“Really, I don’t know what it was. It’s a long time since any of the rooms in this wing have been used except this one.”
“But it was used the other night! I heard men talking there. Crispin said they were the sailors of my father’s yacht.”
“Well, if he said that, what more do you want to know?”
“I want to know how they got in. I haven’t seen any door on the outside of this part of the house.”
“I suppose they came through the other part then.”
“I suppose so.”
There was a pause, and Mrs. Bean shuffled a step nearer the door. Then she turned, to whisper plaintively:
“Child, I wish you’d be persuaded to keep a still tongue in your head.”
But not only was Freda unable to obey this precept, she was further resolved to use both eyes and ears on her own account. Being assured now that both Crispin and Nell were her friends, she felt bold enough to try to satisfy herself on the one point of greatest interest to her: Was her father still in the house? Perhaps that very night he was going away, under cover of the darkness! Stung to action by this suggestion, conquering even the horror of the day’s adventures, she took her candle from the table and went out of the room into the stone passage. Freda softly open the door into the gallery, and shielding her candle with her hand, to minimise the risk of its light betraying her, crept along that portion of it which ran along the west side of the house. As she went she caught sight of something white on the ground, close underneath the panelling. It was the handkerchief she had slyly dropped that day, in the hope that it would afford some clue to the way Crispin was bringing her.
A close inspection of the panelling disclosed a tiny keyhole in the ornamental part of the carving, and although the panel in which it was pierced fitted perfectly into its place, yet a tap revealed the fact that there was a hollow or open space behind. She hailed this discovery with much excitement. This then was a very good place to watch, if her father really was in hiding about the house. The question now was how to conceal herself. There was nothing in the gallery but pictures, and a row of chairs. As she stood debating with herself, she heard footsteps, as it seemed to her, behind the panelling. In a frenzy of excitement she instantly blew out her candle, and scurried across the gallery to the furthest corner, where she crouched in a heap on the floor. She had not to wait long. A little scraping sound, and a panelled door opened from the other side. Then Freda heard a distant murmur of voices, and the next moment the man who had opened the door stepped into the gallery.