A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Vol. 2

by G. A. Henty

"It is all ready, sir," she said to papa. "I oiled the lock and bolts yesterday, and I had everything undone ready, so as to open the door when I heard your footsteps on the gravel. I am not afraid now, sir, and will go up with the young ladies if they like."

"No, Sarah—you had better wait in the hall, to let them know if you hear any one stirring in the house. We shall remain out here. Now, girls, courage and victory!"

"Now for it!" Polly said, and we went into the hall together.

There were three candlesticks with lighted candles on the table. We each took one of them, and with light steps crossed the hall to the chimney-place. Sarah at once knelt down, and unscrewed the dog's tongue, touched the spring, then the one in the chimney, and the door swung round with a slight creak, startling us, although we expected it.

While she was doing this, I looked round the hall, and I do not think that the least trace of my past fear remained. I was thinking of the last time I had been in that hall, some little time before my dear mother's death. How different was my position then, and what changes had these sad nine months brought about! I thought, too, for a moment of how it might be the next time I entered it, with Sophy as undisputed mistress; and, quickly as all these thoughts had flitted across my mind, I had only got thus far when the creak of the opening door made me turn sharply round, and prepare for the business on hand.

"Shall I go first, Agnes?" Polly asked, offering to pass me.

"No, no," I answered; "I am not in the least afraid now."

Nor was I. My pulse beat quick, but it was purely from excitement, and I do not think at that moment, had the Misses Harmer suddenly stepped down the staircase, before me, I should have been afraid of them. Holding my candle well in front of me, I stooped under the low doorway, and began to ascend the narrow stone stairs, Polly following closely behind. The stairs, as papa had calculated, were only five or six in number, and we then stood at once in the chamber into which for so many months we had been so longing to penetrate. Now for the will!

After the first breathless look round, a low exclamation of disappointment broke from each of us. There was no box or chest of any kind to be seen. The room was a mere cell, a little more than six feet high, eight feet long, and six wide. The walls were of rough stone, which had been whitewashed at no very distant time. The only furniture in it was a small table and an easy chair, both quite modern; indeed, the chair was the fellow to one I remembered in Mr. Harmer's library. On the table stood an inkstand, some pens and paper, and there were some torn scraps of paper on the floor; on picking up one of which I perceived words in Mr. Harmer's well-known handwriting. On the table, too, were placed two or three of his scientific books, and a half-consumed cigar lay beside them.

It was evident, from all this, that Mr. Harmer had been in the habit of using this room for a study, and the warmth which we felt the moment that we came into it, from its being against the kitchen chimney, suggested his reasons for so using it. It was apparent that the room had not been disturbed since he left it after reading there—on, perhaps, the very night before his death.