"We will not remain much longer," I assured her, going straight to the
couch. "I do not like it either, but--"
"What have you found now?"
Her voice seemed to come from a great distance behind me. Was this on
account of the state of her nerves or mine? I am willing to think the
latter, for at that moment my eye took in two unexpected details. A dent
as of a child's head in one of the mangy sofa-pillows and a crushed bit
of colored sugar which must once have been a bit of choice
confectionery.
"Some one besides a lady has been here," I decided, pointing to the one
and bringing back the other. "See! this bit of candy is quite fresh. You
must acknowledge that. _This_ was not walled up years ago with the rest
of the things we see about us."
Her eyes stared at the sugary morsel I held out toward her in my open
palm. Then she made a sudden rush which took her to the side of the
couch.
"Gwendolen here?" she moaned, "Gwendolen here?"
"Yes," I began; "do not--"
But she had already left the spot and was backing toward the opening up
which we had come. As she met my eye she made a quick turn and plunged
below.
"I must have air," she gasped.
With a glance at the floor over which she had so rapidly passed, I
hastily followed her, smiling grimly to myself. Intentionally or
unintentionally, she had by this quick passage to and fro effectually
confused, if not entirely obliterated, those evidences of a former
intrusion which, with misguided judgment, I had just pointed out to her.
But recalling the still more perfect line of footprints left below to
which I had not called her attention, I felt that I could afford to
ignore the present mishap.
As I reached the cellar bottom I called to her, for she was already
half-way across.
"Did you notice where the boards had been sawed?" I asked. "The sawdust
is still on the floor, and it smells as fresh as if the saw had been at
work there yesterday."
"No doubt, no doubt," she answered back over her shoulder, still
hurrying on so that I had to run lest she should attempt the steps in
utter darkness.
When I reached the floor of the bungalow she was in the open door
panting. Watching her with one eye, I drew back the trap into place and
replaced the rug and the three nails I had loosened. Then I shut the
slide of the lantern and joined her where she stood.
"Do you feel better?" I asked. "It was a dismal quarter of an hour. But
it was not a lost one."
She drew the door to and locked it before she answered; then it was with
a question.
"What do you make of all this, Mr. Trevitt?"
I replied as directly as the circumstances demanded.
"Madam, it is a startling answer to the question you put me before we
first left your house. You asked then if the child in the wagon was
Gwendolen. How could it have been she with this evidence before us of
her having been concealed here at the very time that wagon was being
driven away from--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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