“You’re right!” Dick placed the painting from which the frame had been removed against the wall and was about to step back when the rotting boards beneath him caved in and he fell, disappearing entirely. Dories screamed and Gib, taking the light from Nann, flashed the glow from it down into the dark hole. “Dick! Dick! Are you hurt?” Nann was calling anxiously.
After what seemed like a very long time, Dick’s voice was heard: “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me. Gib, see if there isn’t a trap-door or something. I seem to have fallen into a vault of some kind.” Then after another silence, “I guess I’ve stumbled onto steps leading up.” A second later a low door in the dark corner opened and Dick, smiling gleefully, emerged, covered with dust and cobwebs. “Give me the light and let’s see what this door is.” Then, after a moment’s scrutiny, “Aha! That vault was meant to be a secret. The door looks, from this side, like part of the paneling.”
“Oh, Dick!” Nann cried exultingly. “That’s where the Wetherby deed is. Down in that old vault.”
“I bet yo’ she’s right.” Gib stooped to peer into the dark hole.
“Can’t we all go down and investigate?” Nann asked eagerly.
Dick hesitated. “I’d heaps rather you girls stayed out in the punt,” he began, but when he saw the crestfallen expression of the adventurous older girl he ended with, “Well, come, if you want to. I don’t suppose anything will hurt us.”
Although Dories was afraid to go down, she was even more fearful of remaining alone with those pictured sharp grey eyes glaring at her, and so, clinging to Nann, she descended the rather rickety short flight of steps. The flashlight revealed casks which evidently had contained liquor, and a small iron box. “That box,” Dick said with conviction, “contains the Wetherby deed.” He was about to try to lift it when Nann grasped his arm. “Hark,” she whispered. “I heard someone walking. It sounds as though it might be someone in that library or den where the desk was.”
They all listened and were convinced that Nann had been right. “It’s that pilot chap, I reckon,” Gib said. But Dick was not so sure. “Please, Nann,” he pleaded, “you and Dories go out to the punt and wait, while Gib and I discover who is prowling around. I didn’t hear an airplane pass overhead, but then, of course, he might have come in from the sea as he did before.”
The girls were glad to get out in the sunlight. They stood near the punt with hands tightly clasped while the boys went around to the back to enter the opening in the wall of the den. It seemed a very long while before Nann and Dories heard voices.
Then three boys approached them. A tall, slender lad, dressed after the fashion of aviators, with a dark handsome face lighted with interest, was listening intently to what Dick was telling him.