“Well, I’ll start at the beginning,” Jo Ann replied. “When I finally got in that window—I had to lie on my stomach to do it—all I could see was a small dark room. There was the odor of decaying wood or something—it smelled old and stale.”
“Oh, do you s’pose they could’ve used that room as a sort of dungeon or cell and left people in there to die?” gasped Peggy, wide-eyed.
“I hardly think so—there wasn’t a thing to suggest that. It was perfectly bare. I thought for a while you girls had the laugh on me this time. I hated to admit I’d gone on a wild-goose chase. I was just about ready to turn around and climb back to the roof when I decided to look again, and then——” She paused dramatically.
Both girls waited breathlessly, then Peggy ejaculated, “Go on! Don’t keep us in suspense any longer.”
“Then I threw the light over the floor again and noticed one half of it was black while the other half was gray. Now what do you suppose that black strip was?”
Peggy and Florence shook their heads. “How do we know?” said Peggy. “Go on.”
“I couldn’t tell either, in the dim light. Then I tied my flashlight on a string and lowered it down as far as possible. That black strip was—a—black—hole!”
“I don’t see anything wonderful about that,” scoffed Peggy.
“Why do you suppose they’d have a hole like that in a house?” put in Florence.
“That’s just what I was wondering,” said Jo Ann. “When the string slipped out of my hand and the light fell bumping down the hole, I——”