The moment she touched the floor she flashed the light upward so as to help Florence and Peggy in their descent. In a few more moments they were standing safely beside her.
“What a strange place!” Peggy said, then added quickly in a whisper, “I’ll wake Dr. Blackwell at this rate.”
“No; talk as loud as you like,” replied Jo Ann. “These walls are so thick I believe you could yell down here without his hearing you.”
The girls stared at Jo Ann in amazement. It seemed incredible—uncanny—that they could be within a few feet of home and Dr. Blackwell, and yet he could not hear them.
With the aid of their flashlights they examined the room from top to bottom, only to find that except for the rough outlines of the sealed doorway, it was bare and uninteresting. Half fearfully, then, they stared down into the shaft. In the surrounding darkness the old ladder looked white and ghostlike.
“Why do you suppose they sealed up that door instead of closing up this hole?” queried Peggy curiously.
“Because it was much easier to close up the door,” replied Jo Ann. “It’d be hard to conceal as large an opening as this in a cement floor. I have an idea that the door was sealed up in a hurry to prevent the discovery of this secret passage. Let’s see where it leads. Shine your lights over this way so I can see,” she ordered, climbing over the edge of the floor.
Slowly she made her way down the rope into the shaft. Now and then she stopped to kick off a loose step or a jagged splinter from the old ladder lest it should injure Florence and Peggy, who would follow in a moment.
Suddenly she gave a little shriek. There to one side of the shaft yawned the mouth of a low, tunnel-like opening. “O-oh, hurry, girls!” she cried excitedly.
“What’s the matter?” called Peggy in alarm. “Are you hurt? Be there in a minute,” she added as she started down the rope.