“I wonder why she hid her diary in such a strange place?” Cara mused.
“Oh, I imagine it was just a girl’s desire for privacy,” Miss Swenster returned. “Florence was a queer one in a good many ways though. I’m sure she never told anyone about this secret compartment.”
She bent to examine it again. She closed the panel, hearing it click as it went firmly into place. But try as she would, she could not open it again.
“I think I can,” Madge offered. “I know about where my hand was when it touched the spring.”
Miss Swenster stepped aside and Madge moved her hand over the panel exploring its surface. At first she had no better success, then her fingers pressed the spring in just the right manner and the panel popped open.
“It takes a sideways pressure,” she explained.
Cara and Miss Swenster both experimented until they had learned the secret. In the meantime, Madge had picked up the diary and was studying it curiously.
“I wonder—could Florence have written anything in here about the pearls?”
Miss Swenster regarded Madge with frank admiration and approval. At first she had thought the search for the pearls only a useless, amusing whim of the girls. Now she recognized that a sound idea lay behind Madge’s investigation.
“Why not read the diary?” she asked. “If Florence had any secrets to hide, it’s time they were aired.”