"Don't Stand There Staring. I Know I'm Not a Beauty," and She Cackled Like an Angry Hen
After that I didn't feel much like sharing my supper with her, but I did, and she seemed to enjoy it. Then she curled herself up on a big divan in the corner and grinned at me again. I liked her face better when she was angry.
"I'm going to take a nap," she said. "Call me if any ghosts come."
I opened my book again and read for half an hour. Then suddenly, from somewhere under the house, I heard a queer, muffled sound. "Tap, tap, tap," it went. And again, "Tap, tap, tap."
At first it didn't interest me much. But after a minute I realized that it was different from anything I had heard that night. And soon another noise mingled with it—a kind of buzz, like the whir of an electric fan, only louder. I looked at Miss Watts. She was asleep.
I picked up a candle and followed the noise—through the hall, down the cellar steps, and along a bricked passage. There the sound stopped. I stood still and waited. While I was staring at the bricks in front of me I noticed one that seemed to have a light behind it. I lowered my candle and examined it. Some plaster had been knocked out, and through a hole the size of a penny I saw another passage cutting through the earth like a little catacomb, with a light at the far end of it. While I was staring, amazed, the tapping began again, much nearer now; and I heard men's voices.
There were men under that house, in a secret cellar!
In half a minute I was standing beside Miss Watts, shaking her arm and trying to wake her. Almost before I was able to make her understand what I had seen she was through the front door and half-way down the avenue, dragging me with her.
"Where are we going?" I gasped.
"To the next house, idiot, to telephone to the police," she said. "Do you think we could stay there and do it?"