Cromarty.
"Dear me!" said the old lady, putting on her gla.s.ses. "Have we really found something? I declare I"m quite nervous over it. Emmeline, you read them."
Mrs. Hartley was a bit excited, too, and as for Patty and Mabel, they nearly went frantic at their elders" slowness in opening the old and yellow papers.
There were several letters, a few bills, and some hastily-scribbled memoranda. The letters and bills were of no special interest, but on one of the small bits of paper was another rhymed couplet that seemed to indicate a direction.
It read:
"Where the angry griffin shows, Ruthless, tear away the rose."
"Oh," exclaimed Patty, "it"s another direction how to get the fortune!
Oh, Mabel, it will be all right yet! Oh, where is the angry griffin? Is it over a rosebush? You"re only to pull up the rosebush, and there you are!"
Mabel looked bewildered. So did the older ladies.
"Speak, somebody!" cried Patty, dancing about in excitement. "Isn"t there any angry griffin? There must be!"
"That"s the trouble," said Mrs. Hartley; "there are so many of them. Why, there are angry griffins on the gates, over the lodge doors, on the marbles in the gardens, and all over the house."
"Of course there are," said Mabel. "You must have noticed them, Patty.
There"s one now," and she pointed to a bit of wood carving over the door frame of the room they were in.
"I don"t care! It means something, I know it does," declared Patty.
"We"ll work it out yet. I wish the boys were home."
"They"ll soon be here," said Mrs. Cromarty. "I can"t help thinking that it does mean something--Marmaduke was very fond of roses, and it would be just like him to plant a rosebush over his buried treasure."
"That"s it," cried Patty. "Now, where is there a rosebush growing, and one of the angry griffins near it?"
"There probably are some in the rose garden," said Mrs. Cromarty. "I don"t remember any, though."
"Come on, Mabel," said Patty, "let"s go and look. I can"t wait another minute!"
Away flew the two girls, and for the next hour they hovered about the rosebushes with more energy than is often shown by the busiest of bees.
"I wish old Uncle Marmaduke had been less of a poet," said Mabel, as they sat down a moment to rest, "and more of a--a----"
"More straightforward," suggested Patty. "If he"d only written a few words of plain prose, and left it with his lawyer, all this trouble needn"t have been."
"Well, I suppose he did intend to make it plain before he died, but he went off so suddenly. Oh, here are the boys."
Sinclair and Bob came bounding down toward the rose garden, followed more sedately by their mother and grandmother.
"Not a sign of a griffin a-sniffin" of a rose," said Patty, disconsolately.
"Oh, you haven"t looked all round yet," said Bob. "It"s such fun to have something to look for besides fir trees and beds, I"m going to make a close search."
"Of course," said Sinclair, "the same rose bush wouldn"t be here now that was here thirty or forty years ago."
"But it would have been renewed," said Mrs. Cromarty. "We"ve always tried to keep the flowers as nearly as possible the same."
"Then here goes to interview every griffin on the place," declared Bob.
"Jolly of old uncle to mark the spot with a rosebush and a griffin.
That"s what I call decent of him. And you"re a wonder, Patty, to find the old paper."
"Oh, that"s nothing," said Patty. "I just followed your orders about the books. If you"d kept at it yourself, you"d have found the same book."
"I s"pose so. But I"m glad you helped the good work along. Oh, dear! no rosebush seems to be near a griffin; and the griffins seem positively afraid of the rosebushes." And try as they would, no angry griffin could they find, with a rosebush near it. Griffins there were in plenty; both angry and grinning. Also were there plenty of roses, but they were arranged in well-laid-out beds, and in no case were guarded or menaced by angry griffins.
"Never mind," said Sinclair, as they returned to the house for dinner, "it"s something to work on. I shall stay at home to-morrow and try to find that particular rosebush, or the place where it used to be."
"Maybe it"s a stone rose," said Patty, as she touched a rose carved in stone that was part of an ornamental urn whose handles were the heads of angry griffins. Sinclair stared at her.
"You"re right," he said, slowly, as if grasping a great thought. "It"s much more likely to be a rose of stone or marble, and when that"s ruthlessly torn away the secret will be revealed. Oh, mother, there _is_ hope!"
Patty had never seen the placid Sinclair so excited, and they all went to their rooms to get ready for dinner, with a feeling that something was going to happen. Conversation at dinner was all on the engrossing subject.
Everybody made suggestions, and everybody recalled various partly-forgotten griffins in odd nooks and corners, each being sure that was "just the place uncle would choose!"
After dinner, the young people were anxious to go out and search more, but it had begun to rain, so they all went into the library and again scrutinised the old papers Patty had found.
They looked through more books, too, but found nothing further of interest.
At last, wearied with the hunt, Patty threw herself into a big armchair and declared she would do no more that night.
"I should say not," said Bob. "You"ve done quite enough in giving us this new start."
Although, as Patty had said, the looking through all the old books was Bob"s plan, he generously gave her the credit of this new find. Sinclair threw himself on a long leather couch, and began to sing softly some of their nonsense songs, as he often did when tired out. The others joined, and for a time the fortune was left to take care of itself.
Very pleasant were the four fresh young voices, and the elders listened gladly to their music.
In the middle of a song, Patty stopped, and sat bolt upright, her eyes staring at a door opposite her as if she had never seen it before.
"Gracious, goodness! Patty," said Mabel, "what is the matter?"
"What is it, little one?" said Sinclair, still humming the refrain of the interrupted song.
Patty pointed to the door, or rather to the elaborately carved door frame, and said slowly, "I"ve been reading a lot in the old architecture books--and they often used to have secret hiding places in the walls. And look at that door frame! There"s an angry griffin on one jamb, and a smiling griffin on the other, and under each is a rose. That is it"s a five-leafed blossom, a sort of conventional flower that they always call a rose in architecture."
"Though I suppose," said Sinclair, "by any other name it would look as sweet. Patty, my child, you"re dreaming. That old carving is as solid as Gibraltar and that old griffin isn"t very angry anyway. He just looks rather purse proud and haughty."
"But it"s the only griffin that"s near a rose," persisted Patty. "And he is angry, compared to the happy-looking griffin opposite to him."
"I believe the girl is right," said Bob, who was already examining the carvings in question. "The rose doesn"t look movable, exactly, but it is not quite like this other rose. It"s more deeply cut."
By this time all had cl.u.s.tered about the door frame, and one after another poked and pushed at the wooden rose.
"There"s something in it," persisted Bob. "In the idea, I mean. If there"s a secret hiding-place in that upright carved beam, that rose is the key to it. See how deeply it"s cut in, compared to the other; and I can almost see a crack all round it, as if it could be removed. May I try to get it out, Grandy?"