CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HIDDEN ROOM
A FEW moments later Jack Bailey, seeing a thin glow of candle-light from the attic above and hearing Lizzie's protesting voice, made his way up there. He found them in the trunk-room, a dusty, dingy apartment lined with high closets along the walls—the floor littered with an incongruous assortment of attic objects—two battered trunks, a clothes hamper, an old sewing machine, a broken-backed kitchen-chair, two dilapidated suitcases and a shabby satchel that might once have been a woman's dressing-case—in one corner a grimy fireplace in which, obviously, no fire had been lighted for years.
But he also found Miss Cornelia holding her candle to the floor and staring at something there.
"Candle-grease!" she said sharply, staring at a line of white spots by the window. She stooped and touched the spots with an exploratory finger.
"Fresh candle-grease! Now who do you suppose did that? Do you remember how Mr. Gillette, in 'Sherlock Holmes,' when he——"
Her voice trailed off. She stooped and followed the trail of the candle-grease away from the window, ingeniously trying to copy the shrewd, piercing gaze of Mr. Gillette as she remembered him in his most famous rôle.
"It leads straight to the fireplace!" she murmured in tones of Sherlockian gravity. Bailey repressed an involuntary smile. But her next words gave him genuine food for thought.
She stared at the mantel of the fireplace accusingly.
"It's been going through my mind for the last few minutes that no chimney flue runs up this side of the house!" she said.
Bailey stared. "Then why the fireplace?"
"That's what I'm going to find out!" said the spinster grimly. She started to rap the mantel, testing it for secret springs.
"Jack! Jack!" It was Dale's voice, low and cautious, coming from the landing of the stairs.
Bailey stepped to the door of the trunk-room.
"Come in," he called in reply. "And lock the door behind you."
Dale entered, turning the key in the lock behind her.
"Where are the others?"
"They're still searching the house. There's no sign of anybody."
"They haven't found—Mr. Anderson?"
Dale shook her head. "Not yet."
She turned toward her aunt. Miss Cornelia had begun to enjoy herself once more.
Rapping on the mantelpiece, poking and pressing various corners and sections of the mantel itself, she remembered all the detective stories she had ever read and thought, with a sniff of scorn, that she could better them. There were always sliding panels and hidden drawers in detective stories—and the detective discovered them by rapping just as she was doing, and listening for a hollow sound in answer. She rapped on the wall above the mantel—exactly—there was the hollow echo she wanted.
"Hollow as Lizzie's head!" she said triumphantly. The fireplace was obviously not what it seemed—there must be a space behind it unaccounted for in the building plans. Now what was the next step detectives always took? Oh, yes—they looked for panels; panels that moved. And when one shoved them away there was a button or something. She pushed and pressed and finally something did move. It was the mantelpiece itself, false grate and all, which began to swing out into the room, revealing behind a dark, hollow cubbyhole, some six feet by six—the Hidden Room at last!
"Oh, Jack, be careful!" breathed Dale, as her lover took Miss Cornelia's candle and moved toward the dark hiding-place. But her eyes had already caught the outlines of a tall iron safe in the gloom and in spite of her fears, her lips formed a wordless cry of victory.
But Jack Bailey said nothing at all. One glance had shown him that the safe was empty.
The tragic collapse of all their hopes was almost more than they could bear. Coming on top of the nerve-racking events of the night, it left them dazed and direction-less. It was, of course, Miss Cornelia who recovered first.
"Even without the money," she said; "the mere presence of this safe here, hidden away, tells the story. The fact that someone else knew and got here first cannot alter that."
But she could not cheer them. It was Lizzie who created a diversion. Lizzie who had bolted into the hall at the first motion of the mantelpiece outwards, and who now with equal precipitation came bolting back. She rushed into the room, slamming the door behind her, and collapsed into a heap of moaning terror at her mistress's feet. At first she was completely inarticulate, but after a time she muttered that she had seen "him" and then fell to groaning again.
The same thought was in all their minds, that in some corner of the upper floor she had come across the body of Anderson. But when Miss Cornelia finally quieted her and asked this, she shook her head.
"It was the Bat I saw," was her astounding statement. "He dropped through the skylight out there and ran along the hall. I saw him I tell you. He went right by me!"
"Nonsense," said Miss Cornelia briskly. "How can you say such a thing?"
But Bailey pushed forward and took Lizzie by the shoulder.
"What did he look like?"
"He hadn't any face. He was all black where his face ought to be."
"Do you mean he wore a mask?"
"Maybe. I don't know."
She collapsed again, but when Bailey, followed by Miss Cornelia, made a move toward the door, she broke into frantic wailing.
"Don't go out there!" she shrieked. "He's there I tell you. I'm not crazy. If you open that door, he'll shoot."
But the door was already open and no shot came. With the departure of Bailey and Miss Cornelia, and the resulting darkness due to their taking the candle, Lizzie and Dale were left alone. The girl was faint with disappointment and strain; she sat huddled on a trunk, saying nothing, and after a moment or so Lizzie roused to her condition.
"Not feeling sick, are you?" she asked.
"I feel a little queer."
"Who wouldn't, in the dark here with that monster loose somewhere near by?" But she stirred herself and got up. "I'd better get the smelling salts," she said heavily. "God knows I hate to move, but if there's one place safer in this house than another, I've yet to find it."
She went out, leaving Dale alone. The trunk-room was dark, save that now and then as the candle appeared and reappeared the doorway was faintly outlined. On this outline she kept her eyes fixed, by way of comfort, and thus passed the next few moments. She felt weak and dizzy and entirely despairing.
Then—the outline was not so clear. She had heard nothing but there was something in the doorway. It stood there, formless, diabolical, and then she saw what was happening. It was closing the door. Afterward she was mercifully not to remember what came next; the figure was perhaps intent on what was going on outside, or her own movements may have been as silent as its own. That she got into the mantel-room and even partially closed it behind her is certain, and that her description of what followed is fairly accurate is borne out by the facts as known.
The Bat was working rapidly. She heard his quick, nervous movements; apparently he had come back for something and secured it, for now he moved again toward the door. But he was too late; they were returning that way. She heard him mutter something and quickly turn the key in the lock. Then he seemed to run toward the window, and for some reason to recoil from it.
The next instant she realized that he was coming toward the mantel-room, that he intended to hide in it. There was no doubt in her mind as to his identity. It was the Bat, and in a moment more he would be shut in there with her.
She tried to scream and could not, and the next instant, when the Bat leaped into concealment beside her, she was in a dead faint on the floor.
Bailey meanwhile had crawled out on the roof and was carefully searching it. But other things were happening also. A disinterested observer could have seen very soon why the Bat had abandoned the window as a means of egress.
Almost before the mantel had swung to behind the arch-criminal, the top of a tall pruning ladder had appeared at the window and by its quivering showed that someone was climbing up, rung by rung. Unsuspiciously enough he came on, pausing at the top to flash a light into the room, and then cautiously swinging a leg over the sill. It was the Doctor. He gave a low whistle but there was no reply, save that, had he seen it, the mantel swung out an inch or two. Perhaps he was never so near death as at that moment but that instant of irresolution on his part saved him, for by coming into the room he had taken himself out of range.
Even then he was very close to destruction, for after a brief pause and a second rather puzzled survey of the room, he started toward the mantel itself. Only the rattle of the doorknob stopped him, and a call from outside.
"Dale!" called Bailey's voice from the corridor. "Dale!"
"Dale! Dale! The door's locked!" cried Miss Cornelia.
The Doctor hesitated. The call came again.
"Dale! Dale!" and Bailey pounded on the door as if he meant to break it down.
The Doctor made up his mind.
"Wait a moment!" he called. He stepped to the door and unlocked it. Bailey hurled himself into the room, followed by Miss Cornelia with her candle. Lizzie stood in the doorway, timidly, ready to leap for safety at a moment's notice.
"Why did you lock that door?" said Bailey angrily, threatening the Doctor.
"But I didn't," said the latter, truthfully enough. Bailey made a movement of irritation. Then a glance about the room informed him of the amazing, the incredible fact. Dale was not there! She had disappeared!
"You—you," he stammered at the Doctor. "Where's Miss Ogden? What have you done with her?"
The Doctor was equally baffled.
"Done with her?" he said indignantly. "I don't know what you're talking about—I haven't seen her!"
"Then you didn't lock that door?" Bailey menaced him.
The Doctor's denial was firm.
"Absolutely not. I was coming through the window when I heard your voice at the door!"
Bailey's eyes leaped to the window—yes—a ladder was there—the Doctor might be speaking the truth after all. But if so, how and why had Dale disappeared?
The Doctor's admission of his manner of entrance did not make Lizzie any the happier.
"In at the window—just like a bat!" she muttered in shaking tones. She would not have stayed in the doorway if she had not been afraid to move anywhere else.
"I saw lights up here from outside," continued the Doctor easily. "And I thought"
Miss Cornelia interrupted him. She had set down her candle and laid the revolver on the top of the clothes-hamper and now stood gazing at the mantel-fireplace.
"The mantel's—closed!" she said.
The Doctor stared. So the secret of the Hidden Room was a secret no longer. He saw ruin gaping before him—a bottomless abyss. "Damnation!" he cursed impotently under his breath.
Bailey turned on him savagely.
"Did you shut that mantel?"
"No!"
"I'll see whether you shut it or not!" Bailey leaped toward the fireplace. "Dale! Dale!" he called desperately, leaning against the mantel. His fingers groped for the knob that worked the mechanism of the hidden entrance.
The Doctor picked up the single lighted candle from the hamper, as if to throw more light on Bailey's task. Bailey's fingers found the knob. He turned it. The mantel began to swing out into the room.
As it did so the Doctor deliberately snuffed out the light of the candle he held, leaving the room in abrupt and obliterating darkness.