The hole
in the trunk-room wall still yawned there, between the chimney
and the outer wall. I examined it again, with no new result.
The space between the brick wall and the plaster and lath one,
however, had a new significance. The hole showed only one side
of the chimney, and I determined to investigate what lay in the
space on the other side of the mantel.
I worked feverishly. Liddy had gone to the village to market, it
being her firm belief that the store people sent short measure
unless she watched the scales, and that, since the failure of the
Traders' Bank, we must watch the corners; and I knew that what I
wanted to do must be done before she came back. I had no tools,
but after rummaging around I found a pair of garden scissors and
a hatchet, and thus armed, I set to work. The plaster came out
easily: the lathing was more obstinate. It gave under the blows,
only to spring back into place again, and the necessity for
caution made it doubly hard.
I had a blister on my palm when at last the hatchet went through
and fell with what sounded like the report of a gun to my
overstrained nerves. I sat on a trunk, waiting to hear Liddy fly
up the stairs, with the household behind her, like the tail of a
comet. But nothing happened, and with a growing feeling of
uncanniness I set to work enlarging the opening.
The result was absolutely nil. When I could hold a lighted
candle in the opening, I saw precisely what I had seen on the
other side of the chimney--a space between the true wall and the
false one, possibly seven feet long and about three feet wide.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244