On rainy days they searched about the house. Having found one secret panel, they hoped for more, and the boys went about tapping the walls or carved woodwork here and there, listening for a hollow sound.
Bob and Patty went on searching the books. But though a number of old papers were found they were of no value. Incidentally, Patty was acquiring a store of information of various sorts. Though too eager in her work to sit down and read any book through, she scanned many pages here and there, and learned much that was interesting and useful.
Especially did she like books that described the old castles and abbeys of England. There were many of these books, both architectural and historical, and Patty lingered over the ill.u.s.trations, and let her eyes run hastily over the pages of description.
One afternoon she sat cross-legged, in Turk fashion, on the library floor, absorbed in an account of the beautiful old mansion known as "Audley End." The description so interested her that she read on and on, and in her perusal she came to this sentence:
"There are other curious relics, among them the chair of Alexander Pope, and the carved oak head of Cromwell"s bed, converted into a chimney-piece."
Anything in reference to the headboard of a bedstead caught Patty"s attention, and she read the paragraph over again.
"Sinclair," she called, but he had gone elsewhere, and did not hear her.
Patty looked around at the mantel or chimney-piece in the library, but it was so evidently a part of the plan of wall decoration, that it could not possibly have been anything else.
Patty sighed. "It would have been so lovely," she thought to herself, "if it only had been a bedhead, made into a mantel, for then that bothering old man could easily have tucked his money between it and the wall."
And then, though Patty"s thoughts came slowly, they came surely, and she remembered that in the great hall, or living-room, the mantel was a ma.s.sive affair of carved oak.
Half bewildered, Patty dropped the book, jumped up, and went to the door of the hall. No one was there, and the girl was glad of it, for if she really was on the eve of a great discovery she wanted to be alone at first.
As she entered the room, the lines came to her mind:
"Above the stair, across the hall, Between the bedhead and the wall,"
and she noticed that the chimney-piece stood on a sort of wide platform, which extended across that whole end of the hall. Could it be that Mr.
Marmaduke had meant above this platform, calling it a stair, which ran across the great hall? For years they had taken the direction to mean "up the staircase," and "across the corridor," or hall which led to the bedrooms.
Slowly, almost as if afraid, Patty crossed the hall, stepped up on the platform, and examined the old chimney-piece. She couldn"t tell, positively, but surely, surely it looked as if it _might_ once have been the headboard of an ancient bed. It certainly was different in its workmanship from the wood carving that decorated the apartment.
The top of it was well above her head, but might it not be that the old rhyme meant between _this_ bedhead and the wall?
Here they had never looked. It must be that it was not generally known that this mantel was, or had been, a bedhead.
Still, as if in a daze, Patty went and sat in a chair facing the old chimney-piece, and wondered. She intended to call the others in a moment, but first she wanted to enjoy alone the marvel of her own discovery.
As she sat there, scrutinising every detail of the room, the lines kept repeating themselves in her brain:
_"Above the stair, across the hall, Between the bedhead and the wall."_
If the secret pocket was between that bedhead and the wall, it was certainly above the stair across the hall! Why had that stair or platform been built across the hall? It was a peculiar arrangement.
This question Patty gave up, but she thought it might well have been done when the bedhead was set up there, in order to make the chimney-piece higher and so more effective.
Patty had learned something of architecture in her library browsings.
Above the high mantel was a large painting. It was a landscape and showed a beautiful bit of scenery without buildings or people. In the foreground were several distinct trees of n.o.ble proportions.
"They"re firs," said Patty to herself, for she had become thoroughly familiar with fir trees.
And then, like a flash, through her brain came the words:
_"Great treasure lieth in the poke Between the fir trees and the oak."_
The secret was revealed! Patty knew it!
Beside the bedhead evidence, it was clear to her mind that "Between the fir trees and the oak," meant between these painted fir trees and the old carved oak mantel. Grasping the arms of her chair, she sat still a minute trying to take it all in, and then looked about for something to stand on that she might examine the top of the old mantel-shelf.
But her next quick thought was, that that was not her right. Those to whom the fortune belonged must make the investigation themselves.
"Sinclair," called Patty, again; "Mabel, Mrs. Hartley, where are you all?"
Bob responded first, and seeing by Patty"s excited face that she had discovered something important, he went in search of the others.
At last they were all gathered in the great hall, and Patty"s sense of the dramatic proved too strong to allow her to make her announcement simply.
"People," she said, "I have made a discovery. That is, I think I have. If I am right, the Cromarty fortune is within your grasp. If I am wrong--well, in that case, we"ll begin all over again."
"Tell us about your new find," said Sinclair, selecting a comfortable chair, and sitting down as if for a long session. "Is it another mason"s bill?"
n.o.body minded being chaffed about searching or finding, for the subject was treated jocosely as well as seriously.
Patty stood on the platform in front of the carved oak chimney-piece, and addressed her audience, who listened, half laughing, half eager.
"What is this on which I stand?" she demanded.
"A rug," replied Mabel, promptly.
"I mean beneath the rug?"
"The floor."
"No, it isn"t! What is this--this construction across the room?"
"A platform," put in Bob, willing to help her along.
"Yes. But what else could it be called? I"m in earnest."
"A step," suggested Sinclair.
"Yes, a step; but couldn"t it be called a stair?"
"It _could_ be," said Bob, "but I don"t believe it is one."
"But suppose your erratic uncle chose to call it that."
"Oh," laughed Bob, "you mean the stair in the poem."
"I do. I mean the stair across the hall."