At the bottom of the ladder he pressed my hand feelingly, and expressed his gratitude in terms that would have touched a harder heart than mine.
Then having closed the coal-hole and hidden the ladder under a pile of wood, I resumed my pursuit of the ghost.
XIV
LADY'S SLIPPER
I lighted my way with a candle through the lost chambers of the old house, up the hidden stairway, and out into the fourth-floor hall again. The old stair, I found on closer observation, reached only from the second to the fourth floor, and below this had been pieced with lumber carefully preserved from the earlier house. There was nothing so strange after all about the hidden stairway, though I was convinced that this had been no idea of Pepperton's, but that he had merely obeyed the orders of his eccentric client, the umbrella and dyspepsia-cure millionaire.
I had no sooner let myself through the secret door into the upper hall than I was aware of a disturbance in the library below. I heard exclamations from the men, and as I ran down toward the third floor Miss Octavia's voice rose above the tumult.
"We must have patience, gentlemen. Chimneys are subject to moods just like human beings; and we are fortunate in having in the house a gentleman who is an expert in such matters. I do not doubt that Mr. Ames even now has his hand upon the chimney's pulse, and that he will soon solve this perplexing problem."
"If you wait for that man to mend your chimney you will wait until doomsday."
So spake John Stewart Dick, taking his vengeance of me with my client and hostess. I might have forgiven him; but I could not forgive Hartley Wiggins.