There was no stationery in the desk, but Mary had a pocket diary in her chatelaine bag. "We will write a note and shove it through the crack under the door," they said—and did, repeatedly, the ensuing week—but no answer came.
"I should think somebody would question the elevator boy," said Mary. "Or, that, when he hears we are gone, he will remember bringing us here."
"That was not the regular boy—depend upon it," answered Gertrude. "It was one of the conspirators, if there was a conspiracy, and he will not tell. It was Orlando Vickery who was behind this."
"Shall we go to bed tonight?" asked Mary.
"No, indeed," said Gertrude. "We couldn't possibly sleep. And besides—something might happen."
But nothing did happen. The slow night wore away and morning came. When the whistles below were calling people to their work, the two young women got up from their couch and easy-chair, and went to the windows again; but they could see nothing but the blank wall of a light-well. They were trapped and helpless.
"Well, we may as well be philosophical while we can," said Mary. "There are coffee and breakfast things in the pantry. I saw them last night. I'm used to getting my own light breakfast. Let's eat."
They prepared and ate their simple meal and went back, to wonder and speculate and devise new ways of getting some message to the outside world; but nothing came of it. They could do nothing more than scribble notes on pages torn from the diary and throw them from the tops of the windows into the light-well, where they fell harmlessly into the rubbish heap that gathered unnoticed in the corners. The day wore monotonously along and was succeeded by another and another. Then a note was found shoved under the front door in the early dawn.
"Open the little door to the dumbwaiter in the pantry and find supplies."
They obeyed, and found a basket of fruit, cream, vegetables and meat. They wrote an appealing note and placed in the basket and tried to send it down; but they could not manipulate the dumbwaiter. They left the little door open, to know when the basket descended, but it did not go down until some time during the following night. The only reply to their note—if it was a reply—was a second typewritten note, that came under the door late the fourth evening.