"What's this one?" Val turned to the second box. It, too, was fashioned of wood, but it was plain where the other was carved, and the iron bands across it were pitted with rust.
"A sea chest, I would say." Rupert touched the top gingerly. "By the feel, it's locked too. And I don't care to play around with it. The men who made things like these were too fond of having little poisoned fangs run into your hand when you tried to force the chest without knowing the trick. We'll have to leave this for an expert, too."
"What about the third?"
Charity laughed. "After your two treasures I'm afraid that this will be a disappointment." She indicated a small humpbacked trunk covered with moth-eaten horsehair. "No romance here. But the key is tied to the clasp beside the lock."
"Then open it before I expire of pure unsatisfied curiosity," Ricky begged. "Go on, Rupert. Hurry."
"Oh," she said a moment later, "it's full of nothing but a lot of books."
"What did you expect," Val asked her, "a skeleton? Do you know, I think that Rick's ghost, or whatever influence presides over this house, has a sense of humor. You find a room, or a trunk, or something which makes you feel that you are on the verge of getting what you want, and then it all fades into just nothing again. Now, by rights, that writing-desk should have contained the secret message which would have told us where to find a hidden passage or something. But what is in it? A couple of pieces of lining almost completely torn from the bottom. I'll wager that when you open those chests you'll find nothing but a brick or 'April Fool' scrawled across the inside. This isn't true to any fiction I ever read," he ended plaintively.
"Good Heavens!" Charity was staring down at what lay within a portfolio she had opened.
"Don't tell me you have really found something!" Val exclaimed.
"It can't be true!" She still stared at what she held.