“That is a funny note!” thought Mary. “What mantelshelf? There isn’t any in the play. Can she mean—why, yes! There’s a lantern over there on my mantelshelf!”
Sure enough! Mary had not noticed it especially until this minute. But there, not far from the bust of Shakespeare, was a queer old tin lantern, pierced with holes for a candle to shine through—the very kind that Moon must have used in the play, in Shakespeare’s day.
Mary dropped the book and went over to the lantern, with a pleasant sense of possession. Everything in the room was hers. This would be just the thing to play Pyramus and Thisbe with! She took up the old lantern and examined it curiously. In the socket was the stub of a candle. “I wonder who lighted it last?” thought Mary idly. She tried to pull out the candle, but it stuck. She pulled harder, and presently—out it came! There was something in the socket below—something that rattled. Mary shook the lantern and out fell a tiny key; a gilt key with a green silk string tied to the top. That was all.
“What a funny place for a key!” thought Mary. “I wonder how it got there.” Then she thought again of the quotation which had been underlined—“‘This lantern is my lantern.’ She wanted me to find it, I am sure!” thought Mary eagerly. “It is the key to something. Oh, if I could only find what that is! How in the world shall I know where to look?”
“Oh, John!” she cried, “John!”—for just then she heard his whistle in the hall, and she ran down to show him her find.
Up came John; up the stairs two steps at a time, with Mary close after him. “I bet I know what it is!” he cried. “It’s the key to a Secret Panel. I’ve read about them in books, lots of times. Let’s hunt till we find the keyhole.”
The wall of the library between the bookshelves was, indeed, paneled in dark wood, like the doors. But there was little enough of this surface, because the built-in bookshelves took up so much space. With the aid of the library ladder it took Mary and John comparatively little time to go over every inch of the paneling very carefully, thumping the wall with the heel of Mary’s slipper, to see if it might be hollow. But no sound betrayed a secret hiding-place. No scratch or knot concealed a tiny keyhole. Tired and disgusted at last, they gave up the search.
“I think that’s a pretty poor joke!” said John. “A key without anything to fit it to is about as silly as can be!”
“Aunt Nan made some silly jokes in other parts of the house,” said Mary. “But she hasn’t done so in the library. I don’t believe she meant to tease me. Let’s go and tell Father. Perhaps he will know what it means.” And forthwith they tripped to the Doctor’s study, with the key and the lantern and the marked copy of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to puzzle the Philosopher. They laid the three exhibits on his desk, and stood off, challenging him with eager eyes.
Dr. Corliss looked at these things critically; then he followed them back to the library and glanced about the walls.