I had a blister on my palm when at last the hatchet went through and
fell with what sounded like the report of a gun to my overstrained
nerves. I sat on a trunk, waiting to hear Liddy fly up the stairs,
with the household behind her, like the tail of a comet. But nothing
happened, and with a growing feeling of uncanniness I set to work
enlarging the opening.
The result was absolutely nil. When I could hold a lighted candle in
the opening, I saw precisely what I had seen on the other side of the
chimney--a space between the true wall and the false one, possibly
seven feet long and about three feet wide. It was in no sense of the
word a secret chamber, and it was evident it had not been disturbed
since the house was built. It was a supreme disappointment.
It had been Mr. Jamieson's idea that the hidden room, if there was one,
would be found somewhere near the circular staircase. In fact, I knew
that he had once investigated the entire length of the clothes chute,
hanging to a rope, with this in view. I was reluctantly about to
concede that he had been right, when my eyes fell on the mantel and
fireplace. The latter had evidently never been used: it was closed
with a metal fire front, and only when the front refused to move, and
investigation showed that it was not intended to be moved, did my
spirits revive.
I hurried into the next room. Yes, sure enough, there was a similar
mantel and fireplace there, similarly closed. In both rooms the
chimney flue extended well out from the wall. I measured with the
tape-line, my hands trembling so that I could scarcely hold it. They
extended two feet and a half into each room, which, with the three feet
of space between the two partitions, made eight feet to be accounted
for. Eight feet in one direction and almost seven in the other--what a
chimney it was!
But I had only located the hidden room. I was not in it, and no amount
of pressing on the carving of the wooden mantels, no search of the
floors for loose boards, none of the customary methods availed at all.
That there was a means of entrance, and probably a simple one, I could
be certain. But what? What would I find if I did get in? Was the
detective right, and were the bonds and money from the Traders' Bank
there? Or was our whole theory wrong? Would not Paul Armstrong have
taken his booty with him? If he had not, and if Doctor Walker was in
the secret, he would have known how to enter the chimney room.
Then--who had dug the other hole in the false partition?