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Tom Ossington's Ghost

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<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> <h3>THE THING WHICH WAS HIDDEN</h3> She had placed her hand against a portion of the wainscotting which was about level with her breast. As, in her excitement, she had unconsciously pressed it upwards, the panel had certainly moved. Between it and the wood below there was a cavity of perhaps a quarter of an inch. "Push it! Push it higher!" This was Jack. Apparently that was just what Madge was endeavouring to do, in vain. "It won't move. It's stuck--or something." Mr. Graham advanced. "Allow me, perhaps I may manage." She ceded to him her position. He placed his huge hand where her smaller one had been. He endeavoured his utmost to induce the panel to make a further movement. "Put your fingers into the opening," suggested Jack, "and lever it." Graham acted on the suggestion, without success. He examined the panel closely. "If it were ever intended to go higher, the wood has either warped, or the groove in which it slides has become choked with dust." Ella was peeping through the opening. "There is something inside--there is, I don't know what it is, but there is something--I can see it. Oh, Mr. Graham, can't you get it open wider!" "Here, here! let's get the poker; we'll try gentle persuasion." Jack, forcing the point of the poker into the cavity, leant his weight upon the handle. There was a creaking sound--and nothing else. "George! it's stiff! I'm putting on a pressure of about ten tons." As he paused, preparatory to exerting greater force, Madge, brushing him aside, caught the poker from him. She drove the point against the wainscot with all her strength--once, twice, thrice. The wood was shivered into fragments. "There! I think that's done the business." So far as destroying the panel was concerned, it certainly had. Only splinters remained. The wall behind was left almost entirely bare. They pressed forward to see what the act of vandalism had disclosed. Between the wainscot and the party-wall there was a space of two or three inches. Among the cobwebs and the dust there was plainly something--something which was itself so encrusted with a coating of dust as to make it difficult, without closer inspection, to tell plainly what it was. Ella prevented Jack from making a grab at it. "Let Madge take it--it's hers--she's the finder." Madge, snatching at it with eager fingers, withdrew the something from its hiding-place. "Covered," exclaimed Jack, "with the dust of centuries!" "It's covered," returned the more practical Madge, "at any rate with the dust of a year or two." She wiped it with a napkin which she took from the sideboard drawer. "Why," cried Ella, "it's nothing but a sheet of paper." Jack echoed her words. "That's all--blue foolscap--folded in four." Madge unfolded what indeed seemed nothing but a sheet of paper. The others craned their necks to see what it contained. In spite of them she managed to get a private peep at the contents, and then closed it hastily. "Guess what it is," she said. "A draft on the Bank of Elegance for a million sterling." This was Jack. "I fancy it is some sort of legal document." This was Graham. Ella declined to guess. "Don't be so tiresome, Madge; tell us what it is?" "Mr. Graham is right--it is a legal document. It's a will, the will of Thomas Ossington. At least I believe it is. If you'll give me breathing space I'll read it to you every word." She drew herself away from them. When she was a little relieved of their too pressing importunities, she unfolded the paper slowly--with dramatic impressiveness. "Listen--to a voice from the grave." She read to them the contents of the document, in a voice which was a trifle shaky:-- "I give and bequeath, absolutely, this house, called Clover Cottage, which is my house, and all else in the world which at present is, or, in time to come, shall become my property, to the person who finds my fortune, which is hidden in this house, whoever the finder may chance to be. "I desire that the said finder shall be the sole heir to all my worldly goods, and shall be at liberty to make such use of them as he or she may choose. "I do this because I have no one else to whom to leave that of which I am possessed. "I have neither kith nor kin--nor friend. "My wife has left me, my friend has betrayed me; my child is dead. "I am a lonely man. "May my fortune bring more happiness to the finder than it has ever brought to me. "God grant it. "This is my last will and testament. "(Signed) Thomas Ossington, "October the twenty-second, 1892. <div style="font-size:90%; margin-right:50%"> "In the presence of Edward John Hurley, Solicitor's Clerk, 13, Hercules Buildings, Holborn. And of Louisa Broome, 2, Acacia Cottages, Battersea (Maid-servant at present in the employ of the said Thomas Ossington)." </div> The reading was followed by silence, possibly the silence of amazement. The first observation came from Jack. "By George!" The next was Ella's. "Dear life!" For some reason, Madge's eyes were dim, and her tone still shaking. "Isn't it a voice from the grave?" She looked down, biting her lower lip; then up again. "I think, Mr. Graham, this may be more in your line than ours." She handed him the paper. He read it. Without comment he passed it to Jack, who read it with Ella leaning over his shoulder. He placed it on the table, where they all four gathered round and looked at it. The paper was stained here and there as with spots of damp. But these had in no way blurred the contents. The words were as clear and legible as on the day they were written. The caligraphy was small and firm, and a little finical, but as easy to read as copperplate: the handwriting of a man who had taken his time, and who had been conscious that he was engaged on a weighty and a serious matter. The testator's signature was rather in contrast with the body of the document, and was bold and strong, as if he had desired that the witnesses should have no doubt about the fact that it was his name he was affixing. Edward John Hurley's attestation was in a cramped legal hand, expressionless, while Louisa Broome's was large and straggling, the sign-manual of an uneducated woman. Jack Martyn asked a question, addressed to Graham. "Is it a will?--a valid one, I mean?" "Looking at it on the surface, I should say certainly--if the witnesses can be produced to prove the signatures. Indeed, given certain circumstances, even that should not be necessary. The man expresses his wishes; their meaning is perfectly plain; he gives reasons for them. No testator need do more than that. What may seem the eccentric devising of his property is, in his position, easily accounted for, and is certainly consistent with entire sanity. Thousands of more eccentric documents have been held to be good in law. I have little doubt--if the testator's signature can be proved--that the will is as sound as if it had been drawn up by a bench of judges." Madge drew a long breath. Jack was jocular, or meant to be. "Think of that, now!" "But I don't see," said Ella, "that we're any forwarder now, or that we're any nearer to Madge's mysterious hoard. The will--if it is a will--says that the fortune is hidden in the house, but it doesn't give the faintest notion where. We might pull the whole place to pieces and then not find it." "Suppose the whole affair is a practical joke?" Mr. Graham commented on Jack's insinuation. "I have been turning something over in my mind, and I think, Martyn, that I can bring certain facts to bear upon your supposition which will go far to show that it is unlikely that there is much in the nature of a practical joke about the matter. I want to call attention to Miss Brodie's copy of the paper which the burglar left behind last night--to the second line. Now observe." He crossed the room. "The paper says 'Right'--I have the door-post on my right, close to my right arm. The paper says 'straight across'--I walk straight across the room. Miss Brodie, have you a tape measure?" Madge produced one which she ferreted out of a work-basket which was on a chair in a corner. "The paper says 'three '--I measure three feet from where I am standing, along the wainscot--you see? It says 'four'--I measure four feet from the floor. As you perceive, that measurement brings us exactly to the panel behind which the will was hidden. The paper says 'up.' As Miss Brodie showed, there can be no doubt whatever that the panel was meant to move up. Owing to the efflux of time and to disuse, it had become jammed. Does not all this suggest that we have here an explanation of part of what was written on the burglar's paper?" "It does, by George! Graham," cried Jack, "I always did know you had a knack of clarifying muddles. Your mental processes are as effective, in their way, as a handful of isinglass dropped into a cask of muddy beer. Ladies, I give you my word they are." Martyn was ignored. "If, therefore, part of the paper is capable of explanation of such a striking kind, does it not seem probable that the rest of it also has a meaning--a meaning which does not partake of the nature of a practical joke?" "The idea," declared Madge, "of a practical joke is utter nonsense. As you say, everything points the other way. It is as clear as anything can be that, while one part of the paper is a key to the hiding-place of the will, the other is the key to the hiding-place of the fortune." "Very well," said Jack. "Let's grant it. I stand snubbed. But perhaps you'll tell us what is the key to the key?" "That's another question." "Very much another question." "But it needn't be an insoluble one, if we use our wits. The house isn't a large one; it isn't as though it contained a hundred rooms." Mr. Graham had been studying the scrap of paper. "This allusion to cats and dogs seems a striking one. I notice that each word is repeated five times. Is there anything about the house which gives you a hint as to the meaning?" Madge replied to the question with another. "Is there anything in this room which gives you a hint? Look around and see." "I have been looking round, and I confess there isn't. Nor do I think it likely that the fortune would be hidden in the same room which contained the will." "Very well; then we'll all of us go over the house together, and we'll all of us look out for hints." Madge led the way, and they went over the house. It was a tiny one. Behind the solitary sitting-room was the kitchen. The kitchen was an old-fashioned one, with brick floor, and bare brick walls coloured white. In one corner a door led into the pantry; in another was a door into the scullery; there was nothing remarkable about either of these. Under the staircase was a roomy cupboard. They examined it with some thoroughness, by the aid of a lamp, without discovering anything out of the way. On the floor above were the bedrooms used by Ella and Madge, and a smaller room in which they stored their lumber. The walls of these were papered from floor to ceiling, and in none of them did there seem to be anything calculated to convey a hint as to the meaning of the cabalistic allusion. "It seems to me," observed Jack, when the work of exploration was completed, "that there's nothing about these premises breathing of either dogs or cats." "It is just possible," said Graham, "that they may be in the grounds. For instance, several of them may be buried there, and the reference may be to one of their graves." "Then do you propose to dig up the whole of the back garden till you light upon their hallowed bones?" Graham smiled. "I propose to do nothing." Madge struck in. "But I do; I mean to do a great deal. I'm going to strip all the wainscot off the sitting-room wall, and all the flooring up as well. And I'm going to continue that process till we reach the roof. I'm absolutely certain--absolutely certain, mind you!--that that unhappy man's hoard is somewhere within the four walls of this house, and I give you my word that I mean to find it." "How about the landlord?" asked Graham. "What about his feelings? By the way, who is the landlord?" "We're the landlord, Ella and I--or, at any rate, we very soon shall be." "But in the meantime?" "I don't know anything about a landlord. We took the house from Parker and Beading, the house agents over by the station." "They would probably be acting for some principal. Did they not tell you his name?" "They told us nothing. We took the house from them, and the supposition is that we're to pay the rent to them." "If you will allow me, I'll take the will away with me--if you will trust me with it--and obtain expert opinion as to its validity. I will also call on Messrs. Parker and Beading, and ascertain, if possible, on whose authority they are acting." "When will you do this?" "The agents I will call upon to-morrow, and will acquaint you, by letter, with the result." "You will do nothing of the kind--or, rather, I would prefer that you did not. Both Ella and I would prefer that you should come and tell us the result in person--that is if you can spare the time." Mr. Graham bowed, expressing acquiescence in the lady's wishes. And on that understanding the matter was left. When the two men had gone, Ella faced Madge with sparkling eyes. "Suppose, Madge, there should be a fortune hidden somewhere in the house?" Madge was scornful. "Suppose!--there's no supposition about it. It's a certainty, I know there is." "And suppose you should find it--it would be yours. What would you do with it?" "What a question! We shall find it all four of us together. It will be share and share alike." "What--Mr. Graham too?" Possibly the question was put maliciously. It provoked Miss Brodie to wrath. "Mr. Graham too? Ella, what can you mean? If it hadn't been for Mr. Graham we should have known nothing whatever about it. I suppose that, in strict equity, the whole of it would be his. Whatever can you mean by saying 'Mr. Graham too?' in such a tone as that!" "My dear, I meant no harm. Really you're a trifle warm--don't you think you are?" "Warm! It's enough to make any one a trifle warm to hear you talk like that." Ella made a little face behind Miss Brodie's back. "Well, fortune or no fortune, I do hope that no more burglars will come and look for it again to-night." "If they do," declared Madge, with a viciousness which presaged violence, "they'll not find us unprepared. I shall sleep with Jack's revolver at my bedside, and if you like you can have half my bed again." Ella's manner was much more mild. "Thank you, my dear; since you're so good--I think I will." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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