Bill agreed and the three set to work picking up the papers and stuffing them back in the drawers. Next they moved all the furniture to one side of the room and returned the drawers to their places in the desk and filing cabinet. “Now we’ll give this cleared side of the room a real going-over!” Bill said. “Then we’ll move everything to the other side and search that part. Come on, Phil, let’s get with it.”
Phil was lighting matches and peering under the floor boards Caldwell had loosened. “O.K.,” he mumbled.
They started in the corner and worked systematically back and forth across the room, taking a few boards at a time. It was Bill’s idea that Jacob Williams had made some sort of a secret trap door for himself, and that if the boys searched carefully enough they could find it. “Then we won’t have to tear up any more of the floor the way Mr. Caldwell’s done,” he said.
Bill was working with his penknife at the rear of the building toward the fireplace. He was jabbing into the wider cracks with the blade, and then prying upward, hoping to dislodge any loose section. Suddenly he let out a little cry of triumph.
Phil didn’t hear Bill because he was inside the fireplace lighting more matches while he explored. But Ronnie heard him and came over to find out what he had discovered. “Look, Ronnie,” he said. “I’ve got these boards up a little way. But I need something stronger. My knife’ll snap if I push any harder.”
“Hold everything!” Ronnie directed. During clean-up, Ronnie had seen a pair of old fire tongs leaning against the fireplace. He found them easily in the dark and brought them to Bill. Bill examined them by the light of his flashlight. The ends were flattened like the ends of a screwdriver. Just the implement they needed!
Bill inserted the flattened end of the tongs into the crack, removed the penknife, and pushed down with all his weight. Then he pried the tongs backward. A section of the flooring began to move upward. Ronnie grabbed the loose end and pulled. An entire section of the floor came free.
“Zowie!” Bill exclaimed. “We’ve found it!”
Chapter 14
Bill’s flashlight broke the inky blackness beneath the opening.