The Boarded-Up House (2 page)

“Cynthia,” she said, in a tense whisper, “did it ever occur to you that there's something
strange
about the Boarded-up House?”

“No,” declared Cynthia, honestly, “it never did. I never thought about it.”

“Well, I have—sometimes, at least—and once in a long while, do you know, I've even dreamed I was exploring it. Look here, Cynthia, wouldn't you
like
to explore it? I'm just crazy to!” Cynthia stared and shrugged her shoulders.

“Mercy, no! It would be dark and musty and dirty. Besides, we've no business in there. We'd be trespassers. What ever made you think of it? There's probably nothing to see, anyway. It's an empty house.”

“That's just where you're mistaken!” retorted Joyce. “I heard Father say once that it was furnished throughout, and left exactly as it was,—so some one told him, some old lady, I think he said. It's a Colonial mansion, too, and stood here before the Revolution. There was n't any town of Rockridge, you know, till just recently,—only the turnpike road off there where Warrington Avenue is now. This house was the only one around, for a long distance.”

“Well, that sounds interesting, but, even still, I don't see why you want to get inside, anyhow. I'm perfectly satisfied with the outside. And, more than that, we couldn't get in if we tried. So there!” If Cynthia imagined she had ended the argument with Joyce by any such reasoning, she was doomed to disappointment. Joyce shrugged her shoulders with a disgusted movement.

“I never saw any one like you, Cynthia Sprague! You've absolutely
no
imagination! Don't you see how Goliath got in? Well, I could get in the same way, and so could you!” She gave the boards a sharp pull, and succeeded in dislodging another. “Five minutes' work will clear this window, and then—”

“But good gracious, Joy, you wouldn't break in a window of a strange house and climb in the cellar like a burglar!” cried Cynthia, genuinely shocked.

“I just would! Why, it's an
adventure,
Cynthia, like the kind we've always longed for. You know we've always said we'd love to have some adventures, above everything else. And we
never
have, and now here's one right under our noses!” Joyce was almost tearful in her earnestness to convince the doubting Cynthia. And then Cynthia yielded, as she always did, to Joy's entreaties.

“Very well. It is an adventure, I suppose. But why not wait till some bright, sunny day? It'll be horridly dark and gloomy in there this afternoon.”

“Nonsense!” cried Joyce, who never could bear to wait an instant in carrying out some cherished plan. “Run back to your house, Cynthia, and smuggle out a candle and a box of matches. And
don't
let any one see what you take!” But this Cynthia flatly refused to do, urging that she would certainly be discovered and held up for instant explanation by the lynx-eyed Bridget who guarded the kitchen.

“Very well, then. I'll have to get them from mine, I suppose. Anne never asks what I'm doing,” said Joyce, resignedly. “You stay here and wait!” She sped away toward her own house, but was soon back, matches and candle under her sweater, her hands full of fresh cookies.

“We'll eat these when We're inside. Here, stuff them into your pockets! And help me break these other boards away. My! but they're rotten!” Cynthia helped, secretly very reluctant and fearful of consequences, and they soon had the little window free of obstructions. Joyce poked in her head and peered about.

“It's as dark as a pocket, but I see two things like balls of fire,—that's Goliath up on a beam, I suppose. It is n't far to the ground. Here goes!” She slipped in, feet first, let herself down, hung on to the sill a moment, then disappeared from view.

“Oh, Joyce!” gasped Cynthia, sticking her head through the opening into the dark, “where
are
you?”

“Right here!” laughed Joyce from below, “Trying to light the candle. Come along! The stones of the wall are like regular steps. You can put your feet on 'em!”

“Oh, but the
mice,
and the
spiders,
and—and all sorts of things!” groaned Cynthia. “I'm afraid of them!”

“Nonsense!
they
can't hurt you!” replied Joyce, unsympathetically. “If you don't come soon, I'm going on. I'm so impatient to see things, I can't wait. You'd better hurry up, if you're coming.”

“But it is n't
right!
It's trespassing!” cried Cynthia, making her last stand. Joyce scorned to argue further along this line.

“We talked that all over before. Good-by! I'm off! I've got the candle lit.” Cynthia suddenly surrendered.

“Oh, wait, wait! I'm coming!” She adopted Joyce's mode of ingress, but found it scarcely as easy as it looked, and her feet swung in space, groping wildly for the steps described.

“I'm stuck! I can't move! Oh, why am I so fat and clumsy!” she moaned. Joyce laughed, placed her companion's feet on a ledge, and hauled her down, breathless, cobwebby, and thoroughly scared.

The lighted candle threw but a feeble illumination on the big, bare space they stood in. The beams overhead were thick with cobwebs, hanging like gray portières from every projection. Otherwise the inclosure was clear, except for a few old farm implements in a distant comer. As Joyce raised the candle over her head, a flight of stairs could be dimly discerned.

“This way!” she ordered, and they moved toward it cautiously. At that moment, there came from behind them a sudden scratching and scrambling, and then a thud. Both girls uttered a low, frightened shriek and clung together. But it was only Goliath, disturbed in his hiding-place. They turned in time to see him clambering through the window.

“Joyce, this is horrid!” gasped Cynthia. “My heart is beating like a trip-hammer. Let's go back.”

“It's lovely!” chuckled Joyce. “It's what I've always longed for. I feel like Christopher Columbus! I would n't go back now for worlds! And to think we've neglected such a mystery at our front doors, as you might say, all these years!” And she dragged the protesting Cynthia toward the cellar stairs.

A flight of stairs could be dimly discerned

T
HEY stumbled up the cellar steps, their eyes growing gradually used to the semi-darkness. At the top was a shut door which refused to be moved, and they feared for a moment that failure awaited them in this early period of the voyage of discovery. But after some vigorous pushing and rattling, it gave with an unexpected jerk, and they were landed pell-mell into a dark hallway.

“Now,” declared Joyce, “this is the beginning of something interesting, I hope!” Cynthia said nothing, having, indeed, much ado to appear calm and hold herself from making a sudden bolt back to the cellar window. With candle held high, Joyce proceeded to investigate their surroundings. They seemed to be in a wide, central hall running through the house from front to back. A generous stairway of white-painted wood with slender mahogany railing ascended to an upper floor. Some large paintings and portraits hung on the walls, but the candle did not throw enough light to permit seeing them well. The furniture in the hall consisted of several tall, straight-backed chairs set at intervals against the walls, and at one side a massive table covered thick with the dust of years. There was a distinctly old-fashioned, “different” air about the place, but nothing in any other way remarkable.

“You see!” remarked Cynthia. “There is n't anything wonderful here, and the air is simply horrid. I hope you' re satisfied.
Do
come back!”

“But we have n't seen a quarter of it yet! This is only the hall. Now for the room on the right!” Joyce hauled open a pair of closed folding-doors, and held the candle above her head. If they were searching for things strange and inexplicable, here at last was their reward! Both girls gasped and stared incredulously, first at the scene before them, then at each other.

The apartment was a dining-room. More portraits and paintings shone dimly from the walls. A great candelabrum hung from the ceiling, with sconces for nearly a hundred candles and ornamented with glittering crystal pendants. An enormous sideboard occupied almost an entire end of the room. In the middle, a long dining-table stood under the candelabrum.

But here was the singular feature. The table was still set with dishes, as though for a feast. And the chairs about it were all pushed awry, and some were overturned. Napkins, yellowed with age, were fallen about, dropped apparently in sudden forgetfulness. The china and glassware stood just as they had been left, though every ancient vestige of food had long since been carried away by the mice.

As plain as print, one could read the signs of some feasting party interrupted and guests hastily leaving their places to return no more. The girls understood it in a flash.

“But why—why,” said Joyce, speaking her thought aloud, “was it all left just like this? Why were n't things cleared up and put away? What could have happened? Cynthia, this is the strangest thing I ever heard of!” Cynthia only stared, and offered no explanation. Plainly, she was impressed at last.

“Come on!” half whispered Joyce, “Let's see the room across the hall. I'm crazy to explore it all!” Together they tiptoed to the other side of the hall. A kind of awe had fallen upon them. There was more here than even Joyce had hoped or imagined. This was a house of mystery.

The apartment across the hall proved to be the drawing-room. Though in evident disarray it, however, exhibited fewer signs of the strange, long-past agitation. In dimensions it was similar to the dining-room, running from front to back of the house. Here, too, was another elaborate candelabrum, somewhat smaller than the first, queer, spindle-legged, fiddle-backed chairs, beautiful cabinets and tables, and an old, square piano, still open. The chairs stood in irregular groups of twos and threes, chumming cozily together as their occupants had doubtless done, and over the piano had been carelessly thrown a long, filmy silk scarf, one end hanging to the floor. Upon everything the dust was indescribably thick, and cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

“Do you know,” spoke Joyce, in a whisper, after they had looked a long time, “I think I can guess part of an explanation for all this. There was a party here, long, long ago,—perhaps a dinner-party. Folks had first been sitting in the drawing-room, and then went to the dining-room for dinner. Suddenly, in the midst of the feast, something happened,—I can't imagine what,—but it broke up the good time right away. Every one jumped up from the table, upsetting chairs and dropping napkins. Perhaps they all rushed out of the room. Anyway, they never came back to finish the meal. And after that, the owner shut the house and boarded it up and went away, never stopping to clear up or put things to rights. Awfully sudden, that, and awfully queer!”

“Goodness, Joy! You're as good as a detective! How did you ever think all that out ?” murmured Cynthia, admiringly.

“Why, it's very simple,” said Joyce, “The drawing-room is all right,—just looks like any other parlor where a lot of people have been sitting, before it was put to rights. But the dining-room's different. Something happened there, suddenly, and people just got their things on and left, after that! Can't you see it? But what
could
it have been? Oh, I'd give my
eyes
to know, Cynthia!

“See here!” she added, after a moment's thought. “I've the loveliest idea! You just spoke of detectives, and that put it into my head. Let's play we're detectives, like Sherlock Holmes, and ferret out this mystery. It will be the greatest lark ever! We will come here often, and examine every bit of evidence we can find, and gather information outside if we can, and put two and two together, and see if we can't make out the whole story. Oh, it's gorgeous! Did two girls ever have such an adventure before!” She clasped her hands ecstatically, first having presented the candle to Cynthia, because she was too excited to hold it. Even the placid and hitherto objecting Cynthia was fired by the scheme.

“Yes, let's!” she assented. “I'll ask Mother if she knows anything about this old place.”

“No you won't!” cried Joyce, coming suddenly to earth. “This has got to be kept a strict secret. Never
dare
to breathe it! Never speak of this house at all! Never show the slightest interest in it! And we must come here often. Do you want folks to suspect what we are doing and put a stop to it all? It's all right,
really,
of course. We're not doing any actual wrong or harming anything. But they would n't understand.”

“Very well, then,” agreed Cynthia, meekly, cowed but bewildered. “I don't see, though, how you're going to find out things if you don't ask.”

“You must get at it in other ways,” declared Joyce, but did not explain the process just then.

“This candle will soon be done for!” suddenly announced the practical Cynthia. “Why didn't you bring a bigger one?”