THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

My head was on somebody's arm, and I knew very well now who the somebody was. He was real, and not a dream. I sighed cozily and opened my eyes. His face was quite close to mine.

      "Thank God!" he said. "Are you all right?"

      "Now you're here," I answered. "I thought they were coming to kill me."

      "Who?" he asked, quite fiercely.

      "An old gipsy woman and her sons."

      "Those people!" he exclaimed. "Why, it was they who told me you were in this place. If it hadn't been for them I shouldn't have found you so soon—though I would have found you. The wretches! What made you think—"

      "The old woman was in the room above," I said, "waiting for her sons; and she begged me to look down here for a rosary she dropped. She must have known the bottom steps were gone. She wanted me to fall; and though I called, she didn't answer, because she'd probably hobbled off to find her sons and bring them back to rob me. I haven't hurt myself much, but when I found I couldn't climb up I was so frightened! I thought no one would ever come—except those horrible gipsies. And when I heard a sound above I was sure they were here. I felt sick and strange, and I suppose I must have fainted."

      "I heard you call, just as I got into the upper room. Then, though I answered, everything was still. Jove! I had some bad minutes! But you're sure you're all right now?"

      "Sure," I answered, sitting up. "Did I call you 'Jack'? If I did, it was only because one can't shriek 'Mister,' and anyway you told me to."

      "Now I know you're all right, or you wouldn't bother about conventionalities. I wish I had some brandy for you—"

      "I wouldn't take it if you had."

      "That sounds like you. That's encouraging! Are you strong enough to let me get you up into the light and air?"

      "Quite!" I replied briskly, letting him help me to my feet. "But how are we to get up?"

      "I'll show you. It will be easy."

      "Let's look first for the wicked old creature's rosary. If it isn't here, it's certain she's a fraud."

      "I should think it's certain without looking. I'd like to put the old serpent in prison."

      "I wouldn't care to trouble, now I'm safe. And anyway, how could we prove she meant her sons to rob me, since they hadn't begun the act, and so couldn't be caught in it?"

      "She didn't know you had a man to look after you. When the guide and I came this way, searching, we met a gipsy woman with two awful brutes, and asked if they'd seen a young lady in a gray coat. They were all three on their way here, as you thought; but when they saw us close to this house, of course, they dared not carry out their plan, and the old woman made the best of a bad business. No doubt they're as far off by this time as they could get. It might be difficult to prove anything, but I'd like to try."

      "I wouldn't," I said. "But let's look for that rosary. Have you any matches?"

      "Plenty." He took out a match-case, and held a wax vesta for me to peer about in the neighbourhood of the broken stairway.

      "Here's something glittering!" I exclaimed, just as I had been about to give up the search in vain. "She said there was a silver crucifix."

      I slipped my fingers into a crack where the rock had been split in breaking off the lower steps. A small, bright thing was there, almost buried in débris, but I could not get my fingers in deep enough to dislodge it. Impatiently I pulled out a hat-pin, and worked until I had unearthed—not the rosary, but a silver coin.

      "Somebody else has been down here, dropping money," I said, handing the piece up for Mr. Dane to examine.

      "Then it was a long time ago," he replied, "for the coin has the head of Louis XIII. on it."

      "Oh, then she was right!" I cried. "I can find lost treasure. I'm going to look for more. I believe that piece must have fallen out of a hole I've found here, which goes back ever so far into the rock. I can get my arm in nearly to the elbow."

      "Who was 'right'?" my brother wanted to know.

      "The gipsy. She told my fortune. That was why I didn't refuse to look for her rosary."

      "I should have thought a child would have known better," he remarked, scornfully; and his tone hurt my sensitiveness the more because his voice had been so anxious and his words so kind when I was fainting. He had called me "child" and "little girl." I remembered well, and the words had been saying themselves over in my mind ever since. I rather thought that they betrayed a secret—that perhaps he had been getting to care for me a little. That idea pleased me, because he had been abrupt sometimes, and I hadn't known what to make of him. Every girl owes it to herself to understand a man thoroughly—at least, as much of his character and feelings as may concern her. Besides, it is not soothing to one's vanity to try—well, yes, I may as well confess that!—to try and please a man, yet to know you've failed after days of association so constant and intimate that hours are equal to the same number of months in an ordinary acquaintance. Now, after thinking I'd made the discovery that he really had found me attractive, it was a shock to be spoken to in this way.

      "Oh, you are cross!" I exclaimed, still poking about in the hole under the stairway.

      "I'm not cross," he said, "but if I were, you'd deserve it, because you know you've been foolish. And if you don't know, you ought to, so that you may be wiser next time. The idea of a sensible young woman chumming up in a lonely cave, with a dirty old gipsy certain to be a thief, if not worse, letting her tell fortunes, and then falling into a trap like this. I wouldn't have believed it of you!"

      "I think you're perfectly horrid," said I. "I wish you had let the guide find me. He would have done it just as well, and been much more polite."

      "Doubtless he would have been more polite, but he isn't as young, and might have had trouble in getting you out. There! that's my last match, and you mustn't waste any more time looking for treasure which you won't find."

      "Which I have found!" I announced. "I've got something more—away at the back of the hole. Not that you deserve to see it!"

      However, I held up my hand in its torn, bloodstained glove, with two silver pieces displayed on the palm.

      "A child's hidey-hole, I suppose," he said without showing as much interest as the occasion warranted. "Otherwise there would be something more valuable. A young servant of the Grimaldis, perhaps; these coins are all of the same period—of no great value as antiques, I'm afraid."

      "They're of value to me," I retorted. "They'll bring me luck." I would of course have given him one, if he hadn't been so disagreeable; but now I felt that he shouldn't have anything of mine if he were starving.

      "You are very superstitious, among other childlike qualities," he replied, laughing. So that was what he thought of me, and that was why he had called me "child"! It was all spoiled now, from the beginning; and the guide might as well have found me, as I had said, without quite meaning it at the time.

      "If you don't like lucky things, you can throw away my St. Christopher," I said, coldly. "You must have thought it very silly."

      "I thought it extremely kind of you to give it, and I've no intention of throwing it away, or parting with it," said he. "Now, are you ready?"

      "Yes," I snapped.

      In an instant he had me by the waist between two hands which felt strong as steel buckles, and swung me up like a feather on to the first step of the broken stairs. Then, in another second, he was at my side, supporting me to the top without a word, except a muttered "Don't be childish!" when I would have pushed away his arm.

      Strange to say, I forgot Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel until we saw the guide, to whom long ago Mr. Dane had called up a reassuring "Tout va bien!" Then, suddenly, the awful truth sprang into my mind. All this time they had been waiting for me! What would they say? What would they do?

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