The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-02-25
How Lillian Disclosed Her Secret Hid.
ing Places.

ing Places.
There are some women to whom any
sudden terrible happening means
either fainting spell or a fit OF hys-
terra. There are others who, when
confronted with an emergency, no
no matter how awful, nerve them
selves to meet it. reserving their ire
mors for time when there's no more
need OF their brain and spirit.
Lillian Underwood is one of the lat
ter kind of women. Danger Of any sort
seems to make even more acute her
naturally quick perceptions, to electri-
fy, as It were, her whole being. Instead
Of being panic-stricken at the discov-
cry that someone had ransacked the
secret wall safe in her library, evil
IDENTIFY in search Of something special,
she appeared far more composed than
either Katherine Sonnet or I who had
just returned with her to her library
through the secret passage from the
adjoining house.
Only the whiteness, rather the al
most ashen grayness OF her face, be-
trayed the mental strain under which
she was laboring. Her voice was as
after she had turned from the wall
safe, she said quietly:
II must look up the other places now
and want you to observe them care
fully. Anything might happen to me
at any time. and you ought to know
how to find my papers. And / might as
well tell you now that If that emer-
gency should ever arise you are to
get everything from here and take it
directly to"
She put her lips first to Katherine's
ear and then to mine, whispering a
name mighty enough to make us both
start in establishment and look at each
other with q new sense of the impor-
lance of the work to which we had
committed ourselves.
Then there were revealed to our eyes
still more amazing things. Lillian went
swiftly around the room, making dou-
bly, sure that every window was locked
and shrouded in heavy curtains, and
that the sound defying velvet cur
tains over the doors were in place. Not
until she had satisfied herself that
there was no possible peep hole
through which a. watcher could see
did she proceed to the work of search
ing the hiding places of the impor-
tant papers of which she was the
custodian.
And such hiding places! Katherine
and I held our respective breaths at
the cunningly devised places Lillian
revealed in her search.
She rolled back her beautiful Per-
sian rugs, revealing the polished in
r.
was laid out in squares, and Lillian,
beginning at one corner, stepped d.
agonally across the room, from one
square to another. evidently counting
each as she stepped.
When she had reached the 18th she
took a direction at right angles to the
one she had traversed. and proceeded
for seven squares. AT the seventh she
stopped and signalled for us TO come
to her side.
Watch carefully" she whispered.
She knelt down beside the seventh
square and pressed hard with her
hand upon it AS she did so It turned
upon itself and slid back into some
hidden groove, disclosing another
block exactly similar to itself beneath
it. Reasoning now that somewhere
around this opening were concealed
the documents Lillian guarded so care
fully. I naturally expected to see her
press another spring IN this second
square. But instead she thrust her
hand and arm into the aperture be-
meath the adjoining blocks which the
turning of the first had revealed, FUN
bled for moment, and the next in
slant 8 small section OF the flooring
fully 10 feet from rs, opened wide.
Lillian rose, and with Katherine and
me following her, went TO the opening
and with a tiny key which she took
from her dress, unlocked the strong
box within. She went rapidly through
the papers in il, and looked up with
sigh of relief when she had finished
Nothing disturbed here" she whis-
pered. Now are you sure you remem-
Der how to do this? Thirteen squares
diagonally from that corner, then sew
en- squares in this direction. press on
the seventh square, and tumble In that