"I have a car!" Sim quickly interposed. "If one of you men will sit in the rumble seat and hold this man, I"ll drive him home-if it isn"t too far."
"Oh, he lives right here in Jockey Hollow," said the tall thin worker.
"About two miles from here, down by Primrose Brook."
"I"ll take him in my car, then," decided Sim. "One of you girls had better ride with me," she added in a lower voice.
"I will," Arden offered. "And I know a little about first aid, so maybe we can be of some help when we get this man home-before the doctor comes." The unfortunate man hadn"t moved, nor did he seem even to breathe.
"That"s right," agreed Sim. "But about a doctor?" she asked, turning to the contractor and the men gathered about him. "How are you going to get a doctor?"
"I"ll run to the nearest telephone, miss, as soon as you start with Jim,"
the tall thin man offered. "I know the location of Jim"s house. I can direct the doctor there."
"All right," Sim a.s.sented. "Take him to my car. Come on, Arden. We certainly have run into something all right-whether or not it"s a mystery will develop later. But about you girls?" she asked, looking at Dot and Terry and, incidentally, at Betty.
"We"ll wait here until you two come back," Terry suggested.
"Please come with me and have some tea at our cottage," invited Betty.
"You can wait there."
"That will be better," Arden accepted. As the men started to carry Jim to Sim"s car, she inquired, of no one in particular: "Where did you find him, and is there any explanation of how he got into the cellar?"
"He was at the bottom of an old ash-chute," said Mr. Callahan. "It opens into the cellar and connects with that big fireplace on the third floor, in the room next to the one with the closet in-the closet they say Jim disappeared from, only he couldn"t. It"s a very big ash-chute-big enough for a man to slide down. They must have burned whole trees in the old days, in that fireplace. And when the fire was out, instead of carting the ashes downstairs in a hod, they just opened a sort of trapdoor on the bottom of the hearth and dumped the ashes down. Only the trapdoor is rusted away now, and, somehow, Jim must have got into the ash-chute and he slid down to the cellar, b.u.mping his head, cutting himself and knocking himself out on the way. That"s all there is to the mystery. And I"m glad of it."
His men looked relieved. One of them said:
"Then I guess Jim couldn"t have gone into that closet like Nate thought he did. Though he may have gone in there, and have come out without Nate seeing him. Next he went into the fireplace room and, somehow or other, he slipped down the ash-chute."
"That"s the way of it," said Mr. Callahan. "It explains everything, boys, and tomorrow we"ll get on this job and clean it up. The mystery is all solved."
"In my eye!" someone muttered.
"What makes you say that, Nate Waldon?" asked the contractor.
"Because Jim did disappear right out of the closet. I know it. I didn"t see him disappear, of course, but he didn"t come out and go in the fireplace room."
"This is worse and more of it!" sighed the contractor. He looked at the men carefully getting Jim into the rumble seat of Sim"s car and asked: "Well, what do _you_ say happened, Nate?"
"All I know is I saw Jim go in that closet. I heard a noise. I heard him yell, and when I ran to the closet he wasn"t to be seen. He didn"t slip out into the other room. I was close enough to have seen him if he"d done that. And we didn"t find any holes in the closet. The next we know we find Jim in the cellar. Talk about mysteries being cleared up-this one isn"t; not at all!"
"Oh, well, don"t let"s talk about it!" begged Mr. Callahan. "All of you report for work tomorrow. We"ll knock off now. And I"m a thousand times obliged to you young ladies for all you"ve done-and are doing," he added as he saw Arden and Sim getting into the car, while in the rumble seat a man was carefully holding the still unconscious Jim, supporting his head very gently as the car started.
"We"ll be back as soon as we can," Sim called to Terry and Dot as they walked, with Betty, toward the little cottage.
"Don"t hurry," was the answer. "We"ll be all right. And do all you can for the poor man."
"This will be a surprise for Granny," said Betty as she led the way to the cottage.
"It must have been a surprise for you," suggested Terry, "coming upon what you thought was a dead man in the cellar."
"Oh, I was scared stiff!" admitted Betty. "And I was so glad when I ran up and saw Arden. I suppose it seems presuming on such a short acquaintance to call you girls by your first names," she added with a little smile, "but, somehow, I feel as if I had known you a long time."
"Of course," Terry agreed, "we feel that way about you, too."
"Excitement makes time pa.s.s rapidly," declaimed Dot. "And there certainly has been a lot of excitement since I arrived here."
"Indeed there has been," Terry agreed.
At the cottage Granny welcomed them with her usual happy smile but asked at once:
"What has happened?"
"How did you know anything had happened?" asked Betty.
"I can tell by your faces."
"Well, I believe we do show something of it," her granddaughter admitted.
"But nothing a cup of your nice tea will not help to straighten out, Granny. You know Terry and Dot?"
"Oh, yes. And we shall have tea at once. Now tell me."
They told her. Granny listened with an enigmatic look on her face, now and then her eyes showing flecks of pity as the wounded man was spoken of.
"Very strange!" she said at the end. "I can"t understand it. There must be secrets about the Hall I never dreamed of. Perhaps when it is all torn down some of the secrets will come to light."
"There is some as will never see the light!" suddenly exclaimed a sharp voice from somewhere back of the hall. A woman, hard featured as to face and with straggling gray hair, suddenly poked her head out. She quite startled the girls, but Betty smiled rea.s.suringly.
"Oh, Cousin Viney!" murmured Betty, "why do you say such things?" as if dismissing this woman.
"Did you want anything, my dear?" asked Granny kindly.
"I only want to tell you that you"re having too many visitors, Hannah Howe!" was the answer. "Too many altogether! You know tea costs money, and so does cream and sugar, though I never use either."
"Won"t you sit down with my company, Viney, and have a cup of tea-clear, as you always like it?" invited Granny sincerely.
"No. I"ve got other things to do. There"s lots of work in this cottage.
Not as much as there was in the Hall-but enough!"
At that she flounced herself out, slamming the door.
Granny and Betty exchanged glances. So did Dot and Terry: it was their introduction to Viney Tucker. Arden had already met her, as Betty announced. She added:
"Don"t mind her. She"s Granny"s cousin-just a little odd-though I don"t need to tell you that. But she"s kind and good," she explained as Mrs.
Howe went out to get more hot water. "She thinks the world and all of Granny and of d.i.c.k and me. But there is no use denying she is a bit trying at times, and she often embarra.s.ses us when we have company-which isn"t as often as I"d like," and Betty smiled at her two new friends to make them sure of their welcome.
"I believe," she continued, "that Cousin Viney feels and resents, as one has a right in the circ.u.mstances, our loss of Sycamore Hall, more than even Granny does. She is a creature always given to solitude and-well, you know how lonely women can be," she finished.
"It does seem too bad to have such a wonderful and historic piece of property pa.s.s out of the family," Terry said. "One can hardly blame Miss Viney."