Tom Ossington's Ghost

"Are you so stupid?"

"My dear Madge! Don't strike me! It's constitutional."

"Don't you see what the situation really is?"

"Well-pardon me-but-really, you are so warm. Miss Brodie. If this gentleman were to allow me to study this interesting document, I might."

"Somewhere in this house, the dead man, Tom Ossington, concealed his fortune, all that he had worth having. It is as clear as if I saw the actual hiding place."

"My gracious goodness! Is it?"

"It is within a few feet of where we're standing. At this moment we're 'hot,' I know-I feel it!"

"Listen to that now! Madge, you must have second sight."

"That scrap of paper contains, as Mr. Graham puts it, the key of the riddle. It's a minute description of the precise whereabouts of the dead man's hiding place. All we have to do is to find out what it means, and if we are not all idiots, that shouldn't be hard. Why, you've only got to see the house; you've only to look about you, and use your eyes, to at once perceive that it's honeycombed with possible hiding places-just the sort of crevices and crannies which would commend themselves to such a man as this Tom Ossington. Look at this very room, for instance; it's wainscotted. That means, probably, that between the outer wall and the wainscot there's an open space-and who knows what beside? Listen!" She struck the wainscot in question with her open palm. "You can hear it has a hollow backing. Why" – she touched it again more gently, then stopped, as if puzzled-"why, the wood-work moves." She gave a little cry, "Ella."

"Madge?"

They came crowding round her, with eager faces.

CHAPTER IX

THE THING WHICH WAS HIDDEN

She had placed her hand against a portion of the wainscotting which was about level with her breast. As, in her excitement, she had unconsciously pressed it upwards, the panel had certainly moved. Between it and the wood below there was a cavity of perhaps a quarter of an inch.

"Push it! Push it higher!"

This was Jack. Apparently that was just what Madge was endeavouring to do, in vain.

"It won't move. It's stuck-or something."

Mr. Graham advanced.

"Allow me, perhaps I may manage."

She ceded to him her position. He placed his huge hand where her smaller one had been. He endeavoured his utmost to induce the panel to make a further movement.

"Put your fingers into the opening," suggested Jack, "and lever it."

Graham acted on the suggestion, without success. He examined the panel closely.

"If it were ever intended to go higher, the wood has either warped, or the groove in which it slides has become choked with dust."

Ella was peeping through the opening.

"There is something inside-there is, I don't know what it is, but there is something-I can see it. Oh, Mr. Graham, can't you get it open wider!"

"Here, here! let's get the poker; we'll try gentle persuasion."

Jack, forcing the point of the poker into the cavity, leant his weight upon the handle. There was a creaking sound-and nothing else.

"George! it's stiff! I'm putting on a pressure of about ten tons."

As he paused, preparatory to exerting greater force, Madge, brushing him aside, caught the poker from him. She drove the point against the wainscot with all her strength-once, twice, thrice. The wood was shivered into fragments.

"There! I think that's done the business."

So far as destroying the panel was concerned, it certainly had. Only splinters remained. The wall behind was left almost entirely bare. They pressed forward to see what the act of vandalism had disclosed.

Between the wainscot and the party-wall there was a space of two or three inches. Among the cobwebs and the dust there was plainly something-something which was itself so encrusted with a coating of dust as to make it difficult, without closer inspection, to tell plainly what it was.

Ella prevented Jack from making a grab at it.

"Let Madge take it-it's hers-she's the finder."

Madge, snatching at it with eager fingers, withdrew the something from its hiding-place.

"Covered," exclaimed Jack, "with the dust of centuries!"

"It's covered," returned the more practical Madge, "at any rate with the dust of a year or two."

She wiped it with a napkin which she took from the sideboard drawer.

"Why," cried Ella, "it's nothing but a sheet of paper."

Jack echoed her words.

"That's all-blue foolscap-folded in four."

Madge unfolded what indeed seemed nothing but a sheet of paper. The others craned their necks to see what it contained. In spite of them she managed to get a private peep at the contents, and then closed it hastily.

"Guess what it is," she said.

"A draft on the Bank of Elegance for a million sterling." This was Jack.

"I fancy it is some sort of legal document."

This was Graham. Ella declined to guess.

"Don't be so tiresome, Madge; tell us what it is?"

"Mr. Graham is right-it is a legal document. It's a will, the will of Thomas Ossington. At least I believe it is. If you'll give me breathing space I'll read it to you every word."

She drew herself away from them. When she was a little relieved of their too pressing importunities, she unfolded the paper slowly-with dramatic impressiveness.

"Listen-to a voice from the grave."