Five nights at the Five Pines

by Harriet A. Gaul

I began crawling over to where they had disappeared, and found a well defined path in that direction, as if the broken beds and old chests had been drawn aside to make it possible for some one, crouching, to reach the further end of the “under” without being seen.

Standing upright at last, in the higher part beneath the chimney, I suddenly realized that I had raised myself much too far. What was I looking at? My head had passed the floor and my eyes were on a level with the captain’s room. There was the old rosewood desk and the cat asleep in the rocking-chair. Wheeling about, I confronted the back entrance to the secret stairs.

I had stood up directly under the chimney-closet, whose whole floor was lifted against the wall. There it was, to one side, with the hasp that had fastened it from underneath hanging loosely. In the hasp was an open padlock.

I had no time to wonder how it came to be that way or why I had never noticed it before. Some one had just opened this door and gone through it. He was still going. I could hear him on the secret stairs.

We were not so far behind the ghost as I had thought. I swung myself up into the opening, but could climb no further. Horror held me and gripped me from above and from below. What was I chasing? What would I find? I slammed the trap at my feet, which comprised the entire floor of the closet, and, stepping on it firmly, wired shut the door of the secret stairs. It would be futile to lock the door of the closet that led into the captain’s room. I wondered how many times that strong looking copper wire had been unfastened and fastened again, while I remained oblivious beyond the further door. As I wound the wire around the hook all was silent, but when I had finished and had withdrawn I heard footsteps crossing overhead. I ran through the kitchen, skirting the great rolled-up oilcloth and avoiding the opening in the floor, and climbed the kitchen companionway three steps at a time. I must be sure that the little door above was still nailed shut, and as a double precaution I shoved the bureau once more in front of it.

“If you can’t get out by night,” I muttered, “you won’t get out by day!”

The footsteps came to the inside door of the eaves closet, tried the latch, shook it furiously, and, leaning against it, shoved with mortal might. But the mirror of the bureau did not move, the door on the further side of the eaves closet held, and the frail partition remained firm. I heard the footsteps start the other way, and ran down to watch results.

In the kitchen doorway two men were standing, open-jawed. I did not even pause to see who they were, but dashed on into the captain’s room, and was in time to see the latch of the secret door raised stealthily, then dropped, then clicked again. Some one rattled and shook it, but it would not open.

I smiled grimly.

“It’s different, isn’t it,” I said, “when some one wires it up after you get in? You’re human, you are; you can’t get out of there any more than I could!”