“Look!” he said; “he got out that way!”
In the gloom I made out double wooden doors halfway up the further wall of the round room, one of which was open, but through which came no light. I followed his lead up over a box that had been placed beneath them, and found myself in the “under.” We crawled out from behind a boat which concealed and darkened the entrance, and discovered that we were banked in on every side by the stuff that had been stored there.
“What is it all about?” asked Jasper.
“I hardly know myself,” said I, “but those doors must have been in plain sight at the back of the house, if they were there before the captain’s wing was built. The rubbish thrown in here from year to year has covered them up. Perhaps they used that place for something.”
“Some one is using it now, all right,” said Jasper. “Who do you think it is?”
“Oh, don’t ask me.”
I doubled up in a heap on an old wheelbarrow. Neither of us could stand upright, or we would have bumped our heads on the flooring. Jasper was leaning over me, uncertain what to do.
“Go and find Mrs. Dove!” I wept. “Run down to her house on the back street; she may have gone there, if she got away at all. And bring her husband back with you.” I pointed out the direction from beneath the house. “Run! We’ve got to find her. Hurry!”
Jasper, with a perplexed glance at the chaos he was leaving, dashed off down the yard. If I had had my wits about me, I should never have sent him. He had no sooner left than I heard something moving. Peeping between the heaps of piled-up furniture, I saw two legs vanishing upward at the further end of the “under.”
“Mrs. Dove!” I called wildly. But Mrs. Dove did not wear red rubber boots.