in the trunk-room wall still yawned there, between
the chimney and the outer wall. I examined it again, with no new
result. The space between the brick wall and the plaster and lath one,
however, had a new significance. The hole showed only one side of the
chimney, and I determined to investigate what lay in the space on the
other side of the mantel.

I worked feverishly. Liddy had gone to the village to market, it being
her firm belief that the store people sent short measure unless she
watched the scales, and that, since the failure of the Traders' Bank,
we must watch the corners; and I knew that what I wanted to do must be
done before she came back. I had no tools, but after rummaging around
I found a pair of garden scissors and a hatchet, and thus armed, I set
to work. The plaster came out easily: the lathing was more obstinate.
It gave under the blows, only to spring back into place again, and the
necessity for caution made it doubly hard.

I had a blister on my palm when at last the hatchet went through and
fell with what sounded like the report of a gun to my overstrained
nerves. I sat on a trunk, waiting to hear Liddy fly up the stairs,
with the household behind her, like the tail of a comet. But nothing
happened, and with a growing feeling of uncanniness I set to work
enlarging the opening.

The result was absolutely nil. When I could hold a lighted candle in
the opening, I saw precisely what I had seen on the other side of the
chimney--a space between the true wall and the false one, possibly
seven feet long and about three feet wide. It was in no sense of the
word a secret chamber, and it was evident it had not been disturbed
since the house was built. It was a supreme disappointment.

It had been Mr. Jamieson's idea that the hidden room, if there was one,
would be found somewhere near the circular staircase. In fact, I knew
that he had once investigated the entire length of the clothes chute,
hanging to a rope, with this in view. I was reluctantly about to
concede that he had been right, when my eyes fell on the mantel and
fireplace. The latter had evidently never been used: it was closed
with a metal fire front, and only when the front refused to move, and
investigation showed that it was not intended to be moved, did my
spirits revive.

I hurried into the next room. Yes, sure enough, there was a similar
mantel and fireplace there, similarly closed. In both rooms the
chimney flue extende