Having decided this, they again unrolled the mattress, hid themselves in blankets and snored peacefully till dawn.
In the morning, Mark put the matting over the very precious circle and the two went downstairs hinting at wonderful secrets of things they had found and strange noises they had heard. Marjorie said it seemed to her that she had heard a queer noise too—up overhead. She said it sounded like Mark tapping for secret panels. Then everybody laughed because of the memory of how Mark was shut up tight in the harness-closet once upon a time, a victim of his love of mystery and adventure. Then Richard said he thought Mark had heard a mouse.
“Mouse! Does a mouse rattle?” inquired Mark. “I guess you’ll find out!” And the subject strung itself out all through the day and on till Hallowe’en time came. Of course, in between, Mark had visited the attic and everybody had seen the circle. Everybody declared that it was a mystery. Nobody had ever seen anything like it upon an attic floor. Mother laughed. She was used to Mark’s imaginings. She said she didn’t connect it with a little harmless mouse gnawing at a hole.
At the mention of a mouse gnawing, Mark became almost dramatic. “It was no mouse!” he declared. “Don’t I know what a mouse sounds like!”
Hallowe’en came, but even the fun of dressing up like witches lost the usual flavor. Mark, Marjorie and Richard were worked up to a pitch of excitement over the circle on the attic floor. They talked of nothing else. Mark had read up on astrology in the encyclopedia. He hadn’t understood it all but he talked as if he did and Marjorie was wonderingly proud of his knowledge, while Richard was willing to listen, though he corrected Mark’s statements now and then, having read up on the subject at the library himself.
It was lucky that the picture theatre claimed Mother and Daddy that night. And the strange thing was that neither Mark nor Marjorie had begged to be taken too. They had come in at eight o’clock sharp, according to directions that Mother had insisted upon. They kept on their weird garments of sheets and shawls. Mark, lantern in hand, led the way to the dark attic room and the others followed.
Then there began to be a real noise in that room as Mark hammered a chisel into the flooring. It seemed to be a very thick board flooring and it took time to get some nails out. But they yielded finally, and the end of one floor-board that crossed the circle at its centre grew loose enough to be pried up. (Mark had insisted that he choose the centre of the circle. Nobody knew why, though they trusted him. He said that the centre was the middle of a thing and that whatever was there would be exactly under it. This sounded plausible.)
Then Mark had Richard take the chisel and wedge up the board a bit. It wouldn’t give very much, you know. He said Marjorie might hold the lantern and he’d peep into the darkness underneath and see what was there. Really, the moment was very exciting. Nobody knew what Mark might see—they felt that he was brave to take the first look, for it might be ’most anything down there where Mark’s noise had come from!
They were silent while Mark, lying flat down on the attic floor, peered under the lifted end of the board. “I see gold pieces,” he gasped. “Say, give me more light—it must be buried treasure! Didn’t I say I’d find it!”
Marjorie and Richard looked at each other. Was it true? “Let us see,” they urged. Richard did peek. He said he couldn’t see very clearly but that there was something there that he thought looked like money. It was round and there was something that looked like a bag there—maybe a money bag! Marjorie was so excited that she couldn’t keep still long enough to see anything at all well. But she thought she saw something that looked like a piece of paper. Nobody else had seen that, so they all peeped again. “It is a lost will,” declared Mark. And they believed him.