Evening star., 1924-09-26

ana PROBABLY worked 1eVerlSh houfS
to close UP that entrance. And why?
New Concrete Work.
Mystery and romance whisper from
every brick of the tunnels. Entering
through small aperture made by the
prying truck, the explorer suddenly
finds himself in an amazing well kept
corridor, perhaps two yards wide and
eight feet high. The floor is plain
earth. The sides and arched roof are
of large. hard bricks, with an orna-
mental row or two of expensive glazed
bricks protruding slightly from the
wall near the roof.
Following the main passage back
bout 20 yards, the expectant explorer
comes to an abrupt end. Fresh con-
crete glistenS where once was a
wooden door. The rusted hinges still
hang from the brick walls and bits
of the fast decaying door litter the
floor. Turning back, another passage
beckons the steady nerved ones into
its stygian recesses. 1t. too, ends in
a concrete wall, but turning at a
sharp angle to the left is still a third
passageway
This descends several yards by
means of half dozen perfectly mod
eled brick steps There once existed
tropdoor. Beneath the door was a
long iron ladder that descended into
another tunnel Across the trapdoor
the upper tunnel continued it's uncer-
tain way toward the unknown What
lies at the bottom of the iron ladder
no one knows, as yet, for it was there
that the mysterious persons filled up
the entrance last night.
Entrance Not Apparent.
Following the upper .passageway.
however, the explorers found them
selves emerging from a brick wall
in the back yard of the home of Mrs
Minnie Ebel, 1910 Twenty-first street.
The very subtleness of the exit or
entrance. whichever il once was, in
that back yard was strange in itself.
person looking at the wall would
never have dreamed it was anything
but what it pretended to be-
1t was hollow. however, and afford
ed a perfect paSSageway down to the
tunnel, via another set of steps At
the foot of these steps still another
tunnel swung off to the right, and
here, again, mysterious hands had
filled up the entrance not only with
loose dirt, but huge cakes of con-
crete torn from the wall. Apparently
il swung under the house at 1872
Twenty-frst street, which is also
owned by Mrs. Ebel
Tries to Learn Facts.
In the yard of the latter was found
the second exit, blocked by the con-
crete slab that had been built in
place of the door the explorers had
found inside the tunnel For years
the slab had remained unnoticed un-
der set of crude wooden steps lead
ing up to the alley in back of Pei
ham Courts. 1t had been sealed years
before Mrs. Edel had moved into the
house, and the entrance via her own
back yard wall had been so cleverly
concealed that even she did not notice
it's existence until six months ago.
when contractors discovered it for
her while building a garage in the
yard
Her imagination fired, Mrs. Ebel
endeavored to reach the woman from
whom she had bought the house. d
Miss Marguerite Barnes. Miss Barnes
had not told Mrs. Ebel of the exist
ence of the tunnel. she said. and every
effort to locate Miss Barnes again
proved futile. Calling in real estate
men to view the forbidding passage
way, however. Mrs. Ebel heard several
stories of how it came to exist there.
Romance In Tunnel.
Two brothers, the story goes, once
occupied the houses at 1910 and 1872
Twenty first street One was a bache-
lor, the other the husband of a
beautiful young woman. Fate, how
ever, brought the bachelor brother
and his sister-in law into a wonder
full love tryst, and they are said to
have had the tunnel built so they
could slip into each others homes
without being detected by the. un-
suspecting husband. They died with
in a few days of each other. the story
goes, without ever having betrayed
the romance Of their cavern-trySting
place
But the story does not account for
the fact that the tunnel extends not
only at least a block back into the
old estate there, but has numerous
side passageways and at least one more
tier of tunnels under the upper one
1t is said, however, that the tunnel
really leads clear down to Rock Greek
Park and that the two lovers used to
slip through it to the fern-clad banks of
Rock Creek.
May Have Been Spy Passage.
There is still another story to be
told or the origin OF the tunnel. IL
strays from the paths of romance
and deals with international intrigues,
stealthy foreign spies and war. Mrs.
Ebel said she was told that a German
chemist once occupied a house in the
neighborhood. During the war, it is
said, Teuton spies found inGress to
his home through the tunnel. Sup
porting this theory, too, are the
copies of several German-American
newspapers pasted on the roof OF the
tunnel where it branches off to the
lower passage and the back yard.
The fact that the cavern really does
run down to Rock Creek is vouched
for by several young men of the
neighborhood who used the caves as
bandit dens during the days o.
imaginative youth. They, sad one
passage not only terminated at the
edge of the creek, but that another
dropped into a sewer, just below "A
manhole, where the users of the un-
derground labyrinth might enter OF
leave in an emergency. The last Of
the entrances was believed to have
been sealed however, when the Pei