LITMIR.BIZ

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never been altered in all these years."

      "But quite useful – with unwanted visitors," he replied, stooping suddenly and picking up something off the carpet. "Hello, what's this? Looks like a bit of flexible electric wire. Something of your brother's hobby, no doubt."

      He held it out to her in the open palm of his hand. It was just a little scrap of crimson-covered flexible wire, and she barely noticed it.

      "And … hello, hello! No electricity used in here, either. I suppose that's because your father doesn't approve?"

      "Yes. Ross wired the room – or had it wired with the aid of an electrician – and then installed the light. But Father was so angry that he would rarely ever use it. Sticks to the musty old lamp over there, for most things."

      "And is the room still wired?"

      "Yes. There's a wall plug over there by the door. Why, Mr. Deland?"

      "Oh, nothing. Then that would account for this fragment of flexible wire, wouldn't it? H'm. Yes. I see. I see."

      But what he saw he did not at that moment mention, and Miss Duggan had to guess at his meaning.

      "But it was done ten days ago – I must really speak to the servants and tell them to keep the place cleaner than they do. Fancy leaving odd pieces about like that!" she ejaculated, sensitive to any suggestion of poor management upon the part of Castle authorities. But Cleek did not hear. He was standing over by the wall-plug, looking down at it, and then kneeling, began to examine it minutely. She watched him in amazement, unused to his methods.

      "Why, Mr. Deland – "

      "Oh, just looking at how your brother does his work. Quite a good workman, isn't he?" said Cleek, rising slowly to his feet, and pocketing the bit of flexible wire forthwith.

      And that was the last word she could get out of him upon the subject.

      CHAPTER V

      A STARTLING DISCOVERY

      Within one short hour Cleek had explored the Castle from end to end, in company with a tireless girl for whom every stick and stone of the grand old place held a memory that was as sacred to her as the church is to the priest who has passed all his days in the service of it. But they met no other members of the family just then. Only, as they passed through the left wing, where the servants' quarters lay beyond, Cleek was introduced to Johanna McCall – paid hireling and companion of Lady Paula, and not too pleased with her job, either, if all he read in that frightened face of hers was true.

      He found her a little pale slip of a thing, with wide, anxious eyes set in an ivory-tinted, utterly colourless face, and with hair that was "mousey" and straight, and a mouth that might tremble at an unkind word as a child's does.

      She bowed to him timidly and extended a slender hand.

      "How do you do," she said, in a soft, toneless sort of voice which matched her poor, toneless, utterly downtrodden personality. "Your stepmother, Miss Duggan? She is in the study, I suppose? I have her embroidery silks, and she wanted them immediately. But it took such a time to get them disentangled. Master Cyril was playing with them last night. I – oh, I do hope she won't be angry!"

      "Don't worry, Miss McCall. Rome won't fall, you know, even if she does speak an unkind word to you in her hasty fashion," gave back Maud Duggan, with a kindly pressure of one hand upon the frail girl's arm. "And she's busy just now with Sir Andrew. Looking over some accounts, I believe. I should wait for her in her boudoir, if I were you. She's bound to ring if she wants you."

      "Yes, perhaps that would be better."

      Miss McCall hurried down the corridor, silent-footed, as a paid companion should always be, and Cleek shook his head as she vanished through an open door at the end of the passage.

      "Poor little frightened thing!" he said softly. "And all for a pittance which, in her sort of profession, must necessarily be small!"

      "Yes, and she works like a black for it, too," gave back Maud Duggan heatedly. "Slogs away all the day long, running errands for —her– sewing, darning, mending, writing interminable letters which Paula tears up afterward and decides not to send. And gets not a crumb of comfort for her pains. Paula is terribly hard upon her, Mr. Deland. I wonder the girl stands it; only – there's an attraction."

      "And you women are endurance personified – in those circumstances!" he responded with a little significant laugh. "When your hearts are involved, your common sense vanishes to make room for it. I've seen it a thousand times before… Really, Miss Duggan, you have been an indefatigable guide. I don't believe there's a nook or cranny of this place which I haven't seen, is there?"

      "Only the cellars – or, properly speaking, the dungeons. And they're of no interest to anybody. Father keeps the wines down there, of course, and anything that does not require too much storage. But, excepting for the cellar, the place is never entered from one year's end to another. Not a servant would go down into them for double wages. The peasant-girl is supposed to stay there when she is not out on her nightly prowl for the man who abducted her!"

      "Indeed? That's interesting. I suppose I couldn't go down? Dungeons are a perfect passion with me, for I've an insatiable curiosity, and always want to go poking my nose where no one else does. Sort of brand of my profession, I suppose. Do you think you could find energy enough to take me down?"

      "Certainly."

      She led the way down an L-shaped passage, which led past the kitchens and the servants' hall, and gave out upon a little stone courtyard set apart from the house and bounded about with a high wall through which arrow-slits gave the true mediæval touch, and then down to the right of this through a huge oaken door which opened noiselessly, showing a flight of steep, uneven stone steps leading down into a dark, damp-smelling interior.

      At the top of the steps she paused and looked back at him over the curve of her shoulder, making a wry face.

      "You still want to go?" she asked jestingly. "I'm a brave woman, Mr. Deland, but I wouldn't undertake this journey alone for anything! There's —rats!"

      "As well as ghosts? But this is morning, and Scotland, and the twentieth century – so lead on, Macduff," he answered her in the same jesting spirit. "Or would you like me to go first?"

      She shivered and twitched up her shoulders.

      "No; I'll do the honours properly. This way. If you've a torch on you, you'll need it at the bottom of these stairs. It's as dark as pitch."

      "I have."

      Cleek produced it, and they proceeded upon the uncanny journey. The steps led down, down, into what seemed the very bowels of the earth (which indeed they were), until they reached a little square opening from which iron-grilled doorways looked out upon them from every side, saving for one oak door on the left, which Miss Duggan pointed out as the wine-cellar.

      "H'm! And smells like it, too," put in Cleek, with a sniff – "What's behind that door is worth a fortune, I'll be bound. Hello! here's a candle-end stuck in a bottle! Now, who the dickens uses that, I wonder?"

      "The servants, I suppose. They come down through their own stairs, Mr. Deland – over there on the left – you can see them if you look hard enough. They're wooden ones, and were put in by my father's grandsire, for the convenience of the house. The servants don't like this way at all. They prefer to come through the butler's pantry."

      "And those stairs lead up there? I see. Hello! Here's a chain attached to this iron post. What's that?"

      "The prisoner's chain. This room here" – she pointed to the grilled door opening next to the cellar "was kept for political prisoners, I believe. And those two across the way were for personal enemies of the family."

      "And are there any others?"

      "Yes – through that first door on the right – but you won't get me to go into them," she responded with a laugh. "It's horrible in there. There's a rack and one or two thumbscrews and other articles which belong to the Spanish Inquisition period; as well as rats innumerable. My bravery vanishes at this point. I'll not go a step farther!"

      "But you don't mind if I do?"

      "Not

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