Then they fell to opening the flooring in a most reckless way. It really was dreadful—but when one is expecting to get at a money bag and a lost will, one does not stop to consider the flooring. The board was whacked beyond recognition. The hammer and chisel fell to work and the flooring yielded to the onslaught. Then—Mark lifted the board! Ah!—Ah-ha!—
Richard held the lantern down so that it shone full upon the treasure; Marjorie gasped; Mark bent forward to see all there was to see. There was a pile of broken glass and some rags, corks—and buttons! Oh, yes, and there was a piece or so of white paper—not very large. The buttons were of metal, round brass buttons, tarnished and old. The paper was old white paper, yellow now. It was not a lost will at all! No, the money bag was just a round wad of cloth and Mark’s noise was—Mark’s noise was evidently a rat running around the rat’s nest that they had found! Alas, alas! There was no more mystery! The three had never seen a rat’s nest before but Richard had heard about them. He said, from the first, he’d said it was a mouse—but everybody knows that a mouse is very different from a rat!
After they had all recovered from the shock of their disappointment, they laughed a little. It really was funny—There they had been planning what they would do with all the money after it had been properly divided! Of course, the lost will would have given the money to the finders, you know.
Mark fingered the buttons, grimy with much dust. “They don’t make buttons like this any more,” he said. “They are very interesting. I am glad I found them.” He said that they had not yet come to the end of the mystery. “Why is there a circle on the attic floor?” he questioned. “Why?”
Nobody could say. Then they heard Mother’s voice downstairs. “You’ll have to tell about the floor,” Marjorie suggested. “We can never get it down again.”
So they did. It was a sorry group that said good-night, even after they had been forgiven.
Next day when Mark returned from school, he heard the carpenter repairing the damaged floor up in his den and he rushed up there.
“Say,” he said, “what do you suppose anybody ever made a circle on the floor like that for unless it was an astrologer?”
The carpenter laughed. “Sonny,” he smiled. “I’ve been in this house when there was a big cistern right here—Know what a cistern is? It’s what the family used to depend upon for water in the house. When they took it down, the floor that was painted all around it showed the circle where the cistern had stood. That’s all. It wasn’t any astrologer that made it.”
After that, somehow, the news about the cistern’s having been Mark’s mysterious circle in dim ages past, leaked out. Richard and Marjorie and Mabel and Eleanore plagued him forever after—but, anyway, Mark says, some day when he does find a fortune and a lost will, they’ll stop laughing at him. Maybe that’s true.