Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. “Yes, we would,” he answered her. “Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to the Boston Tech, I judge.”
“O, what is his name?” Dories asked eagerly.
“Wouldn’t you love to meet him?” the younger girl continued.
“I intend to look him up when I get back to town,” Dick assured them, “and wouldn’t it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course, if he hasn’t.”
Nann glanced about the dining-room. “There’s a door at the other end. It’s so dark down there I hadn’t noticed it before.”
The boys went in that direction. “Perhaps it leads to the room where the desk is. We haven’t seen that yet.” Dories and Nann followed closely.
Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made him pause. “Like’s not all this time that pilot fellar’s been in there waitin’ fer us to clear out.” Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.
One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. “In all the stories I have ever read,” Dories told them, “there were secret drawers, or sliding panels, or——”
“A removable stone in a chimney,” Nann merrily added. “But I believe that old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different,” she concluded.
While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. “There is the pilot chap’s entrance to the ruin.” He pointed toward a fireplace. Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough for a person to creep through.