She felt for the handle, turned it, and went in, still pulling at Edred’s hand and with the blue scarf still on her eyes. Edred followed.
“I say!” he said, and then she pulled off the scarf.
The door closed itself very softly behind them.
They were in a long attic room close under the roof—a room that they had certainly, in all their explorings, never found before. There were no windows—the roof sloped down at the sides almost to the floor. There was no ceiling—old worm-eaten roof-beams showed the tiles between—and old tie-beams crossed it so that as you stared up it looked like a great ladder with the rungs very far apart. Here and there through the chinks of the tiles a golden dusty light filtered in, and outside was the “tick, tick” of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, the “cooroocoo” of pigeon voices. The long room was almost bare; only along each side, close under the roof, was a row of chests, and no two chests were alike.
“Oh!” said Edred. “I’m kind and wise now. I feel it inside me. So now we’ve got the treasure. We’ll rebuild the castle.”
He got to the nearest chest and pushed at the lid, but Elfrida had to push too before he could get the heavy thing up. And when it was up, alas! there was no treasure in the chest—only folded clothes.
So then they tried the next chest.
And in all the chests there was no treasure at all—only clothes. Clothes, and more clothes again.
“Well, never mind,” said Elfrida, trying to speak comfortably. “They’ll be splendid for dressing up in.”
“That’s all very well,” said Edred, “but I want the treasure.”