"So it 'settles' the matter," said Cicely, trying to make a pun.
"Well, it shows us it's not a chest, anyhow," replied Lindsay, "though the oak bench in the passage near the top of the stairs has a kind of box under it. The seat lifts up like a lid."
There were four pieces of old furniture in the Manor which might claim to answer to the description given in the dictionary. Two were in the dining-room, one in the picture gallery, and another, as Lindsay had said, at the head of the stairs. The girls made a most lengthy and careful inspection of them all, but without the slightest result. Neither their backs nor their seats were hollow, or capable of containing anything. Three of them stood upon carved oak legs, like chairs, and though the last was made in the fashion of a chest, it proved on investigation to be absolutely empty. It was a bitter disappointment.
"Can we have been mistaken about the enigma?" said Cicely, almost in tears.
"I don't believe so. What I think is, that Mrs. Wilson and Scott have been clever enough to find the money and carry it off. Perhaps there was another settle somewhere in the house, and they took it bodily away."
"Wouldn't Monica have missed it?"
"It may have been done just after Sir Giles died, and before she came to the Manor."
"Where would they put it?"
"Possibly in the lantern room, inside some hiding-place they know of."
"Then, until we can find out the secret of the lantern room, it seems to me we can't get any farther."