The Hidden Staircase - Carolyn Keene [35]
Helen searched the left side, while Nancy took the right. Suddenly her pulse quickened in anticipation. She had felt a spot slightly higher than the rest.
Nancy ran her fingers back and forth across the area which was about half an inch high and three inches long.
“It may conceal something,” she thought, and pushed gently against the wood.
Nancy felt a vibration in the whole cabinet.
“Helen! I’ve found something!” she whispered hoarsely. “Better stand back!”
Nancy pressed harder. This time the right side of the cabinet began to move forward. Nancy jumped up from her knees and stood back with Helen. Slowly, very slowly, one end of the cabinet began to move into the parlor, the other into an open space behind it.
Helen grabbed Nancy’s hand in fright. What were they going to find in the secret passageway?
CHAPTER XV
A New Suspect
THE GREAT crystal chandelier illuminated the narrow passageway behind the cabinet. It was not very long. No one was in it and the place was dusty and filled with cobwebs.
“There’s probably an exit at the other end of this,” said Nancy. “Let’s see where it goes.”
“I think I’d better wait here, Nancy,” Helen suggested. “This old cabinet might suddenly start to close itself. If it does, I’ll yell so you can get out in time.”
Nancy laughed. “You’re a real pal, Helen.”
As Nancy walked along the passageway, she looked carefully at the two walls which lined it. There was no visible exit from either of the solid, plastered walls. The far end, too, was solid, but this wall had been built of wood.
Nancy felt it might have some significance. At the moment she could not figure it out and started to return to the parlor. Halfway along the narrow corridor, she saw a folded piece of paper lying on the floor.
“This may prove something,” she told herself eagerly, picking it up.
Just as Nancy stepped back into the parlor, Aunt Rosemary appeared. She stared in astonishment at the opening in the wall and at the cabinet which now stood at right angles to it.
“You found something?” she asked.
“Only this,” Nancy replied, and handed Aunt Rosemary the folded paper.
As the girls looked over her shoulder, Mrs. Hayes opened it. “This is an unfinished letter,” she commented, then started to decipher the old-fashioned handwriting. “Why, this was written way back in 1785—not long after the house was built.”
The note read:
My honorable friend Benjamin:
The disloyalty of two of my servants has just come to my attention. I am afraid they plan to harm the cause of the Colonies. I will have them properly punished. My good fortune in learning about this disloyalty came while I was at my listening post. Every word spoken in the servants’ sitting room can be overheard by me.
I will watch for further—
The letter ended at this point. Instantly Helen said, “Listening post?”
“It must be at the end of this passageway,” Nancy guessed. “Aunt Rosemary, what room would connect with it?”
“I presume the kitchen,” Mrs. Hayes replied. “And it seems to me that I once heard that the present kitchen was a sitting room for the servants long ago. You recall that back in Colonial days food was never cooked in a mansion. It was always prepared in another building and brought in on great trays.”
Helen smiled. “With a listening post the poor servants here didn’t have a chance for a good chitchat together. Their conversations were never a secret from their master!”
Nancy and Aunt Rosemary smiled too and nodded, then the young sleuth said, “Let’s see if this listening post still works.”
It was arranged that Helen would go into the kitchen and start talking. Nancy would stand at the end of the corridor to listen. Aunt Rosemary, who was shown how to work the hidden spring on the cabinet, would act as guard if the great piece of furniture suddenly started to move and close the opening.
“All ready?” Helen asked. She moved out of the room.
When she thought Nancy was at her post, she began to talk