel like
work anyhow, that the day was too beautiful to waste indoors, and
lastly that she _ought_ to know every phase of this strange situation
in which she found herself. If there was a mystery connected with it,
that made it all the more provocative. So they rambled off along the
road that led out of town, and finally came to a halt in a delightful
nook by the river, Camilla talking "sixteen to the dozen" all the time.

"You know, they say in town that that old Kenwick place is _haunted_!"
she began breathlessly. "Of course there's nothing in that," she made
haste to add, seeing Audrey's smile, "but just the same, I know myself
that there are things happening there every once in a while that you
just can't explain. _I know it!_----" She stopped impressively.

"Oh, _do_ go on!" cried Audrey, snuggling down in a seat made by the
gnarled old roots of a tree. "If there's anything I _adore_, it's a
haunted house or an obliging ghost trailing around, rattling and
moaning!"

"You do?" breathed Camilla, opening her eyes wide. "Then you must be
awfully brave!"

"On the contrary, I'm about as courageous as a chicken," grinned
Audrey. "I've anything but a fearless nature. But I do enjoy the thrill
of being scared silly by that sort of thing. And I'm only brave when
someone else is along to stand as a buffer between me and the ghosts!
Hurry up and tell us what you know!" Camilla settled down to her
revelations:

"Well, to begin with, no one knows much about Miss Jenifer's early
life, but the story goes that she was disappointed in some love affair
when she was a young girl. Her sweetheart was a young ship's captain or
something like that, and he died or was killed at sea, and it upset her
so that she never married and was always sort of queer after it. I
think the story goes that he didn't die, but just disappeared and never
came back. For years and years she always hoped he would. Another thing
is that she would never have a clock or a mirror in the house, because,
since she hoped he'd come back and marry her, she didn't like to think
of the time passing and her growing older, so she wouldn't have a
clock. And she didn't want to see how much older she was getting to
look, so she wouldn't have a mirror. Isn't that curious?"

"Sure is!" agreed Audrey. "But go ahead. What about the haunted part?"

"I'm coming to that. But I forgot to tell you, also, that all this is
the reason she's so fond of young people and doesn't care much about
older ones. Because the young ones remind her of the time when she and
her sweetheart were young, we think. Well, as I say, she's always had
these queer notions, but in the last few years she's changed very much.
She used to keep her house open and allow people to come in and out,
and entertained quite a bit and had an old cook, Mammy Prissy, who was
devoted to her. Then, about ten or fifteen years ago, she suddenly
changed. She dismissed Mammy Prissy and insisted on living all by
herself and shutting everyone out of the house except in those two
front rooms. Part of the reason may have been that she didn't have any
more money to spare. But she began doing so many other strange things
that Wade and I have another theory.

"Wade's my big brother, you know," she explained. "He's such a nice,
thoughtful boy, and he's so sorry for poor old Miss Jenifer that he
always calls to see her when he's home, and tries to cheer her up with
all sorts of foolish conversation about college and the crazy things he
and his friends do there. She just loves it. And once she told him he
reminded her of someone she had lost long ago. 'Dead, dead, dead now!'
That was how she expressed it. But that made us think she knows her
sweetheart is dead at last.

"But old Prissy told our Mandy once that Miss Jenifer thinks he comes
back as a ghost to see her every once in a while. Prissy still lives in
a tumbledown hut outside the town and goes to see her old mistress
quite often. Once, when Miss Jenifer was really ill, she let Prissy
come and take care of her, because she was so ill she couldn't leave
her bed. She wouldn't let anyone else in. Old Prissy never would tell
much about how things were there except that Miss Jenifer had turned
one of the rear drawing rooms into a kitchen--boarded up all the
beautiful old fireplace and had a cooking range there--and that she
slept, not in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but in the great _ballroom_
that takes up nearly all the back of the second floor! Can you beat
that?"

"But _why_?" demanded Audrey. "There are plenty of bedrooms, aren't
there? I never heard of such a queer thing!"

"But that isn't the queerest," went on Camilla in a hushed tone. "Wait
till you hear what I'm telling you next! Wade and I were coming home
one night from a little party at the house of one of my school friends
in the village. Wade's car was out of order, so we were walking. It was
real late, and we thought we'd just cut across Miss Jenifer's garden
because it was shorter. So we stole through and had just passed close
to the house in the back when we heard the strangest sound. It seemed
to come from the open windows on the second floor, which we knew were
in the ballroom. It was someone playing a tune on some kind of a
musical instrument!----" She stopped impressively.

"Well, I don't see anything so unusual in _that_," commented Audrey.

"You will when I tell you this," went on Camilla. "It's a positive fact
that Miss Jenifer hasn't _any_ kind of a musical instrument in the
house--never did have! And this was some instrument we'd never heard
the like of in our lives. It was thin and sweet and penetratingly
clear, and yet it was sort of wild and weird, too. It wasn't like a
harp or piano or violin or any other stringed instrument, and it wasn't
like any wind instrument either. If Wade hadn't heard it, too, I'd have
been sure I was dreaming. We never even told Mother about it. Wade
accidentally kicked an old flower pot on the walk and made a noise. And
then the music stopped and didn't go on again."

Audrey's eyes were wide with wonder now, and she asked breathlessly,
"Did you ever hear it again? Did you ever see anything else?"

"Yes, I've heard it once since. It was a hot summer night, awfully
late, and I couldn't sleep because my bedroom was almost stifling. I
put on a wrapper and slippers and stole downstairs and out into the
garden in the bright moonlight. I'd been sitting there on the garden
bench quite a while when suddenly I heard the far-away sound of that
same queer music coming from the direction of Kenwick. It was the
weirdest thing you ever heard, in the middle of the night like that,
and I got so sort of scared and upset that I just had to give it up and
run indoors. That was last summer. I haven't heard it since, because I
haven't bothered about listening. But maybe _you'll_ hear it sometime
when you're there."

"Golly! I wish I could," sighed Audrey. "But I suppose I'd be scared to
death if I _did_ hear or see anything unusual. You're upsetting my
well-known poise considerably, Cam, with all these ghostly
revelations!--But, oh, that reminds me. Your mother spoke about
something connected with Miss Jenifer and some _brass keys_. She didn't
have a chance to explain and I haven't had a minute to ask her about it
since. I'm dying to hear about it, so do explain!"

Camilla laughed. "You can _see_ that for yourself, just about every
day! Whenever Miss Jenifer goes out of her house into town to see
anyone or do any errands, she always locks both the back and the front
doors to her house. They have enormous brass locks on them----"

"Yes, I saw the front one when I was there a while ago," interrupted
Audrey.

"--and the biggest old brass keys you ever saw that lock and
double-lock them. Well, she locks both those doors every time she goes
out, though the rest of us in town hardly ever think of locking any
door the year round, there's so little ever disturbed, and she carries
both those enormous keys around with her--not in a bag or anything like
that, but clutched together in one hand as if she expected every minute
they were going to be snatched from her! She's the oddest-looking sight
with them!"

"Worse and more of it!" exclaimed Audrey. "But I'm wondering how this
little peculiarity of hers is going to affect me. Do I get locked
in--or out--whenever she takes it into her head to go to town?"

"Oh, no!" Camilla reassured her. "She's going to let you work in that
wing called the office. It's quite disconnected from the main house--at
least it's part of the building. But there's no door leading into the
house as there is from the kitchen wing. There's a door from it out
into the garden and she'll probably give you a key to that and you can
come and go as you please. No matter what you do, you can't get into
the main house from there."

"Well, that's _something_ to be thankful for!" said Audrey. "But hadn't
we better be getting back to your house now? Your mother said lunch
would be at 12:15, and it's half-past eleven already."

Camilla reluctantly agreed and they turned back in the direction of the
town. They were but a few hundred yards from the much-discussed old
Kenwick, when they suddenly beheld Miss Jenifer emerging from her front
door and descending mincingly to the brick walk. She was no longer
dressed in the array of the earlier morning, but wore an antiquated
black dress and hat and carried a market basket on one arm. But in her
left hand she bore the keys, tightly gripped and prominent, as if she
defied the world to take them from her. She did not see the girls
approaching, but turned in the opposite direction and hurried away down
the street.

"_What did I tell you!_" whispered Camilla.




CHAPTER III

AUDREY GETS TO WORK--AND MEETS WITH A SURPRISE


A week passed. And in that week Audrey got her work under way and
learned some curious things about Miss Jenifer and the strange old
mansion she lived in. During her first afternoon, with the help of
Camilla, she gathered all her working materials together, packed them
in the car, and took them around to Kenwick. Camilla had begged to be
allowed to assist.

"I love to be with you, Audrey, and see how it's all done. And then,
too, I'm wild to get inside old Kenwick and see what it's like. Do you
know, I've actually never been inside the house! I've often taken
messages there for Mother, but I never went farther than the doorstep.
Old Miss Jenifer always scared me to pieces as a small kid, and since
then I somehow couldn't bear the sight of her. But all this is so
thrilling that I shan't mind a bit if I'm with you." And Audrey had
been frankly glad of her company.

When they drove round to the front door that afternoon and had knocked,
Miss Jenifer came out and led them around to the garden door in the
link connecting the office wing with the main house. And for this she
produced a somewhat large and cumbersome brass key, but its size was
moderate compared with that of the two she always carried around with
her. When she had unlocked the door, she presented the key to Audrey,
remarking:

"You may keep this key, my dear, while you are using this place. Then
you can always go and come as you please without disturbing me. This
office wing has no connection with the house--the two doors in the
passageway open only into the street and garden, and the rooms upstairs
are empty. Come with me and I'll show you which one you may use as your
workroom."

She led them into the passageway, up a short flight of steps, and
through another door to a quite spacious room whose four windows
looking toward the road formed a part of the semi-octagonal front.
Opposite the windows there was a generous open fireplace containing old
brass fender, andirons, and the remnants of half-burned logs. An
ancient and decrepit secretary-desk stood in one corner, a few hard
chairs were ranged around the walls, and a sturdy old kitchen table
occupied the center of the room. Miss Jenifer glanced about uncertainly.

"I'm not sure if this is all you will need," she remarked.
"For--er--your particular kind of work--er--you may desire something
quite different."

"No indeed, Miss Kenwick," exclaimed Audrey, looking about with great
interest. "This is just exactly what I want--if you won't mind my using
this big old table to put my model on. I'll cover it first so that
nothing will hurt it. This room will be great to work in!"

The old lady looked immensely relieved. "Certainly you may use the
table. You can't do it any damage, I imagine. I am very pleased that it
is all you wish. If you need anything else, do not fail to ask me. I
could very likely find what you'd want in the main house. And now, if
you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my own quarters. Camilla, I am glad
to see you are here to help this young lady get settled."

Miss Jenifer took her departure, and the two girls were very busy
during the next hour in carrying in Audrey's boxes and bundles and
turning the room into a workshop. When they had most of the things in
order, Camilla suggested that they run up to the second floor and see
what the rooms above were like. But Audrey demurred:

"I'm not sure Miss Jenifer would want us to do that, would she? I sort
of feel in honor bound not to do any prying about, since she's been so
nice about letting me come and do this house."

"Oh, applesauce!" snorted Camilla airily. "She didn't _forbid_ it, did
she? And you can bet she would have, if she'd wanted you not to. She'd
have put a chain across the stairway--or something! Certainly she won't
mind. And, besides that, here's your chance to get the inside
measurements and lay of the land in _this_ part of the house, anyway!"

The last item of Camilla's argument was triumphant. Audrey could not
deny that here was excellent opportunity for inside measurements, so
she grinned and exclaimed, "All right then, let's go!"

They hurried out into the little passageway and up a winding stair.
There were two rooms on the second floor, one over the office in front
and exactly the same size and shape, the other and smaller one at the
back. They were rather dark, as their shutters were closed, the only
light coming through the chinks. Both contained open fireplaces, brass
andirons, and fenders, but very little furniture. And what there was of
that was evidently broken or cast-off pieces that had been discarded
from the main house. The girls did not stop long to examine it. What
interested them most was the two windows in the back room that looked
out on the garden. The heavy wooden inside shutters to these were shut,
but they pulled them open and let in the warm sun. Later, with great
effort, they opened the windows and a breath of balmy air from the
garden drifted in.

The garden itself stretched down to the river's brink, an unkempt
tangle of weeds, mingled with starved but still blossoming shrubs and
vines. But all its central space was taken up by a rare old box border
of great age, planted in the form of an enormous heart, the point
extending down toward the river.

"What an unusual garden!" sighed Audrey. "I like it. I wish I could
clear it up and get it to look as it once must have. I wonder----"

"_Hush!_" whispered Camilla, suddenly laying a hand on her arm. "Did
you hear that?"

"No--what?" asked Audrey in an undertone. "Wait!" commanded Camilla,
and they both stood breathless, listening to the murmuring of bees in
the garden. Presently there came a sound from below as if someone had
opened a door or shut it. "That's what I heard before!" breathed
Camilla. Simultaneously they both made for the stairs. But when they
reached the lower floor, all was as they had left it in the workroom.

"What could it have been?" cried Audrey. "Someone either came in or
out. The door didn't open and shut of its own accord. It's too heavy
and closes too solidly."

"Perhaps it was Miss Jenifer," suggested Camilla. "Maybe she came to
say something and, not seeing us here, thought we'd gone, and went
right out again."

"Well, it might have been, but just about the time it happened, I
noticed a dustcloth or something like it being shaken out of one of the
lower windows in the main house. It must have been Miss Jenifer doing
that, so she couldn't possibly have been coming in through the door
here at the same time. Besides that, we'd have seen her coming in
anyway, because that door is just below where we were looking out, a
little to the right."

"There's that other door that opens into the street on the opposite
side!" exclaimed Camilla. "Let's look at that." They made a dive for
it, but found it securely locked, nor would the key Audrey had make any
impression on it. Plainly it had not been opened for a number of years
at least. They went back to the workroom. Suddenly Audrey had an idea.

"There _must_ be another room on this floor!" she cried. "This front
room doesn't take up the whole space. What's at the back, I wonder?"
They ran out of the room and looked about.

"Of course! There's another door just to the rear of this one!"
exclaimed Audrey, impatient with herself for not having remembered it.
"I _knew_ there must be another room on this floor at the back." She
walked over to the door handle and turned it this way and that, but she
made no impression on the door, which remained obdurately shut.

"Try your key on it," commanded Camilla. "Perhaps it will fit." Then,
noticing Audrey's hesitation, "Oh, I know what you're going to
say--that if it's locked, you won't go in and all that. But I'm only
curious to see whether the key fits. We needn't go in if you think best
not to!" She seized the key out of Audrey's hesitating hand and tried
it in the lock. But the key would not fit, so they were not to have to
resist further temptation to explore.

"Well, this certainly doesn't explain the mystery of that sound we
heard," commented Audrey. "I won't bother taking any measurements
upstairs to-day because it's evident I can go and come there as I
please. So suppose we go out and look over the garden. I don't imagine
Miss Jenifer will mind that. I'm through for the time in here. And the
longer we stay the more mysteries we seem to unearth! I foresee I'm
going to have rather an exciting time working here--and I don't know as
I just like it, either!" And in this respect Audrey prophesied more
truly than she knew!

They wandered around the garden for a while and Audrey had a chance to
admire the rear view of the house, which was almost equally as
beautiful as the front. Then, as it was growing late, they climbed into
the car and took a short drive before arriving back at the Newkirk home
for dinner.

The ensuing few days were uneventful, being mainly occupied by Audrey
in getting ready for her work. This consisted in preparing the
foundation for her house on the old kitchen table in the office, and in
seizing every sunny hour to make outdoor sketches and photographs from
all available angles. Camilla spent much time with her, helping and
talking over the plans. And Audrey discovered incidentally that the
girl had a rather pretty artistic talent herself, which seemed to run
to the line of water-color sketches and decorative effects. Camilla,
however, was inclined to make light of her gift, and it was not till
she heard Audrey's encouragement that she began to experience any
enthusiasm for developing it. When Audrey was not working, they roamed
the woods together, accompanied by Susan, or took long drives into the
surrounding country in Audrey's sedan. And for a time Miss Jenifer and
her peculiarities and the mysteries surrounding beautiful old Kenwick
were forgotten.

Audrey had been in the Newkirk home just one week, when a curious thing
happened. It had been a rainy day and she and Camilla had spent it in
the office of the old house, Audrey working on plans and measurements,
Camilla busy with a bit of pottery she was decorating, under Audrey's
supervision, for her mother's birthday. Miss Jenifer had come in during
the morning to chat, in her mincing little fashion, about the progress
of the work on the model and had offered the girls some soft old
cushions for the hard chairs they were using, for which they were duly
grateful. Then she had retired, in her mouselike, mysterious fashion,
to be seen no more that day.

In the evening they had played three-handed bridge with Mrs. Newkirk
till bedtime, when Audrey in her room noticed that the weather had
cleared and that it was a bright starlight night. She sat by the window
a long time enjoying the warm, sweet darkness and the setting of a
crescent moon across the river. One interesting thing she had noted
from the first was that her windows looked out toward Kenwick and Miss
Jenifer's garden. And she often occupied herself by watching the old
house after dark, to see whether there were ever any signs of life in
it. Up to that night it had always remained a mass of impenetrable
blackness.

There was no sound save the lapping of the river at the foot of the
garden and the baying of a dog far off in the town. Audrey found
herself almost asleep, and was just about to get into bed when
something startled her wide awake. She stood up and watched in the
darkness for several minutes, and then turned and opened her door,
slipping across the hall to Camilla's room. Shaking the sleeping girl
gently awake, she whispered:

"Come across to my room--quick! There's something queer I want you to
see!" Camilla lost no time in sliding into her bathrobe and slippers,
and they were both shortly standing at Audrey's window watching, in the
darkness, a curious thing that was taking place at Kenwick.

The old mansion stood across the road from the Newkirk house and
considerably farther back from the river, so that they had a clear view
of the windows that faced on the garden. And in those windows on the
second floor, usually so dark after nightfall, there appeared
successively a light--faint but unmistakable--as if someone with a lamp
or candle were walking from one to the other holding the light for an
appreciable period near each window.

"What do you make of it?" questioned Audrey. "This is the first time
I've noticed anything like that. It's been going on quite a while now."

"I never saw anything like it there before," whispered Cam. "But then I
don't sleep on this side of the house. What _can_ it be? Tell you
what!--Let's dress and slip out over there to the garden. There's
_something_ going on--I just know it!"

"Perhaps the old lady is sick or in trouble and is signaling for help,"
suggested Audrey. "Maybe we ought to go and see if we _could_ help.
Shall we call your mother?" But Camilla vetoed this, saying they could
run back and get her if necessary. And five minutes later they had
slipped noiselessly out of the back door and across the road to the old
garden of Kenwick. The mysterious light was still passing from window
to window in the rooms on the second floor.

"Let's stay fairly well back in the garden," whispered Audrey, as they
stepped over the low brick wall. "Then we'll have a better chance of
seeing into those windows than if we're close up to the house." They
stationed themselves accordingly, near the tip of the heart-shaped box
border. And then, with hands clasped and hearts beating almost audibly,
they watched the flickering light passing from window to window, but
never coming near enough to be clearly distinguished. For the light was
evidently held so far back from the windows that only the glow from it
could be traced and never the light itself or the person carrying it.
There was not a sound, though they noticed that one of the windows was
open.

"That's the ballroom," breathed Camilla, "but it's where Miss Jenifer
sleeps. What do you think we ought to do?"

"I don't think we can do anything," Audrey whispered back. "We can't
take it for granted something's wrong just because she has a light lit
and is walking around. If there were, she'd surely call out the window
or make some noise. Listen, though--_what's that?_"

The light had become stationary, somewhere far back in the room, and
suddenly the thin, sweet eerie notes of a tune played on some unknown
instrument penetrated into the darkness of the garden. The air was
halting, uncertain and wavering, as if created by unearthly hands on
some medium or instrument not of this world. And the effect was
indescribably weird and uncanny. Audrey felt the prickle of nerves all
along her spine and her hands went cold and her knees trembled. Camilla
openly clung to her and shuddered, "_There it is--the thing I told you
about!_"

They could not move from where they stood. Something tied their limbs
and held them fast, though they both longed wildly to get back to the
safety of the Newkirk house. As long as the unearthly music lasted they
continued to stand clutching at each other, nor could they muster
enough courage to exchange so much as a whispered remark. Then
suddenly, without warning and in the midst of a note, there was a
long-drawn, muffled cry--the music stopped, the light was extinguished,
and there was silence and darkness once more in Kenwick.

Released from the uncanny spell, the two girls, with never so much as a
word, but with absolutely united accord, fled back through the darkness
of the sweet-scented garden to the safety and welcome commonplace
security of their own house!




CHAPTER IV

WADE NEWKIRK ENTERS THE MYSTERY


It was long before the girls got to sleep that night. Camilla crept
into Audrey's bed and they whispered about their latest adventure till
the wee hours of the morning. But no amount of conjecture served to
solve the riddle of the wild, mysterious music they had heard, or the
problem of the light that had been carried from window to window. At
last Camilla slipped away to her own room and Audrey sank into troubled
sleep.

They had decided to say nothing of their curious escapade to Mrs.
Newkirk till something more definite had developed. But for several
days afterward there was no further happening of any importance, and
life carried on in its usual routine. Then one morning Mrs. Newkirk
announced that she was driving over to Salisbury for the day to do some
shopping and was taking Camilla with her. She also invited Audrey to
accompany them if she cared for the jaunt. But Audrey explained that
she was just beginning on the important part of her work and felt that
she ought not to lose a whole day. Mrs. Newkirk remarked that Mandy
would be there to provide luncheon as usual and that they expected to
be home by five o'clock. Then she and Camilla drove away.

That morning, for the first time, Audrey left Susan in the kitchen with
Mandy. The dog and the old colored woman had struck up a firm
friendship, due in part to the many luscious bones and tidbits
surreptitiously provided by Mandy; and Susan seemed lately to prefer
the kitchen to the dreary performance of lying quietly in the
uninteresting office at Kenwick. Audrey too was rather relieved not to
have to watch her pet constantly to see that she behaved and did not
try to get outdoors where she was not wanted. The day promised to be
unseasonably hot, and before the morning was half over, Audrey began to
suffer from continued thirst that the tepid water from a pump out at
the back of the house failed to quench. Suddenly the idea that some ice
cream would be a welcome relief popped into her head, so she promptly
left the workroom, ran around and got her car, dashed away to the
village drugstore and invested in a quart of it. Then she dashed back
to Kenwick and got out two saucers and spoons from the old
secretary-desk. The ice cream treat was a not unusual one for Camilla
and herself, and they always kept handy the materials to eat it with.
Then, having spread the cool repast on the broad old window sill, she
went outdoors and around to the front entrance.

Miss Jenifer answered her knock after a time with the slightly startled
and bewildered air she always had when Audrey came to the front door.
But she replied with alacrity to Audrey's invitation to come and share
the ice cream, her mournful brown eyes lighting with an almost happy
expression.

"Why, of course, my dear. I shall be delighted to. How sweet of you to
think of it!" she declared in her curious, mincing fashion. "The day
_is_ growing terribly hot. The cream will certainly cool us off. Will
you excuse me if I go around by way of the door into the garden?" She
shut the front door, and by the time Audrey had run back to her own
entrance, Miss Jenifer was emerging from the door that opened on the
garden. Audrey had noticed that this garden door was a rather odd one,
the upper two thirds being really a window with panes matching those of
the other windows, and a sash that could be raised; the lower third was
composed of two small half-doors folding outward when fully open, as
the hinges on the outside indicated. She watched Miss Jenifer fold the
two parts of the lower door together, evidently bolting them on the
inside. The lower part of the window sash she left raised, no doubt
because the day was hot. And for once the heavy inner shutters were not
closed as they usually were in all the windows on the lower floor on
the garden side of the house. Then Miss Jenifer came over to the door
of the office and entered with her.

It was a curious conversation they had over the quart of ice cream.
Audrey felt that for once she had come closer to Miss Jenifer than at
any time previously. This was perhaps due to the absence of Camilla.
The old lady no doubt sensed the fact that Camilla did not care for her
presence. For Audrey had noticed that when Camilla was at hand, Miss
Jenifer was always polite but never communicative. But to-day her
manner seemed quite different. In fact, she was almost confiding as she
ate, with most apparent relish, the cooling and nourishing cream.
Suddenly Audrey found herself telling her companion all her hopes and
plans, her desire to perfect herself in her art, her great longing to
get to Europe and study in some of the famous studios abroad, her hopes
to visit the great picture galleries and study the masters at first
hand.

Miss Jenifer listened with absorbed interest till Audrey reached this
point, and then her manner underwent a curious change. She put down the
spoonful of ice cream that had been halfway to her mouth, reached for a
handkerchief in some obscure pocket of her dingy black skirt, coughed
to cover an evident embarrassment, and wiped away the beads of
perspiration that had suddenly appeared on her lip and forehead. Then,
to Audrey's utter bewilderment, she changed the subject abruptly and
began to talk about the garden, which she declared she was planning to
rid of weeds as soon as she could get time to go outdoors and begin on
the work.

This change of front struck Audrey as inexplicable, and so deep was her
astonishment that she found herself quite unable to answer with
coherence Miss Jenifer's queries about whether she knew anything of
gardening. But while the old lady was still talking along on this new
subject, they were both stunned into silence by an astounding clatter
that arose from the main part of the old house. And with one accord
they jumped to their feet and hurried out of doors.

But no sooner had they reached the steps to the main entrance than
Audrey realized what had happened. For the sounds from within the house
developed into hissing and spitting, interspersed with short impatient
yaps of a dog, followed by one long pained howl of rage. And she could
figure almost exactly what had happened without even being told.
Lorry's old tomcat, Battle-Axe, had doubtless returned from some
prolonged absence and found Susan ensconced in the kitchen, feeding on
toothsome bones and otherwise poaching on his prerogatives. A scrap had
ensued, during which Susan had for once assumed the upper hand and
chased old Battle-Axe outdoors. The cat had probably made a bee-line
for the Kenwick garden, and, seeing the half-open door to the house,
had jumped inside for refuge. But Susan, not to be balked, had leaped
in after him, and they were now fighting it out inside!

Audrey tried to explain this to the old lady, and proposed that she go
in and rescue the combatants. But this offer Miss Jenifer sturdily
refused, saying she was quite capable of ousting them both with her own
hands. And she went in, closing the lower half-doors behind her.

That she was not at first being entirely successful soon became
evident, for the cat appeared to have retreated to another part of the
house with Susan in pursuit. Audrey, however, felt that Miss Jenifer's
wish not to have her enter must be respected, but she ran up the steps
and stood calling in at the open upper part of the door to Susan. And
in so standing, she had her first glimpse into the great dining room of
Kenwick.

She told Camilla afterward that the glimpse almost took her breath
away, so lovely was that dining room of state, even in the dim light
afforded by the open half-door. For all the other deep windows were
darkened by the closed inner wooden shutters.

"I never saw anything lovelier than those wonderful Adam carvings and
moldings on the cornices and ceilings," she told Camilla. "And the most
marvelous old Chippendale and Sheraton furniture----"

But Camilla was not interested in Sheraton furniture or Adam cornices.
"That's all right," she interrupted, "but did you see anything that was
weird or queer or would explain any of the mystery about the place?
That's what _I_ want to know!" Audrey thought it over a moment. In the
excitement of all that had happened, she really did not remember. Then
she suddenly recalled something that perhaps only her subconscious mind
had noted at the moment.

"Yes, now that you speak of it, there _was_ one rather curious thing.
The whole thing happened so quickly that I couldn't take in much, and I
was terribly interested in just the sheer beauty of that room--what I
could see of it. I kept calling to Susan as loud as I could all the
time, and listening to the yapping and spitting going on somewhere in
the front of the house, and Miss Jenifer trying to shoo them out. Susan
must have heard me at last, for all of a sudden she came dashing into
the room and leaped over the half-door into my arms, almost knocking me
down the steps. But just before she came, I do remember seeing
something that must have registered on my mind as singular. It was this:

"While I was calling to Susan I tried to take in as much of the room as
I could, I suppose. And I remember now looking particularly hard at the
doorway in which I was standing, probably because it had such a
peculiar arrangement--part door, part window. The carved wooden
shutters that folded back from the upper part were lovely and I
remember thinking they were the same in pattern as the front room. Then
I must unconsciously have craned my head in a little farther to see the
inside of the lower part, for I can remember now _exactly_ how it
looked. And, Cam, there was _no big brass lock on it at all_--only a
heavy, carved brass bolt that held the two parts of the lower door
together. Do you see what that means?"

Camilla plainly didn't and said as much. "Why," Audrey explained,
"don't you understand? If there was no big _lock_ on that door as there
is on the front one--only a bolt--then what's that second key for that
she carries around?" And then Camilla saw.

"Of course, it might be the key to some of the other doors--in the
wings, for instance," Cam countered, "though everyone has always taken
it for granted it was that main rear door. Perhaps it's the key to that
locked room in the office wing."

"No, I don't think it's any of those--I'm _sure_ of it, in fact,"
declared Audrey. "Because that second key she carries is fully as large
as the other and couldn't possibly fit any of the wing locks. I've
noticed that they're all on a smaller scale. And that's a brand-new
mystery, I guess we'll have to admit!"

This was the account Audrey had given Camilla later. But at the time
she was too overcome with embarrassment at the misdemeanors of her pet
to do anything but apologize abjectly to Miss Jenifer, who followed
Susan out of the garden door a moment after the dog's hasty exit. The
old lady said she had just shooed the cat out of the street door, near
which Battle-Axe had taken refuge under a chair. Miss Jenifer seemed
breathless and blown, but she was very gracious about accepting
Audrey's apologies for Susan and declared that no harm had been done.
And, as it was near lunchtime and Audrey felt too upset to continue her
work, she bade Miss Jenifer good-bye and dragged Susan back to the
Newkirk home, never releasing her hold on the abject animal's collar.
That afternoon she locked Susan securely in her own bedroom, as a
punishment, before going back to her work. And the rest of the
afternoon passed uneventfully.

But that same evening, when they were all at dinner, the Newkirk family
were treated to a surprise. A battered old Ford car drew up at the
front entrance, there was the sound of someone coming up the steps, and
Susan barked tentatively. And in another instant the front door was
pulled open and a boyish figure limped into the room calling, "Hello,
everybody!"

"_Wade!_" cried everyone but Audrey, and sprang up to greet the
newcomer.

"But what's the matter, son?" demanded Mrs. Newkirk anxiously. "You're
limping! Have you been hurt?"

"Oh, nothing to get all hot and bothered about!" the young fellow
laughed, hugging his mother impulsively. "I tried to do too much of a
stunt pole-vaulting the other day and landed on one knee, spraining it
a bit. Doc Westcott wanted me to give it pretty much of a rest for a
week or so and got me a home-leave. Doesn't hurt to drive, so I hustled
here to give you all a surprise. I'm famished for dinner. Is there
anything new?"

"Yes, something quite new!" smiled Mrs. Newkirk, and presented him to
Audrey, adding, "You know, I wrote you something about her in my last
letter."

Audrey liked Wade on sight, and as the evening progressed, her liking
grew. They lingered long around the dinner table discussing family
matters and listening to Wade's account of all his college interests,
and later adjourned to the living room to play bridge for an hour or
two. Then, as the night was still warm, Wade and the two girls strolled
out into the garden, where a full moon was lighting the river with an
almost spectacular brilliance. Mrs. Newkirk had excused herself and
gone to see that Wade's room was prepared for the night. The three
young people settled themselves on a bench at the foot of the garden
and Camilla found a big old flower pot, which she upturned for Wade to
rest his foot on and ease his injured knee.

"And now tell me," he queried, turning to Audrey, "about this
interesting thing you're doing. I think it's great! But how do you get
on with Miss Jenifer? How _is_ the old girl anyway? I'm rather fond of
her. She's somehow so darned pathetic!"

And so Audrey and Camilla found themselves launched into a full account
of all the recent strange doings over at Kenwick. Wade listened to it
all without interruption, but with a concentrated attention that
betokened his deep interest. That was one of the things that Audrey
liked about this rather unusual young fellow--his quiet but intense
absorption in whatever was the subject of the moment.

"Well, what do you think of it all, Wade?" demanded Camilla when Audrey
had ended with an account of her morning's misadventure.

"Singular!" exclaimed the young fellow. "And darned interesting." And
after that he sat very quiet for several moments, chewing on a leaf he
had plucked from a near-by bush, his brows knit in absent thought, till
Camilla grew impatient and muttered:

"Well, haven't you anything else to say? You know her better than any
of us and have been in there a lot, and she's talked to you. I should
think you'd have seen and heard some queer things too."

"As it happens, you're right!" Wade unexpectedly conceded. "I _have_
seen and heard some unexplainable things, and Miss Jenifer has two or
three times let slip a remark that gave me a good deal of food for
speculation. More or less, I've figured out quite a bit about that old
ranch that I've never let on to anyone because it seemed like letting
the poor old lady down, somehow. Doesn't seem quite square to her, do
you see?"

"Oh, Wade," wheedled Camilla, "you can surely tell _us_, can't you? You
see, we're all mixed up in it, in a way. Audrey's _got_ to finish her
model and try for the prize, and I'm helping her, and she can't get the
thing finished unless Miss Jenifer lets her into the main house, and
she won't do that as long as things go on as they are!"

"I can't see how my telling you what I know would help the situation
any," Wade very reasonably commented. "And anyhow, there's Mother
calling us to come in and go to bed--and believe me I won't be sorry to
hit the hay after that long drive with this pesky knee of mine! Doc
told me to lie on a couch for a day or two after I got here, and I'm
sure going to do it!"

And not another word would he say on the subject of Miss Jenifer.




CHAPTER V

A NEW ASPECT OF THE AFFAIR


As things transpired, however, it was Audrey herself who got a new
glimpse into the strange situation at Kenwick. Wade proved as good as
his word and kept to the couch for the ensuing two days. But so bored
was he with even the prospect of this inactive existence that he begged
Camilla to stay with him and help him pass the interminable hours. So,
instead of spending her time with Audrey, she read to him, played
chess, and did jig-saw puzzles, and Audrey saw little of her during the
day, for the next forty-eight hours.

Thus Audrey went alone to her work at Kenwick. While she was making
some measurements along the foundation of the main house, next morning,
Miss Jenifer came to the garden door, and Audrey told her the news of
Wade's home-coming and the reason for it. The old lady seemed greatly
excited and interested, and said she hoped he would call as soon as he
felt like getting about. "A fine young fellow!" she exclaimed. "So kind
and thoughtful and considerate! He reminds me of----" But here she
stopped precipitately and made an excuse to change the subject. Later,
when Audrey was working in the office at her plaster-of-Paris molds,
Miss Jenifer came wandering in and sat down, clearly prepared for a
chat. Audrey felt that her loneliness must be extreme, and was glad
that the old lady found her company at all entertaining.

"I've changed my plans a little about making the outside of the house,"
she explained. "At first I thought I'd make the individual bricks and
put them together. But this place is so big that that job would be
interminable. I can get the same effect by making entire plaster outer
walls and indicating the separate bricks on them. I may do the chimneys
differently." Miss Jenifer seemed tremendously interested in every
phase of her work and often made very apt comments on it. Audrey hoped
that some day the old lady would be inspired to ask her what she
intended to do about the _inside_ of the house, and so lead up to that
very important question. Thus far, however, Miss Jenifer seemed to take
it for granted that nothing was to be done with the inside. Audrey
dreaded the time when she might have to suggest the subject herself.

"I love working on this house, Miss Kenwick!" she exclaimed. "I never
had any subject that seemed so worth while. It's a marvelous old place.
It must have an interesting history. It's pre-Revolutionary, I
understand." Miss Jenifer's manner suddenly became very animated.

"You're quite right, my dear!" she cried. "It _has_ a history that is
more interesting and important than that of any house in the vicinity
for miles--and there are many that are as old or older, on this Eastern
Shore of Maryland. In fact"--she became mysterious and edged closer to
Audrey's work-table--"there was something that happened here that had a
direct influence on all the future history of a certain country." Miss
Jenifer sunk her voice to a whisper as she added, "_And no one knows
about it now--except myself!_"

Mentally Audrey gave a whoop of exultation. Was the old lady really
going to disclose some of the mystery at last? But outwardly she
preserved an interested attitude that was sufficient, but not unduly
so, as that might have frightened Miss Jenifer away from further
revelations.

"That's awfully interesting, Miss Kenwick," she murmured, deeply
concerned meanwhile with the consistency of a new batch of plaster she
was concocting. "It looks like just the kind of a place where
Washington and Jefferson and all the rest of them had spent some of
their time. I suppose Washington must have slept here. He seems to have
slept in every house of any size from Maine to Georgia! I've often
wondered when he ever had any time to stay at home!" She laughed at her
own feeble little joke, but Miss Jenifer did not laugh. Her manner
became, on the contrary, quite serious and mysterious.

"No, Washington never slept here," she said, "though he did spend
several important hours here at one time, just toward the end of the
Revolution, in conference with a number of others in command. It was
right in that lower front room where we sat the first day you were
here. But the circumstance I refer to was of wider importance--it might
have affected the fate of several nations. All who were concerned in it
are long dead. And the secret of it is now known--_only by me!_"

She stopped suddenly, as if again she felt she had said too much. And
Audrey, almost bursting with suppressed excitement, waited for her to
go on. She dared not make any comment herself, lest she scare Miss
Jenifer away from the subject. But the old lady sat silent, and at last
Audrey ventured:

"How perfectly thrilling, Miss Kenwick! How did you come to discover
it--or did you always know?"

Miss Jenifer hesitated perceptibly before replying, but she was
evidently in an expansive mood:

"I wish I could tell you the whole history of it, my dear. I know you
would appreciate it. The story is as thrilling as any novel. But
unfortunately the affair is all involved with personal matters of my
own which I do not feel justified in disclosing. Life has been a sad
business for me--and a most perplexing one. I shall never burden anyone
with its history." She rose and moved toward the door, adding more
cheerfully, "Now I must try to get in some work in my garden. The weeds
are far ahead of me--and I'm probably interfering with your work."

"No, indeed you're not!" cried Audrey eagerly. "I love to have you come
in and chat. It helps me and I always look forward to seeing you."
There must have been something very genuine in Audrey's manner, for
Miss Jenifer appeared quite touched, and did something extremely
unexpected to the girl. For in passing where she stood at work by the
table, the old lady put her arm round Audrey's shoulder in an impulsive
squeeze and murmured:

"You are the only person I have met in years, outside of Wade Newkirk,
who I feel is truly understanding and sympathetic. I thank you, my
dear!" And she went back to her own quarters, leaving Audrey with a new
feeling of loyalty and almost affection for the queer little mistress
of Kenwick.

That night as they sat once more in the moonlit garden, to which Wade
had migrated after dinner because he was thoroughly weary of his couch,
Audrey told them of her curious interview with Miss Jenifer that day.
Mrs. Newkirk, having retired to bed immediately after the meal with a
severe headache, the three young people were alone. Camilla was
tremendously excited over the latest disclosure and immediately began
conjecturing what the great historical "secret" could be, but Wade sat
silent, his elbow on the arm of the garden bench, his chin cupped in
his hands. His thoughts might have been on a mocking-bird that was
still piping persistently in the dark, or on the intermittent
"slap-slap" of the water on the stern of an old boat moored at the foot
of the garden. Presently it seemed that they had been on neither, for
he spoke up unexpectedly:

"You've certainly gained the good graces of the old girl, Audrey!
Presently you're going to have it all over me, in that respect. You'll
probably go even further. That's the way she began with me, and I'd
nothing on earth to gain by getting on the right side of her. Just felt
sorry as the dickens for the old soul. She never told me just what she
told you to-day. That's news to me. But I've seen and heard things in
that house that were pretty uncanny, and Miss Jenifer has made some
half-confidences that, to say the least, are rather surprising. I'd
like to tell you what they are, but as they're rather personal, I feel
certain she looked to me to keep it all a secret. But this historical
business is a new one to me. Interests me like the deuce. A lot of
these old Maryland houses have the strangest traditions connected with
them, and queer secret doings that were sometimes not only national but
involved other nations besides. I know this because I'm rather hipped
on history, particularly the history of my own state, and have made
quite a study of it. I'd like to know just what went on there at
Kenwick. There can't be any record of it. Well, perhaps some day we'll
find out!" More he would not say, and the talk drifted to other matters.

But the next day, through an unsuspected medium, Audrey was to have new
insight into the affairs of Kenwick. Again she had gone alone to her
work, Camilla still devoting herself to the couch-ridden Wade. As she
had come to a temporary pause in her plaster work, while she was
waiting for her casts to dry, she decided to go out into the garden and
make another sketch of the rear view of the house, from an angle she
had not tried hitherto. While she was sitting on an old stone bench,
her sketching pad in her lap, an incredibly ancient colored woman came
hobbling along the side street, turned in at the garden, and stumped
over to where she sat. The woman's face was deeply wrinkled, her white
woolly hair was loosely covered by a bandanna, and so decrepit was she
that she was bent almost double, leaning with one hand on a short cane.
When she reached Audrey she peered over her shoulder through a pair of
steel spectacles and inquired:

"Whar's Miss Jenifer, honey? Ah's come to see her. Ah's old Prissy. But
huccome yo' sittin' hyar makin' pichyah's? Do Ol' Miss know it, honey?"

A sudden light dawned on Audrey. So this was old Prissy, the only
person who had the real entrée to Kenwick, by virtue of her long years
of service. A character worth cultivating! Audrey became immediately
interested.

"Oh, how do you do, Prissy. I've heard about you, and am awfully glad
to know you," she answered cordially. "Yes, Miss Kenwick knows I'm
here. She's letting me make a model of this house and this is just a
little sketch to help me with it. I'm sure Miss Jenifer is home if you
want to see her. Shall I let her know?"

"No, no, honey! Yo' ain't need to trubble. Ol' Prissy always goes right
in. Lawsy, honey, Ah done rock ol' Miss on ma lap when she wuz jes' a
teeny li'l baby! Ol' Miss'll let Prissy in all right."

She hobbled away toward the house. Audrey noticed that she did not go
toward the main garden door or around to the front, but made for the
rear door of the extension leading to the kitchen wing and rapped on
the panel. Not long after, the door was cautiously opened and Miss
Jenifer looked out. But on seeing Prissy she uttered a pleased
exclamation and beckoned the old colored woman inside and shut the door.

Prissy remained indoors a very long time. Audrey, who was intensely
curious about her, finished her sketch and waited around quite a while
to see her come out, but at last gave it up and went into the office to
resume her plaster work. Some time later she heard a knock on the outer
door and went to it, thinking to see Miss Jenifer, but to her
astonishment it was Prissy, who asked if she could come in a moment and
see what she was doing. Evidently her curiosity on the subject had been
very much aroused. Audrey admitted her cordially enough and showed her
the work she had accomplished thus far, trying to explain its
intricacies to the old colored woman. Suddenly a new thought occurred
to her.

"By the way, Prissy," she began, "you know this house inside very well,
don't you?"

"Yas'm, yas'm!" cried Prissy. "Ah sho' do know it right well. Ah wuz
bawn in de slave quarters--dey wuz 'long ober dere nearer de town. De
new road done tuk 'em away while ago. Ah knowed dis house inside 'n'
out fo' Miss Jenifer wuz bawn. Yas'm, Ah knows it!"

"Well, then, maybe you could tell me something about how it looks
inside--how the rooms are--upstairs and all," said Audrey eagerly. "You
see, if I make this house right, it's awfully important for me to know
just how the rooms look and where they are. The inside's just as
important as the outside. Miss Jenifer of course doesn't like anyone
inside and I don't think she realizes I need to know about it. But
perhaps if you could tell me something about it right now, it might
help me a good deal."

Old Prissy seemed highly pleased and flattered at this request for her
advice and immediately launched into a long and involved description of
the interior arrangement of Kenwick. Audrey gleaned from it that there
was no room on the ground floor for which she had not accounted, except
another hall at the side, called the stair hall, which led to the floor
above. This stair hall also opened into the extension leading to the
kitchen wing. The upstairs rooms, she inferred, corresponded with the
lower ones in size, the two front ones being bedrooms, the smaller one
in the back the card room (or "cyard room," as Prissy called it) and
the large one over the dining room, the great ballroom, where Miss
Jenifer now slept.

That was all very well for the main house, but when it came to the
kitchen wing Prissy seemed a little more hesitant. She averred that the
rooms were very much the same in size and shape as those of the office
part. The kitchen itself, however, seemed to differ in having an
enormous fireplace and Dutch oven, with all the cranes, pothooks, and
accoutrements of an old Colonial kitchen still intact, nothing having
been disturbed there for many years.

"How about the hallway or extension into the kitchen?" asked Audrey.
"Is that the same as the office one?" Prissy's manner immediately
became uneasy and mysterious.

"No, dat--dat's diff'runt, honey," she declared, lowering her voice
perceptibly. "De kitchen hallway--hit done hab de steps goin' down into
de cellar. An', honey, dat cellar hit am a pow'ful quare place. Ah wuz
always jes' done scairt to deaf o' dat place! An' sence Ol' Miss done
live hyar all by herse'f, hit sho' am quarer dan evuh. Dey's a hant in
dat cellar--Ah'm tellin' yo', honey. Doan yo' nebber go near hit!"

"Only wish I had the chance!" groaned Audrey inwardly, and she tried
hard to get Prissy to tell her something further. But the old woman
began to act restless and uneasy and plainly desirous of getting away,
so Audrey let her go. But as the bent old form hobbled out of the
office, Prissy looked back and muttered:

"Doan yo' nebber go near dat cellar, honey! Ah'm tellin' yo'!"




CHAPTER VI

THE UNEXPECTED STEPS IN


By the next day, Wade had read the riot act on the subject of the
couch, on which he refused point-blank to stay prone any longer. He
declared that he would be careful and not overdo, confining his
activities mainly to driving his car. And with this ultimatum his
anxious family had to be content. Mrs. Newkirk decided to ask Miss
Jenifer over to dinner that evening, as she felt that the old lady
would enjoy being there when Wade was present. She sent the invitation
over by Audrey in the morning and it was joyfully accepted.

"I'm glad it's going to be for dinner and not during the day," Camilla
had confided to Audrey. "Then that outrageous get-up she wears won't
seem so out of place. It gives me the horrors to see her in it around
noon!"

It had been a rather disheartening day to Audrey. She had come almost
to the end of her resources with her work on the outside of the house.
She was now anxious to copy the windows and doors, but could accomplish
little in this line till she had accurate measurements of the thickness
of the walls, and the interior aspects in the main portion and kitchen
wing. All that could so far be done on the office portion, she had
finished, and it was useless to make any more sketches of the exterior.
For the present, therefore, she felt that she was simply marking time.
In the afternoon Wade came over to make a call on Miss Jenifer, and
later drifted in to inspect Audrey's work.

"Gosh, but you're clever!" he had vouchsafed. "It's going to be a
knockout if you ever get a chance at the interior. Wonder if I could
think up anything convincing to say to the old girl that would induce
her to open the doors? I seem to swing quite a heavy pull with her!
Well, let me think it over and we'll see what can be done. She rather
cottons to you, I should judge from the nice things she was just saying
to me about you--and that'll help!"

Audrey was long to remember that evening. Having already seen Miss
Jenifer in her dress regalia, she was not so astonished as she might
have been at the bizarre effect of that ancient finery. Rather, she
found it more than a little pathetic and touching. Mrs. Newkirk had
provided a delicious dinner and Wade exerted himself to be his most
entertaining, and Miss Jenifer, besides doing more than justice to the
bountiful table, plainly enjoyed herself immensely in this charming
home. Even Camilla came out of her shell and played the piano and sang
duets with her brother for the old lady's entertainment after the meal
was over. And at half-past nine, all three of the young folks escorted
her home.

It was a singular picture Miss Jenifer made, as she stood on her front
steps waving them goodnight, the two great keys clutched firmly in her
left hand. Those keys had not left her possession all the evening, for
even while she ate, they were reposing in her lap. When they had
arrived at the front of the house Wade had offered to go in with her
and help her light the kerosene lamps, but this offer she had politely
refused, saying she wished to stay outside a few minutes enjoying the
moonlight. And, sensing the possibility that she preferred not to be
escorted indoors, he had not pressed the subject.

"Good-night!" she called after them as they turned the corner. "It has
been a beautiful evening--_beautiful_!" The words rang curiously in
Audrey's memory for many a long day thereafter.

It was difficult to go back to work next morning for two reasons. To
begin with, there seemed little she could accomplish, her work having
arrived at an _impasse_ beyond which she could make little or no
progress till she could see and measure the interior rooms. And then
Wade and Camilla had tried to persuade her to give up work for the day
and accompany them on a drive into the country, lunching perhaps at
Easton. The temptation was great, under the circumstances, to take a
holiday. Even Mrs. Newkirk urged it, but something in Audrey seemed to
forbid the luxury. During the night she had suddenly determined to ask
Miss Jenifer if she might at least come in and take what measurements
and observations she could of the two front rooms where company was
still admitted. The move might serve two purposes. It would give Audrey
the data she needed for at least that part of the house, and also help
to enlighten Miss Jenifer on the subject of what must be done about the
interior. This, in all reason, could not be postponed any longer and
Audrey had nerved herself for the plunge.

She set off, therefore, with Susan again for company, walked slowly
around to Kenwick, enjoying the glory of the spring morning, and let
herself into her own quarters. Here she fussed about for a considerable
period, dreading to take the actual step and go around to the front to
speak to Miss Jenifer. She was hoping madly that the old lady would
herself appear in one of the little visits she occasionally made, and
thus make the opening seem more natural.

But the morning wore away and there was no sign of Miss Jenifer. More
than that, there seemed a vague unrest and portent in the very
atmosphere. Even Susan was sensitive to it. The dog usually lay
contentedly enough at Audrey's feet, napping or snapping at an
occasional fly. But this morning the animal seemed uneasy, prowled
about the room at intervals, and twice lifted up its voice in a
startling and lugubrious howl.

"Do be quiet, Susan, and hush that racket!" Audrey had commanded
irritably. "What do you _mean_ by acting that way?" But Susan continued
to prowl and whimper, till Audrey could stand it no longer and
determined to go out and sit in the garden until there should be some
sign of Miss Jenifer. Then she would pluck up her courage and get to
the matter of her new request.

But there seemed no more serenity in the garden than there had been in
her workshop, nor did Miss Jenifer appear, though she sat there fully
three quarters of an hour. Susan continued to fidget uneasily, walking
about the house and sniffing and coming back to lie discontentedly at
Audrey's feet. At length, when Susan had given voice to her
restlessness in one more lugubrious howl, Audrey felt she could stand
it no longer, got to her feet with a determination that caused her to
grit her teeth and clench her fingers, walked round to the front
entrance, and thumped the brass knocker.

There was no answer. Presently she thumped again, wondering if Miss
Jenifer could possibly have gone out into the town to do her marketing,
and she not have noticed it. This did not seem at all likely, as the
old lady seldom went out before noontime, as she had frequently
noticed. And she could not have helped but see her, besides, as she had
to pass right before her windows in the office front room. But still
there came no response, and Audrey was beginning to be somewhat
alarmed. Added to that, Susan began sniffing and whining at the crack
below the door in a manner that betokened keen excitement. The positive
conviction grew in Audrey that there was something radically wrong in
that eerie old mansion. And when a third rattle of the knocker remained
unheeded, she made a desperate resolve: get in or look in, she must and
would, for something must be the matter with poor old Miss Jenifer.

How she was going to accomplish this she could not figure out.
Undoubtedly all the doors must be locked--she took that for granted.
Just to make sure, she rattled the front door where she stood and found
it resistant to all her efforts. Then she ran around to the main garden
door and found that also bolted and the inside shutters closed behind
the glass of the window. Nothing to be done about that! There was but
one other hope--the garden door into the link that connected the main
house with the kitchen wing, and to this she sped.

There was by this time no question in Audrey's mind as to whether what
she was doing might be an intrusion on Miss Jenifer's well-insured
privacy--whether she might not be making a mistake and find the old
lady tending to her own affairs quite as usual in some upper region of
the house. An intuition not to be either explained or disregarded
warned her that all was not well in that house of mystery. She flew to
the other garden entrance and rattled the door desperately. And--to her
unbounded amazement--it gave way before her attack and swung inward,
disclosing a hall somewhat similar to the one on the other side of the
house. Across the left-hand side a broad flight of three steps led
upward to what was probably the kitchen; and at the far side at the
right a narrower flight led doubtless into the main building. But
directly at her right hand near the door were the narrow, sinister
steps that led downward to the darkness of the cellar she had been
warned against by Prissy. And lying at the top of those steps, almost
at her feet as she stood in the doorway, was the inert body of old Miss
Jenifer, still attired in the inappropriate ancient finery of the night
before!

For a moment Audrey stood petrified, her heart pounding till it seemed
as if it would burst, and Susan crouched whimpering at her feet. There
was not a doubt in her mind but that poor Miss Jenifer had come to her
end, fallen stricken on the cellar steps where she lay. Then, on a wild
impulse, Audrey turned and fled back to the Newkirk home, without even
daring to close the door or look behind.

They were all in the house as it happened when she came streaming in
and panted out the terrible news. Wade and Camilla had eventually
decided against their trip that day, hoping that Audrey could accompany
them if they went later. And without a spoken word they all made a bolt
for the door, headed by Audrey herself, and followed by old Mandy, who
had heard the news from the kitchen. They all streamed back to Kenwick
and once in the kitchen hallway, and facing the presence of that inert
figure, it was Mrs. Newkirk, assisted by Wade, who took command.

First she bent, for what seemed an interminable interval, felt for a
sign of pulse at Miss Jenifer's wrist, and listened for any token of
breathing. And, still kneeling, she announced:

"I'm positive Miss Jenifer is not dead. Her body feels warm, and,
though I can find no pulse, I believe there is a very slight breathing.
She must either have fallen or had a stroke of some kind. We must send
for a doctor at once. Camilla, you run back to the house and call Dr.
Pemberton. Ask him please to come immediately and tell him why. Bring
my smelling salts back as soon as you can. Mandy, you go back also and
get ready as much boiling water as you can crowd on the stove. Audrey,
please see if you can find some pillows or blankets. We can't move her
yet till the doctor comes, but we can make her more comfortable. And,
Wade, you help me get her further away from those cellar steps. She's
almost falling down them."

They all hurried to do her bidding, Audrey rushing out to the other
wing to get the old cushions Miss Jenifer herself had brought there.
She also remembered a steamer rug from the car that she had put away in
a drawer of the old secretary-desk and snatched that up also. And
before the doctor arrived, they had managed to lift poor Miss Jenifer's
inert body into a more comfortable position.

On the doctor's arrival they all went outside except Mrs. Newkirk and
waited around in an awed silence for his verdict. Ages seemed to elapse
before it came, but in reality it was only a matter of some ten or
fifteen minutes when both he and Mrs. Newkirk emerged into the garden.

"I'll be back this afternoon," Dr. Pemberton called, as he hurried back
to his office. "Meantime please carry out my instructions as well as
you can." It was not till then that Mrs. Newkirk turned to the waiting
three, her brows knitted in a perplexed frown.

"It's very difficult and very sad," she informed them. "I really don't
know just how to act or what to do--or what Miss Jenifer would want
done. The doctor says she has had a stroke. It must have come on last
night while she was still up and around, and overtook her right there
where she had fallen. She has regained consciousness as far as it is
possible now, but the poor old dear seems to be not only helpless to
move, but has lost her power of speech as well. Whether she has any
consciousness of what is happening, it's hard to tell. She doesn't show
much at present--pays no attention when you talk or ask her questions.
The thing may pass off partially in time--or it may never. Even doctors
can't predict anything about that. But meantime there arises the
question of what's to be done with her.

"This is a case where she'll be confined to bed, as helpless as a baby,
and will need, not necessarily expert nursing, but at least careful and
constant care. She hasn't a relative in the world to undertake this,
and there isn't a hospital anywhere short of Annapolis. I'd take her
into our house gladly, but we're terribly crowded already. There isn't
an inch more room, especially with Wade at home. Really, I can't think
what to do!"

"What's the matter with her staying right here in her own house?"
suddenly demanded Wade. "Couldn't we find someone to take care of her?
What about old Prissy?" Mrs. Newkirk almost hugged him in her obvious
relief.

"I never even considered it," she exclaimed. "I don't know why, except
that it's such a queer old place and she's been so odd about it of late
years. It would undoubtedly be the best place for her, especially if
she realizes more than we think. She'd be horribly homesick anywhere
else. The old house would be a terribly difficult place for anyone but
Prissy, without any modern conveniences, but Prissy has always been
used to it. If she'll consent to take charge, we could get a young,
husky colored girl to come in and help with the heavy lifting and that
sort of thing. Or perhaps Mandy would be willing to help. My, but
that's a weight off my mind! I just couldn't bear to think of poor Miss
Jenifer left to the mercy of strangers.

"And now, Wade, will you jump in your car and go right over to Prissy
and explain all this to her? Bring her back with you at once, if you
possibly can. And while you're gone, we'll try to get Miss Jenifer up
to her bed. Mandy can come over and help. I suppose it would be a lot
easier if we could fix her up on the lower floor in one of the rooms,
but it might be disturbing to her not to be upstairs where she usually
sleeps. She's very light in weight--nothing but a little wisp of a
thing--so we'll have to try to get her upstairs to her regular bed.
Here comes Mandy now with some hot water. Girls, you'll _have_ to turn
in and help. This is a real emergency. Audrey, you find your way
upstairs into that big back room where Miss Jenifer sleeps, and see if
the bed is ready to put her in. If not, do your best to fix it up
somehow. Hurry, dear! And when you get back, we'll each take a corner
of the blanket and I believe we can carry her upstairs that way without
much trouble. She's so very light."

And so, under the most unexpected circumstances, Audrey found herself
discovering her way alone up the stairs and into the secret fastnesses
of Kenwick!




CHAPTER VII

WITHIN THE FORBIDDEN PORTAL


There were a number of circumstances and incidents of that astonishing
day which flowed in and stamped themselves on Audrey's memory, but
which she did not consciously recall until she was talking it all over
late that night with Camilla. They were supposed to be fast asleep and
it was long after midnight. But in reality they were huddled in
Audrey's bed, discussing every phase of the unforeseen upheaval and
what it might portend for the future.

"I'll never forget how I felt when I started up that staircase,"
declared Audrey, "if I live to be a hundred! Imagine it!--there I was,
making straight for Miss Jenifer's inmost sanctum, and she, poor soul,
perfectly helpless and unconscious of it all. If it hadn't been for
your mother ordering me, I never would have dared to do it. It seemed
rather awful, somehow."

"Well, anyway, what did you _see_?" demanded Camilla impatiently. "It's
true, I got there too, later, when we carried her up, but I was so
scared for fear I'd lose my hold on that end of the blanket and let her
drop that, actually, I didn't have a chance to notice a thing. And
right afterward, Mother sent me flying home for towels and things, and
she took them from me at the door when I brought them, and told me to
go home and get lunch, because Mandy would be busy there. So I never
got in again. But _you_ must have got an eyeful!"

"It's queer," admitted Audrey, "but at the time I didn't seem to take
in anything much except what your mother sent me to find out. But now a
whole lot of it comes back to me. I found that stair hallway all right
and went up the stairs. They're very beautiful, by the way, and wind up
to the next floor in such a graceful fashion. When I got to the top,
there was another hall just like the lower one with three doors opening
from it. I didn't know which one to try, till I remembered what Prissy
had said about the old ballroom being right over the dining room. I
must have rambled round till I found the one that opened into that
great back room, and then I knew I'd struck the right place--couldn't
be any mistaking it. There was a big four-poster bed with a canopy over
it crowded over in one corner of it. And big as it was, it looked lost
in that enormous room.

"Imagine sleeping in a ballroom! Must feel something like sleeping in
the middle of the Grand Central Station--or Madison Square Garden!
Well, you know what it was like--you helped get her in there."

"I only remember that it seemed awfully cluttered," supplemented
Camilla. "Boxes and bundles and old papers and goodness knows what in
every corner. The only thing I did look for was anything like a musical
instrument to explain that queer music. But I didn't see a thing."

"Neither did I," added Audrey. "Neither then nor the second time I went
up. Well, your mother had asked me to see if Miss Jenifer's bed was
ready to put her right in, so I walked over to it and found it made up.
But oh, the poor, pathetic sheets and pillow-slips!--old and worn so
ragged that there was no further use to try mending them, evidently. No
doubt the poor thing hasn't had any money to spare for such things for
ages. I turned down the covers and then I ran back downstairs, and we
got her up. Your mother said not to mind about the bed linen--she'd
send over some spare things later. Then Prissy came, and she and Mandy
turned us out while they bathed Miss Jenifer and got her more
comfortable. It was then that we came back to lunch. And you know none
of us went back again except your mother. She said it wasn't necessary
and we were too busy, anyway, running errands all afternoon. I'm so
glad Prissy is going to stay with her. She seemed delighted to, didn't
she? But she's so old I can't see how she's going to get on with all
that hard work--nursing Miss Jenifer and doing the housekeeping. Your
mother says she's abnormally strong, though, for anyone so old and
bent, and she refused to have any younger woman from the village to
help her out. She declared Miss Jenifer wouldn't like it, and said
she'd be all right if Mandy would go over once a day and help her do
the lifting."

"But, look here, Audrey," suddenly interrupted Camilla, "there are two
things I'm simply dying to know. A whole lot of things, in fact. To
begin with, do you think Miss Jenifer is going to get over this or die
quite soon--or what?"

"How can _I_ tell?" countered Audrey. "I only know what the doctor said
when he saw her again this afternoon. He thinks she may be conscious
now, though she can't speak or move, and may realize what's going on
around her. He says the thing may pass off in time, at least partially,
and she may even be able to move her hands and feet and be able to
communicate with us in some way, even if she can't speak. He says he
wished he knew what caused it--whether it came on in just the natural
course of things or whether she had some kind of a shock. If it were
natural, he hadn't much hopes of her ever coming out of it. But if it
came from a shock, she might 'snap out of it,' as he said, in time. We
told him what a pleasant evening she'd had with us, and how happy she'd
been, and that there didn't seem any reason why she should have been
shocked by anything. But he said you never could tell----"

"See here, Audrey," suddenly interrupted Camilla, "I've just thought of
something. Why was she lying there at the head of those _cellar
steps_--of all places!--and at that time of night? You know she
couldn't have gone to bed--she was fully dressed just as she was when
we left her. And that garden door was unlocked--you said so, because
you got in that way. Suppose someone got in and tried to rob her--that
would certainly be a shock! Where are her jewels? Did she still have
them on?"

"Can't be that," declared Audrey, "because they were all there. I
remember seeing them when I first got in, and your mother took them off
and put them carefully away. No, it wasn't that. But just the same, now
that I think of it, there might have been some other kind of shock. As
you say, why _should_ she be lying at the head of the cellar steps at
that time of night? You'd have thought she'd be going straight to bed.
Perhaps she saw something that frightened her. It must be horrible,
living in a place like that all alone!"

"Well, we don't seem to be getting anywhere on that track," said
Camilla. "But here's another question that's been bothering me. What's
going to happen now about _your_ affairs? Now that you can come and go
in that place as you please, won't you have a fine chance to go on with
your work and get all your measurements and inside details? You'll
never have a better. If she recovers, she'll surely shut you out again!"

"I've been thinking of that, too," admitted Audrey, "and I can't make
up my mind what to do. Somehow it doesn't seem to me fair to take
advantage of the poor old thing's illness and helplessness to go poking
around her house where she never intended me to go. If I'd only had a
chance to speak to her about it first, I wouldn't mind so much.
Queer!--I was going to do it this very day--ask her to let me do at
least the two lower front rooms. If she doesn't ever recover, I suppose
it's silly not to take the opportunity. But if she does, and then
should find that I'd gone on with it without her permission, I'd
somehow feel awfully ashamed of it. It certainly is a puzzle. I'll have
to talk it over with your mother."

Camilla yawned and stretched and made ready to depart to her own
quarters. Suddenly, however, she halted, at the edge of the bed, and
whispered tensely in Audrey's ear:

"Oh, I just thought of another thing--what became of those _brass
keys_? Were they anywhere around her or had she laid them down
somewhere, I wonder? Have you thought of that? Did you see them?"

"No, I didn't," admitted Audrey. "And that's rather strange, too. For I
believe whatever happened to her must have been soon after we left her.
Otherwise, don't you think she'd have gone right upstairs and to bed? I
saw those keys in her hand the last thing when we left her. And I'm
certain there wasn't a sign of them about when I found her there this
morning. And I can't remember seeing them lying around in the house or
her bedroom to-day either. _Where_ can they be?"

"Of course, if one is the key to the front hall door, it would be there
in the lock. And it must have been, as we came in and out of there
to-day. But what about the other one?" offered Camilla.

"I'm going to examine that front hall key to-morrow," declared Audrey.
"Of course it was in the lock to-day. I remember now seeing it as I
went out the last time. And I remember something else. That key had an
old red string or narrow ribbon in the big round part. And I'm
perfectly certain neither of the keys she carried had that!"


In the course of the next few days a certain routine was developed at
Kenwick, and the two girls had a chance to put some of their theories
to the test. Mrs. Newkirk made it her business to be there every
morning when the doctor came and take note of any changes in treatment
or new form of food to be given the patient. She had also arranged that
Mandy should bring over the meals every day for both Miss Jenifer and
Prissy, so that Prissy need not waste her energies in kitchen work. And
she had decided that, for an hour or two every afternoon, she herself
should take a turn in watching by Miss Jenifer's bed and giving Prissy
a free time to rest or go out.

There had been little change in Miss Jenifer since the second day. She
could roll her head from side to side, and her eyes also would move
occasionally as if staring about the room. But their gaze was vacant
and it was plain that she recognized little if anything of her
surroundings or anyone about her. Prissy was proving a devoted and
skillful nurse and was obviously delighted to have this opportunity to
be useful to her former mistress. She developed, however, an unexpected
peculiarity. Mrs. Newkirk had suggested that she had better take one of
the rooms in the old kitchen wing to use as her own when she was off
duty or wished to get some uninterrupted sleep. There also she could
store her own clothes and belongings that she would need during her
stay. But Prissy would have none of this. Go down into that kitchen
wing she would not for any reason or consideration, from the time of
Miss Jenifer's sudden stroke. Nor would she even enter the connecting
link by way of the garden door as she had always been wont. Instead she
came in and out of either the front or rear entrance of the main house.
And she slept on a little army cot supplied by Mrs. Newkirk, in a far
corner of the great ballroom, so that she could be constantly near her
charge. When she took her time off, she either sat in the garden or
visited Mandy in the Newkirk kitchen or walked to and from her little
hovel at the farther end of the town.

Audrey had also discussed her own problem with Mrs. Newkirk, and had
received that lady's opinion as follows:

"My dear, this calamity that has befallen poor Miss Jenifer is
something that may never be changed except by her death. You have not
an unlimited time to finish this work, and it may be months or years
that she lies there in precisely the same state. As she gave you
permission to do the house in the first place, even though she did not
then know that it involved the interior as well, I think you can take
it for granted that it will be all right to go ahead and finish your
work. You would never, I am sure, do anything that Miss Jenifer would
not wish, and in any case I'm afraid she is far beyond any such
considerations now. Go ahead with your work while you can. If she were
suddenly to die, I'm not sure you would be allowed legally to have any
further entry into the house. I really do not know to whom she has left
it, if she's made any will at all."

So Audrey returned to her work with a clearer conscience, though she
determined at first to confine herself to the two front rooms where
Miss Jenifer had always admitted company, as that would seem less like
invading the forbidden parts of the house. And she became at once
immersed in the intricate detailed work of measuring the dimensions and
sketching the beautiful designs of paneling and cornices, fireplaces
and chair-rails, which she was soon to discover were entirely different
in every room. It was only a few days after this that a strange thing
happened.

It was the evening of Wade's last day at home. His knee had improved so
definitely that he felt he had no further excuse to remain away from
Annapolis. And besides that he was anxious to get back to his studies
and his interests there. After dinner that night and a pleasant hour of
bridge in the living room, he had strolled out to take a walk and "try
out my game knee," as he expressed it. Mrs. Newkirk went upstairs to
lay out his clean clothes for packing, and the two girls had drifted
out to the garden where they sat chatting desultorily. It was a warm,
rather cloudy night and there was no moon. The darkness seemed intense.
In the direction of old Kenwick, only a single light from a small oil
lamp that Prissy used could be seen faintly through the upper windows.

Suddenly they were startled by hearing footsteps crunching their own
garden path, and in a moment Wade came up to where they sat.

"My hat! How you made me jump!" exclaimed Camilla. "I thought you had
gone for a walk." Wade disregarded her remark, and muttered:

"Be quiet, will you! There's something peculiar going on over at
Kenwick--in the kitchen wing. If you want to be in on this, you two,
follow me over there. But hush up all talking and make as little sound
as possible!"




CHAPTER VIII

IN THE KITCHEN WING


Before they started on this expedition, however, Wade darted into the
house to get an electric torch. "We may need it!" he explained, and the
two girls already felt the cold chills creeping down their spines at
the mere suggestion.

"O-oh!--I'm scared to death!" shuddered Camilla. "But I wouldn't miss
it for anything, would you? I wonder what he's seen?"

But that he would not explain till they had crept, as silently as
possible, through their own garden and across to Miss Jenifer's, in the
wake of Wade. It seemed pitch dark and they stumbled over unseen
obstacles, but he refused to use the electric torch, saying it might
only attract attention, and they'd have to get along without it. At
length they reached the entrance to the main house, but he led them
past that and along to the rear door of the kitchen wing. As far as the
girls could see, all was as usual in this location, but Wade stopped
and whispered:

"That door was shut and locked just before dinner, for I came along and
tried it. I've sort of made it a point to keep a watch on the place
since Miss Jenifer was taken ill. It locks on the _inside_, where the
key has been ever since that day we found her there. And Prissy never
goes near that part of the house. Now it's _unlocked_, and when I came
by a while ago it was standing open just a crack. I closed it. Strange,
isn't it! Who can have done it?"

"Maybe Mother," suggested Camilla. "She was over here this afternoon
sitting with Miss Jenifer while Prissy got a rest."

"I _told_ you I tried it just before dinner," retorted Wade
impatiently, "and that was after Mother left. But there's more than
that. Come around here!"

He led the way around to the garden side of the main wing and muttered
to them to take up a position not far from the steps to the garden
door. "Do you remember," he whispered, "that there are a couple of very
small, low windows in the foundation? They let into the cellar. Well,
you just crouch down here on the grass where we are and watch those
windows. I saw something pretty curious there just before I came over
to you. It may not come again, but we'll watch, anyhow. And, for Pete's
sake, don't make a sound!"

They obeyed him without question and all of them quietly sank to the
grass and so remained, their eyes fastened on the location of the two
little barred windows whose outlines they could just dimly discern in
the blackness of the night. Here was adventure, they knew at last,
strange and unmistakable, and they were all keyed to an intense pitch
of excitement. Yet, for the exigency of the moment, they were as silent
and motionless as so many statues. The girls had even foreborne to ask
Wade what he had seen, though they were consumed with curiosity to know.

How long they sat thus it was impossible to calculate. There was no
sound save the swaying and creaking of tree branches in a light wind,
and the hooting of an owl in a distant patch of woods, intermingling
with the lap of the river at the foot of the garden. Suddenly Audrey,
who was sitting next to Wade, felt his hand shoot out and grasp her arm.

"_Look! There it is, in that window over to the right!_" he hissed.
"Just where I saw it before." There was no need to command their
attention. Every eye was focused on a curious, swaying light--dim and
flickering, but definite--that danced and swam, appearing and
disappearing somewhere back of that tiny, barred window. Spellbound,
they watched, till Camilla could bear the suspense no longer.

"What is it? Who is it?" she whispered to Wade, who only muttered back:

"How should _I_ know! But I'm jolly well going to find out--and right
now, at that! If you're game, follow me. If not, stay out here and
watch what happens. I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

"Oh, wait! We'll go with you. I'd be scared to death to stay here
alone--wouldn't you, Audrey?" Audrey signified that of the two
conditions, she would far rather they'd all be together.

"Come on then," he ordered, "and don't be scared. I'm fairly certain
there isn't any real danger--for us. I stuck my old revolver in my
pocket when I ran in to get the torch. It isn't loaded, but it _looks_
rather deadly! Follow me and _don't_ make a sound if you can help it!"

They fell into line behind him, knees shaking, scalps prickling, hands
cold with the tense excitement, and, Indian file, crept toward the door
into the kitchen wing. This Wade swung open and left in that position.
Once inside, he flashed on his electric torch, as they could not
possibly find their way about in the pitch blackness of the unfamiliar
region without it. There was nothing out-of-the-way, apparently, in the
connecting link itself between the main house and kitchen. Wade ran up
the flight of steps leading to the main house and tried the door into
it. But that door was locked, and they all knew, without saying, that
Prissy herself had locked it on the inner side to protect herself from
the real or imagined terrors of the kitchen wing and cellar. Wade then
descended, ran over to the opposite side of the hall, and tried the
doors into the kitchen and serving pantry behind it. Standing in the
doorway of the kitchen, the girls crowded close behind him and staring
over his shoulder, he flashed his torch about, and they had their first
glimpse of the rare old Colonial kitchen. It was cluttered with the
débris and accumulation of years--old boxes, broken furniture, and
every sort of cast-off refuse--but they could still see the enormous
open fireplace, the hanging cranes and pothooks, and the great Dutch
oven at the side. But there was no sign of an unwelcome intruder or
anything disturbed, so Wade wasted no further time over it and hurried
to the other room back of it which appeared to have once been a serving
pantry. Here was a further clutter of cast-off débris and decrepit
furniture and a stairway to the floor above curving up in one corner.
But there seemed to be nothing amiss.

"Look here," Wade whispered. "I'm going to run upstairs and take a look
at those two rooms above. It won't take me a minute, and I'm
practically certain there's nothing wrong up there, only I want to make
sure we're not skipping anything in this direction. You two stand right
here at the foot of the stairs, and if you see anything out-of-the-way
while I'm gone, just yell. Otherwise keep absolutely quiet. I won't be
a moment."

He left them no time to argue about the thing, but slipped up the
stairway, and when he reached the top and turned about to look through
the rooms his light was cut off from them and they were left in
impenetrable darkness. It was not till this moment that real fear
overtook them. But in that weird and uneasy darkness anything seemed
possible.

"Oh, Audrey! I don't like it!" whimpered Camilla. "I--I could just
_scream_, I'm so frightened to death."

"Don't you dare!" breathed Audrey. "It would spoil everything, Cam.
Wade would _never_ forgive you!" This last argument served to brace up
Camilla, who adored her brother and felt nothing could be worse than
his disapproval. But they were spared further terrors, for the light
reappeared and Wade came tiptoeing down, reporting that he had seen
nothing unusual abovestairs.

"Now for the _big_ time!" he warned them under his breath. "If you want
to go with me, say so. If not, you'd better get out and go home right
now, for I'm going down whether or no. _That's_ where the queer things
are going on. Hurry up and decide, for I'm not going to wait."

For a moment the two girls were terribly tempted to forego any further
adventuring and get back to the safe haven of the Newkirk house. Then
sheer pride came to Audrey's rescue, augmented by a feeling that it
might be disloyal all around to show the white feather. "I'm going with
you, Wade," was all she said. But Camilla was not to be outdone. If
Audrey dared it, she must also. So she only added, "Me too!" And then
Wade turned to descend the broad flight of steps into the hall and made
a bee-line for the narrow flight down into the cellar, over at the
corner toward the garden door. And when he reached the top step he shut
off his own torch, as there seemed to be a faint glimmer of some other
light in the dark regions below.

"Look out where you step," he whispered. "Feel your way along. I'll
turn this light on again if it gets too dark to see where we're going."
They stumbled on down in the blackness, realizing only that there was
the glow of some kind of a light from somewhere behind a distant corner
of the masonry. Suddenly, however, even as they were creeping in its
direction, it died away and they were left in complete darkness.

It was then that Wade switched on the torch, and they had a glimpse of
the place in which they stood. Even in their excitement they could not
help but marvel at the enormous solidity of the masonry and brickwork
that supported the old house. Wade told them later that it was
substantial enough to support a seventeen-story building. It also
appeared that the cellar conformed, to a certain extent, to the
formation of the rooms above, and that they were now staring through
the doorway into the space under the stair hallway in the main house,
for it was in that direction the light had disappeared. Wade gave them
little time to look about, but indicated that they were to follow him.
And so, tiptoeing along the brick flooring, they trailed in his wake,
as he turned out of this enclosure and peered into a great, vaulted
space with an arched ceiling of brick, lined on each side with shelves
containing dusty, cobwebby bottles and odd-looking casks both large and
small.

"The old wine cellar!" whispered Wade. "Must have had a great
collection there once. Most of those things are empty now, I fancy. But
come along! This isn't where our quarry is hiding--that's plain!"

The wine cellar had no opening at the far end, so they did not go
through it, but turned from the entrance and ventured toward their
right in the direction of a doorway opening into another enclosure. And
suddenly from around a far corner of that room came the swaying glow of
the uncanny light that had first attracted them. Wade immediately
snapped off his torch and made in that direction. But alas for all his
precautions! Before reaching that far corner he himself stumbled
ignominiously over some unseen obstacle on the floor--it sounded like
something of metal--made a tremendous clatter, and the swaying light
was instantly extinguished.

"_Darn!_" muttered Wade, switching on his own light and surveying the
offending old iron kettle. "If that wasn't the limit!" And each of the
girls secretly blest her stars that _she_ hadn't happened to be the
offender. "Now the fat's in the fire for sure, and there's nothing to
do but hustle after that intruder, whoever it is, as fast as we can.
Never mind precautions--they're useless now!"

He scuttled around the corner, the girls after him like a comet's tail.
And Audrey could only recall, later, what seemed like an endless
scurrying through musty vaults and passageways, wide dark rooms whose
ceilings were mainly enormous beams and cross-beams, around huge
masonry pillars of brick and stone, till finally they were brought up,
at the farther end of the mansion, evidently, by a solid brick wall
beyond which there could be no penetrating. And not till then did they
realize that their quarry had escaped them.

"But how? Where?" cried Camilla, voicing the unspoken question in all
their minds. "How _could_ anyone have got away? Not behind us, that's
certain. And there's not another doorway to outside. What has happened?"

No one answered her question, for none was any wiser than herself. Wade
swung his torch about in a helpless investigation, but Audrey suddenly
made a pounce at something standing on the floor in a far corner.

"Look at this!" she cried excitedly, and brought an old brass lantern
over to the group and placed it in Wade's hands. "And _feel it_ too!"
she added.

The lantern was still warm to the touch.




CHAPTER IX

A COUNCIL OF WAR


"There's no use talking," said Wade, "_something's_ got to be done
about this!"

They were sitting on a bench in the Newkirk garden that same eventful
night, hashing and rehashing the late affair in the kitchen wing at
Kenwick.

"But what?" demanded Camilla, anxious, as always, for immediate action.

"That's just what I can't figure out," returned Wade, sitting with his
head in his hands, in deep thought. After the discovery of the lantern,
they had made one more frantic search through every possible corner of
the great cellar, to absolutely no avail. Camilla had suggested that
perhaps it had been Prissy who was exploring through the place, and
that she had fled upstairs in some moment when they had not been
watching in that direction, leaving the lantern behind her.

For a moment the theory seemed likely, till Audrey reminded them of
Prissy's unmitigated fear of the place, which, if genuine, would
certainly keep her from any such night excursion. Then Wade declared
that to prove it he was going to see exactly what Prissy was doing at
that time. There was a tall old sweet-gum tree in the Kenwick garden,
growing close enough to the house to afford a glimpse in at the upper
windows. "I don't believe in such spying as a rule," he had muttered,
"but this thing has gone beyond such considerations." And in an instant
he had shinnied up the smooth lower trunk and was clambering further
among the branches.

He had clambered down a few minutes later to report that all seemed
perfectly normal in the ballroom. Miss Jenifer lay in the big
four-poster, motionless and evidently sleeping, and Prissy was
stretched on her own couch in a far corner, from which it seemed
entirely unlikely that she had moved for a very long time. Then they
had retired to their own garden to hold a council of war.

"For Mother's sake and all of you, as well as Miss Jenifer, this thing
can't be allowed to go on without investigation," declared Wade,
thinking it out as he went along. "It isn't safe. You can't tell what
kind of an undesirable character may have found access to the place and
be planning a robbery or something. I'm convinced now that this must
have been the same thing that alarmed Miss Jenifer that night she had
the stroke."

"Yes, probably it was," agreed Audrey eagerly, "but you remember, don't
you, that none of her jewels was stolen--so it couldn't be _that_. And
they surely had plenty of chance."

"That's true, too," acknowledged Wade. "I hadn't thought of it. Perhaps
it isn't loot they're after, then--it may be something else. At any
rate, I don't like to think of you people being in and out of this
house and subject to any more such intrusions. And yet, I can't somehow
make up my mind to report it to the town authorities and have a lot of
public excitement about the thing. The place would be overrun with
curiosity seekers and goodness knows what might result from that--a lot
of unpleasantness at the very least. Just let me think a moment." He
buried his head in his hands and concentrated with intensity for
several silent moments. Presently he raised his head and spoke:

"There's only one thing to do that I can figure. I was going back to
Annapolis to-morrow, though I'm going to confess to you--and you
needn't let on to Mother you knew it!--that my knee is still far from
being what it ought to be. I discovered that to-night when I took that
little walk and just now when I shinnied up the tree. The doctor warned
me that if I didn't look out, I'd be having water on the knee, and
that's pretty darned serious. I was going back to-morrow anyway because
there are some rather important math. exams. coming up that I wouldn't
want to miss. And I was going to lie low as far as athletics were
concerned and just do some cramming. But I believe that I can change
that plan without much difficulty.

"I'll go back to-morrow as per schedule and have Doc examine the knee.
And I'm absolutely certain he'll advise more rest for it. Then I'll get
permission to come back here again, collect my notes and math. data,
and you'll see me the next day. I may miss out on the exams., but I
know I can take them later. And I'm going to see this thing through if
it's the last thing I do.

"Of course this'll mean I'll have to be away over to-morrow night, but
we'll have to take a chance on that. And whatever you do, don't let
Mother know anything about this affair to-night. She insists on being
there with Miss Jenifer every afternoon and it would make her as
nervous as sin if she got to worrying over anything like that. Just
stick around with her as much as you can, both of you, and I'm pretty
sure everything will be all right. I'm going to leave my old revolver
loaded in my bureau drawer, so you'll know where to get it in case of
need, but if it comes to any such pass, you'd better run to the village
for help rather than use it. As far as the night goes, we'll just have
to leave that to chance. Prissy keeps the main house pretty thoroughly
locked up, anyhow, so no one is likely to get into that. What's got me
licked, though, is how the person we were chasing to-night got out of
that cellar. I'd be ready to swear he didn't get out the ordinary
way--he _couldn't_ have, for we had that covered just about all of the
time! Well, I'll have to investigate that matter later. Meanwhile, it's
beginning to rain and we'd better go in. I'm practically sure there
will be no more intrusions on Kenwick to-night. We've given that party
too much of a scare. Remember, mum's the word about this as far as
Mother is concerned. And you'd better manage a proper surprise to see
me back day after to-morrow!"


There was little sleep for any of the three that night, and each one
kept an uneasy watch on Kenwick at intervals all through the dark
hours, as they confessed to one another next morning. The day dawned
with black skies and a drenching, northeast storm, which did not raise
their depressed spirits. Wade departed in the rattly little Ford soon
after breakfast, and the two girls tried to bid him good-bye naturally
and as if they did not expect to see him back again next day. And after
that the household went about its various affairs.

Camilla and Audrey, in raincoats and galoshes, scurried over through
the wet garden to Kenwick. Before they went indoors they examined the
wet, clayey soil of the paths and about the cellar windows for any
footprints that might have come there since it had begun to rain, but
there were none. They saw Prissy through the window of the drawing room
that had been transformed into a kitchen, busy heating water and
puttering about, and they called to her and exchanged the greetings of
the day. Then they went into the office wing and lit a fire with some
stray pieces of wood in the open fireplace, to take off the chill of
the dampness.

"Does it strike you as strange," demanded Camilla, sitting perched on
the corner of Audrey's worktable, "that two things have disappeared
since Miss Jenifer was taken ill?"

"Just what two do you mean?" asked Audrey, busy collecting her
materials for the day's work. "So much has been different since then."

"I mean this. We've never once heard that queer music since, for one
thing----"

"That's not so very strange," interrupted Audrey. "You didn't hear that
so very often, anyway, and Miss Jenifer's only been ill a week."

"That's so. But here's the other. We've never once got a sight of those
two brass keys since that night she had dinner with us. Now I know what
you're going to say--that she probably put them away safely somewhere.
But if that were the case, Mother or Prissy would very likely have come
across them in the bureau drawers. I asked Mother myself about that
only yesterday. She says she's had to go through Miss Jenifer's bureaus
and closets fairly thoroughly, much as she hated to, so that she could
find the old lady's clothes and so on. And Prissy has, too. But neither
of them has ever got a glimpse of anything like those keys. Do you know
what I think? I believe whoever gave her the shock that night took them
from her. And you'll never make me think any different!"

"Well, you may be right," agreed Audrey, "and that may be what they're
trying to do--get in the house or open something with them. But, on the
other hand, Miss Jenifer may have put them away in some secret hiding
place of her own, before the thing happened, and they may be there yet.
_One_ thing we've found out for certain, though. Neither of those keys
could have been to the front door. That key is still in it, and no
other outer door key is missing, so far as we know. By the way, what
became of that key to the rear kitchen entrance? Wade locked it on the
outside last night and took the key out because he couldn't leave it on
the inside, naturally, and didn't want to leave that door unlocked. Did
he take it with him?"

"No, I have it here in my sweater pocket," acknowledged Camilla. "He
gave it to me this morning upstairs, just before he left. He thought we
should have it with us here in case of necessity. But he advised us not
to go in there before he came back. He didn't like the idea of our
prowling around there all by ourselves."

"Well, he can't like it less than _I_ do," laughed Audrey. "Day or
night, that place is a very nice one to avoid, as far as I'm concerned!
Now I'm going around and ask Prissy to let me in so that I can go on
with the sketches in the two front reception rooms. Coming along?"

Prissy let them in through the front entrance of the main house and
chatted awhile before going upstairs to her charge. One thing she spoke
of caused the two girls to glance at one another in not a little
surprise. For she "'lowed" that it had been a "quare night"--that she
had not slept well but had waked at constant intervals thinking she
heard "quare noises," and that Miss Jenifer too had been restless and
seemed unable to sleep as soundly as she usually did. Prissy had no
explanation of the matter. "Must 'a' been de rain," she ended. "Hit
done come down lak de deluge ob Noah 'long 'bout midnight. Ah done shut
all de winders an' hit done banged on the panes lak hit gwine bust
right in!"

When she had gone upstairs, the two girls speculated on whether she
could possibly have heard any of the sounds they had made in the cellar
or possibly had heard something uncanny later on. But as there seemed
no answer to this, Audrey turned to her work and Camilla settled down
to a book. But presently she threw the book aside and began to roam
uneasily about the room and out into the hall, where she seemed to
disappear and was gone a long time. Audrey decided that she must have
gone out and home in sheer boredom. But as her own work of sketching
the design of the beautiful paneled window shutters had begun to absorb
her she forgot Camilla for a while.

It was with some astonishment, therefore, that she beheld Camilla come
tiptoeing back into the room after a considerable period. She was
enveloped in an air of mystery which she wasn't even trying to conceal,
and she whispered excitedly to Audrey:

"I've done something I don't suppose you'll approve of at all, but
frankly I can't see where there's any harm in it now. In fact, after
what happened last night, I think it's absolutely necessary." And she
stared at Audrey defiantly.

"Well, for goodness' sake tell me what it is!" laughed Audrey. "I
certainly won't eat you for it, and probably it's no affair of mine,
anyway."

"All right. I take all the responsibility myself, but here it is. I
just couldn't sit still somehow, so I decided to roam around this lower
floor a bit and at least peek into those back rooms and around the
halls. And I've found something that looks mighty queer, believe it or
not! If you want to see what I mean, you'd better tag along after me!"




CHAPTER X

ONE DAY AT KENWICK


Audrey needed no second invitation. She straightway abandoned her
drawing and accompanied Camilla out into the hall between the two front
rooms. This hall she was planning to get to work on directly after she
had finished with the front rooms, so she was not sorry to have an
opportunity to examine it more thoroughly. The decorations in it were
somewhat simpler than in the rest of the house, apparently, but the
double front door with the half-circle fanlight was fascinating. There
were five other doors opening out from this hallway--two into the front
rooms, one directly at the back into the great dining room, one at the
right-hand rear into the stair hallway, and another directly across
from it into some other part of the house or possibly downstairs to the
wine cellar, which she had calculated must be directly underneath. Or
it might be a hall closet, though this seemed unlikely, as in a house
of that type and period they did not seem to be used. Singularly
enough, it was to this very door that Camilla led her.

"I know you'll think I'm awful," confessed Cam, "but I had the greatest
curiosity to see where this door led. We know about all the others, but
this one seemed to be a closet or something, and I just couldn't keep
myself from trying it, to see if it would help us any with all this
puzzle. So I did--and this is what I saw!"

She threw open the door dramatically, and Audrey, forgetting all her
scruples, stared inside. And there was nothing to be seen save a solid
wall of brick, scarcely an inch from the sill of the door. Nor was
there the slightest sign of any way of penetrating it, nor any other
opening!

"Well, what do you make of _that_?" demanded Camilla triumphantly. And
Audrey had to confess she didn't know quite what to make of it.

"But that isn't all!" went on Camilla. "Follow me and you'll get
another eyeful!" Audrey followed her meekly and she led the way through
the rear door into the great, semi-darkened dining room. This room also
had three doors, one at the extreme right near the windows, which led
into what was once another drawing room and was now altered into a
kitchen. But in the middle of the wall, opposite the windows, was a
fireplace, and on one side of this fireplace was the door through which
they had just entered from the hall. On the other side, however, was
another door, and to this Camilla led the way, throwing it open as she
had the one in the hall. A similar wall of brick directly back of the
door faced them--and nothing more.

"Now can you tell me," demanded Camilla, "what is the sense in having
two such doors as that--opening into nothing at all? I call it
downright silly!"

"Wait a minute," exclaimed Audrey. "I believe I have it!" She was
staring closely from across the room at the two doors that flanked the
fireplace, and then went out to stare at the arrangement of the hall.
"I think this is the reason," she explained. "The architect who planned
this house was probably keen on keeping the interior proportions just
right. Now, you see, if he made an entrance door to this room on one
side of the chimney-place and not on the other, it would have given
that part of the room a rather lopsided look. If there'd been room,
he'd probably have made a closet there, and so supplied the other door
to balance the entrance one. But as there wasn't, he just put a door
anyway, even if it didn't serve any other purpose. And the same way in
the hall. The door on one side matched the one directly opposite. I
remember, now, having heard of that device they used to employ to keep
the proportion in well-designed old houses. And now that I think of it,
the same device must be used upstairs in the ballroom right over here,
for I remember the two doors, one each side of the beautiful great
fireplace. We came in from the hall through one, so the other must be
the same as this. I wish we could examine it, but I'm afraid that's
hopeless at present, with Miss Jenifer ill there. Sorry to disappoint
you, old dear, about this mystery. But I'm afraid we'll have to
consider it solved!"

She grinned and went back to her work, and Camilla, somewhat
crestfallen, curled up in a corner once more with her book. And at noon
they paddled back through the rain to the Newkirk house for lunch.

Somehow the day seemed destined to be an eventful one, for when they
reached home a new situation confronted them. Mrs. Newkirk was in her
room, prostrated with one of her periodical headaches, which were
always so severe that there was nothing to do but give up entirely and
go to bed till the pain was routed, so blindly ill did they make her.

"I'm terribly sorry, girls," she whispered, as she lay back among her
pillows, her head bandaged and a bottle of smelling salts at her side,
"but I shall be quite unable to get over to sit with Miss Jenifer this
afternoon. I'd have Prissy stay in for once, but the poor thing wants
particularly to get down to the bank on some business to-day. I think
at certain times she sends money to some grandson or great-grandson
down in Georgia, and it seems to be a solemn rite to get to the bank or
the post office--or wherever she goes--and make out a check or a money
order for him. So I don't want to disappoint her. I'm wondering if one
or both of you would be willing to take my place for to-day? There's
nothing to do but sit and watch Miss Jenifer and see that nothing
unforeseen happens. We never know when she may come to herself--if she
ever does--and it would be too bad to have that happen when no one was
about. Prissy has done everything necessary for her for the day--all
you need do is keep an eye on her. I think she usually sleeps most of
the time."

The girls both signified their entire willingness to relieve Mrs.
Newkirk, and she warned them not to talk together or wander about the
house, but just take books and read or do something very quiet during
the vigil. Audrey declared that she would take her sketching pad and
improve the opportunity by making a sketch of the room, if it could be
done without disturbing the invalid.

"I am convinced that she realizes nothing of what is going on about her
as yet, any more than a very young baby," declared Mrs. Newkirk. "But
we never can tell, absolutely, so don't do anything that would upset
her if she were conscious. I'm sorry this had to happen, for it's a
burden I didn't intend that you should have to bother with."

It was with decidedly mixed feelings that the girls went over to
Kenwick that afternoon. They confessed to each other that they were
rather nervous about being alone with Miss Jenifer under these
conditions, for it all seemed very weird and uncanny to their
inexperience with such ailments. But the prospect of having a chance at
last to see something more of that strangely used ballroom somewhat
balanced this. And then there was the third consideration of the eerie
doings of the night before and the possibility that some unwelcome
intruder might be roaming through the cellars or interior of the old
house. They had debated long over the question of whether they should
smuggle Wade's revolver over with them, but finally decided against it.
Camilla did not know how to use it. Audrey did, but declared that since
carrying loaded weapons was against the law, she was not going to take
the risk of having it about her. If anything unforeseen occurred, they
would just have to trust to their wits to cope with it.

Prissy was at first loath to leave them alone with her patient and
declared she would put off her errand till another day and remain on
duty herself. But when the girls had represented to her that it was
Mrs. Newkirk's wish that they take her place, she reluctantly
reconsidered and went. And then at last they found themselves alone in
the great ballroom with the unconscious old lady in their care.

For a time they sat speechless on chairs distant from the bed, and
watched Miss Jenifer furtively and uneasily. That motionless form on
the bed bore little resemblance to the Miss Jenifer they had known.
Perhaps it was because the formerly straggling grey locks were now
smoothed tightly and drawn into a braid by Prissy. Perhaps it was the
slightly drawn features and the utterly vacant expression of the face.
Perhaps it was the eyes, once so alert and intelligent, now rolling
aimlessly about and vacant as a baby's stare. But to the girls it was
as if an entire stranger lay there. In some ways it made the vigil
easier. Audrey felt that it would have been heart-rending to see a more
normal-looking Miss Jenifer in this condition.

After a time, the staring eyes closed in a nap, and both girls drew a
breath of relief and felt at liberty to look about them. The room had
been considerably tidied up by Prissy and Mrs. Newkirk since Camilla
and Audrey had last seen it. The clutter of papers and bundles and
boxes that had been lying about in corners had all been removed to some
other quarters, and the fine old ballroom made more livable and
sanitary. This had also restored it to some of its former lovely
simplicity and beauty of line and decoration, and brought out the rare
old furniture in fuller relief. Audrey looked about her and drew in a
sigh of sheer joy in the loveliness of the grand old room. Then she got
out her sketching pad and began to try getting some of its proportions
and decorations on paper. Camilla, released from the spell of Miss
Jenifer's uncomprehending gaze, also began staring about the room and
presently got up and began tiptoeing about, peering out of the windows
and examining the furniture. One piece which seemed to attract her
particularly was an odd mahogany table, oblong in shape, with a central
leg branching out at the bottom into four separate feet. Under the top
of the table were two long drawers with brass knobs. The grain of the
wood was very beautiful.

"What's this?" she pantomimed to Audrey, who only shook her head. And
when Camilla came nearer she whispered: "A Duncan Phyfe piece, I think.
Just a sort of side table they used to have. It's lovely, though."

Camilla murmured, "I'd like to look in the drawers, but I suppose we
shouldn't," to which Audrey emphatically shook her head. A massive
bureau, curiously tapering to smaller dimensions at the base, also
attracted her, but not daring to explore it, she roamed off to inspect
the two doors that were similar to those of the dining room below.

"I want to see whether that door opens on a brick wall too, like the
one downstairs," she whispered to Audrey, indicating the door to the
right of the fireplace. "Miss Jenifer is asleep. It can't do any harm
to try." And before Audrey could frame a remonstrance, she had darted
across the room and was turning the handle. But to the astonishment of
them both, _this_ door would not open!

Camilla tiptoed back, wide-eyed with suppressed excitement. "What do
you make of _that_? It won't budge!" she muttered. But Audrey only
signaled, "_Hush!_" and pointed over toward the bed. And Camilla,
glancing hastily in that direction, perceived that Miss Jenifer's eyes
were wide-open again, rolling about in the same vague fashion. And
after that Camilla guiltily subsided into her chair once more.

Though Mrs. Newkirk had assured them that Miss Jenifer usually slept
most of the afternoon, she did not close her eyes again on this
particular one. Moreover, she exhibited signs of restlessness and
discomfort that were exceedingly disconcerting to the two watchers. Her
inert body did not stir, it was true, but her head kept rolling from
side to side, and her eyes were never still. There seemed nothing they
could do to add to her comfort, for they had been warned not to try to
administer food, drink, or medicine, nor attempt to move her, but to
wait for Prissy's return.

It seemed an eternal interval till they heard Prissy's knock at the
front hall door, and they ran down to admit her, with unalloyed relief.
And after that vigil, they felt that they could no longer remain in the
house, but went out to sit in the old garden.

"Wasn't it queer about that door?" began Camilla, who had been
breathlessly waiting to discuss the matter. "I couldn't make it budge.
It certainly must have been locked. But why _should_ it be locked when
there's nothing behind it but a brick wall?"

"We don't know whether that's so or not," commented Audrey. "It seems
entirely likely, but you never can tell. It _might_ be a closet, but
the way the house is constructed, it doesn't seem possible. Anyhow, I
discovered one thing about it that I don't believe you saw. You haven't
mentioned it."

"What's that?" demanded Cam. "I was sure I'd taken in everything."

"Well, it caught my eye as I sat there sketching it," admitted Audrey.
"The keyhole to that door was at least twice as big as the one on the
opposite side of the chimney--and you can make what you like of _that_!"


Mrs. Newkirk was no better when they got home late that afternoon and
was still confined to her darkened bedroom. The girls finished a rather
lonely meal which had been chiefly spent trying to make Lorry behave
himself in the absence of his mother. And a little later it was
Camilla's task, in her mother's absence, to see that he betook himself
properly to bed. After that, she and Audrey took counsel together as to
what was to be done about the night. After what had occurred at Kenwick
the night before, and in Wade's absence, they felt it incumbent on
themselves to keep some sort of watch on the place. It did not seem
fair to Prissy and her helpless charge to leave them at the mercy of
some unknown midnight intruder. Yet how they were going to do anything
adequate about it unless they were both much closer to Kenwick than
their own house, was a mystery to them.

The weather had cleared and it was a bright, starlight night. Through
the trees they could glimpse the faint light of Prissy's lamp, through
the windows of the ballroom, but all the rest of the old house was in
deep shadow. Whether they could discern, from Audrey's window, the
uncertain light in the cellar windows if it came again that night, they
could not tell. But at any rate, that seemed the only manifestation
they could watch for. So they divided the night into watches of two
hours in length, turn about. And as Audrey declared she did not feel in
the least sleepy, but would like to sit up and read awhile, she
proposed to take the first watch, beginning at ten o'clock.

She read till midnight, every little while snapping out the light and
staring out through the darkness at Kenwick. But nothing unusual
occurred, and at twelve she woke Camilla, who had been sleeping in her
own room. Then, quite wearied out, she lay down on Camilla's bed and
almost instantly fell into deep sleep. She was wakened at some
uncalculated time later, by Camilla shaking her gently but urgently and
whispering:

"Audrey, Audrey! Wake up--quick! There's someone knocking at our front
door--_and I think it's Prissy!_"




CHAPTER XI

THE NEWS THAT PRISSY BROUGHT


Without waking Mrs. Newkirk, they slipped into their bathrobes and
tiptoed downstairs--their minds a turmoil of horrid, unexpressed fears.
Camilla switched on the hall light and Audrey opened the door a crack,
whispering: "Who's there?"

"Hit's me--Prissy! Open de do', honey, fo' Ah's got sumpin' to tell
Mis' Newkirk. Mis' Jenifer done been comin' to herse'f! Quick! Ah's
gotta see Mis' Newkirk 'n' git her to come ober ef she ain't too sick
yit!"

Mrs. Newkirk herself came hurrying down at this point. She had not been
asleep, but had heard the subdued commotion in the hall and had risen
to see what it was all about. She instantly declared that she would
dress and come over with Prissy--that her headache had almost passed
off and she directed the girls to dress and accompany her also, in case
they could be of use. In five minutes they were all hurrying through
the garden and over to Kenwick.

They found Prissy's report entirely true. Something _had_ happened
during the night--some strange, inexplicable change had been wrought in
poor old Miss Jenifer's befogged mind and helpless body. Not wholly,
but to a certain extent, had she been restored to normal thought and
action, and the result was that a frightened and bewildered Miss
Jenifer now lay on the bed, still helpless in a number of ways and
utterly in the dark as to how circumstances had come to be as they were.

They found her crying bitterly and struggling with her arms and hands
to move herself--struggling futilely, because although some power had
been restored to the upper part of her body and she could move her arms
and hands and had been given back her consciousness and thought, the
lower part of her was still bound in the awful grip of inertia and was
as immovable as though fashioned of wood. In addition to that, her
speech, though partially restored to her, was thick and incoherent,
amounting to little more than a mouthing or mumbling that was
inexpressibly painful to listen to, besides being impossible to
understand. They thought it was this that was causing the pitiful
weeping, because of her helpless inability to express herself--or to
understand the entire situation. Mrs. Newkirk at once took command.

"Dear Miss Jenifer," she murmured, kneeling by the bed and taking one
of the groping, struggling hands in her own, "if you'll only lie quiet
a moment, I'll explain what this queer state of affairs is all about.
Can you hear and understand me?" The effect of this was instantaneous.
Miss Jenifer lay still and nodded her head vigorously, mumbling with
incoherent sounds in a painful effort to speak.

"Don't try to talk," went on Mrs. Newkirk gently. "That may be
difficult for you yet awhile. You have been very ill. It was right
after that evening you spent with us that we all enjoyed so much. Do
you remember that evening?" Miss Jenifer appeared to grope about in her
mind for a time at this question, then presently she nodded another
affirmative.

"Well, you must have had a shock or something happen to you that very
night, for Audrey found you next day lying in a faint near the cellar
stairs. Do you remember, Miss Jenifer, what happened to you that night?
Did something frighten you or did you feel faint and just fall?" Miss
Jenifer looked absolutely blank at that question, appeared to ponder it
for a long time, and finally shook her head in a hopeless negative. And
at once the big tears began to roll down her cheeks, perhaps in sheer
despair at her bafflement. Mrs. Newkirk wiped them gently away.

"Don't worry about that now, dear Miss Jenifer. It will all come back
to you after a while. I'll just go on and tell you what happened after
that. Of course we got you right to bed and sent for the doctor. You
were very ill for over a week and lay here without being able to move
or speak and did not know anyone. Prissy came to nurse you and we all
watched over you very anxiously. The doctor said he thought you might
become conscious at any time, and we were all waiting for that. He'll
be here to see you in the morning and I know he'll be delighted.
Gradually you'll get better and be about like yourself. And meantime
you must let us watch over you and help you back to health. Don't worry
about not being able to move much or talk plainly just now. That will
right itself in time. It all came from the shock--whatever that was. Do
you understand all that I say?"

Miss Jenifer nodded again, and then she did a very touching thing; she
raised Mrs. Newkirk's hand to her lips and kissed it, denoting, in that
one expressive action, all the appreciation and gratitude that she must
have felt but was unable to utter.

"Now you must try to go to sleep. It is very important that you get a
great deal of rest. And I will give you some medicine the doctor left
for you." Mrs. Newkirk turned to a side table and mixed a sleeping
potion that the doctor had provided for just such an emergency as this,
and administered it to Miss Jenifer. Then she beckoned to the girls to
follow her, told Prissy she would stay downstairs till the sleeping
powder had taken effect, and the three tiptoed from the room.

They huddled in one of the front rooms and Mrs. Newkirk lit a candle
that she had carried over with her in case of emergency. And there they
discussed in awed whispers the change that had come to Miss Jenifer.

"I thought it best not to send for the doctor to-night," said Mrs.
Newkirk. "It would only have upset her more. She'll be quieter in the
morning and things will have straightened themselves out more in her
mind. It must be horrible to her to realize at last how helpless she
is. I wish she could have come out of it entirely or at least have been
able to speak clearly, but I suppose we ought to be thankful she's even
as much improved as this."

"But how strange that she can't remember anything about that night,"
marveled Camilla. "I can't understand how she can seem as normal in her
mind as she does, and yet not remember a thing as important as that!"

"Some part of her mind must be still shut off, so to speak," explained
Mrs. Newkirk. "I don't pretend to understand it myself. I'm anxious to
have the doctor's opinion. It's a very strange case and I'm sure I
don't know what the future is going to be for her if she has to lie
there all the time like that. It's dreadful to think of. She'll feel it
so keenly. Well, we mustn't worry about that just now."

Presently Prissy crept downstairs to say that Miss Jenifer had at last
sunk into a deep, restful sleep. And Mrs. Newkirk declared that there
would be no further need for them to stay around, as she would probably
sleep soundly for a number of hours. But before they left, Mrs. Newkirk
asked Prissy when she had first noticed the change. The old colored
woman explained that she had had great difficulty in getting Miss
Jenifer settled for the night, for even before the change she seemed
restless and uncomfortable, though she could only show it by constantly
rolling her head about. At last, however, she had appeared to be
asleep, and Prissy lay down in her own bed and dropped off, leaving the
light burning, as usual. Suddenly she was awakened by what she declared
seemed like the sound of a door shutting somewhere--it sounded near
enough to have been in the very room. She sprang up and stared about
the room, but she could see nothing unusual till she glanced toward
Miss Jenifer's bed, and then she saw that a great change had come to
her patient, who was sobbing and struggling about. She had wasted not a
moment after that but had come hobbling over to the Newkirk house for
help. And that was all she knew about it.

When they had reached their own house, Mrs. Newkirk turned out the hall
light and sent them all back to bed. "It's almost five o'clock," she
said, "but you might as well get what sleep you can before breakfast.
It's a queer thing about Miss Jenifer's stroke passing off in this way.
But I'm certain there was nothing to that business about a door
closing. Prissy just imagined that. Probably Miss Jenifer herself woke
her up with her struggling and crying."

The two girls said nothing to this till they got to Audrey's room. Then
Camilla demanded in an awed whisper:

"What do _you_ think?"

"Oh, I don't _know_!" shuddered Audrey.


In spite of all the excitement, however, the two girls slept soundly,
the deep sleep of sheer exhaustion after their night of vigil and its
unexpected sequel. And Mrs. Newkirk had to wake them both at nine
o'clock that morning. It was over their belated breakfast that Audrey
suggested something to Mrs. Newkirk that had been on her mind for some
time.

"I have been thinking," she said, "that it is not fair, Mrs. Newkirk,
that you should have to bear all the brunt of this illness of Miss
Jenifer. I know that you're fond of her as a neighbor and friend, but
it should be her relatives, if she has any, who should have the
responsibility of the expense and so on. You told me she hadn't any, as
far as you knew, but I happened to think that Father is some distant
cousin--I guess it's very distant!--but anyhow probably the only one
left. So I'm going to write him all about this affair and ask him what
ought to be done. I'm sure he won't want you burdened with any expense
about her illness and will want to do something to relieve you of all
the extra trouble--perhaps have a trained nurse come, or something like
that. What do you think of it?"

Mrs. Newkirk thought it over gravely and then said: "I certainly
appreciate this thoughtfulness in you very much, Audrey. Of course it's
no secret that our circumstances have never been too affluent since Mr.
Newkirk's death, and I should feel this additional expense quite a bit,
though I should be only too happy to do it for poor Miss Jenifer, if
necessary. Write your father if you like, but there is one thing that I
think it would not be well to make any change in at present. Miss
Jenifer is used to Prissy and Prissy's being about the house. But she
would greatly resent a stranger, such as a nurse, being admitted to the
house and it might retard her progress quite a bit. Let us leave things
as they are for the present, with only Prissy in care of her, and I
will be very glad to remain in supervision of it all, as I am now.
Perhaps the greatest help would be to have someone in to give Mandy a
lift with the extra meals every day. She's beginning to get a bit
restive with all that extra work, I'll have to confess. That is the
only thing that has bothered me. But don't let your father think it
necessary to have a trained nurse, unless the doctor should advise it.
I'm most anxious to see him this morning. I telephoned him early about
Miss Jenifer's change and he'll be over at ten-thirty. Prissy came in
at seven to say that she was still quietly sleeping."

The day passed very quietly. The doctor saw Miss Jenifer when she
awoke, calmer but still bewildered and unable quite to comprehend what
had happened. Later he had a long consultation with Mrs. Newkirk. It
was his opinion that Miss Jenifer, apart from that memory of what had
happened the night she was taken ill, was entirely conscious and normal
in the working of her brain. She was still dazed and bewildered, as was
natural, but this would right itself in time. And later, that shut-away
memory of the night of her seizure might even return to her. As to
whether she would ever regain the entire use of her body or her normal
speech, he was not so certain. He gave it as his opinion that the
paralysis seemed to have come from some sort of shock rather than the
usual blood clot in the brain that caused such conditions. And in this
case there was the possibility that great improvement might be made. He
prescribed absolute rest and freedom from all excitement and no change
in environment if possible.

One other thing he said caused Mrs. Newkirk not a little surprise and
filled the girls with secret alarm. He declared that in cases like Miss
Jenifer's, a radical change for the better, such as she had had, was
almost invariably caused by some further shock, and he spent much time
in speculating what it could have been in her case, if any. And when
Mrs. Newkirk asked how she could have been shocked when she was
practically as unconscious as a baby of all that went on around her, he
replied:

"You never can tell how unconscious they are. Though normal
consciousness seems lacking, their subconscious minds may be as alert
as ever and taking note of all that goes on around. Do you know of
anything unusual that could have happened that night?" Mrs. Newkirk
repeated what Prissy had said about waking to hear what she thought was
a door closing, but added that it was probably a groundless bit of
imagination. The doctor also thought such a circumstance entirely
unlikely and gave up the speculation. But when Mrs. Newkirk had
repeated what he had said to the girls, they were petrified with
renewed suspicions. However, they did not want to alarm her until at
least they had talked it over with Wade, and they began to count the
hours till his arrival. What if he should not come? What if some
unforeseen combination of events should keep him away another night?
How could they endure another night of uncertainty and dread?

Audrey could not concentrate her mind on her work and gave up trying
for the day, devoting the hours to writing a long letter explaining the
affair to her father. Camilla spent the day in giving Mandy what
assistance she could, while her mother was over at Kenwick trying to
help in getting Miss Jenifer quieted and adjusted to the new state of
affairs. Mrs. Newkirk reported, when she came home in the late
afternoon, that Miss Jenifer seemed much quieter and more resigned.
They had resorted to a new mode of communication, since speech on Miss
Jenifer's part was so difficult and so impossible to understand. Mrs.
Newkirk would talk as usual, but she had provided Miss Jenifer with a
pencil and pad of paper, and slowly--for her fingers were still very
unmanageable--the old lady found it possible to write her replies or
enough of them to be understandable.

"It is a great relief, that," said Mrs. Newkirk, "but it won't work in
Prissy's case, as the poor old soul never could do more than write her
own name and can't even read print. Yet, fortunately enough, she seems
to understand Miss Jenifer's speech when I can't make a thing of it.
Intuition, I reckon! Anyway, we're going to get along quite well for
the present. I told Miss Jenifer that you girls had been so worried
about her and so good about sitting with her yesterday. In answer, she
scrawled something on the pad that looked like 'sweet,' and I think she
meant it was very sweet of you."

"Have you told her yet that I am working on the interior of the house?"
asked Audrey anxiously, and Mrs. Newkirk said she had not thought it
wise to disturb the old lady with any such information as yet. That
would all come later and no doubt very naturally.

They sat down to dinner that night and still Wade had not appeared.
Mrs. Newkirk, suspecting nothing, was tired but more serene in mind.
But the girls were frantic with suppressed anxiety and could eat almost
nothing. If Wade did not come, they did not dare to think what the
ensuing night might result in!

And then at last, just as dessert was being served, they heard the
welcome rattle of his old Ford in the driveway, and, much to Mrs.
Newkirk's amazement and alarm, Wade himself came limping in. The girls
tried to assume a surprise they did not feel, and in the excitement no
one would have suspected that they were making a pretty poor pretense.
Wade explained his return to his mother, and laughed at her alarm over
the condition of his knee by eating a tremendous meal.

"I'm going to have a grand holiday!" he chortled over his third wedge
of pie. "And now, what's the news here after my prolonged absence?"

And during the recital by Mrs. Newkirk of their unexpectedly eventful
night, the girls wondered how much more he suspected, under the
interested but calm exterior he had assumed.




CHAPTER XII

WADE'S VIGIL


They held another solemn council of war that night--the three of
them--out in the garden after Mrs. Newkirk had retired, for she was
wearied with the day's happenings and had gone to bed early. The girls
told Wade what they had discovered the day before in examining the
curious false doors, and especially about the keyhole of the one in the
ballroom, and of that door's being locked when neither of the others
was. And they also discussed the possibility of Prissy's having
actually heard anything when she woke to find Miss Jenifer had had the
remarkable change.

"It's certainly possible," declared Wade. "After what we heard and saw
the night before, it's highly possible. You can't tell--that _may_ have
been what caused Miss Jenifer another shock, as the doctor
said--whatever the thing could have been. _Something's_ going on in
that house--there isn't a doubt about it. And the place will have to be
watched constantly. There oughtn't to be an hour of the day or night
when one of us that knows about this isn't on the job. I hate to spill
the beans to Mother yet, for she's tired and nervous enough as it is,
and she'd be all upset about the thing and want the town authorities
let in on it and all that, and it would spoil the whole party.

"Of course, I didn't know about this new development, but all the way
home I was trying to dope out some scheme by which we could do just
that--keep a constant watch on the house for a while, and I think I hit
on something that will work, at least for the present. It's this: I'm
going to sleep over there at Kenwick for a while, nights. You needn't
say anything about it to Mother--at least not just yet. But as soon as
the coast is clear, I'll take a couple of blankets and a pillow over,
let myself into the old kitchen wing with that key we have, and fix up
a place to sleep on one of the deep window seats or a couple of chairs.
As a matter of fact, I probably won't sleep much at that, for I plan to
be awake and listening or prowling around most of the time. I can do my
sleeping in the daytime, at home here, when you girls are over there
keeping up the good work. I'll take my gun with me for safety's sake."

"Will you let Prissy know you're there?" demanded Camilla.

"I don't know--not right at first, anyway," said Wade. "It might
frighten her and make her more uneasy than is necessary. But if
anything unusual turns up and she's alarmed at it, then I'll tell her
what I'm doing. In that case it might be a help to her to know
someone's around."

It seemed a good solution to the girls. They were wearied with having
slept so little for the past two nights and having been so upset and
worried all during the day. Leaving Wade to carry out his scheme, they
retired to their own rooms and with freer minds gave themselves up to a
long and restful and unbroken eight hours of sleep. Next morning Wade
reported that the night had been absolutely uneventful. He said that
when he got over to Kenwick and had let himself into the kitchen wing,
he had first made a thorough and systematic search of the kitchen and
cellar portion with his electric torch. In the cellar, he had hunted
particularly for any trace of an exit where the intruder of two nights
before could have escaped, and had found absolutely none. There was no
faintest sign of a door or exit, other than they knew, in all the brick
walls and flooring of that rambling old cellar.

One thing alone had struck him as curious and significant. The lantern
they had found on that first night, still warm from having been used,
had completely disappeared. He had planned to use it himself in the
kitchen as a dim night-light and save his torch from running down its
batteries. But when he came to look for it where they had found it
standing, it was no longer there. Nor was there any trace of it
throughout the cellar.

"I thought perhaps you girls might have come down while I was away and
got it," he ended, "and so I didn't give it so much consideration last
night. But if you haven't, I call it darned queer! Shows _somebody_
must have been around, night before last, and perhaps Prissy wasn't so
far wrong after all. However, nothing at all happened last night. I
read and napped a bit and prowled around and listened for sounds from
upstairs, but all was serene. Now I'm going to sleep all morning out in
the couch-hammock to make up for lost time. Don't wake me till
lunch-time."

Prissy came over early for a hot cup of coffee in the kitchen with
Mandy and reported a quiet and restful night for both her charge and
herself. She said Miss Jenifer seemed more like herself that morning
than at any time since her seizure, had indicated that she wanted her
pad and pencil, and was now engaged in trying to write something for
"Mis' Newkirk." That lady herself declared that she would go over to
Kenwick shortly after breakfast, taking Camilla to run any errands that
might be necessary, and Audrey prepared to go over to the office wing
and commence work on the interior of one of the front rooms of her
model. And so began what promised to be a peaceful and uneventful day.


At the lunch table that noon, Mrs. Newkirk remarked: "Something seems
to be bothering Miss Jenifer a lot. I left Cam downstairs when I went
over this morning, to dust the front rooms and the rear dining room,
too, and sort of clear up and make the place look presentable. That
part of the house has been sort of neglected since Miss Jenifer was
taken ill. And some of the town people might call if they heard she had
been sick. Though I warned the doctor and Prissy and Mandy not to say
anything about it at present. From what the grocer was saying to me
yesterday, they think Miss Jenifer has just taken Prissy back again to
help her. It's fortunate we're such a way out of town and distant from
gossip, for we can't be bothered with callers just at present.

"But, as I started to say, Miss Jenifer seems to be worrying about
something. When I got there this morning, she had been trying to write
something on her pad, but all I could make out was the word, '_Keys_'
and a question mark after it. I asked her what keys, and she held up
her closed fist and pointed at it. Then it dawned on me that she was
trying to say something about those big old brass keys she always used
to carry around. So I asked her what about them and she took the pencil
again and spent a long time trying to write something else. Her poor
old half-paralyzed fingers are very unmanageable yet and she could not
seem to get any further than one word which I took to be, '_Where_.'

"I then asked her if she meant 'Where are they?' and she nodded yes,
but I had to tell her that I didn't in the least know. She looked so
disturbed at that, that I offered to try to hunt them up for her. But
she only shook her head and mumbled something that was obviously, 'No,
no, no!' and seemed so distressed that I had to quiet her down as best
I could. Then I told her she had had them with her that evening she
spent with us, and took them away with her when she went. Since then no
one had seen them, and I asked her if she couldn't remember what she
had done with them before she fainted on the cellar steps. At that she
became completely upset and began to cry. I knew that it would not do
for her to get worked up like that, so I had to give her some more
sleeping medicine, and she dropped off later and has been sleeping the
rest of the morning. I can't imagine where those keys could have got
to. Certainly they were nowhere near her when we found her next
morning, and Prissy says she hasn't come across them since she's been
about the house. I had always supposed they must be the keys to the
front and back doors of the house, but they can't be. I found the front
door key in the lock, as usual, and discovered that there's no lock
except a bolt to the back one leading to the garden. What keys they
are, then, I can't imagine, but I wish they could be found, or poor
Miss Jenifer is going to fret herself to death over them."

The three conspirators glanced at one another guiltily, for they felt
that perhaps they knew or guessed more about those keys than it was
comfortable for Mrs. Newkirk to know at present, but they went on
eating without comment on the occurrence. Presently Mrs. Newkirk had a
request to present.

"I wonder if you three would oblige me by taking a turn at sitting with
Miss Jenifer this afternoon? Prissy wants to go and see a niece of hers
in town who has just been taken very ill. And I promised long ago to
attend, without fail, a bridge party that Mrs. Havens is giving in
town. It's not because I'm so crazy to go to it, but I'm afraid people
will begin to wonder about it if I give up all social engagements and
then I'll have to explain about Miss Jenifer, and I don't want to do
that just yet. So if you three could just spell each other by taking
turns sitting with her for those two hours, it will help both Prissy
and myself a lot. I don't think you'll be likely to strike any
insurmountable complication in that time."

It was quite to everyone's surprise that Wade volunteered to take the
entire time, if the girls would be around downstairs or on call in case
something came up with which he could not cope.

"I haven't seen the old girl since her partial recovery," he explained,
"and it might divert her a bit if I came over and ran off a lot of
nonsense to amuse her. She always used to fall for it. And then, too,
perhaps I can help her straighten out about those keys. She used to
confide some of her troubles to me, and perhaps she'd be willing to
explain more about them and I could hunt them up for her. But you girls
stick around in the garden, or some place near, so I can call you if
it's necessary."

So it was agreed, and Mrs. Newkirk betook herself to her card party,
first escorting Wade over to his post beside Miss Jenifer before she
left. Audrey went back to her work in the office, promising to come
upstairs if Wade should signal, and Camilla assumed her post in the
garden with a book, well within sight and call of the ballroom windows.
The afternoon passed somnolently by. Toward four, Audrey drifted out to
sit with Camilla, her work over for the day, and still there was no
call or signal from Wade. At last Prissy came hobbling back from town,
entered at the back garden door, and vanished upstairs. And not long
after, Wade himself came out, beckoned the girls across to their own
garden, and said: "I can't talk around here. Let's take the canoe and
go out on the river awhile. You and I'll paddle, Cam, and Audrey can
sit in the middle and take it easy. I've got something to tell you."

Full of suppressed excitement, they embarked, Audrey snuggling down in
the center, her back braced, a broad hat shading her eyes from the
glare of the sun. They had paddled themselves into the shady reaches of
the river, far beyond the town, before Wade shipped his paddle, after
beaching the canoe under the spreading green of an overhanging tree.

"Might as well rest here awhile," he said, "and have a little
talk-fest. We had quite an interesting time this afternoon, the old
girl and myself! I wouldn't let her talk at all for a while, just ran
off a lot of nonsense, told her why I was back home again (at least the
_official_ reason!), and kept her thinking over everything else but
herself as long as I could. And I'm beginning to think I must be _some_
little spell-binder, for before I knew it, the old lady was actually
chuckling at some of my foolishness. And after that, I quieted down and
told her how glad I was to see her so much better and more like
herself. That sort of sobered her down, as I guessed it would, and she
began to think of her troubles again. But before she had time to think
much, I came right out and told her Mother had spoken of how worried
she was about her keys and that none of you could seem to think where
they were. And I said I'd be so glad to help her about finding them if
she could give me the least hint where it was possible they could be.

"She lay there very quietly for a while, evidently thinking it over.
And then she reached for her pad and pencil that were right beside her
and made a great to-do about writing one single word.

"And that word was '_Table_'! I didn't in the least know what she
meant, or what table she was talking about. I looked all around the
room, but outside of a little spindle-legged thing she had at one side
of the bed for medicines and things, there was only one other table in
the room, and it was the queer, single-legged one standing over near
what you said was that false door at the right of the fireplace. So I
asked her which table she meant, and she pointed at that one.

"Then began the oddest performance trying to make out what she wanted
with it or what I was to do about it. It made me think of that game we
used to play as small kids--'Find the Thimble'--guessing what you're to
do or where the thimble is by being told you're hot or cold, or
something like that! Miss Jenifer was evidently too excited to take
time to write directions--every word takes her five or ten minutes to
form. So it developed into my doing stunts with the table and her
pointing or nodding her head or shaking it, till I found out what was
expected of me.

"First I walked over and touched one of the table drawers--there are
two, you know--and asked her whether she wanted me to open it. She
shook her head--violently--and mumbled what I supposed was, 'No, no,
_no_!' So I dropped that. Then she motioned with her hand toward the
bed and I left the table and walked over to her. But that didn't appear
to be right, either. She pointed at the table again, so I rambled back
to it, beginning to feel just a bit foolish! Then she beckoned toward
the bed again, and at last it dawned on me that she wanted the table
moved over to the bed. I pushed it across the room and located it at
the right-hand side of her bed. That seemed to suit her exactly and she
smiled.

"I expected that next she'd open the table drawers herself and look
inside, probably for the keys, but she did nothing of the sort.
Instead, she spent a long time trying to write something on her pad.
And when she handed it to me, I was astounded to see that she had
scrawled on it, '_Go out!_' And I suddenly realized that she wanted to
examine that table without being watched; so I just nodded and smiled
and made for the door. But before I left the room, I said to her, 'I'll
be right outside in the hall, Miss Jenifer, so when you want me, just
ring that little hand-bell on your medicine table.' Then I went out and
closed the door.

"I had placed the table close to her bed and within easy reach of her
right hand, but I somehow doubted whether she was going to be able to
pull the drawers out or not. I had noticed when I moved it over that
they were either locked or stuck in very tightly. And if they were
locked, where was the key to them? I waited outside a long time,
walking up and down, and finally I heard the little bell tinkle. And
when I came into the room, I found the poor old girl lying back on her
pillow, and big tears rolling down her cheeks. The table seemed
unchanged.

"I tried to get her to tell me what was the matter, but she seemed too
upset to explain. Finally I said, 'Did you get the drawers open?' She
shook her head from side to side and then pointed at me and afterward
at the table. 'Do you want me to try?' I asked, and she nodded. I
reckon the poor thing must have been rather desperate to have come to
that! Anyhow, I moved the table away from the bed a bit and tried to
pull out the drawers. They wouldn't budge. I asked her if they were
locked and she shook her head and pointed to some spot on the table. I
couldn't make head or tail of what she meant, so finally I shoved the
table back close to the bed and asked her if she could show me. She
placed her finger on a tiny brass nail-head way up in a corner of the
top drawer and made the motion of pushing on it. Then the whole thing
dawned on me. It must be some secret spring, and the drawers weren't
worked by an ordinary lock at all!

"Well, I pushed, as hard as I could (and that was where she had failed,
I suppose), and suddenly I was astonished to see the whole top of the
table loosen on one side, and I pulled the top up like a lid. The
drawers were only a fake. You opened it by pressing the spring and
raising the lid.

"And, say! I'll give you three guesses as to what was inside that
table--but I don't think you'd strike it in a hundred and three!"




CHAPTER XIII

THE DUNCAN PHYFE TABLE


"_The keys!_" shouted Camilla instantly. But Wade only grinned and
said, "Guess again, kid!" They both guessed wildly after that--they
suggested everything from jewels and money to weapons, letters,
documents, family plate, and portraits.

"You're all miles wrong," laughed Wade, at length, "and it's useless to
go on in that line, for it's probably something you never even heard
of. I hardly knew what it was myself when I first looked in it, for it
was what appeared to be a set of quite large glass goblets--there must
have been about eighteen or twenty of them. But instead of having a
stem and foot, as most goblets do, the bottom of each was just a mere
peg of glass that was placed down in a small round hole to hold it
steady. Each glass was partially filled with water and had a note of
written music engraved on it and one of the letters of the musical
scale.

"I was utterly dumbfounded when I looked at it--and then suddenly it
dawned on me what the thing was. I'd seen a set something like those
glasses once in a show. They are called 'musical glasses,' and a man
played tunes and things on them by dipping his fingers in the water and
running them lightly round the edges of the glasses. Each glass gives a
different note. It sounded mighty pretty, too--a thin, sweet, wild sort
of music. Does that convey anything to your minds?"

It apparently did, for Audrey cried out: "Oh, the music we heard that
night, of course! How perfectly fascinating! That accounts for our
ghostly tunes, so at least we've _one_ thing to be thankful for. We've
solved one of the riddles. I suppose it's Miss Jenifer who plays on it."

"Oh, undoubtedly," agreed Wade. "She confided to me once that she
adored music and would have loved to own a piano or a violin, but that
she couldn't afford to. I never knew she had this thing, though. I
wonder where she ever got it? Or how she came to learn to play on it?
I've understood it takes quite a little skill. Yes, we seem to have
unraveled one mystery, but I haven't told you about how she acted after
I opened the table top. She tried to raise herself to look inside, but
couldn't, and then she tried to grope around among the glasses with her
hand. I was afraid she'd knock some of them off and break them that
way, so I asked her if she was looking for the keys in there and she
nodded violently.

"I said they didn't seem to be there and was I to take out the glasses
and lift the board with the holes in, to see whether they could be
under that? She shook her head then and began to cry sort of pitifully.
I asked her if she had thought they were in that table and if that was
the place she usually kept them and she nodded yes. I asked her if she
always put them there, or if there was some other place where she might
have hidden them that night she was taken ill. And again she shook her
head. Before I had time to say any more, we heard Prissy coming in
downstairs and Miss Jenifer motioned me to close up the table. I did so
and got it back to its usual place just before Prissy came in. Then I
left. I leave you to figure out what to make of it all!"

"Well," said Audrey, "while we've been talking, I've been doing a
little thinking and trying to figure out a few things after the most
approved Sherlock Holmes methods! We know now that Miss Jenifer was
accustomed to hide those keys, when she wasn't carrying them around, in
the musical-glasses table. Now don't you think that she either put them
there that night and someone got in and took them, or else she didn't
have time to put them there and they were taken from her when she first
got in the house? Possibly she heard someone or something down in the
kitchen wing--perhaps there was a knock at that garden door and she
went to it with the keys in her hand, and someone snatched them from
her and ran off and then she fainted. And since she doesn't remember
what happened that night, she still thinks she put the keys in the
usual place. How's that theory? Does it hold water?"

"It's as good as any," Wade acknowledged. "Only I discount the
possibility that she had time to put them away first in the table and
then come downstairs again. The very fact that she was still dressed in
her dinner regalia when we found her next day shows it wasn't likely
that she'd had time to get upstairs before it all happened. Here's a
queer thing, though--if anyone took those keys, it couldn't have been
robbery that was planned, otherwise they'd have taken her jewelry too.
It must have been someone who wanted those keys for a particular reason
and had no interest in her other valuables. Here are two questions I'd
give a lot to know the answers to: what was that reason, and what do
those keys unlock? Don't suppose either of you can oblige me with the
proper solutions?" He had asked the latter question in jest, but Audrey
answered him quite seriously:

"You know what I told you about my discovery of the locks of those two
doors beside the mantel in the ballroom--that the one going into the
hall has a much smaller one than that of the false door the other side
of the fireplace. Isn't that rather important? Both those keyholes are
surrounded by a sort of fancy metal design, the same as all the
keyholes throughout the main part of the house. But I noticed that the
keyhole itself to the false door was about twice as long up and down as
the other one. And another thing--I noticed that the keyholes to the
two other false doors, in the hall and dining room, were just plainly
fakes--you could see the wood of the door through them. But the one to
the door in the ballroom had the deep hole behind it that shows it is
really in use--a lock back of it. I feel perfectly certain that one of
those keys fitted that door."

"Dog-goned if I don't think you're right!" muttered Wade, jabbing at
the weeds on the bank with his paddle. "You sure are an observant
person, Audrey--I give you credit for it."

"Oh, that's just what I'm trained to be in my work," she deprecated.
"It's no special credit to me. You've got to account for every little
variation when you're making an accurate model."

"Wade," burst in Camilla suddenly, "you told us a while ago that Miss
Jenifer had confided in you a lot and told you things she hadn't told
anyone else. You wouldn't tell us what they were at the time. But don't
you think after all that's happened, and when we're trying so hard to
unravel this thing, that you might let us in on it now? Some of it
might help a lot if we knew. And I'm not asking just out of idle
curiosity, either!"

Wade appeared to consider the point.

"I don't think it would be of any special help," he said at last--"what
she's told me. It's all rather pathetic and mainly about that love
affair she had many years ago when she was hardly more than nineteen or
twenty. It's not so very different, in general lines, from what you
already know, only more accurate in detail. Her sweetheart was a
seafaring man--not really a sea captain with his own vessel, as the
story goes, but only a young first mate whose prospects were not too
good, and her family didn't approve of him for her. She had a father
and older sister alive at that time and they wanted her to marry into
another of the old Maryland families and keep up the family tradition.
But her heart was given unalterably to this young fellow, and if she
couldn't have him she wasn't going to have anybody.

"Finally she said good-bye to him at one of those windows in the
ballroom and he went away on that last voyage, promising to come back
in a year or two, and then perhaps the family's attitude toward their
affair would have changed. But year after year passed and he didn't
come back, and she learned from the captain of his ship later that he
had left the ship on that first voyage at some French Mediterranean
port and had not been seen since. He never wrote, either, and so for a
while she thought he must be dead. But she somehow couldn't convince
herself that he was dead and always felt he might sometime return to
her.

"Her father and sister both died, after a number of years, and left her
alone. She never married, because she always hoped he would return and
she kept watching for him. So far the story is all clear. But something
happened about ten or fifteen years ago, evidently, that threw a new
light on the subject for her. She would never tell me what it was, but
has hinted that at that time she learned definitely that her lover was
dead. I don't know how she knew--whether by news from abroad, or
hearing it from someone who knew him, or what. But I gathered that
somehow that did not end matters for her. In fact it seemed to involve
her with something else that was all mixed up with some family secret
or mystery connected with this house. She either couldn't or wouldn't
explain all that, and of course I never asked her to. But it seemed to
date the beginning of her acting so oddly and peculiarly about this
place.

"The only remark she made about it that was at all enlightening was
that there was a sacred and secret trust in her family and that she was
guarding it throughout her life. And as she had no direct heirs, when
she died the secret would die with her, or something like that. That's
all she told me that could have any direct bearing on this situation. I
wouldn't have told it under ordinary circumstances, as I think she
wished me not to, though she didn't exact any promise. But since things
have happened as they have, it may help us all a bit to know what
little facts there are."

They considered his revelations in silence for a few moments. "It's
queer," said Audrey at length, "but I always seem to be putting two and
two together, as they say. I guess I've missed my vocation and was born
to be a detective instead! Anyway, I instantly connected what you've
just said with that historical secret she once hinted at to me. Do you
think I'm right?"

"By the great horn spoon!" cried Wade, leaping around in his seat and
almost upsetting the canoe. "You've struck it again, Audrey. You're
right about your vocation--you've certainly missed it! Why don't you
apply at once to Pinkerton's or Scotland Yard? They need you, my girl!
Seriously, though, I believe you have hit the right trail this time.
Though what some past historical mix-up could have to do with any
present-day affair, I can't fathom. But the thing has gone too far for
us to be squeamish any longer about snooping into Miss Jenifer's
affairs. I wonder how we could get any dope on what historical affairs
have gone on in this house in the past. With the old lady in the state
she's in, and something sinister threatening her while she's so
helpless, I believe it's time to move heaven and earth to get matters
run down--and I'm going to do it!"

"Well, you'd better begin by moving this canoe in the direction of
home," warned Camilla practically. "It's six o'clock and Mother will be
calling out the reserves to search for us if we don't show up right
soon."

They took up their paddles and began the homeward journey.

"There's one thing I'm going to prophesy," remarked Wade, apropos of
nothing special, after they had paddled quite a while, "and that is
just this: unless I'm 'way off the track, something pretty definite is
going to happen to settle this whole affair, and that right soon!"




CHAPTER XIV

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE OFFICE WING


It seemed next morning as if Wade's prophecy had not fallen very far
short of the mark. There had been another quiet and uneventful night.
Wade had again spent it over at Kenwick, and reported to the girls next
morning that absolutely nothing unusual had happened so far as he was
aware, and he had been awake and about the place practically all of the
time. He was tired and drowsy after breakfast, and gladly turned his
vigil over to the girls, and rambled off to the couch-hammock in the
garden.

It was shortly after the two girls had gone over to Kenwick as usual,
Audrey to work and Camilla to sit with her, that they came flying back,
wild-eyed and breathless, to rouse him by shaking him from his nap and
whispering fiercely:

"Come over to the office wing this minute--_something has happened
there!_" He stared at them dazedly and demanded, "What's up?" But they
would not explain, saying he could see better for himself. So he shook
off his lethargy, struggled to his feet, and accompanied them. And when
he saw what they had to show him, his manner became suddenly alert, and
he pursed his lips in a prolonged, low whistle.

"Well, I'll say something has happened!" he ejaculated, surveying the
ruins of Audrey's precious model, that had been somehow pushed off its
table and lay sidewise on the brick floor, cracked and fallen apart and
apparently all but a complete ruin. "How do you account for this?"

"We don't account for it," murmured Audrey, tears of disappointment in
her eyes, as she stooped to pick up some of the remnants of her weeks
of painstaking toil. "I locked the outer door as usual yesterday
afternoon before we went out on the river. I haven't been here since
till now. I can't imagine how anyone could have got in."

"Well, I can!" exclaimed Camilla, who had been roaming distractedly
about the room. "Look here!" She pointed at one of the windows off to
one side, and about which, on the outside, a thick high old box bush
grew close, completely screening the lower half from the road. One of
the small panes of glass had been broken near the upper part of the
sash, close to where the safety catch was located. It took no great
amount of conjecture to realize that a hand inserted through that
broken pane could unfasten the catch. After that, entrance was easy.
The window in its lower half was so screened by the high box bush that
the broken pane could not be seen from the outside.

"Oh, if I'd only closed and locked the wooden shutters inside, this
couldn't have happened!" groaned Audrey. "But I never thought of it.
Why _should_ anyone want to get in and throw my model off the table?"

Why, indeed? They couldn't imagine. But Wade offered it as his theory
that the model's destruction was not what the intruder was really
after, probably. It had either been an accident, or had been in the way
and been brushed off its table in haste and without thought of its
value.

"Let's see if anything else in the place has been disturbed," he
suggested. "Surely no one would have got in here just to smash your
model, Audrey." They followed him out into the passageway and looked
about. And in an instant something had caught the eye of every one of
them. The door to the other room on that floor, which had always been
locked since Audrey had first come to work there, was no longer so. It
was standing open just an inch or two, and on examining it Wade found
traces on the woodwork which clearly indicated that it had been forced
open with some instrument--possibly a chisel. The lock was sprung and
so damaged that it would not work, even if a key were found for it.
Wade pushed open the door and the two girls peered over his shoulder
into the darkened room.

From what they could make out in the light that came from the doorway,
it was a room used as a storage place for old and unwanted furniture.
Ranged about the walls were partially decrepit wooden bed-heads and
footboards, rolled-up feather mattresses tied in bundles, washstands
and bureaus of no particular make or value, chairs minus one leg or a
couple of rungs, and piles of ancient, moth-eaten blankets and
patchwork quilts. One could see at a glance that Miss Jenifer had
doubtless stored there all the useless and cast-off furniture of many
years, and had shut and locked the door on it for no special reason
except to keep it out of sight.

But what had once been an orderly room, as she had doubtless left it,
was now turned helter-skelter--bureau-drawers ripped open and left that
way, old mattresses slashed and spilling feathers all about, piles of
blankets tossed hither and yon, in what must have been some breathless,
savage, and ruthless search. And whether the object of that search had
been attained, they could only guess. But Wade's guess was that it had
not.

"Let's look upstairs," he commanded, and they all streaked up the
winding stairs after him. These rooms also exhibited signs of having
been ransacked--the drawers of tables and one old bureau standing open
and closet doors left ajar. They returned to the main floor and entered
the office to stand looking disconsolately at Audrey's broken model.

"Is it hopelessly done for?" Wade asked gently, for it was evident that
Audrey was sorely upset over this mishap.

"No, fortunately, quite a little of it has only to be set back in
place, and of course I can duplicate what's hopelessly smashed. But it
will take me a couple of weeks at least to repair the damage. I can't
understand how anyone could have been so ruthless as to do such a
thing!" she declared.

"I think this much was an accident," Wade still insisted. "And I've
been trying to figure out when it all could have happened. I'm certain
it couldn't have been last night, because I was in the other wing or
prowling around the grounds all night long. This thing tumbling down
would have made a racket that I couldn't help but hear. Do you know
what I've figured it out?--that whoever did it has been desperate to
get in here when no one was around--ourselves, I mean. Prissy wouldn't
count, as she's upstairs and away from it more. But some one of us has
been around the whole time lately, day and night. But yesterday
afternoon, you remember, we did all go off for an hour or so on the
river and well out of sight. That left the coast clear, and I'm just
about certain that was when it happened. They crawled around that old
box bush, broke the pane, climbed in the window, and began the search.
Then when we came back--perhaps sooner than they expected--they were
frantic not to get caught in that part of the house, rushed back
through the office, and in passing probably caught on the model or
knocked it over unintentionally, and jumped through the window to hide
behind that box bush. Probably they were there when we went by through
our garden. Gosh! I wish we hadn't gone off at all--then this wouldn't
have happened. But I didn't dream of anything going on here for just
that hour--in broad daylight."

"Look here!" exclaimed Camilla. "You say some one of us has been here
every hour of the day and night--except just that time we all went off
yesterday. That isn't strictly so, because we're all always home
together at meals. We have to be or Mother would suspect something
peculiar was going on. I think it more likely that it happened last
night while we were at dinner. You remember it got sort of cloudy and
dark, and a thunderstorm came up later. Wouldn't that have been a more
likely time for it to happen?"

"True enough," agreed her brother, "we have left mealtime rather
unguarded there. But perhaps you've noticed that for the last two
nights I've cut my dinner short, omitted the salad and taken my dessert
out to eat sitting in the couch-hammock in the garden. I can get a good
view of the office wing from there, and it would be a pretty silly
person who would try to break in at that time, with me sitting there
taking it all in. No, I still think it was yesterday afternoon while we
were away. Anyone watching the place would realize that was an ideal
time. Only we got back sooner than they expected.

"But however that may be, this last piece of business has gone a bit
too far. Before this, though we'd seen some sort of queer doings, it
was all more guesswork than anything else. Now we have positive proof
that some kind of vandalism is going on, and I'm afraid it's time
something more strenuous was done about it. Reckon we'll have to get
the town authorities in on this, though I hate like sin to do it. Means
all kinds of publicity that's going to be most unpleasant."

He wrestled silently with the problem for a few moments, standing by
the broken window pane and staring at it, while Audrey and Camilla set
about the task of piecing together as much as was possible of the
damaged model. There were some broken splinters of glass on the floor
near the window, and presently he turned his gaze to them. Suddenly the
girls heard him utter a surprised whistle and stoop down to pick
something up from the floor.

"Hullo! Look at this!" he called to them, holding out a small object as
they came rushing over. "Doesn't belong to either of you, does it?" The
object was a small oval medallion, not more than three quarters of an
inch in length. The front of it was of black onyx, set about the edge
with tiny pearls. The back was of gold, unmarked in any way. But in the
center of the onyx was engraved a complicated monogram, rather
difficult to decipher. At the top, a tiny gold ring, by which it had
evidently once been fastened to something else, was twisted and broken,
as if the object had been violently wrenched from its proper
fastening--whatever that might have been. Both the girls instantly
disclaimed it, and all fell to conjecturing how it had come there and
what it could be.

"Looks like a locket," said Camilla, "and a rather old-fashioned one at
that."

"It might be a man's watch charm," conjectured Audrey, "the kind some
of them wear on a black silk ribbon fastened to their watches. My
father still wears one a little on that order. He hates wrist watches
for men."

"I think you're right," Wade agreed with her. "And of course it must be
the property of our unwelcome visitor. And I'd like to bet he's cursing
his luck this minute at having lost it. No doubt it was torn from his
watch fob when he scrambled through the window that last time. Well,
we've got something on him, all right, and it's about as valuable a
clue as we could have. Hold on a minute! I'm going outside to look for
footprints under that window. There certainly ought to be some." He
rushed away, but came back later only to report that the heavy rain of
the night before had turned the ground there into mush and washed away
every trace.

"However, we've got something to work on with this," he continued, "and
now I have another idea. I'm going into town and insert a notice on the
bulletin board in the post office. It'll run something like this:--

"'_Found_--a gold watch fob monogrammed and set with pearls. Owner can
obtain it by applying to Wade Newkirk with proper description of it.' I
won't say where I found it, but if the owner has nerve enough to come
and claim it, I'll run him right around to the constable. I hardly
think he will, but you never can tell. Also I'm going to snoop around
Forbes's Hotel, in town, and find out whether any strangers are
stopping there just now. Usually is never anyone there but traveling
salesmen, and they're all pretty well known. So long! See you after a
while, and keep right on here while I'm gone. Nobody'll molest the
place if you're around in pretty plain sight."

He disappeared, and presently they heard his car rattling away in the
direction of the town. Audrey suggested that they get the place
straightened up and looking as it usually did, shut the door outside,
whose lock had been wrenched apart, close one shutter over the broken
pane in the window, sweep up the glass on the floor, and restore the
model as much as possible to its normal appearance.

"We mustn't let your mother suspect anything about this till Wade
decides what's to be done," Audrey told Camilla. "And she's liable to
come in here any time." So they rushed about at their self-appointed
task, and at length no one not in the secret would have suspected the
invasion and destruction of the late afternoon before. They had
scarcely finished when Wade returned, rather hurried and breathless, to
report his findings.

"No luck at the hotel. No one been there this last week but one grocery
salesman who comes every year. They know him well and he must be
perfectly O. K. But I got a hint from old Ben Hackenbury that'll take
me right over to Easton. Explain to Mother, if I'm not back to lunch,
that I drove over there to get some notebooks and a compass--which I
_am_ going to do, by the way. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Oh, but _Wade_, don't go without telling us what the clue is!" cried
Camilla distractedly. "We're just _dying_ to know!"

"Have to die then!" he called back teasingly. "For it would take too
long to explain and it's absolutely important that I get there at
once." And he was gone, leaving them to another interval of wild
conjecture.




CHAPTER XV

ANOTHER TURN OF AFFAIRS


Wade did not return in time for luncheon. The girls heard the luncheon
bell being sounded by Mandy, and still he had not come. Under the
circumstances, Audrey declared, she did not think it wise to leave
Kenwick unguarded by some one of them, even in the broad light of
mid-day.

"I'll stay here for a while," she told Camilla, "while you go over to
lunch. Will you tell your mother I'm unavoidably delayed, and make my
apologies to her, and say that I'll be in before the meal is over? Then
you can run back here and I'll take my turn. Goodness knows, I don't
feel like eating a mouthful, but I don't want Mrs. Newkirk to suspect
anything's wrong!"

So Camilla hurried away and presently came back to release Audrey. And
later they both took up their post again, while Mrs. Newkirk came over
still later to sit with Miss Jenifer and relieve Prissy for her rest
hours. And so the afternoon wore away without any sign of Wade. It was
not till near dinner-time that he returned. He looked rather grave and
had plainly not met with the success he had hoped for. In an interval
before dinner, while they were out in the garden and keeping an eye on
Kenwick, Wade told them of his quest.

"I got the idea from old Ben Hackenbury, this morning," he began. "You
know he's a clerk in the grocery store, but lives well out of town and
trundles in and out every morning in his old car. It's a bit more
ramshackly than mine--and that's saying a mouthful! Well, as they say,
there isn't much that escapes the eye of old Bennie, so when I didn't
glean anything much from the hotel, I strolled into the grocery, bought
some chocolate bars (for which the world knows I have a weakness!), and
stood around gossiping with Bennie for quite some time. And, sure
enough, he had something meaty to tell. After discussing this and that,
I idly suggested that we hadn't seen many strange cars around the town
lately. Audrey here, coming from more populous centers, may not realize
this, but in a tiny little community like ours every local car license
is perfectly well known, and an outside one seen hereabout arouses
nearly as much interest as the latest murder would up around New York
and Philadelphia!

"Well, Ben agreed with me in the main, but he added something that made
me prick up my ears. For he declared that for several evenings during
the past ten days or so he had noticed, as he was driving back home
from work, a small Ford coupé with a New York license, parked just off
the road near Bennet's Woods. It was always empty at the time. After
he'd passed it several times he remembered the license number and told
me what it was. He also added that he'd happened to see that same car
parked in the main street of Easton when he drove over there last
Sunday. Again it was empty, so he had no idea who ran it. But he said
it was standing right in front of the hotel there, so he inferred that
the owner was staying at that hotel. He wondered why the car came over
here so often and reckoned that it must be connected with some
bootlegging enterprise.

"But I thought I saw something directly concerned with our affair, so I
piled right over to Easton and hung around the hotel there as
unobtrusively as I could and watched every car that came by and snooped
in the hotel register for anyone coming from New York state. There were
two or three but they'd all checked out several days ago and that was
all of that. Nor did I catch a single glimpse of any car corresponding
to the one he told me of. It may be an entirely false scent, of course,
but it's the most promising thing I've heard of. And I haven't given up
hopes of that car yet. To-night, after dinner, I'm just going to
saunter out myself by way of Bennet's Woods in my car and see what's to
be seen, while you girls make some excuse to hang around the garden at
Kenwick and keep an eye on the place till I get back."

"But, Wade," demanded Camilla, "are you going to do anything about
reporting this thing to the town constable, as you said you'd have to,
or are you going to leave the place wide open for another raid
to-night? I don't think it's safe to go on as we're doing."

"I've thought all that over," declared her brother, "and this business
of that strange car has changed my dope a bit. I think we can safely
take the chance on one more night. And this time I'm going to institute
a brand-new system. I'm not going over there to Kenwick to sleep. I
think I've put a crimp in our marauder's plans that way, and maybe that
was the reason he took to trying it out during the day, at some time
when we had left the place unguarded, as we did yesterday. I have a
very keen notion we're being pretty closely watched from some vantage
point or other, and whoever's trying to get in there knows exactly what
we're at just about all the time.

"To-night, after I've snooped around Bennet's Woods to see if that
car's in the vicinity, I'm coming back here and am going to appear to
go to bed in my own room, in the ordinary way. Then I'm going to sneak
out to our own garden and slide into that enormous lilac bush close to
the road. I can get a fine outlook on the whole rear of Kenwick from
it, and there can't much go on in that region that I won't see. And at
the same time I'll apparently be entirely out of the way. And--oh!--by
the way, I thought better of that scheme of putting a notice up in the
post office about the watch fob. That would only give an intruder
warning that his traces had been discovered. Better let him think
nothing had been noticed about it. I've been doing a bit of
Sherlock-Holmes-ing myself about that room, and trying to think how
anyone would have been so careless as to believe he could go through a
place that way without the traces being discovered. I think he got in,
breaking the pane, it's true, but in such a way that it wasn't so very
obvious. We didn't notice that, in fact, till some time after we first
came in. He pried open the door of the locked room first, I figure.
It's true he raised particular hob in there, but he no doubt closed the
door after him carefully, calculating that since it was usually locked,
no one would think to go into it for quite a while. Probably it wasn't
caught well and blew open a little later on.

"Then he ran upstairs to search there. And while he was doing so,
through the upper windows he saw us coming up from the river. It was
then that he knew he'd have to get to cover without losing a minute,
for he couldn't tell but that we'd be coming right over. So he ran down
and rushed through the office to the window, brushing by your work
table, Audrey, as he passed. It may have been then that he pushed or
pulled that model over to the edge of the table. And here's what I
figure--he probably didn't pull it off right then. Perhaps he just
dragged it to the edge and partly over it, and never even noticed what
had happened before he jumped out of the window and closed it. Or maybe
he realized he had pulled it over, and pushed it back, but not far
enough. And the model hung there balanced for quite a while before it
toppled over. The reason I think this is, that if he'd dragged it off
with a sudden crash it would have been much more damaged than it was.
But if it toppled over by its own weight after a while, it would have
fallen more gently and so wasn't completely demolished. How's that
strike you, Audrey?"

Audrey herself declared that she was rather surprised, after she got
about reconstructing the model, that more damage hadn't been caused by
the fall, and thought Wade's explanation altogether likely.

"Well, here's what I figure," went on Wade. "Nothing else happened last
night, because after that he thought he'd better stay off the job a
spell till he could figure whether his latest entry had been
discovered. If it had, he probably thought we'd report it to the
constable and raise hob generally around here. But as all has seemed
pretty much as usual to-day, he may try something again to-night. And
I'm going to make his job easier by appearing to revert to my usual
habits and go to sleep in my own bed--apparently! By the way, there's
Mandy ringing the bell. Let's go in to dinner. And to-night we shall
see what we shall see!"

It was at the dinner table that Mrs. Newkirk brought out another
curious and disturbing incident that had occurred during the afternoon.

"I was trying to think of some way to entertain Miss Jenifer to-day,"
she said. "It's so dull for her, now that her mind is so much more
normal, to lie there with no outside interest all day long. And of
course, since she can't talk, a regular form of conversation is
impossible. After I've told her all the daily little bits of news and
gossip about here, there seems nothing much left to do. She doesn't
sleep as much now as she did after her first shock. So to-day I took
over the daily paper, and after I'd told her all our local news, I
offered to read the paper to her and she seemed rather pleased with the
idea.

"I spent all of the last hour reading along to her, item after item and
column after column of everything just as it came along--politics,
murders, accidents, and what-not, till I got so sleepy that I just
about dropped off myself. I actually found myself nodding, and still
reading along mechanically, not even knowing what I read!

"Suddenly I sort of came to and looked at Miss Jenifer, and to my
amazement, she was lying there, her eyes almost starting out of her
head, and clutching the bedclothes in both hands with a fairly
desperate grip. I thought she must have been taken with some violent
pain or was feeling terribly ill. I dropped the paper and rushed over
to her, begging her to try to tell me what was the matter. But she
either couldn't or wouldn't--just shook her head and mumbled something
that sounded like, 'Go, go go!' I gave her the pad and pencil, but she
wouldn't even try to write. She seemed to relax a little after that and
a drink of hot milk which I fixed for her, and later she became very
quiet and just lay there with her eyes shut. Whether she was asleep or
not, I don't know, but she didn't seem like herself--I mean even what
she's been lately--for the rest of the time.

"I don't know what could have upset her, but I somehow have a feeling
that it wasn't any physical pain, or that sort of thing. I wondered
whether it could have been anything in the paper that I read to her,
but that seems hardly probable, and I've looked all through the paper
since and there isn't a single thing in it that could possibly have
disturbed her personally. I'm rather stumped about it."

They had no explanations to offer, so could make little comment on the
newest development. But Wade, when he left the table to eat his dessert
in the garden (always making the valid excuse that his knee got painful
when he sat at the table too long), asked his mother if she had brought
the paper back, and said he'd like to look over it himself.

When the girls came out later, he got up to go out in his car as he had
planned. But first he handed them the paper, saying:

"Take a good look over this whole paper, will you, while I'm gone?
Don't skip anything, but just see if _you_ can find anything in it that
might have the slightest bearing on Miss Jenifer's affairs. I can't,
but I haven't had a chance to do it very thoroughly. From the way
Mother tells it, she must have read out _something_ that gave the old
lady a turn. If she hadn't been so sleepy when she was reading, and had
noticed Miss Jenifer a bit while she was doing it, she might have been
able to guess what particular item affected her. But as it is, we're
left pretty much in the dark. And, whatever you do, don't throw that
paper away or destroy it, but keep it for future reference. Now I'm
going. Won't be long, probably, but watch out over there till I get
back."

"Mother says she's going over herself after a while, to see how Miss
Jenifer is after whatever upset her this afternoon. We'll probably go
with her, so we'll be right on the spot," Camilla informed him.
"There'll be too much going on there for an hour or so for anyone to
get busy snooping around, I reckon! But don't be too long. I don't feel
so very courageous after dark!"

"So long! I'll be back before nine," Wade called to them, as he limped
down the path toward where his car stood parked in the road.

And so, quietly, began an evening that no one of them was to forget for
many a long year.




CHAPTER XVI

THE BEGINNING OF THE END


The girls divided the paper between them and sat in the couch-hammock
for three quarters of an hour, going over every part of it for the
slightest hint of what in its contents could possibly have upset Miss
Jenifer so violently that afternoon. There seemed to be nothing in the
news, either domestic or foreign, that could have affected the old
lady's affairs, so far as they could conjecture. They gave it up in
despair at last, and Camilla folded the paper and took it to leave in
Wade's room, as he had requested. Then Mrs. Newkirk announced that she
was ready to go over to Kenwick, and the girls accompanied her.

But Prissy, who came down to the front door at their knock, reported
that Miss Jenifer seemed to be sleeping soundly. She said the old lady
had dropped off directly after the early supper that Mandy had sent
over, and had not roused since. Prissy thought she would probably sleep
through most of the night, from all appearances, so had decided not to
disturb her and was getting ready to retire herself. As all seemed to
have settled down quietly, Mrs. Newkirk said she would not go in, and
they bade Prissy goodnight. Mrs. Newkirk remarked that she was going
straight back home, to go to bed early and finish a book in which she
was deeply interested. The girls announced their intention of remaining
out in the garden till Wade returned, as it was still light, and went
back to the couch-hammock.

It was not long after he had promised to return that they heard his
rattly car come chugging down the road. And in the soft dusk he
strolled over to share the hammock.

"No luck!" he was obliged to confess. "No car was parked anywhere about
Bennet's Woods, or anywhere else in the region, that I could discover.
So, after scouting around a bit, I gave it up. It occurred to me, when
I was nearly back here, that perhaps a car might come from the other
direction, across the river on that new road by way of the bridge, and
stay parked on the other side. Then they'd have to cross the bridge on
foot and walk nearly a mile along the new road that joins the old one
just beyond the town. I almost turned off that way to go and
investigate, and then I concluded I wouldn't.

"After all, if anyone has designs on this place to-night, he might as
well be allowed to try them out and get caught in the process, rather
than to warn him we're on the watch by snooping around his car. How'd
Mother find Miss Jenifer to-night?"

They told him and he nodded his satisfaction. "Probably wasn't anything
in that paper and Mother just imagined she was upset. Can't tell
anything about people in that state anyway. Maybe something bothering
them or nothing tangible at all. You didn't glean anything from the
paper, did you?" And they had to tell him no.

Darkness fell at last, but they continued to sit in the garden, idly
discussing it all, and keeping still in sight of Kenwick. There was no
moon, and the night was cloudy but warm and soft, with a hint of
possible rain in the air.

"By the way, Wade, what about that medallion, or whatever it is, that
you found? Are you going to keep it or try to find the owner--or what?"
asked Camilla.

"It's '_what_,' I reckon, as yet, as far as I can see," laughed her
brother. "I can't seem to make up my mind just what ought to be done
about it. I've been studying that monogram off and on all day, trying
to make out what it was and whether it would offer any clue. You
remember how it is cut into the onyx, Old English lettering, all sort
of intertwined? As near as I could figure, it was a T and an M. But
that doesn't get us anywhere nearer things than if we didn't know it.
The only thing I do know is that the charm or medallion is quite old
style. They don't make such things nowadays, and somebody has had it a
long while. But neither is that fact of any special help. We'll just
keep it and see what happens next."

At last they heard a clock in the house chime ten, and Wade rose,
stretched, yawned widely, and announced in a sufficiently audible
voice: "Well, girls, I'm good and tired to-night. Good time to go
straight to bed. And as Miss Jenifer's so much better, I won't need to
sleep over there, but can crawl into my own downy couch!" And he added
in a whisper, "That's for the benefit of anyone in the vicinity who
might possibly be concerned!" Then, louder again, "So long! Sorry I
didn't feel up to playing bridge."

They all rose to go indoors. And before Wade ran upstairs, he
whispered: "I have a feeling in my bones that something's going to
break loose to-night. If you all aren't too sleepy, I advise you to
kind of keep watching Kenwick off and on. I'm going out to the lilac
bush directly and I'll take my electric torch with me. If there's
anything unusual afoot, I'll flash it three times toward the house, and
that'll be a signal for you to come out and give me a hand. Better keep
mostly dressed. If things got too hot we might have to get the
constable on the job after all. But I don't reckon it'll get as far as
that. The worst will probably be that we'll scare the intruder off
again."

The girls went up to Audrey's room prepared to maintain an all-night
vigil. Though they did not at present feel in the least sleepy, but on
the contrary, very much keyed-up and wide awake, they were wise enough
to realize that as the hours wore by, if nothing seemed to be
happening, they would inevitably be inclined to nap and might miss
something. So Camilla, before they went up, slipped into the kitchen
and made some strong coffee and put it in a thermos bottle. "This'll
keep us awake, if nothing else will!" she whispered, and they carried
it up to the room. She gave some to Wade before he slipped out, so that
he too might not become drowsy in case his vigil proved uneventful.

On his way out he whispered to them to turn out the light in Audrey's
room and watch to see if his progress to the lilac bush seemed very
visible. They did so, but so dense was the velvety blackness outside in
the garden that they had to confess afterward that they never saw him
at all, and decided that therefore his ruse must be pretty effective.
Then began a vigil that, however exciting it might have been in
prospect, grew exceedingly boresome as the night wore on.

At first they both sat at the window, discussing the affair in subdued
whispers, reverting again and again to every mysterious and unexplained
aspect of the tangle, especially the latest developments. But as there
seemed no solution to any of it, they only found themselves going round
and round in a circle and getting nowhere. Then they fell silent and
just gazed out of the window in the approximate direction of the lilac
clump where, supposedly, Wade was also holding vigil. "I hope he isn't
as sleepy as I feel this minute," whispered Camilla between two great
yawns.

"Look here," suggested Audrey, "suppose we take turn about again as we
did that other night when Wade was away? I'll take a good drink of
coffee and sit up awhile longer, and let you get a nap on the bed.
Then, when it gets too much for me, I'll wake you and you can drink
coffee and take a turn watching. How about it?"

The idea appealed to Camilla strongly and she lost no time curling up
on the bed. She could almost have wept when Audrey shook her awake,
saying she'd have to take a turn watching now, for not even the coffee
could keep herself awake any longer. So Camilla drank her share of the
coffee and took her place at the window.

It seemed but a fraction of a moment after she had dropped on the bed
that Audrey roused to hear Camilla whispering frantically in her ear:
"Wake up! Wake up! _Wade is signaling from the garden!_" And as Audrey
struggled to a sitting position, she also heard the big grandfather's
clock in the hall chime two.

"I saw three flashes just now, out in the dark--I suppose it's from the
lilac clump," gasped Camilla breathlessly, "and I suppose we'd better
hurry down to Wade. Oh, me! Now that the time has come, I'm just plain
scared to death!"

"I'm not so keen for it myself," whispered Audrey, "but it's got to be
done, so come along. I'm going to take my own electric torch. Tiptoe
out, for we just mustn't wake your mother."

They crept down the dark stairs, through the living room, and out the
back entry, groping for the door handle maddeningly before they were
able to locate it. Even in the house they did not dare turn on their
own torch lest it give some warning to the enemy. At last they were out
on the rear veranda and stumbling, as noiselessly as possible, through
the garden. A dark form bumped into them before they reached the lilac
clump and they almost shrieked aloud. But it was only Wade, coming to
meet them.

"Glad you got here so soon," he muttered. "Something mighty peculiar's
going on. Been watching it for quite a while. Now I've got to have
help. Follow me and don't make a sound if you can avoid it."

"But don't you want to get the constable?" whispered Camilla. "Maybe we
ought to ring him up before we leave the house."

"No time for that," declared Wade. "Besides, we don't want him about. I
think we can handle this. And don't ask any more questions. We've got
to get right over to Kenwick. After the show's over, I'll explain all
that happened before I signaled you."

Wade in the lead, they crept, Indian file, across their garden and the
road between and approached Kenwick, stepping over the low brick wall
surrounding Kenwick garden at a spot where they would be most sheltered
from observation.

"Stay here a moment!" commanded Wade, pushing them down close to a
great box bush. "I want to scout around first and see if anything new
has happened since I left here." He hurried away and they were alone,
hearts pounding so that they were almost audible. They did not dare
even exchange a whispered remark, so tense were the suspense and
strain. But Wade was back fairly soon, and ordered them to creep along
after him to the garden entrance of the kitchen wing.

"Have you seen any more lights?" Camilla whispered, but Wade only
reported, "Oh, for Pete's sake, hush! Never mind that!" And Camilla
subsided, with the best grace she could muster. At the door of the
kitchen wing he paused, the others lined up back of him, got out the
key of that door, and opened it.

"Now, here's where we're going to take a pretty bold step," he
whispered, "but if you do as I say, you won't be in any danger. I saw
someone get in here to-night. Been watching for quite a while. The
intruder pried open that door to the main house, the one Prissy always
keeps locked, just as the one in the office wing was pried open. I left
our prowler at it when I came back to get you. Now the villain's got it
open, apparently, and has gone on into the main house. We've got to
follow. If the stranger should try to get into Miss Jenifer's room, the
shock might kill her. We've got to prevent any chance of that. I'll
have to use my torch, for I don't know the way about. Keep close to me,
and whatever you do, don't make a sound!"

He turned on the torch and they entered the kitchen wing. The steps and
passageway were empty but the door into the main house was slightly
ajar. Wade stood at this door a long time--or what seemed so--listening
for any sounds that might guide him as to the location of the intruder.
At last, apparently, he was satisfied, and beckoned them to follow.

The door opened into the stair hallway. Wade did not wait for any
further explanations, but began mounting the stairs, slowly,
cautiously, step by step, his light guiding the way, and the others
following silently in his wake. Both girls were privately convinced
that they were advancing to certain destruction, but something impelled
them to go forward. Indeed, they had reached the pass where it would
have been equally difficult and dangerous to go back. At the top of the
steps and in the upper hall Wade paused again and cautiously threw his
light about. The hall was empty, and the three doors that led from it
were closed. One of these doors led to the west front bedroom. Another,
directly at the head of the stairs, led into the hall over the entrance
hall below, and from this upper hall, as they knew, was the usual
entrance into the ballroom. It was the closest to the stairs and the
one normally in use. The third door led into the small back room called
the "card room," and this room, as they also knew, had a door, well
over toward the back windows, leading into the ballroom also. It was
into the card room that Wade now led them, opening the door to it first
with the greatest caution and flashing his light about. But the room
was empty, as he had expected it would be, and they tiptoed across it,
making no sound, thanks to the rubber-soled tennis shoes with which
they were all shod. It was a room in little use now, and Mrs. Newkirk
and Prissy, for want of a better place, had piled it full of the
miscellaneous débris they had collected from the ballroom when Miss
Jenifer had first been taken ill. Around and over this débris they
stepped, till Wade stopped them in the corner where was the door
leading into Miss Jenifer's bedroom.

Suddenly the girls sensed what it was that Wade was planning, and
Camilla drew down his head close to her mouth and whispered in his ear,
"There's a heavy bureau right in front of that door on the other side.
You can't get in that way." But Wade only shook his head and went right
ahead. And then Audrey remembered that only this very night, while
Camilla had been out of the room before dinner, Mrs. Newkirk had
remarked that Prissy had asked her to help in moving the heavy bureau a
little aside and nearer the window, so that they could open the door
between the rooms and give Miss Jenifer more breeze, as the afternoon
had been quite breathless.

Wade tiptoed close to this door, which was now shut, and listened a
long time, his ear close to the crack. As far as the girls were
concerned they could distinguish no sound in the ballroom save a heavy
and muffled snore which undoubtedly came from Prissy's couch, somewhere
in the vicinity of the door near where they stood. Then Wade, growing
bolder, extinguished his own flashlight and cautiously opened the door
a crack. The girls behind him could perceive nothing save a pale glow
of light from Prissy's lamp which she kept always burning. The room
itself was hidden from them. But Wade could evidently get a clearer
view.

They were utterly confounded, about three minutes later, to have him
calmly throw the door open to its fullest extent and walk into the next
room, remarking in the most matter-of-fact voice:

"Stop right where you are! What are you doing in here?"




CHAPTER XVII

THE MIRACLE HAPPENS


For one single instant afterward there was not a sound in the room.
Prissy, aroused from deep sleep, lay staring dumfounded at the tableau.
She was too utterly nonplussed even to make an outcry. Or perhaps the
sight of Wade and the two girls who had followed him into the room had
stifled any such demonstration in her. Miss Jenifer still lay with her
eyes closed, wrapped in sleep. And then the girls turned to gaze at the
intruder.

Whatever they had expected to see, they had formulated no definite
picture. Both of them confessed afterward that it would have been a
man, no doubt, description lacking, but probably of the villainous or
gangster type, as that seemed to fit such depredations more nearly than
any other. To their undying amazement they beheld a _woman_, and one of
quite striking if somewhat flashy beauty, standing crouched by the
Duncan Phyfe table, clutching at one of the drawer knobs in the
desperate grip of surprise and fear.

"Move away from that table," commanded Wade in tones not loud enough to
disturb Miss Jenifer, "and be quick and quiet about it! Prissy, don't
you make a sound. Everything's going to be all right."

"Who are you? By what right do you command me?" demanded the strange
woman, in a low, burring voice with a markedly foreign accent.

"I'm a peace officer, if you're interested," retorted Wade. "Here's my
badge if you care to inspect it. And now get out of here!" he went on,
moving toward her, and swiftly producing his revolver from his coat
pocket as he did so. "Move out of that door as quietly as possible.
I'll have something to say to you downstairs!"

The trapped and baffled intruder was just about to obey, since there
was no gainsaying Wade's authority, when they were all startled by a
sound from Miss Jenifer's bed. And glancing over in that direction,
they were amazed to behold the old lady, awake, struggling to a sitting
position and actually _attaining it_--a thing that had not been
possible to her inert body since her first illness!

But that was not all. For in addition to having regained the power to
move the lower part of her body, she had also regained her power of
speech. And in a quavering voice she cried:

"Don't send her out! Let her speak here, please. I want to hear her!"

"Very well, Miss Jenifer," said Wade, controlling his astonishment as
best he could. "We'll question her here, but I'll have to keep her
covered with this gun. She can't be allowed to escape. Girls, you go
and stand over there by the door she came in--and keep it shut. I'll
guard this one. Now, my friend, you can go ahead and tell your story.
What is it you want here?"

But the trapped woman only stared sullenly at the floor and muttered:
"I shall tell nothing!"

"All right," retorted Wade. "In that case you can tell it to the judge
to-morrow morning. Come on--let's get going!"

But again Miss Jenifer intervened. "If she won't tell it, I will!"
quavered the old lady. "She got in here that night. I remember it all
now. You had just left me after my pleasant evening with you all, Wade,
and I stayed outside a little while and then went into the house. I was
just about to go upstairs when I heard a distinct noise out toward the
kitchen wing. Something--some instinct--told me it was someone who had
no business there. I took a lamp and went out through the west
reception room by the door that goes into the stair hallway and on
through the door into the connecting link. I could see no one for the
moment, and I put the lamp down on the little table that stands there.
In another moment this--person--this Madame d'Argéon emerged from the
cellar steps. And I knew that the fear which has haunted me for many
years had come true at last. I felt everything slipping from me--no
power in my knees--I knew I must be going to faint. And then, after
that, I knew nothing till I came to myself the other night, found
myself in bed here, unable to move or speak coherently, and Prissy,
strangely enough, sleeping on that couch over there with the light lit.

"I was--totally bewildered. I could not remember how the thing had come
to be. It was not till Mrs. Newkirk explained it to me that I began to
remember things from the past. Not all at once. They came to me
gradually. But of what had happened that night here, I could recall
nothing. Just now I suddenly awoke--as if from ordinary sleep--and I
remembered everything--and I could move once more--and talk."

She turned toward the intruding stranger. "But what are _you_ doing
here again? You haven't succeeded yet? You didn't get it?"

"You know I have not!" snarled the woman. And she muttered some angry
French curses under her breath. Miss Jenifer laughed. A curious, almost
soundless chuckle that shook her frail body in the great four-poster.

"No--you haven't--and you won't!" she went on. "For I'm going to see to
that, here and now. The time has at last come when I am free to do so.
Perhaps you'd like to know where the _keys_ are, for which you must
have been looking."

The woman started and glared at Miss Jenifer expectantly, and Miss
Jenifer went on: "Yes, I know now that you were after those keys that
night. You must have been watching long enough to learn that I usually
carry them around with me. And you would have got them, too, if I had
not had the forethought to place them, before I encountered you, in a
spot where you would never think to look. Something warned me--I don't
know what--that they were in danger. And I have more than one secret
hiding place in this house where they are temporarily safe. Fortunately
one was right at hand. Camilla and Audrey, will one of you take a light
and slip downstairs to the west reception room? Go over to that big
secretary near the rear door and reach up to that square bit of carved
wood directly in the center near the top--it's up over the top drawer.
If you put a fingernail back of it, you'll find that it pulls out quite
easily. In fact, it's just a little secret drawer. Please bring up to
me what you find there."

"I'll go," cried Audrey. "I have my own electric torch right here." She
opened the door behind her and sped down through the dark hall and
stairs to the old secretary in the west reception room. She had several
times noted the beautiful old piece of furniture, with the unobtrusive
square, carved medallion at the top. In fact she had mentally taken
stock of it on the day of her very first call, but never dreamed what
that little wooden medallion concealed. She pried it out with her
finger without difficulty and found it indeed a tiny drawer, as Miss
Jenifer had said. And feeling about in it as she stood there, her
fingers encountered the cold metal of two large brass keys. There was
nothing else in the drawer.

When she got back to the room with them, she found all as she had left
it, save that Miss Jenifer was lying back on her pillow resting, after
what must have been the terrific strain of the last ten minutes. Audrey
went over and laid the keys in her hands.

"Yes, here they are!" she exulted, smiling over them. "When I first
recalled them, after I came out of that unconscious state, I thought
they must be in that old table where I often kept them when I was in
the house. I could remember nothing of hiding them in the secret
drawer. But since they have come to light, we will have a little
ceremony. And you, Madame d'Argéon, will be its most interested
witness. Audrey, please do me another favor, as I do not feel able to
walk about much yet. Camilla, you had better stand guard at the door.
Take this key, Audrey"--she indicated one of them--"and unlock that
door over beside the fireplace." She pointed to the false door of so
many discussions, and Audrey took the key and walked over and unlocked
it, throwing it open for all to see.

And as they had surmised, there was no brick wall blocking up the
opening, but something they had never imagined in any talk they had had
about it. For the door opened on a tiny dark stairway, so narrow that a
large-sized person could hardly squeeze through it, its brick steps
winding round and round down into darkness. The stranger's eyes blazed
at the sight and she muttered some unintelligible remarks in French.
But Miss Jenifer paid little heed to her.

"And now, Audrey," she went on, "if you don't mind, I've a further
request to make of you. Take this other key, if you please, and go down
those steps, lighting your way with your torch. Halfway down you will
see a square iron plate set in the wall, and in one corner of that
plate a keyhole. Use this key in it, open the vault, and bring me up
the box you will find there, if you please." And Audrey obeyed her
request. By this time, so many strange things had happened in that room
that nothing seemed marvelous, when Audrey returned after a time,
bearing in her hands a wooden box or small chest of satiny rosewood,
with four claw-shaped brass feet and a carved brass handle on the lid.

But Miss Jenifer had one more surprise for them. And when Audrey had
laid the box before her on the bed the old lady asked her to touch a
match to the fire which was laid in the fireplace but had been
unlighted, as the night was still very hot and sultry. And, finding a
matchsafe on the mantel above it, Audrey started small flames in
several places. Presently there was a roaring fire behind the high
brass fender, and the room began to grow almost suffocatingly hot.

"Now," continued Miss Jenifer, raising the lid of the rosewood chest,
"will you kindly take this, Audrey, and place it in the hottest part of
the fire?" She lifted from the box a bundle of yellowed papers or
documents, tied about many times with faded ribbons and tapes, and
sealed in several places with great splashes of pale sealing wax on
which were the imprints of a crested device. Not one of the seals was
broken.

At the sight of this document the trapped intruder uttered a sound
almost like the cry of a wounded animal and made a spasmodic movement
toward the bed.

"Hold hard there!" warned Wade. "I still have you covered with this
gun!" And the woman fell back to her former position with a baffled
groan.

"Go right ahead, Audrey, and do as I asked you!" Miss Jenifer ordered.
"I feel very weak. I cannot stand this strain much longer."

Audrey walked over to the bed and took the packet, and with it walked
back to the fireplace and tossed it into the heart of the crackling
flames. And in a dead silence they all watched, till the last
crinkling, flaky remnant had floated away up the wide chimney flue.
Then the woman broke the silence with a wild, despairing cry and buried
her face in her hands.

"And now," began Wade, to break the tension, "shall I walk her out of
here and over to the constable's office, Miss Jenifer?"

The old lady had slipped down on her pillow with a great sigh of relief
and exhaustion.

"No," she gasped, striving to keep her calmness after the terrific
strain. "No, let her go! She can do me no further harm. I have no
longer any interest in her! She--she will want to get away as far--and
as quickly--as possible. Let her go free!"

"Very well--just as you say, Miss Jenifer!" agreed Wade, rather
astounded at this magnanimity. "But I think I'll see her well out of
the house and off the place, anyhow. She came here in a rowboat
to-night, so I'll just give her the tip that I pushed that boat off and
set it adrift before I came in here. Consequently she'll have a good
long walk before her till she gets to wherever she has probably left
her car. Move along, lady, if you please!"

The woman sent one more malignant and baffled glance toward Miss
Jenifer in the great four-poster, then turned about without a word and
sullenly marched out of the room and down the stairs, followed by Wade,
still covering her with the revolver. He was gone some time, and when
he returned he remarked that he had started her well on the road out of
town, telling her she was lucky to have been let go at all, and that if
he'd had his way, she'd be on the road to the town lock-up. He had left
her trudging hopelessly away, without so much as a word of comment on
the affair, but muttering strange French anathemas under her breath.

He found the girls huddled in the lower front hall waiting for his
return. They said Miss Jenifer had almost had a collapse after his
departure, and that it was all Prissy and themselves could do to keep
her from fainting away from the strain and tension of the whole affair.
But Prissy had revived her with smelling salts and aromatic ammonia,
and had then given her an emergency sleeping powder and she had just
fallen into a restful sleep.

It was at this point that they beheld Mrs. Newkirk, hastily arrayed in
bathrobe and slippers, come stumbling through the garden and around to
the front door, just as the sky was paling to a grey dawn.

"For mercy's sake, _what_ is the matter?" she demanded as they opened
the door. "I woke and found not a soul except Lorry in the house. Has
anything happened to Miss Jenifer? Why didn't you call me? What is the
explanation of it all?"

"Mother," declared Wade solemnly, "I'll be dog-goned if I know _what_
the explanation of it is!"




CHAPTER XVIII

THE END'S BEGINNING


"There's just one thing that's certain," went on Wade to his bewildered
and somewhat indignant mother, "and it's this: You can't be of any use
here right now. Miss Jenifer's all right and peacefully asleep--and
much more all right than you think, for the matter of that! But the
rest of us have had a pretty hard night. So suppose we all go back to
our kitchen and have some hot coffee and toast, and we'll explain
everything--at least everything we _know_--as we go along!"

He put his arm around his mother and led her down the steps and back
through the garden to their own house, the others following, and over
steaming coffee and hot toast they all talked away, "sixteen to the
dozen," trying to explain to Mrs. Newkirk the history of that night's
strange episode and Miss Jenifer's miraculous recovery. Each had his or
her own contribution to make, and the combined result left Mrs. Newkirk
still somewhat bewildered.

"But I don't understand," she commented. "You walked in there, Wade,
and said you were a peace officer, and threatened to arrest her. How
could you do a thing like that? It wasn't true!"

"Yes, that's what I've been wondering about ever since," chimed in
Camilla. "And where did you borrow that badge?"

Wade laughed. "You're all wrong. It wasn't any fake at all. I _am_ a
peace officer, if you please! I was sworn in yesterday over at Easton,
at my own request, and was lucky enough to get my badge right away. It
isn't a difficult matter. I told them I'd noticed evidence of one or
two undesirable characters around on the outskirts of the town, and
that we'd all feel safer if I had some authority in my hands to deal
with them. It isn't an uncommon procedure. And I did anticipate some
such fracas as this, only I didn't _dream_ I'd be having a woman to
deal with!"

"When did you first know it was a woman, Wade? Not till you saw her in
the room?" questioned his mother.

"It was before that," he said. "I waited out in that lilac clump so
long last night that I was almost asleep myself, when I heard the very
faint sound of oars working in oarlocks in some boat on the river. It
hardly seemed likely that any fishing boat would be out so late, so I
crept down to the foot of our garden and got behind a bush where I
could look over toward Kenwick garden. And sure enough, presently I
heard a boat grating very softly on that shelving bit of beach there. I
crept as close as I could and saw some black form all wrapped up get
out of the boat and sneak along up the shore till it got to that low
brick wall that surrounds the garden.

"You know that old stone fountain in the middle of the wall just near
the edge of the river? Remember, it has a semicircular stone basin on
the garden side, with a stone back higher than the wall, and that old
copper dolphin's head over the basin? I suppose water must once have
spouted out of its mouth into the basin. Anyhow, it was right there
that the figure stopped and began fussing in some way with the
fountain. I couldn't see just what he did (of course I thought it was a
man!) but, all of a sudden, in some inexplicable way, he seemed to
_disappear_. I didn't know where he'd gone--thought he might have
disappeared into the old, heart-shaped box border. But at last I took a
chance and crawled over to where I'd last seen him by the fountain.

"And I'll eat my hat if that fountain wasn't completely turned around
in some way--must work on a pivot or something. And there was a hole
and a flight of narrow brick steps leading down into somewhere. And
then the explanation of a whole lot dawned on me. That fountain covered
the river end of a secret passage leading to the Kenwick cellar. I
ought to have realized there was one. Half the big old Maryland
mansions had 'em! And that was how the intruder got in that night we
were chasing him around the cellar--and the way he got out again.

"Anyhow, I wasn't going to risk my precious hide in any dark tunnel
with an unknown marauder, so I beat it through the garden to Kenwick. I
couldn't see anything unusual from the outside--there didn't even seem
to be a light anywhere around the cellar. So I unlocked, very
cautiously, the garden door to the kitchen wing and stood there with it
open just a crack--and my eye glued to that crack. It wasn't more than
two minutes before I saw a faint gleam of light coming up the cellar
steps and then I saw--that _woman_ (you could have knocked me down with
a fountain pen!) creeping up the steps with that same old lantern. She
had a chisel or some sort of burglar's jimmy in the other hand, and she
set the lantern down and began prying at that door into the main house
Prissy always keeps locked. I knew the job would take her some time,
and I wanted you girls on the job to help me catch the dame red-handed,
so I slipped back to the house and got you up. I had it figured out
that she'd probably go upstairs and into Miss Jenifer's room by the
usual door. I'm pretty certain she's been all through this house at
some previous time and knew the ropes.

"You know what happened after that. Of course, what she was after was
those documents, and she must have known exactly where they were
hidden. I have a feeling that she'd probably been in and about this
house a number of times before Miss Jenifer saw her that first night,
only she never could get hold of the keys, or find where Miss Jenifer
kept them when she wasn't carrying them around."

Mrs. Newkirk gave a long sigh and put down her empty coffee cup. "Well,
it's all been most extraordinary," she murmured, "but at least poor
Miss Jenifer has come to herself again. That's a lot to be thankful
for. And I hope the doctor will find her none the worse for it. The
only thing I can hardly forgive you for is keeping me out of it all,
though I know you did it to spare me worry. Goodness knows!--if my hair
weren't white already, it _would_ be by now, if I'd lived through all
these thrills and horrors with you!"

"But what _I_ want to know is whether we're ever going to hear the
explanation of all this business," exclaimed Camilla. "I believe I'll
just pass out if Miss Jenifer doesn't tell us what it was all about!"

"Prepare for an early demise then," grinned Wade, "for if I know Miss
Jenifer, I don't believe she will. But, say, do you know it's broad
daylight? And the first thing I do, before I crawl into my downy couch
to slumber, is to run out to the garden and explore that tunnel, which
if I'm not mistaken is still open. Want to tag along?"

They all did--even Mrs. Newkirk--and trailed after him through the
dew-drenched garden in the gold and glory of the early dawn. Stepping
across the low brick wall about Kenwick garden, they skirted the box
border and came to the weed-grown path that led straight to the stone
fountain by which Audrey had sat many a time, sketching the garden view
of Kenwick. It looked weird and unfamiliar now, twisted entirely off
its stone base, leaving a gap in the brick wall. Wade tinkered about
with it a moment, moving it back and forth, and finally declared that
it was the turning of the dolphin's head in some definite manner that
released the fountain so that it could be moved around.

Then he dived down the flight of brick steps that stood revealed,
telling them to wait till he had explored it a bit before trying it
themselves. He crawled back later to say that it was a very dank and
damp brick passageway, full of crawling subterranean insects and far
from pleasant to penetrate. He had not gone the entire way, but
surmised that it led straight to the cellar. So he suggested that he
turn the fountain around to its normal position and that they all go
back to the garden entrance of Kenwick and see if they could find the
cellar opening.

"She must have left it open," he declared, "as she was probably
expecting to go back to her boat that way. I took the precaution to
push that boat well out into the current and see it drift away before I
went into the house last night, so she wouldn't find _that_ means of
locomotion if she got away. I've no idea where she got it originally,
but I think she came from across the river, and I'll bet she had one
nice long tramp back! Now let's go to the cellar."

The cellar seemed not nearly so weird and uncanny, by the morning light
that drifted through the low windows in the foundation of the house, as
it had in the darkness of that wild night when they explored it. And in
all the main compartments of it there was not a trace of any opening.
One dark portion remained, unlit by any window or crevice. Into it they
penetrated, through a low and narrow passageway, and Wade flashed his
torch about the enclosure.

"Here it is!" he exclaimed. "We saw it that time before, don't you
remember? That set of shelves full of old jelly glasses and preserve
jars. And the lantern was left right near it. I never thought of
anything being back of it. Look at it now!"

The set of shelves, which they remembered from their first visit as
reaching nearly to the low ceiling beams, and crowded with long disused
glasses and jars, now stood swung clear away from the wall, the entire
wooden back of it being in actuality a door that opened on the other
end of the brick tunnel coming from the river. They all crowded close
to it and stared within, while Wade swung his torch about just inside
the entrance. And then they saw another and inexplicable feature. For
while straight ahead the tunnel ran on in the dark toward the river,
directly to the right of the entrance there was a rough archway of
brick, and ascending into it were three steps also of brick, ending in
a rude wall or barrier, roughly constructed of bricks and cement and
pieces of stone, but reaching clear to the top of the archway and
forming a complete and effective stop to any further progress in that
direction.

"Here's a funny thing!" muttered Wade. "Unless I've missed my guess,
this was a flight of steps leading up somewhere into the house--must be
that one you went down last night, Audrey. And it joined this tunnel so
that anyone who wanted to escape from upstairs, and couldn't get to the
cellar, could do so from the ballroom. Not a bad idea for those jumpy
Colonial days when this house was built. But I wonder how-come this
barrier of stones and cement and bricks here? It has a rather newer
look than the masonry in the rest of the cellar."

"Oh, yes," chimed in Audrey, "I saw that last night when I went down
there for Miss Jenifer. I got nearly all the way down before I found
the iron plate. It was pretty well concealed and I missed it. And near
the bottom, I saw this--or rather the other side of this
wall--completely blocking the way. I didn't think much about it at the
time, for I was too busy trying to find that little hiding place in the
side. How do you suppose this got here?"

"You can search me!" said Wade, wearily, and he motioned them all out
while he swung the shelf about and into place again. "All I know now is
that I want to go back home and sleep for a week--after I've had some
of Mandy's pancakes and sausage for breakfast. I'm that dead to the
world!"


Wade was wrong, however, about his prophecy concerning Miss
Jenifer--that they would never hear any more about the mystery from
her. And not many days were to pass before he was compelled to
acknowledge he'd been mistaken there. Miss Jenifer was very much
exhausted after the ordeal she'd been through, and, by the doctor's
orders, lay for two whole days quietly resting and seeing no one but
Mrs. Newkirk. That lady reported that she did not talk at all about the
events of that momentous night, just lay relaxed and resting, speaking
only occasionally and then in a perfectly normal way, as if her illness
had never amounted to more than an ordinary period of inaction in bed.
And neither Prissy nor Mrs. Newkirk urged her to do anything else.

Then, one morning, she voluntarily arose, assisted by Prissy, took a
few steps about the room, and requested to be dressed and allowed to
sit in a huge old winged chair by one of the windows. And when the old
black woman had dressed her mistress and served her breakfast, Miss
Jenifer commanded her to go across to the Newkirks and ask them all to
come and make her a visit that morning--an invitation that was joyfully
accepted. When they had all filed in and greeted her, congratulating
her on her recovery, she bade them sit down as she wanted to have a
long visit.

"You're no more crazy to hear all about this than I am to tell it!" she
began gayly. "I have been lying here thinking it all over for two whole
days and nights, and I have concluded that the time for secrecy is over
now, and if anyone is entitled to know what this strange affair was all
about, you are certainly the ones. You did me an inestimable service.
Though how you came to be there at just the right time, I've still to
learn. The whole thing might have gone wrong but for you all. How can I
ever thank you?"

"You mustn't even try, dear Miss Jenifer," murmured Mrs. Newkirk. "And
don't try to explain it if you don't feel like it, or it tires you.
We're terribly interested, of course, but all we did was for your sake
alone. And we're just delighted that you're so like yourself and so
happy."

"I _am_ happy," declared Miss Jenifer, "and for the first time in many
years. A heavy responsibility has been dropped from my shoulders, and
also a menace that has threatened me for a long, long time. I _want_ to
tell you about it because I may now, and it is such an interesting
thing also, apart from all that has lately happened. Perhaps I'd better
begin at the very beginning, far back when this country was still very
young.

"You all no doubt realize that this house was built by a Kenwick
forbear of mine, well back in Colonial days. The time of the Revolution
was approaching when the original Josiah Kenwick built it, back in the
late seventeen-sixties. But young Josiah Kenwick wasn't considering
political affairs, for he was building this fine mansion preparatory to
getting married and bringing his bride from Charleston to it. But he
took the precaution to have built into it a secret hiding place and
passageway leading to the river, because one couldn't tell when such
things might be needed in those unsettled times.

"At any rate, when it was finished, Josiah went to Charleston, was
married, and brought his bride back here and established this home for
all his future descendants. A few years later the Revolution broke out,
and he went into the fighting with as great a zest as he had into
building this home. He came to be of considerable importance to General
Washington, and when Lafayette came over to assist us, Josiah was
detailed by Washington to be one of the French general's aides and they
became very firm friends. Later, when Lafayette went back to France in
1786 after his second visit here, he took leave of Josiah Kenwick in
Annapolis, and exacted from him a promise that should Josiah ever come
to France, he must without fail be his guest there.

"Then the French Revolution itself broke out, with Lafayette in command
of the National Guards. But, though he was in sympathy with the
Revolutionists, he was so disgusted with the outrageous way in which
they treated poor Louis XVI and his queen and family that he resigned
from the National Guards. I cannot tell you all the complicated details
of that awful period--you can read that in your histories. But it came
about that later the French Jacobins unjustly suspected the patriotism
of General Lafayette and he determined to leave and come to America
again, but was captured, thrown into prison at Olmütz, in Austria, and
kept there five horrible years. In 1797 he was released from there, and
by that time Bonaparte was at the head of French affairs. I am skipping
all that happened in the meantime in France, but between Lafayette and
Bonaparte there was no special love lost, and the Marquis retired
finally to his estates at La Grange, near Paris.

"Now comes a more personal part in this story. In about the year 1805
Josiah Kenwick crossed the Atlantic and made a visit to France. And
true to his promise of many years before, he became the guest, for
several weeks, of the Marquis de Lafayette at La Grange. While there,
the Marquis took him aside in great secrecy one day and asked him if he
would be willing to take back with him to America some private
documents of an extremely important nature and keep them concealed till
he (the Marquis) should communicate with him further about them. He did
not tell the nature of their contents, but said that he felt it unwise
to keep them in France, as they contained matters of national
importance, and he wished to get them entirely out of the country.

"Of course my great-grandfather expressed himself as entirely willing
to do this favor, and said he had an excellent hiding place for them
right in his own house. So the documents were delivered to him, tied up
and sealed many times, as you saw them last night, and Josiah brought
them away with him and later concealed them just where I directed
Audrey to find them. And there they remained for a number of long years
without any word from the Marquis as to their further disposition.

"Then, in 1824, came the time of Lafayette's last visit to the United
States, and, as you know, he was invited to make a triumphal tour of
all the principal cities from Boston to Savannah. And of course, while
in Annapolis, he did not fail to make a visit of one night out to
Kenwick. And while here he and Josiah, who was by then a very old man,
had a long and secret conference over the documents. It was then that
Lafayette confided to him the nature of their contents. And those
contents, I know, will surprise you considerably, if I am not mistaken!

"For it concerned the matter of what had been the real fate of the
ill-fated little son of Louis XVI, 'The Lost Dauphin' as some called
him--he who should have reigned as Louis XVII if the Bourbon succession
had followed its normal course. Probably you have read how the boy was
taken from his mother, Marie Antoinette, and confined in the Temple
Tower in Paris in the care of a frightfully cruel cobbler called Simon.
Later the story was spread abroad that the child had died of disease
and ill treatment and was buried in the grounds near the Tower. And you
know, too, that there were many who did not believe this, but declared
that he had escaped, been smuggled out of the Temple Tower by
interested friends and royalists, and another diseased child put in his
place to die under his name. To this day that question has never been
satisfactorily answered, though it was rumored that many in high
authority in France of that day, even Napoleon himself, knew that the
Dauphin had not really died in the Tower.

"Well, to go back--Lafayette revealed to Josiah Kenwick that there had
come into his hands authentic papers, signed, sealed, and properly
attested by a number of prominent people in France, concerning the
actual fate of the Dauphin, whatever it might be, and that these papers
were of such vital importance that they might alter the whole régime
of the country were they to be revealed. Lafayette himself was
convinced that at that time affairs throughout the entire continent of
Europe were so unsettled that it might only result in creating another
chaotic state of war between several of the nations were those papers
to be brought to light then. France was at this period under the rule
of Charles X, having reverted again to a Bourbon ruler, a relative of
the lost dauphin. And Lafayette was none too pleased with the way he
was conducting his reign. There was no telling how long it would last,
nor when his country might resume again a republican form of
government. At any rate, he felt that the peace of Europe must not be
threatened at this time, and begged Josiah to keep the documents a
little longer in this safe hiding place.

"Then Lafayette went on his way, and Josiah never saw him again. But in
1830, another revolution broke out in France, led by Lafayette himself
and the incompetent Charles was forced to abdicate. And in 1831, in the
spring of that year, Josiah received his final message from Lafayette.
In it he begged his American friend to do him one last favor. France
had adopted a constitutional form of government under Louis Philippe,
this being the form of government that Lafayette had always been firmly
convinced would best secure peace for France. And the old Marquis felt
that now, less than ever, was the time ripe to bring to the public the
contents of those documents. And furthermore he expressed himself as
well pleased that at last his dream of a constitutional government for
France had come to pass, aided by a most able premier, Casimir Périer.
He was content.

"But the matter of these documents still troubled him, for he felt that
even yet they should not be completely destroyed. However, he begged to
leave this trust with my great-grandfather, to be passed on to the
direct descendants of his family when the time came. If, in a hundred
years from the receipt of this letter, the great experiment had worked,
and France were still under a constitutional government, whether as a
limited monarchy or a republic, he begged that the oldest surviving
member of the Kenwick family should take these documents and, without
unsealing them or learning their contents, destroy them by fire. For
the knowledge they contained would no longer be of any use to his
country and, if known, might only serve to create dissension and
warfare anew.

"Josiah Kenwick received this letter on May 19th, in the year 1831. And
that day he took his children into a solemn council--there was a grown
son and grandson (my father) by then--told them the history of the
documents and showed them their hiding place. And he laid it on them
and their descendants as a sacred trust that this secret should be
preserved in the family and the last wish of Lafayette be fulfilled to
the letter. And in the course of the years the trust passed eventually
into my hands.

"I now come to a very painful part of my story--painful because it
concerns myself and the unhappy way in which these documents became
interwoven with my own affairs. I was a very young girl when my father
took my sister and myself into his confidence one day (we were his only
remaining children) and disclosed to us the secret trust, showed us its
hiding place, and reminded us of our own responsibility about the
matter in case of his death. I was very much impressed with the
importance of the charge, I remember, and could hardly sleep nights for
a while, thinking of the seriousness of the responsibility. I was much
younger than my sister--ten or twelve years younger, in fact--and I
calculated that it was even possible that this weighty decision might
eventually depend on myself. My sister was an invalid with a very grave
and incurable disease at the time, and I could not help but know that
in the natural course of things I would probably outlive her. And also
that, if I should attain the age of seventy-eight (as I now have) the
hundred years would then be up, and I would be the one left to fulfill
the commands of Lafayette. I was quite overcome by the responsibility.

"Then a new element came into my life. I met and fell in love with a
young first mate of a ship that had come into the port of Annapolis.
John Stewart was a fascinating young fellow and we fell in love almost
at first sight. But his position and prospects were not very important
and he came of a family that my father did not consider equal socially
with ours. However, we became secretly engaged, and I fully expected
that I could overcome my family's objections to him in time. My sister
also was bitterly opposed to his attentions to me. He remained in
Annapolis three months before leaving for his next voyage, as his ship
was being overhauled. And in that time we saw each other constantly.

"Then one day, shortly before he sailed on a long voyage to India and
the China Sea, I did an inexcusable thing. I was so sure that
eventually we would marry, and he would become a member of the family,
that I confided to him the secret of Lafayette, and even showed him the
passageway behind the supposedly false door in the ballroom, with its
other entrance below the fountain. I wanted to think that some day we
would share the responsibility together and make the final disposition
of those documents.

"It was a young girl's foolish and baseless dream, and for long years I
was to rue that confidence. For John Stewart sailed away a few days
afterward, and I was never to see him again. We had agreed not to write
to each other lest my father or sister should suspect our attachment.
But I was utterly confounded to learn, when his ship returned to
Annapolis nearly a year later, that he was no longer aboard her, that
he had left her at the port of Marseilles on her way to the East, and
had not been heard of since. It was a terrible and bitter blow. I
cannot dwell on it, for even now I can hardly bear the memory. I still,
however, could not give up the hope that he might one day return to me,
and I spent the ensuing years trusting him and waiting for that return.
My father and sister both hoped that I would marry into one of the
prominent families of Maryland, but I had no such ambition and never
encouraged the attentions of any of their young men. Finally I was left
alone in the world, still hoping vainly sometime to hear news, if
nothing else, of my vanished sweetheart.

"It made me queer--I know it--but as the years went on, I ceased to
care and settled down into spinsterhood. If I could only have had some
explanation of his conduct, I would have felt more content. But never
to know--it was very bitter! And then, too, the fact that I had
confided to him that all-important secret worried me night and day. But
I trusted him so thoroughly, even yet, that I could not believe he
would make any unlawful use of it. More likely he had completely
forgotten it, as he had me. And so the years passed.

"Then came the World War. I somehow felt very remote from it, for by
that time I was in rather straitened circumstances, and I could do
little to help, as my few friends left here were doing. I would have
sold my valuable jewelry, if I had known how to go about it, but I
never went far from home and I dreaded to take the step. So I knitted
for the Red Cross and hoped I was doing my bit in that way. And then,
just about the time this country was going into it, a strange thing
happened to me.

"It was about dusk one evening and I was sitting in the garden knitting
a gray sweater, when I was astonished to have Prissy, who was then
still with me, come out and say that there was a strange woman who had
knocked at the front door and asked for me by name. Prissy had admitted
her to the west reception room and asked if I would see her. I went
into the house and she introduced herself as a Madame d'Argéon, who
had just a few days before landed in New York from France, and had a
very important message for me from someone in France. I assured her
that I knew no one in France, but she said to wait till I heard it and
then judge. And then she told me this singular tale. She had been
secretary and companion to a French lady of title in a château in a
certain part of France. A few months before this time, there had been a
totally unexpected German air raid on this vicinity, and though the
château was practically unharmed, a bomb had completely destroyed the
house of her gardener, a man of sixty or more, killing his wife and
daughter and desperately injuring himself. They had taken the man into
the château and she had helped to nurse him till he finally died of
his injuries.

"But before he died he confided to her that the bombing and the shock
had done a curious thing to him. It had suddenly restored to him the
memory of a past that had been absolutely wiped out of his mind for
forty years or more. He could recall it all now, though for forty-odd
years he could never remember what had happened to him before he found
himself alone somewhere outside of Marseilles, desperately wounded in
the head and being taken care of by a kind old French woman in whose
charge he had mysteriously been left. He had no money, no trinkets, no
mementos, no clothes even, from his past life, and not the slightest
idea who he was or where he had hailed from. He seemed even to have
forgotten the knowledge of any language and had to learn to speak
French. But at last his wound had healed and the woman's husband taught
him something of gardening, and he finally became an expert gardener,
married a French peasant girl, and drifted into the service of the
château, where he had remained ever since. When the World War came he
was too old to be drafted, so he remained as a gardener at the
château. And then came the air raid with its dreadful consequences,
and his own return of memory.

"Dear people, he was my own sweetheart, John Stewart--it all came back
to him--how he had gone off the ship at Marseilles the night before she
sailed for the East, had drifted into a café and become suddenly
embroiled with some French officers in an argument and finally a
hand-to-hand fight. He remembered a terrific blow on the head, and then
nothing more. No others of his shipmates were with him, so his
whereabouts were not known. He thinks that probably the officers or the
café proprietor became alarmed lest he die and they be held
responsible, and had him moved out of the town and placed in the care
of the old woman, first removing everything from him that might prove
telltale, in case he should die.

"All this he told Madame d'Argéon, who was then caring for him so
kindly. And then he told her further about me, and how he had once
promised to return to marry me, and how I had probably thought him
false all these years. The past must have been with him very
poignantly, those last few days that he lived, and Madame d'Argéon
said he told her everything he could think of about it, and begged her
to find the opportunity sometime to write, or better still, if she came
over here, to find if I were still alive, and tell me the story of how
he had at least not been false to my trust in him. But his wound was
hopeless and at last he became delirious and finally passed away.

"She told me she had planned to write about it at once, but just about
that time the French lady whose companion she was suggested that she
come to America with her to help raise funds for the French War Relief,
and she decided that it would be better to come here in person to tell
me all about it, instead of writing. So in a few months they came, and
she had now fulfilled her trust.

"I could not help but believe her--she had all the facts, and could
have learned them in no other way. I was touched to the very bottom of
my heart, as you can imagine, and so happy to think that my years of
trust in John Stewart had been justified. Also I was grateful to her
beyond any power to express it, and I urged her to stay at the house
overnight, as it was late, and I would like to talk further with her.
She seemed very willing to do so, and we had what dinner Prissy could
get together and talked till late. Then I lodged her in the west front
bedroom and retired to my own. I was then sleeping in the east front
room.

"I did not sleep very well, as you can imagine, after the excitement of
that evening, and toward morning I thought I heard an unusual sound in
the ballroom, which, as you see, is directly back of what was then my
bedroom. (Prissy at that time slept in one of the rooms over the
kitchen wing.) I got up and crept softly into the hall and to the door
of the ballroom and peered in. What was my horror to discover my
visitor, a candle lighted on a table beside her, trying to pick the
lock of that door into the secret passageway with some instrument
evidently fitted for the purpose. But that lock would defy any
burglar's tool. It double locks, as you probably discovered, Audrey,
finding you had to turn your key completely around twice. It is very
complicated."

Audrey said, "Yes, I remember. And the one to the strong-box or vault
was the same." Miss Jenifer paused for a moment. She had been talking
so long and uninterruptedly that she felt almost exhausted. But her
listeners were too spellbound with her tale to break their silence.
Presently she went on:

"I was frightfully indignant. I could just gasp out, 'What are you
doing there?' And then she whirled around and saw me. She laughed when
she saw me, a horrible, grating, sneering laugh and said:

"'Well, you have caught me and I guess you know now that _I_ know a
little more than I told you. It was all true, what I told you--I'll say
that for your sweetheart. But when he grew delirious, he let out all
about some secret passageway and the papers and Lafayette. I did not
believe it at first--I thought it was just raving. But it was too near
to the truth to be all the fabrication of his delirium. I decided to
come and see for myself. I wish now that I had come first by the
passageway from the river. Yes, I know all about that, you see. Then I
could have got them without interruption from you. But it was somewhat
dangerous and I hate dark, confined, and secret passageways. And then,
too, I really thought you should hear what I'd promised the dead to
tell. I have a superstition against breaking promises to the dead!'

"Well, my dear friends, I was simply speechless. I did not know what to
say to her, and I was more than horrified to know that she had gotten
possession of the knowledge of that sacred family trust. While I was
trying to collect my wits, she went on: 'But I have a proposition to
make to you. You are not in the most affluent circumstances--I can see
that. It is no disgrace, but you would doubtless be glad to have enough
to keep you in complete comfort for the rest of your days, and I can
see to it that you will have this, if you will trust to me. You do not
really care about those papers--what is old Lafayette to you now? He's
been dead nearly a hundred years. He might have changed his mind a
dozen times about them had he lived longer.

"'But there are certain parties in France who would be willing to give
an immense sum for possession of those papers. I know--I have talked
with them. Why not let me sell them to these interested parties and we
will divide the gold and live in comfort the rest of our lives? The war
is changing everything. Why cling to those old and useless documents
any longer? What do you say, my little American lady?'

"Those were her very words. I shall never forget them. I was so furious
that I do not remember what I did or said, but I literally drove her
out of the house. I must have been like a maniac. Prissy told me later
that I almost scared her to death, my eyes were blazing so.

"It was early dawn when the woman left, cursing me all the way down the
steps and out of the front door. Just there she turned and said: 'My
name is not really Madame d'Argéon, so you need not pursue me, for you
will not find me. But I shall come again sometime, and then I shall be
more successful!' I told her I hadn't any intention of pursuing her. I
could exhibit at least that much gratitude for the news she had brought
me, which I could not help but believe true. But I told her to spare
herself the trouble of any further visits, for she would never find or
get to the documents even if she came.

"And so she vanished away down the road. I never knew or inquired how
she got finally out of the town. But from that instant I became haunted
by the terrible fear that she _would_ sometime fulfill her threat and I
immediately made a great change in my whole life. That very morning I
purchased in town a number of bags of cement. I knew they might think
it strange there that I had made such a purchase, but I gave the reason
that I wanted some work done in the cellar and would arrange for
someone to do it later. Then Prissy and I set about the business of
walling up the opening in the passageway that led to the ballroom. It
was a terrible piece of work for two women, but we got it done somehow.
I could not trust anything so vital to outsiders.

"I do not know what Prissy thought of it all. I did not explain to her
my reasons, and she had never even known that there was a secret
passage. She was of the old régime of servants, however, and asked no
questions, taking everything I did as right, even though inexplicable
to her. But the affair seemed to give her a permanent horror of the
cellar and the whole kitchen wing. I moved her quarters to the office
wing after that, and decided to abandon the old kitchen and sacrifice
the rear drawing room by turning it into a kitchen. But I had a
carpenter carefully board up the beautiful fireplace, so that nothing
should ever injure those carvings. And I spent more than I could spare
of my fast-dwindling money for a good range. Also, that I might never
be far from the other entrance to the secret stairway, I turned the
ballroom into my bedroom, and so could be constantly on guard near that
important door. I know my friends thought I was probably going crazy.
So, that I might not be subject to comment, questions, and criticism, I
altered my whole mode of life, shut off the main part of the house from
visitors, and encouraged few to make any more than the most formal
calls in the two front rooms.

"Then the state of my finances compelled me to make one more sacrifice.
I could no longer keep Prissy and pay her any adequate wages. Neither
could I even afford to feed her if she stayed without compensation, as
she begged to do. It was not fair to her, for she could still earn
money by laundry-work or in cleaning-work in the town. So I had to let
her go. But she has always been a faithful friend, coming here every so
often to do little tasks and bits of cleaning for me. And I can never
thank her sufficiently for her loving care of me in this illness.

"There was one other thing that plagued me constantly--those two big
keys to the false door and the safety vault. What was I to do with
them--where conceal them beyond reach of any future intrusion? My
father had always kept them in a drawer of his own personal desk, tied
together and merely sealed in a large envelope. No one knew their use
or to what locks they belonged except his two daughters, and he felt
them to be entirely safe that way. And up to that time, even I had seen
no reason to conceal them any more effectively. But after what had
happened, they became the plague of my life!

"I tried hiding them in every secret place I knew. I even once buried
them, but they were constantly on my mind--the worry about them--and I
was never assured that they were still where I had put them, but must
be constantly going to look at them or digging them up to see that they
were still safe. Finally I made up my mind that I would carry them
about with me constantly, never allowing them out of my hands when I
was away from the house, or out of my sight in the house. At night I
used to keep them in that musical table close to my bed, as it had a
secret spring and lock. People seeing me going about with them
concluded that they were my door keys (the front door has a lock on the
same order, and a key about that size), so I let them think that. But
when I went out and locked the front door, I would just slip _that_ key
into my pocket."

Miss Jenifer halted at this point and sank back in her chair, sighing,
"But I have talked too long. I am growing very tired. I think I will
rest now and let you folks tell _me_ how you came to know so much about
what was going on here, and happened to be right on the spot at the
crucial time. That has been puzzling me very much!"

So Wade took up the story, while she rested, and gave her a history as
full as possible of their side of the affair. "There is no doubt in my
mind," he ended, "that the woman had been hanging about here for a
number of days before that first night she entered, trying to get the
lay of the land. She probably saw that you carried those keys about
with you, Miss Jenifer, and saw that her only hope of obtaining them
was to waylay you at some time and snatch them from you. As she
couldn't very well do so in broad daylight, and you were never out at
night, she never had the chance till that one evening you came to dine
with us. Then she saw her opportunity to slip into the house by that
secret passageway (which she probably dreaded to try--or perhaps she
had already tried and found the entrance to the upper secret stairway
nicely blocked off by your masonry!).

"I suppose you kept the door from the main house into the kitchen wing
locked also, didn't you?"

Miss Jenifer said she did, and hadn't unlocked it before in a long
time, till she heard the sounds on her return and went to investigate
them.

Wade continued: "No doubt she waited till after dark that night, and
then decided to try the secret passage from the river, probably
thinking she could in that way get right to the vault on the stairway
if she hadn't been there before, and try her hand at picking that lock,
quite unmolested. I'd like to have seen her face when she discovered
your blocking wall of bricks and cement! Then she tried to get in the
other way, through the cellar and kitchen wing, only to find that
locked also. And it was much too dangerous to try getting it open and
then fussing with the other locked false door before your return.

"I imagine she figured you'd come in as usual with the keys in your
hand. And if she could attract you by some noise down to the kitchen
wing and then grab those keys from you, she might be able to stun you
by knocking you down, or temporarily chloroform you, or something, get
what she wanted, and be away before you came to. But you were too smart
for her. I figure she was rather upset when you toppled over that way,
and she may have run through the house looking for the keys, or she may
have thought the fright had killed you, and that she'd better get out
at once. I guess she wasn't a desperate enough sort to want to have a
murder laid at her door! So she unlocked the garden door and streaked
it away.

"But she must have hung around many days after that, to get wind of
what had happened. And perhaps she discovered that you were pretty ill
and she began to have renewed hope of getting what she was after. But I
imagine we drove her to distraction, hanging about all the time during
the day. No doubt she was poking around that night when I went back to
Annapolis and there was no one to fear. And Prissy heard the noise when
she woke to find Miss Jenifer had had that change, and then came
running over to our house. The afternoon we all went off on the river,
she probably got desperate and tried to get in the office wing. Maybe
she thought that connected with the main house. But at any rate, she
went through it pretty thoroughly, no doubt on an off chance of finding
the keys, before we very nearly came back and caught her. And she
pretty nearly did for Audrey's model, too!"

"Wade," suddenly interrupted Camilla, "what became of the little watch
charm or whatever it was that you found there? Have you got it yet?"

"No," he acknowledged a trifle sheepishly. "I gave it back to her on
the way out. _I_ didn't want the thing and I didn't suppose any of the
rest of us did, either. So when I left her, I took it out of my pocket
and asked her if it belonged to her. She grabbed it with almost a
shriek of joy and relief, saying: 'Oh, yes, yes! It is my lucky charm.
I--I thank you very much!' And I left her fairly weeping over it when
we parted company."

"Well, I'm glad you gave it to her, Wade," agreed Miss Jenifer. "After
all it is to her I owe having received the last words of John Stewart,
which changed me from an embittered woman into a more contented and
happy one. And I owe her something besides for having made his last
hours easier. It was that memory which caused me to let her go free
though she had broken into my house to rob me of my most sacred trust.
But she must have had _some_ redeeming points."

There was a momentary silence after that, each one thinking of the
strange and complex events that had brought this story to its close. It
was Audrey who presently ventured:

"It must have been very hard, Miss Jenifer, to resist the temptation to
see what was in those documents. Weren't you ever tempted to open them
and learn what really became of the lost dauphin?"

"I was tempted more times than I'd dare to tell you," confessed Miss
Jenifer. "The subject has always deeply absorbed me--what became of
that poor little mistreated prince--and sometimes it seemed almost
intolerable to me that I had the authentic account right under my
fingers but dared not break the seals and look. I used to follow
occasional accounts in the papers of pretenders or the descendants of
pretenders who claimed direct lineage with 'Louis Charles Capet,' as he
used to be called, and were trying to get their pretensions before the
public. How I would have loved to face them with the truth--whatever it
was! But, after all, perhaps Lafayette was right. After a hundred
years, what good would it serve, now that France has settled into
stability as a republic, to pry any further into the mystery
surrounding Louis XVII? Better let the words be burned, unread even by
one humble individual."

"Well, now I'm reminded of a question _I'd_ like to ask," supplemented
Mrs. Newkirk. "Have you any idea now, Miss Jenifer, what it was that I
read from the paper to you that afternoon which caused you to seem so
upset? Perhaps you don't recall anything, but we've all been very
curious about it ever since. _Something_ was worrying you!"

Miss Jenifer laughed. "I should say it was! I meant to speak about it.
I really think it had a great deal to do with bringing about my
complete recovery. Perhaps you remember that I said old Josiah Kenwick
received Lafayette's last letter on May 19, 1831, and that the
documents were to be destroyed one hundred years from that date. As you
can well imagine, ever since the first visit of that French woman, I
have been counting the years and months and weeks till that date should
arrive and I could be free at last of the responsibility. Last month it
began to seem very close--I could actually count the days! Then came
the night of my illness and shock. And all memory of it slipped from my
mind. Even when I grew a little better and my memory partially
returned, I still had no association with that date. I did suddenly
recall the keys, but only as something I had felt I must carry about
with me without fail. I could not even remember the reason.

"But that afternoon you came to read the paper to me, Mrs. Newkirk, and
just toward the last, you read about something that was to take place
that day, _May 19, 1931_! It was a date that I knew as well as my own
name--that I had had in mind every day for nearly fifteen years. The
very sound of it brought back all that it meant. _This was the day_ and
here I lay, helpless, with not even the keys to reach the documents. It
gave me a feeling of absolute despair. But even then I had still no
recollection of that first night's encounter, or what I had done with
the keys. I lay trying to think it all out, and must have fallen
soundly asleep. For the next thing I knew, I woke to find that woman in
the room again, and all you young people, too. And like a flash of
lightning, my befogged brain cleared at last."

It was just at this point that the tension was broken by the voice of
Lorry, outside in the garden, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Hey! Mothe-e-e-r! Mandy sent me over to tell you please to come to
lunch! She's rung the bell four times and the fried chicken's all
getting cold!"

"Well, that's _that_!" said Wade, as they laughingly took their
departure.




CHAPTER XIX

MISS JENIFER ENTERTAINS


Miss Jenifer was giving a party! It was a night some two months later,
and the beautiful ballroom of Kenwick was softly lighted with many wax
candles set in lovely old brass candlesticks and silver candelabra,
that Miss Jenifer had unearthed from their long repose in her attic
storerooms. It was a very small and exclusive party, being confined,
besides herself, to the Newkirks _en masse_ (even Lorry being allowed
to stay up and be present!), Audrey's parents, who had come down for a
few days, and Audrey herself. The party was being given in Audrey's
honor, for she was leaving the next day, her work on the model being
completed at last.

The model itself, beautiful and finished in every detail, had been
brought up and placed on a long table at one end of the room. It had
been wonderfully completed, even to a replica of the old garden with
its heart-shaped box border, brick wall, and fountain, and Audrey could
not help but be secretly proud of her work. Besides the model, Wade had
brought over the Newkirk victrola, a space had been cleared in the
middle of the room, and all but Miss Jenifer had danced till the older
people were weary and sat down to talk and rest, while Prissy and Mandy
belowstairs, in the restored kitchen wing, were excitedly preparing
refreshments. Prissy had once more resumed her permanent place at
Kenwick, and had even been reconciled to the kitchen wing and had
forgotten her fear of the cellar. Miss Kenwick had had the rear drawing
room restored to its proper function, taking away the ugly wooden
screen from the mantel. And Audrey had modeled the beautiful fireplace,
thanking her lucky stars that she was now able to do so, for it was one
of the loveliest in the house.

While they were all resting, Wade and the two girls strolled out to the
garden to watch a low-hung crescent moon setting over the river, and
talk it all over.

"Gosh, we'll miss you, Audrey!" said Wade. "Wish you didn't have to go
to-morrow."

"Well, _I_ couldn't bear it," cried Camilla, "except that I'm going
with her! It was right lovely of your mother to ask me, Audrey. I
haven't been away from this old dump of a town in years, and I'll love
that month's visit! I reckon you'll find me a fixture there, Wade, when
you come up to fetch me home!"

"I sure do hope you get the prize for that model, Audrey," went on
Wade. "It's lovely enough to get it, _I'll_ say. They'll show pretty
poor judgment if it doesn't--and 'them's my sentiments'!"

"Well, that's a mystery that still remains to be solved," laughed
Audrey--"whether I'll get the prize! But I'm going to tell you
something that came about this afternoon. Dad only told me about it
just before we came over here. You know that Mr. Cator that Dad brought
out from Annapolis this afternoon to see the model? He's tremendously
wealthy and crazy about old Maryland houses. He liked it so much that
he said, if I shouldn't happen to receive the prize, he wanted to buy
the model himself for nearly as much as the prize would be, and then
present it to the Maryland Historical Society. So you see it'll be
pretty near all right either way!"

"Lucky girl!" murmured Camilla. And, "Hot diggity dog!" shouted Wade.
And they all fell to discussing it. Presently they rose to go into the
house.

"Odd, how things have all turned out!" marveled Wade as they stood,
loath to leave the lovely scene by the river. "I'm darned glad, Audrey,
that Miss Jenifer allowed your father to take her affairs in hand and
find the proper market for those old jewels of hers. They must have
brought in quite a tidy sum. And he told me he had invested it for her
so that she'll have a small but comfortable enough little income to
last her the rest of her days. I do believe the poor old girl was
nearly starving to death and too proud to let on about it, before all
this happened! You certainly have been a blessing, Audrey--I won't say
exactly in disguise!"

"Oh, it wasn't my doings at all," laughed Audrey. "This is getting much
too personal! Come on in and let's dance some more before we eat. I
never thought I was going to dance in the famous old Kenwick ballroom.
Wasn't it nice of Miss Jenifer to give this party? She's having the
time of her life!"

They went in to dance a bit more, and then to eat the delicious salad
and cake and ice cream prepared by Mandy, and to sit talking on, hating
to break this delightful companionship and end the evening. It was
young Lorry who finally became bored with the proceedings and began to
roam about, investigating with boylike curiosity the odd and
interesting features of the room. Without being noticed by his elders,
he came at last to the Duncan Phyfe table, attempted to pull open the
drawers without success, and at length accidentally hit on the spring
which raised the lid. Suddenly they heard a shout from him:

"Oh, I _say_, Miss Jenifer, what's this queer thing?"

They were rather afraid the old lady would be annoyed by this intrusion
into one of her secrets, and Mrs. Newkirk was about to administer a
sharp reproof to her inquisitive young son. But Miss Jenifer seemed in
nowise upset, and went over to explain the workings of the musical
glasses to them all. It was Audrey's father who said:

"Why, _I_ remember that table when I was here as a boy, only I never
suspected what was in it, either. Won't you play us a tune on it,
Cousin Jenifer?" They all secretly wondered if she would refuse, but to
their astonishment she answered, after a slight hesitation:

"Why, if you wish. But I am not very expert. I never had a chance to
learn it properly, for there are not many who know the art. I actually
had to experiment with it and teach myself in my lonely years here. You
know, it was Benjamin Franklin who invented this instrument, and I
believe this very one must have been made back in his own time. They
have modern ones now, but they are not exactly like this. I do not know
many tunes, but this is my favorite."

She filled the glasses to their proper capacity from a pitcher of
water, dipped in her fingers, and sounded a few notes to test their
tone. Then she bent over the table and launched into an old song, the
thin, silvery notes sounding wild and sweet and touching:

  "_I'm wearin' awa', Jean,_
   _Like snow when it's thaw, Jean;_
     _I'm wearin' awa'_
     _To the land o' the leal._
   _There's nae sorrow there, Jean,_
   _There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,_
   _But all is fair, Jean,_
     _In the land o' the leal._"


The thin, sweet notes died away, but Miss Jenifer did not play any
more. Instead she walked over to one of the windows and stood looking
out into the soft, scented darkness. So long did she stand there that
Audrey presently slipped to her side.

"I hope you're not feeling unhappy, dear Miss Jenifer," she murmured.
The old lady turned about and, smiling a little, laid her hand on
Audrey's arm, as she answered:

"No indeed, my child. On the contrary, I am exceedingly happy. I was
only thinking--thinking!"




AFTERWORD


_The average reader in America is apt to have a curiously inaccurate
impression of the Marquis de Lafayette. We connect him vitally with our
own American Revolution, when he came over here in 1776 as an
enthusiastic youth of nineteen to offer his aid to Washington; vaguely
with the French Revolution at a later period; and many years after with
a joyous and triumphal visit to the United States--in 1824--when he
junketed about to all the important cities on the Eastern Seaboard, and
revelled in speech-making celebrations in his honor._

_And we look upon him as a champion of independence and a republican
form of government,_ par excellence. _It is with considerable
astonishment, then, as we delve into his actual history, that we find
him the greatest titled and aristocratic statesman of his time in
France, the one man strong enough to decide the ultimate fate of the
autocratic Napoleon_ (_who desperately feared his influence!_), _and
who was chiefly instrumental in restoring for some years a limited
constitutional monarchy in_ _France, which was his dearest dream for
his revolution-racked country. He never forgave the Jacobins for their
treatment of the captive Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and it is
surmised that he knew far more about the possible disappearance of "The
Lost Dauphin" than has ever been published._

_Lafayette was intimately connected with Maryland affairs and bade his
last farewell to Washington in Annapolis. And while history does not
vouch for the existence of the documents mentioned, the events of
Lafayette's career make secret archives of that order not entirely
improbable in connection with himself and the friendships he
undoubtedly must have cultivated in a number of old Maryland families._

_A. H. S._


[The end of _The Brass Keys of Kenwick_ by Augusta Huiell Seaman]