“Never you mind,” he retorted, and fell distractedly silent, only smiling to himself from time to time in a most tantalizing way.
As soon as the meal was finished, having assured himself that mother did not need him for anything, he disappeared as entirely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him; but I suspected that he was somewhere on the other side of that high wall which separated our garden from the Chester place.
Yet, after all, I did not miss him greatly, for mother and I spent the morning in a tour of the house—and such a house! I have already spoken of its exterior; of its interior I know I can give only the most inadequate idea. As I have already said, a wide hall divided the lower floor into two halves. The hall itself reminded me of the pictures I have seen of the great halls in feudal castles, with its beamed ceiling, its waxed floor, its great fireplace and its impressive furniture. On one side were the state apartments, the parlours, connected by a double door. They had apparently been hermetically closed for years, and were very musty and dusty. They were furnished in hideous horsehair, and we closed the door behind us after the merest glance into them. On the other side of the hall were the living rooms, of heroic proportions and furnished with lovely old mahogany of a style which I have since learned is called Hepplewhite. The chairs, the tables, the sideboard, were all things of beauty; graceful, substantial and right in every way. How those old cabinet-makers must have loved their work, and what pains they took with it!
Up-stairs were the bed-rooms, sewing-rooms, servants’ rooms, what not. We went on and on, through room after room, peering into innumerable closets, opening windows and shutters; stopping here and there to exclaim over some beautiful piece of walnut or mahogany, and standing fairly speechless at last among the chaotic heap of treasures in the attic. It was evident enough that the parlours had not always been furnished in horsehair! There was a pair of slender-legged card-tables, inlaid in satin-wood, with entrancing curves—but there; if I stopped to describe one-half the treasures in that attic there would never be an end!
“The Nelson family has lived here for five or six generations, so Mr. Chester told me last night,” said mother, at last. “They’ve always been well-to-do, and that accounts for all this beautiful old furniture. Besides, in those days as in these, the best was always the cheapest. Just see how strong and well-made it all is, built honestly to last many lifetimes. Aunt Nelson seems to have taken fairly good care of it; all it needs is a little upholstering and refinishing. However, it’s no use to talk of that!” and she turned sharply to go down again.
“But, mother, wait a minute,” I protested. “You remember what Mr. Chester said—that he believed the treasure was concealed somewhere in the house? Isn’t this the most likely place of all?”
“No more likely than any one of those scores of chests and drawers and clothes-presses down-stairs,” and she started resolutely to descend.
I followed her despondently. What she said was true, of course; the treasure might be in any one of the closets, or in any one of the innumerable drawers of dressers, cupboards, and bureaus, all of which seemed crammed to overflowing with the accumulations of those six generations. In the beginning, I had had some wild notion of ransacking the house from top to bottom, but I saw now what a physical impossibility that would be in the month allotted us. Alas, six days of that month were already gone!
I went out and sat down on one of the front steps to think it over. After all, I told myself, it would be foolish to go blindly about the search, hoping to look everywhere, and consequently looking nowhere thoroughly. The wise way would be to begin with the more likely places, search them carefully, and so proceed gradually to the less likely ones. And what was the most likely of all? Mr. Chester had said that grandaunt would naturally wish to keep her securities where they would be constantly under her eye and easy of access. The next instant, I sprang to my feet, fairly burning with excitement—to keep them under her eye—to keep them where she could look them over without fear of interruption—it was obvious enough! They must be concealed somewhere in her own room! How stupid I had been!
I fairly flew up the stair and to the room which had been grandaunt’s. It was situated at the front end of the upper hall, right over the front entrance, and overlooking the drive. I hesitated a moment with my hand on the knob, and a little shiver of my old fear of grandaunt swept over me; but I shook it away, opened the door and closed it resolutely behind me. This was no time for foolish sentiment. Besides, I didn’t believe in ghosts.