Ralestone Luck Part 12

A strange sound from his sister brought him around. Ricky was not pretty when she cried. No pearly drops slipped down white cheeks. Her nose shone red and she sniffed. But Ricky did not cry often. Only when she was discouraged, or when she was really hurt.

"Why, Ricky--" Val began uncertainly.

"Go 'way," she hiccupped. "You don't care--you don't care 'bout anything. If we have to lose this--"

"We won't! We'll find a way!" he a.s.sured her hurriedly. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I'm just tired and hot, and so are you. Let's go upstairs and freshen up. Lunch will be ready--"

"I kno-o-ow--" her sob deepened into a wail. "Then Rupert will laugh at us and--"

"Ricky! For goodness sake, pull yourself together!"

She looked up at him, round-mouthed in surprise at his sharpness. And then to his amazement she began to giggle, her giggles mixed with her sobs. "You do look so funny," she gasped, "like the stern father of a family. Why don't you fight back always when I get mean, Val?"

He grinned back at her. "I don't know. Shall I, next time?"

She rubbed her face with a businesslike air and tucked her handkerchief away. "There isn't going to be any next time," she announced briskly.

"If there is--well--"

"Yes?" Val prompted.

"Then you can just spank me or something drastic. Come on, I must look a sight. And goodness knows, you're no beauty with that black mark across your chin and your slacks all grimy at the knees. We've got to clean up before lunch or Letty-Lou will think we're some sort of heathen."

With that she turned and led the way upstairs, totally recovered and herself again in spite of a red nose and suspiciously moist eyelashes.

CHAPTER VI

SATAN GOES A-HUNTING AND FINDS WORK FOR IDLE HANDS

"Val, did that cat go upstairs?" Ricky stood at the foot of the hall staircase frowning crossly. "If he did, you'll just have to go up and get him. I will not have him walking on the beds with muddy feet.

There's enough to do here without cleaning up after a lazy cat. Where's Rupert?"

Her brother put aside his note-book and got up from the couch with a lazy stretch. Ricky's early-morning energy was apt to be a little irksome and Val had not had a good night. When one lies and stares up at a ceiling, one sometimes hears strange noises which cannot be accounted for by wind or creaking boards.

"He retired into Bluebeard's den right after breakfast and he hasn't appeared since."

"I should think that after what he heard yesterday he'd be doing something," she protested.

"And what is there for him to do? You know just how far we got with our investigations yesterday. Go rap on his door if you like and stir him up. But I don't think his welcome will be a cordial one."

Ricky sat down on the bottom step and pushed the hair back from her forehead. Suddenly she looked very small and faintly forlorn with all that expanse of age-blackened wood behind her.

"I can't understand you two at all. One would think you would be just as well pleased if that Beezel the rival walked off with this place. You aren't even trying to fight!"

"Listen, Ricky, how can we fight when we have nothing solid to fight with? LeFleur is doing all he can, we have explored every possibility here--"

"Val, don't you _want_ to stay here?" she interrupted him.

He looked around at stone and wood. Did he really want to? His instant hot anger at the thought of another owner there was his answer. Why, this house was a part of them, as much as if they had laid its foundation stones with their own hands. They had been brought up on its blood-stained legends, and on the one or two happier tales which had been lived within its walls. If they had to leave, they would regret it all their lives. And yet--Rupert seemed to take no interest in the claims of the rival, and only Ricky wanted to fight.

Ricky got up from the stairs.

"We might as well go up and catch that cat," she said.

At the top of the stairs Satan sat, his eyes upon the landing windows.

Val reached out his hands for him, but in that single instant Satan was gone. A black tail disappeared around the door of the Jackson room.

"Oh, dear, I hope he isn't going to get on that bed." Ricky opened the door wider. "No, there he goes under instead of on it. Can you see him, Val?"

Her brother crouched and lifted the edge of the brocaded cover which swept to the floor. To Val's surprise a thin line of light showed along the wall at the head of the bed.

"Ricky, look behind the head of the bed! Is it fast against the wall?"

She started to the tall canopied head and pulled the faded fabrics away from the paneling. "No, there's about two feet here at the bottom. It doesn't show because the canopy covers it. And, Val, there's an opening here! Satan's trying to get through!"

"We need a flashlight."

"I'll get Rupert's. Val, promise not to go in--if it _is_ a door--until I come back!"

"Of course; but hurry."

The flashlight revealed a wide panel which slid upward. Time and damp had warped the wood so that it no longer fitted snugly to the floor as the builder had intended. But the same warping made the door defy their efforts to raise it any higher. At last, by prying and pounding, they got it up perhaps a yard from the floor. Satan slipped through and they followed on hands and knees.

They crawled into a small room lighted by two round windows set like eyes in the side wall. More than three-quarters of the s.p.a.ce was filled with furniture and boxes wrapped in tarred canvas. The choking dust and general mustiness of the long-closed apartment drove Val to investigate the window fastenings and throw them open to the morning air.

"There must be another door somewhere," he said, calling Ricky away from a box where she was picking at the knotted rope which bound it. "All these things couldn't have been brought through that hole behind the bed."

"Here it is," she said a moment later, pointing to an oblong set flush with the wall. "It's bolted on this side."

"Let me open it and see where we are." Val fumbled at the rusty latch, but he had to use an iron poker from a discarded fire stand in the corner before he could hammer it back. Again the door resisted their efforts to push it open until Val flung his full weight against it. With a snapping report it swung open and he sprawled forward into the short hall which had once led into the garden wing, an ell of the house destroyed by roving British raiders during the days of 1815. The only wholly wooden portion of the house, it had been burnt and never rebuilt.

"Come on," Ricky pulled at Val's sleeve, "let's explore."

He looked at his black hands. "I would suggest some soap and water, several brooms, and some dusting cloths if we're going to do it right.

Better make a regular house-cleaning party of it."

"Goodness, what have I strayed into?" Charity Biglow stood in the lower hall staring at the younger Ralestones as they came through from the kitchen. They had both changed into their oldest and least respectable clothes. Ricky, in fact, was wearing a pair of Val's slacks and one of Rupert's s.h.i.+rts, and they were burdened with a broom which was long past its youth, several smaller brushes, and a great bundle of floor-cloths.

"We've found a secret room--" began Ricky.

"As one door has been in plain sight since the building of this house, it could hardly be called a secret room," Val objected.

"Well, we didn't know it was there until Satan found the back entrance for us. And now we're going to clean it out. It's full of furniture and boxes and things."

"Don't!" Charity held up a paint-streaked hand. "You will have me drooling in a moment. I don't suppose you could use another a.s.sistant?