Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-13
CHAPTER XVI.
The Secret Of the Wing.

AS / strobe into the house Gaspard was
busy with the last touches to the midday
meal. but with military precision he re-
sponded to my call to join me in the
library.
"A yardstick or a tape measure" I
cried. rs there one about?'
"Oui. m sieu." and in few minutes
Gaspard produced a measure.
Now. the length OF this room." I said,
and stretched the bit OF tape across it.
Allowing for the width of the book
cases. the room lay thirty feet and three
inches to the north and south. The out
side wall of the wing measured precisely
thirty-eight feet three am one-half
inches in the same direction. Counting
out the width Of the entry between the
library and the parlor, four feet and two
inches were still unaccounted for on the
inside
Gaspard regarded we with ill-contained
excitement and a smothered exclamation
answer was to make careful examina-
ton of the outside walls I'm search OF a
hidden door. But not only were the walls
To every appearance and sound of solid
masonry, but the trailing woOdbine upon
them was undisturbed, and the fern beds
at the foundation were untrampled. 1t
was clear that l must. look on the inside
for the entrance to the secret chamber.
/ set myself to considering how ligiN
and air were furnished to IL. There were
no windows or ventilators. so far as could
be seen from the lawn or from below on
the roadway; but that curious, vine-hung
parapet rail surrounding the cornice
might hide either. Then / recalled that
the two rooms on the second floor above
the parlors were lighted alone by end
windows. We had not used these rooms.
but / marveled when / first saw them
that valuable a light as that from the
south should be shut out by blank wall
space. Now the fact bore new signifi-
canoe for me-for without doubt the roof
of the wing contained evidences OF a
hidden room. against the discovery or
which the comfort OF the two chambers
had counted as nothing to the mind of
Peter Somhers.
To the roof of the wing / must get.
therefore. and Gaspard went in search OF
q ladder. He was obliged to call upon
Horsford before he secured one, but the
result was worth his trouble-for when,
at last, / found myself above the para
pet rail my surmises were proved.
Lying close to the cornice and below 1t
was a shaft about ten inches in diameter.
moved the ladder so as to get my race
close to one of the openings Of the cap.
but all that / could see was glimmer
below, like light upon water. or upon a
mirror. But the entrance TO the secret
room. Inc logical COncluSlon was tidt
II was from the library, but unless those
staid bookcases had given us the lie when
we cleaned about them, they were I'M
nova ble-a part of the very walls behind
them Was an entrance from the outside
by means of an underground passage IL
logical? Those grottos at the sunken
gardens would make ideal entrances to
subterranean mysteries. Then i recalled
that once l had approached them, full
myself. of a spirit of romance, only to
find that their fascinating appearance
ended with the hanging vines around
them.
felt impelled to visit them again,
nevertheless, and my eyes. travelling the
distance from one end and then to the
other of the grottos. and back again to
the wing, quickly decided me that the
| secret of entrance to the wing must lie.
If in either. in the larger one.
AS on my previous visit, the grotto dis
appointed me with It's uncompromising
| wall of stone behind the vines, which
now had begun to display here and there
punches of reddening berries amid the
green. But what was that shining be-
tween the stones halfway up the wall at
my left? bit of metal, Tor all the
world so small as almost TO defy detec-
| toni Under any other conditions prob
| ably I should have thought IL only bit
that by chance had been mixed In the
mortar. But now In an instant my
hand was upon II, and though II failed
| to respond to my touch and reveal an
opening / could not doubt that IL con-
] nected with a spring lock, and that !