CHAPTER II
IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE
They stumbled up the cellar steps, their eyes growing gradually used tothe semi-darkness. At the top was a shut door which refused to be moved,and they feared for a moment that failure awaited them in this earlyperiod of the voyage of discovery. But after some vigorous pushing andrattling, it gave with an unexpected jerk, and they were landedpell-mell into a dark hallway.
"Now," declared Joyce, "this is the beginning of something interesting,I hope!" Cynthia said nothing, having, indeed, much ado to appear calmand hold herself from making a sudden bolt back to the cellar window.With candle held high, Joyce proceeded to investigate theirsurroundings. They seemed to be in a wide, central hall running throughthe house from front to back. A generous stairway of white-painted woodwith slender mahogany railing ascended to an upper floor. Some largepaintings and portraits hung on the walls, but the candle did not throwenough light to permit seeing them well. The furniture in the hallconsisted of several tall, straight-backed chairs set at intervalsagainst the walls, and at one side a massive table covered thick withthe dust of years. There was a distinctly old-fashioned, "different" airabout the place, but nothing in any other way remarkable.
"You see!" remarked Cynthia. "There isn't anything wonderful here, andthe air is simply horrid. I hope you're satisfied. _Do_ come back!"
"But we haven't seen a quarter of it yet! This is only the hall. Now forthe room on the right!" Joyce hauled open a pair of closedfolding-doors, and held the candle above her head. If they weresearching for things strange and inexplicable, here at last was theirreward! Both girls gasped and stared incredulously, first at the scenebefore them, then at each other.
The apartment was a dining-room. More portraits and paintings shonedimly from the walls. A great candelabrum hung from the ceiling, withsconces for nearly a hundred candles and ornamented with glitteringcrystal pendants. An enormous sideboard occupied almost an entire end ofthe room. In the middle, a long dining-table stood under thecandelabrum.
But here was the singular feature. The table was still set with dishes,as though for a feast. And the chairs about it were all pushed awry, andsome were overturned. Napkins, yellowed with age, were fallen about,dropped apparently in sudden forgetfulness. The china and glasswarestood just as they had been left, though every ancient vestige of foodhad long since been carried away by the mice.
As plain as print, one could read the signs of some feasting partyinterrupted and guests hastily leaving their places to return no more.The girls understood it in a flash.
"But why--why," said Joyce, speaking her thought aloud, "was it all leftjust like this? Why weren't things cleared up and put away? What couldhave happened? Cynthia, this is the strangest thing I ever heard of!"Cynthia only stared, and offered no explanation. Plainly, she wasimpressed at last.
"Come on!" half whispered Joyce, "Let's see the room across the hall.I'm crazy to explore it all!" Together they tiptoed to the other side ofthe hall. A kind of awe had fallen upon them. There was more here thaneven Joyce had hoped or imagined. This was a house of mystery.
The apartment across the hall proved to be the drawing-room. Though inevident disarray it, however, exhibited fewer signs of the strange,long-past agitation. In dimensions it was similar to the dining-room,running from front to back of the house. Here, too, was anotherelaborate candelabrum, somewhat smaller than the first, queer,spindle-legged, fiddle-backed chairs, beautiful cabinets and tables, andan old, square piano, still open. The chairs stood in irregular groupsof twos and threes, chumming cozily together as their occupants haddoubtless done, and over the piano had been carelessly thrown a long,filmy silk scarf, one end hanging to the floor. Upon everything the dustwas indescribably thick and cobwebs hung from the ceiling.
"Do you know," spoke Joyce, in a whisper after they had looked a longtime, "I think I can guess part of an explanation for all this. Therewas a party here, long, long ago,--perhaps a dinner-party. Folks hadfirst been sitting in the drawing-room, and then went to the dining-roomfor dinner. Suddenly, in the midst of the feast, something happened,--Ican't imagine what,--but it broke up the good time right away. Every onejumped up from the table, upsetting chairs and dropping napkins. Perhapsthey all rushed out of the room. Anyway, they never came back to finishthe meal. And after that, the owner shut the house and boarded it up andwent away, never stopping to clear up or put things to rights. Awfullysudden, that, and awfully queer!"
"Goodness, Joy! You're as good as a detective! How did you ever thinkall that out?" murmured Cynthia, admiringly.
"Why, it's very simple," said Joyce. "The drawing-room is allright,--just looks like any other parlor where a lot of people have beensitting, before it was put to rights. But the dining-room's different.Something happened there, suddenly, and people just got their things onand left, after that! Can't you see it? But what _could_ it have been?Oh, I'd give my _eyes_ to know, Cynthia!
"See here!" she added, after a moment's thought. "I've the loveliestidea! You just spoke of detectives, and that put it into my head. Let'splay we're detectives, like Sherlock Holmes, and ferret out thismystery. It will be the greatest lark ever! We will come here often, andexamine every bit of evidence we can find, and gather informationoutside if we can, and put two and two together, and see if we can'tmake out the whole story. Oh, it's gorgeous! Did two girls ever havesuch an adventure before!" She clasped her hands ecstatically, firsthaving presented the candle to Cynthia, because she was too excited tohold it. Even the placid and hitherto objecting Cynthia was fired by thescheme.
"Yes, let's!" she assented. "I'll ask Mother if she knows anything aboutthis old place."
"No you won't!" cried Joyce, coming suddenly to earth. "This has got tobe kept a strict secret. Never _dare_ to breathe it! Never speak of thishouse at all! Never show the slightest interest in it! And we must comehere often. Do you want folks to suspect what we are doing and put astop to it all? It's all right, _really_, of course. We're not doing anyactual wrong or harming anything. But they wouldn't understand."
"Very well, then," agreed Cynthia, meekly, cowed but bewildered. "Idon't see, though, how you're going to find out things if you don'task."
"You must get at it in other ways," declared Joyce, but did not explainthe process just then.
"This candle will soon be done for!" suddenly announced the practicalCynthia. "Why didn't you bring a bigger one?"
"Couldn't find any other," said Joyce. "Let's finish looking around hereand leave the rest for another day." They began accordingly to walkslowly about the room, peering up at the pictures on the walls andpicking their way with care around the furniture without moving ortouching anything. Presently they came abreast of the great openfireplace. A heavy chair was standing directly in front of it, butcuriously enough, with its back to what must have been once a cheeryblaze. They moved around it carefully and bent to examine the prettyDelft tiles that framed the yawning chimney-place, below the mantel.Then Joyce stepped back to look at the plates and vases on the mantel.Suddenly she gave a little cry:
"Hello! That's _queer_! Look, Cynthia!" Cynthia, still studying thetiles, straightened up to look where her companion had pointed. But inthat instant the dying candle-flame sputtered, flickered, and _wentout_, leaving only a small mass of warm tallow in Cynthia's hand For amoment, there was horrified silence. The heavy darkness seemed to cast aspell over even the irrepressible Joyce. But not for long.
"Too bad!" she began. "Where are the matches, Cynthia? I handed them toyou. We can light our way out by them." Cynthia produced the box fromthe pocket of her sweater and opened it.
"Mercy! There are only three left!" she cried, feeling round in it.
"Never mind. They will light us out of this room and through the hall tothe cellar stairs. When we get there the window will guide us."
Cynthia struck the first match, and they hurriedly picked their wayaround the scattered furniture. But the match went out before theyreached the door. The second saw them out of the r
oom and into the longhall. The third, alas! broke short off at its head, and proved useless.Then a real terror of the dark, unknown spaces filled them both.Breathless, frantic, they felt their way along the walls, gropingblindly for the elusive cellar door. At length Joyce's hand struck aknob.
"Here it is!" she breathed. They pulled open the door and plungedthrough it, only to find themselves in some sort of a closet, gropingamong musty clothes that were hanging there.
"Oh it isn't, it isn't!" wailed Cynthia. "Oh I'll never, never come intothis dreadful house again!" But Joyce had regained her poise.
"It's all right! Our door is just across the hall. I remember where itis now. She pulled the shuddering Cynthia out of the closet, and felther way across the wide hall space.
"Here it is! Now we are all _serene_!" she cried triumphantly, opening adoor which they found gave on a flight of steps. And as they crept down,a dim square of good, honest daylight sent their spirits up with abound. It was raining great pelting drops as they scrambled out andscampered for Cynthia's veranda. But daylight, even if dismal with rain,had served to restore them completely to their usual gaiety.
"By the way, Joyce," she said, as they stood on the porch shaking therain from their skirts, "what was it you were pointing at just when thecandle went out? I didn't have time to see."
"Why, the _strangest_ thing!" whispered Joyce. "There was a big picturehanging over the mantel. But what do you think? It hung there _with itsface turned to the wall_!"