“I feel as if there isn’t too,” said Jack anxiously. “Wouldn’t it be dreadful if it was only a tale, and not true at all!”
“Don’t, Jack,” said Nora. “You make me feel worse.”
Jack sat and thought for a few minutes. “I wonder if by any chance Dimmy has any old maps of Spiggy Holes in that big bookcase of hers downstairs,” he said. “If she had, one of them might show where the hidden door is.”
Dimmy came into the room at that minute, carrying a big jug of milky cocoa. Peggy followed with a dish of brown gingerbread. Everyone felt quite cheered by the look of it.
“Dimmy, I suppose you’ve no old books about Spiggy Holes, or old maps, have you?” asked Jack, munching his gingerbread.
Dimmy looked surprised. “Why didn’t I think of that before?” she said. “Of course! There are two or three old books about this place, belonging to my great-grand-father. I believe they are very valuable. They are locked up in the big bookcase downstairs.”
Jack almost choked over his cake in his delight. “Let’s get them!” he said, jumping up.
“Finish your cake and cocoa.” said Dimmy. “Then we’ll go downstairs and look for them.”
How the three children swallowed down their cocoa and gingerbread, in their eagerness to rush downstairs to find the old books! It wasn’t more than a minute or two before they were all in Dimmy’s rather dark little drawing-room, watching her whilst she unlocked the big old-fashioned bookcase there.
She moved aside some of the books on the top row, and behind them were some very old books, carefully covered in thick brown paper.