Tom Ossington's Ghost Part 23

"But, my dear, even if you set about the business in that drastic fashion, you'll require method. How are you going to begin to take the house to pieces--by taking the slates off the roof, and the chimney-pots down?"

"And by taking the windows out of their frames, and the doors off their hinges, and displaying the grates in the front garden! George!

you'll be improving the property with a vengeance if you do."

"I propose to do nothing so absurd. I simply wish you to understand that before I give up the search the house will literally have been torn to pieces--though I a.s.sure you, Ella, that I do not intend to begin by taking off either the slates or the chimney-pots."

"Have you been able to make anything more of the writing which was left behind by your burglarious visitor?"

The inquiry came from Graham. Madge shook her head.

"Let me try my hand at it," cried Jack. "I have brains--I place them at your service. It is true I never have been able to solve a puzzle from my very earliest hours, but that is no reason why I should not begin by solving this."

The sc.r.a.p of paper was given him. He spread it out on the table in front of him. Leaning his head upon his hands, he stared at it, the expression on his face scarcely promising a prompt elucidation.

"The first part is simple, extremely simple. Especially after Mr.

Graham's last night's lucid exposition. Otherwise I should have described it as recondite. But the second part's a howler; yes, a howler! 'Right--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--left eye-- push!' The conjunction is surprising. I can only remark that if that a.s.sorted collection of animals is bottled up somewhere in this house all together, that alone would be a find worth coming upon. There will be some lively moments when you let the collection out."

"Did you mention anything to Mr. Nicholls about the paper?" asked Madge of Graham.

"Not a syllable. I gathered from what he said that the house was done up before it was let--papered, painted, and so on, and that therefore any former landmarks to which it might have been alluding have probably disappeared."

"That's what I think, and that's what I mean by saying we shall have to pull the house to pieces."

"Even if that is the case, as Miss Duncan puts it, where are you going to begin? You must remember that you will have to continue living in the house while it is being dismantled, and that you must spare yourselves as much discomfort as possible."

"It seems that you have to begin by pushing the left eye," said Jack, who still was studying the paper. "Though whether it is the left eye of the entire a.s.sorted collection is not quite clear. If that is the case, and that remarkable optic has to be pushed with any degree of vigour, I can only say that I shall take up a position in the centre of the road till the proceedings are concluded."

"Why not commence," asked Madge, "with a thorough examination of the room which we're now in?"

"You yourself," said Ella, "admitted last night that it was hardly likely that the treasure would be hidden in the same room which contained the will."

Madge pursed her lips and frowned.

"I've been thinking about that since, and I don't at all see why we should take it for granted. One thing's certain, the room is honeycombed with possible hiding-places. There are hollows behind the wainscot, the walls themselves sound hollow. That unhappy man can hardly have found a part of the house better adapted to his purpose."

"See there--what's that?" Ella was pointing to a kind of plaster cornice which ran round the room. "What are those things which are cut or moulded on that strip of beading, if it is beading, under the ceiling?"

"They look to me like some sort of ornamental bosses," said Graham.

"They certainly are neither cats or dogs," decided Madge.

"I'm not so sure of that; you know what extraordinary things they tell you are intended to represent things which are not in the least bit like them. Where's that paper? Jack, give me that paper."

Jack gave it her. She glanced at it.

"'Right'--I'll take up a position like you did last night, Mr. Graham, to the right of the door; 'cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--'

now----"

"Well?" queried Madge, for Ella had stopped. "Now what?"

"I think," continued Ella, with evident dubitation, "that I'll again do what you did last night, Mr. Graham, and cross right over; though it says nothing about it here, but perhaps that was omitted on purpose." She marched straight across the room. "Now we'll take the first thing upon the beading, or whatever it is, to be a cat, and we'll count them alternately--cat--dog--the fifth dog."

"Very good," said Graham, standing close up to the wall and pointing with his outstretched hand, "Cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--here you are."

"Now, 'left eye--push.'"

"Or shove," suggested Jack.

"But there is no eye--whether left or otherwise."

"That's a detail," murmured Jack.

"Let me see." Ella clambered on to a chair. From that position of vantage she examined the protuberances in question.

"There really does seem nothing which could represent an eye; the things look more like knuckle-bones than anything else."

"What's the odds? Let's all get hammers and whack the whole jolly lot of them in the eye, or where, if right is right, it ought to be.

And then, if nothing happens--and we'll hope to goodness nothing will--we'll whack 'em again."

"I'm afraid, Ella," put in Madge, "that your cats and dogs are merely suppositions. I vote, by way of doing something practical, that we start stripping the wainscot. You'll find hiding-places enough' behind that, and it's quite on the cards, something in them."

"Certainly," a.s.sented Jack, "I am on. Bring out your hatchets, pickaxes, crowbars, and other weapons of war, and we'll turn up our shirt-sleeves, and shiver our timbers, and not leave one splinter of wood adhering to another. Buck up, Graham! Take off your coat, my boy!

You're going to begin to enjoy yourself at last, I give you my word."

Ella, possibly slightly exacerbated by the failure of her little suggestion, endeavoured to snub the exuberant Mr. Martyn.

"I don't know if you think you're funny, Jack, because you're only silly. If you can't be serious, perhaps you'd better go; then, if we do find something, you'll have no share."

"Upon my Sam!" cried Jack, "if that ain't bitter hard. If there's any sharing going on, I don't care what it is, if there's any man who wants his bit of it more than I do, I should like you to point him out. Ella, my dearest Ella, I do a.s.sure you, by the token of those peerless charms----"

"Jack, don't be silly."

"I think," insinuated Madge, "that you and I, Mr. Graham, had better go and fetch a chisel and a hammer."

They went. When they returned, bearing those useful implements, however the discussion might have gone, Mr. Martyn showed no signs of being crushed.

"Give me that chisel," he exclaimed. "You never saw a man handle a tool like me--and to the last day of your life you'll never see another. I'm capable of committing suicide while hammering in a tack."

"Thank you, Jack," said Madge; "but I think carpentering may be within the range of Mr. Graham's capacity rather than yours."

At least Mr. Graham showed himself capable of stripping the wainscot, though with the tools at his command--those being limited to the hammer and the chisel, with occasional help from the poker--it was not so easy a business as it might have been. It took some time. And, as none of the hoped-for results ensued--nothing being revealed except the wall behind--it became a trifle tedious. Eleven o'clock struck, and still a considerable portion of the wainscot was as before.

"Might I ask," inquired Jack, "if this is going to be an all night job; because I have to be at the office in the morning, and I should like to have some sleep before I start."

Graham surveyed the work of devastation.

"I will finish this side, and then I think, Miss Brodie, we might leave the rest to another time--till to-morrow, say."

"I really don't see what's the use of doing it at all," said Ella. "I don't believe there's anything hidden in this room; and look at the mess, it will take hours to clear it up. And who wants to live in a place with bare brick walls? It gives me the horrors to look at them."