We set to work with gusto. On my suggestion—they nominated me captain in this enterprise because of my supposed architectural knowledge—we commenced with the Gunroom. We examined it from end to end, tapped the paneling for secret recesses, examined the furniture. No result.
After luncheon, we began on the upper floor and went over the entire wing in detail. We measured the different rooms. I even took outer measurements. We studied chimneys. We sounded floors. We took to pieces every article of furniture which might have concealed a secret drawer—and we found several hidden receptacles, by the way, but they contained nothing beyond ordinary family letters and trash. Immersed in the hunt and baffled by lack of success, we caused Watkins to put off dinner, and worked on until after nine o'clock. Still no success.
We went to bed that night, tired out and disgusted. But in the morning we arose with sharpened interest and determined to canvas the possibilities in the parts of the house the invaders had searched. Again we took careful measurements, inside and out. Again we sounded paneling, investigated recesses and chimney spaces. We hunted for two days. Then we went back, and reëxamined the West Wing a second time. We ended up in stark disappointment in the Gunroom.
"Damn it all!" ripped Hugh. "The trouble is that my family were not Catholics in the times when priests were proscribed, and every self-respecting Catholic family had its Priest's Hole."
"I'm not worried just because your family can't boast an accessible hiding-place," I retorted. "What bothers me is that their hiding-place, if they have one, is so cunningly hidden that we can't find it."
"'If they have one,'" repeated Hugh. "You may well say that! I am beginning to believe we may be on a wild goose chase, after all.'
"If we were the only ones after it, I might think so," I replied.
Nikka, who had relapsed into one of his frequent spells of silent contemplation, jumped suddenly from his chair.
"If it is here, it is in this room," he said.
"Is that a Gypsy prophecy?" jeered Hugh.