The Red Lady

by Katharine Newlin Burt

They moved at once as though they were on oiled hinges, and the whole low side of the closet came forward in my hands. Before me opened the black hole into which I had fallen the morning when Mary and I had explored the kitchen after Delia's departure. I did not know what lay there in the dark, but, unless I had the courage of my final adventure, there was no use in having braved and endured so much. I slid my lighted candle ahead of me and crept along the floor into the hole.

I had to creep only for an instant, then damp, cool space opened above my head and I stood up. I was in a narrow passageway of enormous height; in fact, the whole outer wall of the house stood at my right hand, and the whole inner wall at my left, crossed here and there by the beams of the deep window sills to which Mrs. Brane had called my attention on the evening of my arrival at “The Pines.” It was the most curious place. A foot or two in front of me a narrow stairs made of packing-boxes and odd pieces of lumber nailed together, went up between the walls. Holding my candle high, so that as far as possible I could see before and above me, I began to mount the steps. I was weak with excitement and with the heavy beating of my heart.

I counted sixteen steps, and saw that I had come to the top of the queer flight. The narrow, enormously high, passage, like an alley between towering sky-scrapers led on with an odd look, somewhere ahead of me sloping up. I walked perhaps twenty steps, and saw that I had come to the foot of an inclined plane. Probably Mr. Brane had found it easier of construction than his amateur stairs. I mounted it slowly, stopping to listen and to hold my breath. There was no sound in the house but the faint scuttling of rats and the faint, faint pressure of my steps. I realized that I must now be on a level with the passage in the northern wing, and that here it was that the various housekeepers and servants had heard a ghostly footfall or a gusty sigh. It would be easy enough to play ghost here; in fact, I felt like an unholy spirit entombed between the walls of the sleeping, unsuspecting house.

I reached the top of the inclined plane, and stopped with my left hand against the wall. Here I could see a long row of parallel rafters between which ran horizontal beams. In the spaces so enclosed lay the rows of bricks, hardened cement curling along their edges. My hand rested against the first parallel rafter on the left side. I began to count: one, two, three, four, five. This was certainly the fifth rafter on the left wall from the top of the inclined plane. I put down my candle. If my chart was right, and not the crazy fiction of a diseased brain as I half imagined it to be, this fifth rafter hid the iron box in which lay a treasure thought by the writer of the directions to be “worthy of any risk, almost of any crime.” I put my arms out at a level with my shoulders, and grasped the beam in both hands. I pulled. Instantly, a section about as long as myself moved forward. I pulled again. This time the heavy beam came out suddenly, and I fell with it. The thud seemed to me loud enough to wake the dead. I crouched, holding my breath, where I had fallen, then, freeing myself from the beam which had caught my skirt, I stood up. I peered into the opening behind the beam. In the narrow darkness of the space there seemed to be a narrower, denser darkness. I put my hand on it, and touched the edge of a long, narrow box.

Instantly the fascination of all stories of hidden treasure, the wonder thrill of Ali Baba's hidden cave, the spell of Monte Cristo, had me, and I felt no fear of any kind. Wounds, and pains, and terrors dropped from me. I pulled out the box as boldly and as eagerly as any pirate in a tale. It was heavy, the box. I eased it to the floor and laid it flat. It was an old, shallow box of iron, rusted and stained. There was no mark of any kind upon it, just a keyhole in the front. I must now find the eighteenth brick in the thirtieth row in order to possess myself of the key to my treasure. I counted carefully, pressing each brick with an unsteady, feverish finger. On the thirtieth row from the floor, eighteen bricks from the fifth rafter... yes, this was certainly the thirtieth row. I counted twice to make sure, and now, from the rafter, the eighteenth brick. It looked quite as secure as any other, and, indeed, I had to work hard to clear away the cement that held it in place. When that was done, I had no difficulty in loosening it. I took it out—yes, there behind it lay an iron key. I did not stop to replace the brick, but, hurrying back to my box, knelt down before it. My hands were shaking so that I had to steady my right with my left in order to fit in the key.

It would not turn. I worked and twisted and poked. Nothing would move the rusty lock. Sweat streamed down my face. There was nothing for it but to go back to the kitchen, get some kerosene, pour it into the lock, and so oil the rusty contrivance. Every minute was as precious as life itself. I made the trip at desperate speed, returned with a small bottle full of oil, and saturated the lock. After another five minutes of fruitless twisting, suddenly the key turned. I grasped the lid. It opened with a faint, protesting squeak.

It seemed to me at first that the box was full of bright and moving life; then I saw, with a catching breath, that the flame of my candle played across the surface of a hundred gems. There lay in the box an ecclesiastical robe of some kind, encrusted all over with jewels. And at one end rested a slender circlet, like a Virgin's crown, studded with crimson, and blue, and white, and yellow stones. So did the whole bewildering, beautiful thing gleam and glisten and shoot sparks that it seemed indeed to be on fire. I have never till that night felt the mysterious lure of precious stones. Kneeling there alone in the strange hiding-place, I was possessed by an intolerable longing to escape with these glittering things, and to live somewhere in secret, to fondle and cherish their unearthly fires. It was a thirst, an appetite, the explanation of all the terrible digging and delving, the sweat and the exhaustion of the mine... it was something akin to the hypnotism that the glittering eye of the serpent has for its victim, a desire, a peril rooted deep in the hearts of men, one of the most mysterious things in our mysterious spirit. I knelt there, forgetful of my danger, forgetful of my life, forgetful of everything except the beauty of those stones. Then, with a violent start, I remembered. I carefully drew out the robe, laid it over my arm, and, taking the heavy circlet in my hand, I prepared myself for flight. The load was extraordinarily heavy. I bent under it.

I had taken perhaps six steps towards safety when I heard a sound.

It was not the sound of rats, it was not the sound of my own light step... it was something else. I did not know what that sound was, but some instinct told me that it was a danger signal. I put out my candle and flattened myself against the wall. Then I did distinctly hear an approaching step. It was not anywhere else in the house. It was between those two walls. It was ascending the steps, it was coming up the plane. Through the pitchy darkness it advanced, bringing with it no light, but moving surely as though it knew every step of the way. There was hardly room for two people between those high walls; any one passing me, where I stood, must brush against me. I dared not move even to lay down my treasure and put myself into an attitude of self-defense.

I thought that my only chance lay in the miracle of being passed without notice. Near to me the footsteps stopped, and I remembered that any foot coming along the passage would perforce strike against the box and the fallen beam. There was no hope. Nevertheless, like some frozen image, I stood there clasping the robe and crown, incapable of motion, incapable of thought.