All this and more that followed on the same lines raised Mr. Murphy to a great height in Miss Katherine’s estimation. Through strict vigilance he succeeded in maintaining this exalted position.
Though other matters might temporarily thrust aside her central subject of interest, Miss Katherine invariably returned to it. The morning after [31] Mr. Murphy’s second visit she set to work in earnest to obtain a clew to the hiding place of Captain Shannon’s treasure. Where was she to begin? She was well informed on the subject of secret drawers and closets and she knew that one was apt to stumble upon them unawares. An inadvertent touch upon a panel, the slightest pressure on some bit of carving might expose the most cleverly concealed hiding place.
For this reason Miss Katherine experienced more or less uneasiness when Mrs. White was not directly under her eye. She found excuses to follow her about constantly, until that honest woman, being of ordinary penetration, concluded that she was not thought strictly trustworthy. As she was a very sensible being she decided that it was not unreasonable for Miss Boulby, an entire stranger, to keep an eye on her. She had heard of such substantials as butter, meat and flour disappearing through the back door, through the agency of the domestic, so she offered to get a testimonial from the minister. Miss Katherine saw her mistake at once and lied glibly but not well. She explained that since coming to that house she had been strangely timid and didn’t like to be alone, and if Mrs. White had noticed her following her about it was for that reason and no other. To give weight to her assertion, she threw in a ghost or two that she had suspected [32] the house of harboring. Miss Katherine would not have congratulated herself upon the success of her explanation had she known that Mrs. White was saying to herself that perhaps all that was true and perhaps it wasn’t, but it would be wise for her to keep an eye on Miss Boulby.
Miss Katherine had not yet made a sufficiently exhaustive study of Poe’s Prose tales and was thus employed in the library the next morning, when, happening to glance up from her book, her eyes fell upon the great fireplace that occupied almost the entire end of the room. Miss Katherine received an inspiration. She sat up, straight and alert.
“It is a most likely place,” she said aloud.
She went over to the fireplace, looked at it carefully and began a careful examination of the old-fashioned iron ornamentations. In the centre of the mantle was a dog’s head in gilded iron. She pinched and pushed him, trying to find a spring in his eyes, nose, ears or tail. He remained immovable, however, as did everything else pertaining to the mantle. But there was still hope. She lightly tapped the brick walls for she had been reading Poe’s frightful tale of the black cat, and she had learned that an unusual space in a wall could be detected by a light rap upon it. Miss Katherine’s ear was not trained to this sort of divination, but she [33] persevered, testing first a wall she was certain was solid and then working on a suspected area.
Mrs. White had not forgotten her suspicions of the previous day and was on the alert. She knew Miss Boulby was in the library and when she caught the sound of a gently repeated, mysterious rapping in that room, she tiptoed to the door and applied her eye to the keyhole. What she saw would have made anyone inquire whether Miss Boulby were in possession of her senses or if she never had had any. She was down upon her knees before the hearth, gently tapping the bricks and listening intently to the sound she produced.
“My stars alive!” whispered Mrs. White to herself as she rose on trembling limbs, “what’s she after or is she crazy? It’s my belief she’s stark crazy.”
Unable to satisfactorily answer her own query she crept back to the kitchen, where she sat down and faced the situation. Was she not in danger by remaining there with a lunatic? She shivered when she thought that she very likely had been within an inch of death when Miss Boulby had taken to following her around. Thank goodness, she had taken to tearing the house to bits and not her! Mrs. White resolved to have a bad attack of sciatica that very night and to leave the next morning. Meanwhile she would be constantly on guard.
[34] All unsuspecting this attitude on Mrs. White’s part, Miss Katherine was preparing for bed that night and thinking about the unfortunate impression she had made upon Mrs. White.
“She is a good and sensible woman,” said Miss Katherine to herself. “I should be very sorry to hurt her feelings or awaken any suspicions in her, but—I declare to goodness I’ve never searched the cellar and that’s one of the likeliest places. I can’t possibly do it in the daytime for she goes there so frequently. I’d just better slip down now and have a look.”
So saying, Miss Katherine slipped a heavy wrapper over her night dress, drew on her stockings and slippers, and with the extreme caution that makes every board in a floor creak and every joint in one’s body crack, she proceeded down the stairs.
Now this stealthy tread was just what Mrs. White’s ears was expecting.
“She’s prowling round the house,” whispered that lady to herself. “It’s a mercy I didn’t fall asleep.”
Having located the enemy, Mrs. White slipped out in cautious pursuit. She heard Miss Katherine enter into the kitchen and open the cellar door and start down the stairs. She stole out the front way and went round the house to a cellar window. When she arrived at that vantage point she beheld Miss Katherine standing in the centre [35] of the cellar, holding a lamp above her head that she might first get a good general view before beginning particular investigations.
“This is a difficult task,” she said aloud, “the cellar is so large that it would take me all night to sound all the walls. Now, would there be an old iron-bound sea-chest, the kind sailors hide things in, in a corner here?”
Holding her lamp well above her head, she slowly turned herself about that she might see every corner.
Now it happened that old Tabby had just presented the thankless household with a family of kittens. She had thought that some straw that lay in a corner of the cellar would be a soft, safe bed for her babies, and as a broken window provided ingress and egress for herself, she had taken possession of the corner. Old Tabby’s guard over her family was most vigilant, but she had not been disturbed until this strange figure made its appearance in the centre of the cellar.
As Miss Katherine brought her light to bear upon Tabby’s corner, the watcher at the window, who knew nothing of the family in the cellar, beheld the lamp dashed to the ground and heard a terrified but half-suppressed shriek and then flying footsteps. She did not wait to see or hear more but stole upstairs as fast as she could in a [36] panic, not knowing but that she might meet the maniac on the stairs.
“I’ll be crazy, too, if I stay here any longer,” she said to herself. “If I’m spared till morning I’ll get out of this.”
She put all the movable furniture in her room against the door, sent up a fervent prayer for protection and got into bed, but not with the intention of sleeping.
The next morning she informed Miss Boulby that she was far from well, was all crippled with sciatica and would have to leave. Her pale face corroborated her words and reluctantly Miss Katherine let her go.
I should like now to turn the reader’s attention to our friend, Mr. Murphy. That gentleman had found comfortable lodgings and seemed to be getting much attached to Ocean View. By watching rather closely one might suspect that he wished to avoid the adults of Ocean View, excepting Mr. and Miss Boulby. He called upon them pretty frequently. The boys of the neighborhood found his society very entertaining and followed in a pack at his heels. He did not always welcome this following, however, for he often put a book in his pocket and rambled along the shore until he found just the right spot where he could sit and read undisturbed. He had taken to doing this [37] immediately after his second call at the Boulbys’. The books he carried at first bore the mark of Ocean View Public Library. But one afternoon when he had found his favored spot, he drew from his pocket a glistening new volume.
“Gosh darn it!” muttered Mr. Murphy, as he regarded the book, “if I’d ever thought I’d come to this I suppose I’d............