From where I stood I could not see beyond the door,
but I saw Mr. Jamieson’s face change and heard
him mutter something, then he bolted down the stairs,
three at a time. When my knees had stopped shaking,
I moved forward, slowly, nervously, until I had a
partial view of what was beyond the door. It
seemed at first to be a closet, empty. Then
I went close and examined it, to stop with a shudder.
Where the floor should have been was black void and
darkness, from which came the indescribable, damp smell
of the cellars.
Mr. Jamieson had locked somebody in the clothes chute.
As I leaned over I fancied I heard a groan—or
was it the wind?
A SPRAINED ANKLE
I was panic-stricken. As I ran along the corridor
I was confident that the mysterious intruder and probable
murderer had been found, and that he lay dead or dying
at the foot of the chute. I got down the staircase
somehow, and through the kitchen to the basement stairs.
Mr. Jamieson had been before me, and the door stood
open. Liddy was standing in the middle of the
kitchen, holding a frying-pan by the handle as a weapon.
“Don’t go down there,” she yelled,
when she saw me moving toward the basement stairs.
“Don’t you do it, Miss Rachel. That
Jamieson’s down there now. There’s
only trouble comes of hunting ghosts; they lead you
into bottomless pits and things like that. Oh,
Miss Rachel, don’t—” as I tried
to get past her.
She was interrupted by Mr. Jamieson’s reappearance.
He ran up the stairs two at a time, and his face
was flushed and furious.
“The whole place is locked,” he said angrily.
“Where’s the laundry key kept?”
“It’s kept in the door,” Liddy snapped.
“That whole end of the cellar is kept locked,
so nobody can get at the clothes, and then the key’s
left in the door? so that unless a thief was as blind
as—as some detectives, he could walk right
in.”
“Liddy,” I said sharply, “come down
with us and turn on all the lights.”
She offered her resignation, as usual, on the spot,
but I took her by the arm, and she came along finally.
She switched on all the lights and pointed to a door
just ahead.
“That’s the door,” she said sulkily.
“The key’s in it.”
But the key was not in it. Mr. Jamieson shook
it, but it was a heavy door, well locked. And
then he stooped and began punching around the keyhole
with the end of a lead-pencil. When he stood
up his face was exultant.
“It’s locked on the inside,” he
said in a low tone. “There is somebody
in there.”
“Lord have mercy!” gasped Liddy, and turned
to run.
“Liddy,” I called, “go through the
house at once and see who is missing, or if any one
is. We’ll have to clear this thing at
once. Mr. Jamieson, if you will watch here I
will go to the lodge and find Warner. Thomas
would be of no use. Together you may be able
to force the door.”
