As he spoke he crossed over to the side of the room where, to their knowledge, the second door was, if only they could find it! Mr Morpeth, at first, began feeling about in a vague way, as if expecting to light upon the spring by a happy accident. But no such result followed; he began to look a little more thoughtful.
“Let’s see,” he said, consideringly, “whereabouts was it we first came into the room?”
Mary stepped backwards close to the wall, and then moved slowly along, keeping her back to it.
“It must have been about here, I think,” she said, stopping short. “I remember the first thing I caught sight of was that cabinet, and it seemed just opposite me; and Mrs Greville standing in front of it seemed to shut out that narrow pane of the window. Yes,” as Mr Morpeth put himself in the position she described—“yes, she was standing just there; the door must be hereabouts.”
They turned to search more systematically, but in vain. Peer as they would into every square inch of the musty tapestry hangings within a certain radius, feel as they would, up and down, right and left, higher up than Mrs Golding could possibly have reached, lower down than any door within the memory of man ever locked; it was all in vain. Then they looked at each other.
“It must be a spring pressing inwards—flat on the surface,” said Mr Morpeth. “I thought there would have been a little knob of some kind. However, let’s try again.”
He moved his hand slowly around the wall, pressing carefully, anxiously endeavouring to detect the slightest inequality or indentation, and Mary followed his example till their patience was exhausted. Then again they stopped and looked at each other.
“Would it be any good trying to find the spring of the other door?” said Mary, at last.
“I don’t fancy it would,” said Mr Morpeth. “You see, we’re quite in the dark as to what sort of spring it is; we may have touched it twenty times, but not pushed or pressed it the right way. Don’t you think we’d better just not bother for a little? They’re sure to miss us before long, and then that old party will hunt us up.”
But Mary looked by no means disposed to take things so philosophically.