Quintus Oakes Part 12

Oakes thought a moment, then arose and said: "Step here, Mike, and point out the side of the house you mean."

Mike hesitated. The other servants withdrew at Oakes's suggestion that he wished to talk with the gardener. The latter advanced. We felt that Oakes was trying to spring a trap.

"The side of the house where the cellar door is," reiterated Mike.

"Nonsense, O'Brien. Your story is impossible. The sun was then in the east and the shadow would have been thrown on the east wall. There is no door on that side; it is on the west side of the house."

O'Brien looked at Oakes defiantly.

"Yer intirely wrong, sorr. _There is_ the cellar door to the east." He pointed to a hatch, opening about forty feet from the house, near the well. "The door _ye_ saw on the west is niver opened--'tis nailed up."

The tables were turned. Oakes was disconcerted.

"If what you say is true, you have my apology. I have not investigated closely."

"So I thought, sorr," was the answer. And we all wondered at the amazing coolness and self-possession of the man. It was one against three, and he had held his own.

"Sit down, Mike," said Oakes. "How long have you been here?"

"Only a matter av six weeks. I came from New York and tried for a job.

Maloney, the head man, giv me wan."

"Where is Maloney?"

"He was in the tool-house whin I come by, sorr. He didn't hear the commotion, being sort o' deef."

"All right, Mike! Stay where you are a moment." Then Oakes turned to us.

"Just after Moore was attacked I heard a sound like a quick footstep, and having certain suspicions of my own, made a dash for the cellar. I found there was no cellar under the north wing; but toward the west, and directly beneath the dining-room, was a door. As I opened it all was dark; but my eyes soon accustomed themselves to the light, and I made out a good-sized chamber--and what I took for a man near the farther end. I remained silent, pretending I had seen nothing, and, closing the door, made a movement back up the cellar stairs. There I waited for about five minutes. The ruse worked. The door of the chamber opened, and a man, dressed in a dark cloak and a mask, partly emerged, and, I _thought_, started for the other stairs at the west end of the cellar. I jumped and grappled with him, but he struck me with the b.u.t.t end of a revolver, and I was dazed; in another minute, he was punishing me severely. I fired two shots, then he threw me away from him and disappeared. He was stronger than anyone I ever met," said Oakes, apologetically, "a regular demon, and he got in the first blow. I think I wounded him, however."

"What shall we do?" said Moore.

"Go quickly and investigate," was the answer. "Here, Mike, you lead the way."

Mike did not hesitate. If playing a game, he did it well.

"Want a gun?" said Oakes.

"No, sorr, not if youse all are armed. Guess we can give him all the sc.r.a.p he wants."

We descended the stairs, Oakes last, as became his condition. He touched Moore and myself, and pointed to Mike. "Watch him; he may be already armed," he whispered.

The cellar was lighted by one window at the western end. A door at the same end, which evidently led to some stairs, was padlocked, and, as Oakes said, had not been recently opened. The dust lay upon it undisturbed and the padlock was very rusty. This corroborated Mike's story. The door above that opened on the ground. It was boarded up, he said.

No means was found of pa.s.sing beneath the dance hall, as Oakes had said.

From the lay of the ground, we concluded that the cellar was very low there and not bottomed--a shut-in affair such as one finds in old buildings of the Colonial epoch. Across the cellar, to the other side--the south--the same thing pertained except at the western extremity under the dining-room; there a door opened into a cellar room or chamber.

"Here! take this," said Oakes, handing Mike a small pocket taper. "Light it."

Mike did as told, and stepped into the room, I after him. Oakes held the cellar door open, and I, happening to look at him, saw that he was watching Mike as a cat watches a mouse. He had dropped a match at the moment, and, with his eye still on the gardener, stooped to pick it up.

His hand made a swift, double movement, he had the match and something else besides; but Mike had not observed, and I, of course, said nothing.

The room was low and without windows, but the air was remarkably clean and fresh. "Plenty of ventilation in here," said I.

"Yes, and blood too," said the gardener.

Sure enough, the floor was spattered with it.

"Mine, I guess," said Oakes. "Moore, kindly fetch a lamp from upstairs.

Ask Annie for one."

Moore went, and soon brought down a small lantern. We could hear Cook's voice at the head of the stairs; also his wife's and Annie's. It was the long-expected hunt that no one had ever before made, and which might clear up the mystery at any time.

By the better light we saw evidences of the struggle that had taken place--a strip of Oakes's coat, and a piece of glazed red paper an inch or so long, and perhaps half as broad--white on one side, red on the other.

"Piece of a mask," said I; and Oakes placed it in his pocket.

Dr. Moore walked to the east side of the room, where he and I saw a door in the wall, and some plastering on the floor under it. Mike was busy examining a heap of rubbish at the other end. His conduct had been most exemplary. Moore turned the light on the door, and we three observed it for a moment. Mike had not seen it distinctly, if at all.

"Moore, come here," said the detective, retreating; and the Doctor followed with the light.

"Come on, Stone." I left the room with them.

"Curious!" he heard Mike say behind us.

"What is curious?" asked Oakes.

The smart hired man answered. "Mr. Clark, the air is good in here. Where does it come from?"

"I guess we have learned all we need this time, Mike," was the reply, and the gardener came out reluctantly.

Oakes had seen the door in the wall: it was all he wanted to know. He closed the outer entrance of the room, and called to Cook for hammer and nails. The man brought them quickly; then the leader took a board that was standing against the wall, and Mike and Cook nailed it across the door from frame to frame.

"Mr. Clark, ye will _have_ the devil now, sorr," said Mike.

Oakes took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote "Clark" on one end of the board; then with a single movement continued his hand over its edge carefully, and on to the frame, where the line terminated in a second signature--"Clark."

"Anyone removing that board has got to put it back to match that line,"

said Oakes, "and that with a board is practically impossible where nailing has been done. Now for the exit that opens near the well."

We went back through the cellar hall and found at the east end a door ajar. It did not lock, and was hung on rusty hinges. Beyond was a dark pa.s.sage.

"Where does this lead, Mike?"

"To the opening by the well, sorr."

"How do you know?"