“How could it bump down a hole?” broke in Peggy skeptically.
“Well, it did—and that’s what I got so excited about.” She paused again.
“Cut out the dramatics,” Peggy ordered impatiently.
“Now, young lady, if you don’t like the way I’m telling this, I’ll stop right here.” Jo Ann smiled teasingly.
“Oh, do go on,” begged Florence.
“Well, then—as the light bumped over and over, I saw remnants of a crude ladder or steps of some sort. There seemed to be some rough heavy poles—something on the order of that scaffold the workmen used—but it looked as if there were steps between the poles. I couldn’t see very well.”
“But how could there be pieces of wood left in there if this house is as old as you said it was?” demanded Peggy. “It’d all be decayed long ago.”
“Not in this climate,” put in Florence quickly. “Are the doors of the house decayed? You see the air in this country is so dry that things do not deteriorate as they do in the ozone belt.”
“Why should they have a ladder in such a place?” queried Peggy.
“Use your head, Peg,” advised Jo Ann. “You know the door to the hidden room opens right at the end of this dark hall.” She gestured toward the hall. “Think how convenient it’d have been to have a secret passage leading from there!”