Tranquillity House. Augusta Huiell Seaman

But he has never dropped his English ways.

      As he had the bottom landing pretty well littered with his tools and things, I sat down on an upper step and watched him work and talked to him a little while, for we have always been great friends and I was curious to see what he thought of the affair.

      “Your poor sister, miss!” he began, shaking his head dolefully. “She must have had a turrible fall! ’Tis a fair wonder she didn’t kill herself—making such a hole as this here!”

      “Oh, Connie’s not so bad!” I assured him. “The doctor says she came off pretty easily, for her ankle isn’t badly broken and she might have been hurt internally—which would have been much more serious. He says the big book saved her—it broke her fall, probably. But that’s some hole you have to mend there, Tomkins! And you’re making it look as good as ever. By the way, was there anything else inside? I didn’t think to look after I found—” Here I stopped pretty abruptly, for I just remembered that Uncle Benham hadn’t wanted me to speak about the box to any one else. But I needn’t have worried about Tomkins. He knew all about it!

      “No, miss, you can set your mind at rest! I felt all around before I began, and there isn’t another livin' thing in there. But it’s fair strange about that there chest!” Here he lowered his voice mysteriously and shook his head again. Now I knew Tomkins had been associated with Uncle Benham long enough to be pretty well acquainted with his affairs, at least in an outside sort of a way, and I did long to have him go on and say something else. I didn’t feel it right to ask him straight out anything about it—that would have seemed like prying. But if he would only say it himself, I thought I’d be perfectly justified in listening. Well, it almost seemed as if he guessed my thought, for he went on:

      “It would have been well—it would have been best—if that there thing hadn’t never come to light!” he said ominously, still shaking his head, not realizing at all how simply bursting I was with interest and curiosity. “He’s all upset over it. He hasn’t been so upset since—well—er—I mean—I don’t know when I’ve seen him so upset!”

      Now, naturally I was “all upset,” too, when he stopped so abruptly after that “since” and changed what he was going to say! It was rather maddening! For the life of me, I couldn’t help but ask: “How did it happen that it disappeared, Tomkins? I suppose that must have upset him a good deal, too.”

      Tomkins gave me a queer look, at that, and his manner grew several shades more mysterious.

      “I’m very sorry, miss, not to be at liberty to tell you all about it. You see, I’m Mr. Benham's confidential man, so of course, I keep my mouth shut. But you’d be surprised if you knew what had happened here some years past!”

      “Then you know the whole thing?” I couldn’t help the question.

      “Well, no, miss. I’m bound to confess I’m not by any means acquainted with all the facts. Some of it is rather blank to me. But I know how it began, so to speak. It took Mr. Benham several years to get over the blow. This—this here to-day is like opening an old wound, if I may say it that way.” But after this, evidently feeling he had said enough, possibly too much, he shut up like an oyster and would only shake his head again and again while he worked.

      So, as there seemed nothing else to be gained by lingering around, I ran off home, going out the back way through the kitchen, as it was the shortest. Beulah tried to bribe me with a big piece of apple pie to stay and tell her all the news she’d missed by being in the kitchen; but I shook my head and hurried on, for I was awfully anxious to see Mother and talk it all over with her. And then I remembered that I couldn’t talk it over with her, at least the most mysterious and exciting part of it, because of my promise to Uncle Benham, and it made me feel queer.

      “Well,” I thought, “at least to-morrow, when I go over to see Connie, I’ll get a chance to discuss the strange affair—that is, if Miss Carstair will only leave us alone.”

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      CONNIE MAKES SOME OBSERVATIONS

      OF course, I had to go to high school next day and do double duty at home, so it didn’t leave me very much time to spend with Connie. I did, however, get over there late in the afternoon, when I understood that Miss Carstair would be out for a couple of hours. First I ran in to see Uncle Benham and found him very much better and able to walk about his room a little. He seemed in the main his usual serene self and declared he would be entirely recovered by the next day. But I thought there was still an expression of anxiety at times in his peaceful face, as if things might be all right for the moment, but that he was expecting trouble.

      Connie, however, was plainly full to the brim of something she wanted to tell me; but between Miss Carstair bustling around getting ready to go for a walk and, later, Uncle Benham coming in to sit with us a few minutes, it seemed as if she’d never get a chance. She was in quite a good deal of pain from her ankle and felt queer from the general shock of the fall, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from being perfectly absorbed in other matters. When we were alone, at last, she raised herself up and whispered:

      “Put some pillows behind me, Elspeth—I’ve just got to sit farther up a while—and let me tell you some of the things I’ve been noticing about that—that mysterious affair!” She was all excitement, I could see, and I was almost afraid to let her talk, for fear her temperature would go up again. (Miss Carstair told me it had gone down to nearly normal.) But on the other hand, I thought it might make things even worse if I refused to let her go on, so, between the two things, I decided that the best course was for her to have her way.

      “I didn’t sleep much last night,” she began, “partly on account of my ankle, but mostly because I just couldn’t get this thing out of my mind. What do you suppose it’s all about, Elspeth?” I shook my head, but Connie didn’t wait for me to answer. “Do you see anything queer about this room?” she demanded.

      I looked about it in surprise. “Why, no!” I said. There didn’t seem anything strange about it—a great, airy, beautiful room, furnished, as was all the rest of the house, with wonderful old mahogany heirlooms and looking as if all the colonial governors, not to speak of Washington and Lafayette and all the rest, might have occupied it with perfect propriety. “No, it seems all right to me.”

      “Of course it’s all right!” she cried. “What isn’t, in Tranquillity House? But does anything about it seem queer to you?”

      Again I looked around and this time a partial light did dawn on me. “There’s just one thing,” I ventured; “the furnishing seems—seems—yes, I believe I see what you mean. Every bit of this furniture just exactly duplicates what's in Uncle Benham's room, almost every single piece, and even the position of it is pretty nearly the same. That’s a little strange, because, as I remember, all the other bedrooms are quite different. It’s curious I never noticed it before.”

      “No, it isn’t strange,” declared Connie, “because—you’ve never been in this room before!”

      “Nonsense!” I cried. “I’m sure there isn’t a room in this house we haven’t explored over and over again!”

      “Not this one,” persisted Connie. “The door has always been shut—not locked, but just closed. I remember once when I was quite little (you didn’t happen to be around at the time) I opened the door one day and was going to play in here when Uncle Benham came along and told me not to, that he preferred not to have the door opened at all—that I could play anywhere I chose except in this one room. I was too little to think anything about it at the time, and soon forgot all about the affair. But I never tried to come in again.”

      “I always supposed the door opened into a closet,” I added. “I remember being a little surprised yesterday when Beulah opened