Montagu was still closeted with Mr. Wycherly, so Edmund wandered into the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew, exclaiming at his appearance, promptly dusted, brushed, and washed him, much to his annoyance. However, he bore it with as good grace as possible, and then with disarming meekness asked: "What do you do, Mrs. Dew, when a key won't turn; an old sort of key in an iron lock?"
"Have you been down in the cellar, Master Edmund?" Mrs. Dew asked suspiciously. "Is that where you got all that dust and cobwebs? You've no business there, you know, meddlin' with locks."
"I haven't been near the cellar," Edmund answered indignantly; "dust and cobwebs seem just to come and sit on me wherever I go; I can't help it. But what do you do to a box, now, that won't open?" he added diplomatically, "when the key sticks and won't turn?"
"You wait till afternoon, sir, and I'll help you to open any box you want opened. But you might go and oil the lock if you like, then it can soak in till I come."
Edmund joyfully accepted the little bottle of oil and the feather that Mrs. Dew offered him, and flew upstairs again. This time he borrowed the candle from beside Mr. Wycherly's bed, lighted it, and took it with him.
Into his cupboard he went. He oiled and oiled: himself, the lock, the door, and the floor. He tried the key with one hand, he tried it with two. He got fearfully hot and exceedingly cross, and still that key refused to turn. Finally, in a rage, he put his shoulders under the door and heaved with all his might. The door in the roof seemed to yield a little, and this inspired Edmund to further efforts. He shoved and shoved, and pushed and pushed, till at last, quite suddenly, the whole thing gave, opening upwards and outwards. Edmund's head emerged into the light of day, and with rapture he discovered that he had only to step out on to the flat roof of a portion of the next house, which was considerably higher than Mr. Wycherly's.
His mysterious door was a skylight that had been boarded in. Why that curious tunnel was cut off from the rest of the house they never knew, but the little square of leads was a source of infinite joy to Edmund and Montagu till they grew too wide to wiggle through the passage. Nor did Edmund, with the curious reticence of children, inform either Mr. Wycherly or Mrs. Dew of his find.
A low parapet faced the street, and sloping slate roofs formed the two other sides of this delightful square. Edmund advanced to the edge of the parapet. He found that he looked straight across the road into a top bedroom of the house opposite. A bedroom so high that it had only curtains, ordinary dark curtains, not drawn at all; no short blind, and only a low dressing-table and small looking-glass to fill up the window. Edmund sat down hastily lest he should be seen, for there was somebody in the room opposite. Somebody with bare arms who was doing her hair.
Cautiously Edmund's head appeared above the parapet, and a look of vindictive glee overspread his hot and dirty face.
It was Miss Selina Brooks herself, and fate had delivered her into his hands.