CHAPTER VII.

THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE.

Lucius had a keen desire to explore those premises at the back of Cedar House, with a vague notion that his examination of them might throw some light upon the mystery which now filled his mind.

If these Winchers were indeed innocent, which the old man’s manner and conduct inclined him to believe they must be, who was the guilty one? In that house—with the exception of its master, who in his feebleness counted for nothing—there were but three persons, Mr. and Mrs. Wincher and Lucille. One of those three must have opened the door last night; one of those three must have placed that candle in the upper window—the candle which was evidently meant for a signal.

Lucille! Was reason deserting him? Was this perplexity of mind verging upon madness, when _her_ name would suggest itself in connection with that secret admittance of the stranger, and that theft which was no doubt its direct consequence? Lucille, that gentle and innocent girl! What had she to do with the solution of this dark enigma?

The mere thought of her in connection with this nefarious business tortured him. Yet the idea, once having occurred to him, was not easily to be dismissed.

He remembered all the stories of secret crime that he had heard and read of, some stories involving creatures as seemingly innocent and as fair as Lucille Sivewright. He recalled his own professional experience, which had shown him much of life’s darker side. He remembered with a shudder the infinite hypocrisy, the hidden sins, of women in all outward semblance as pure and womanly as the girl he loved.

What if Lucille inherited the fatal taint of her father’s infamy? What if in this fair young girl there lurked some hidden drops of that poison which corrupted the parent’s soul? Could an evil tree produce good fruit? Could grapes come of thistles? The very Scripture was against his fond belief in Lucille Sivewright’s goodness. Could such a father give life to a pure and innocent child?

This doubt, once having entered into his mind, lingered there in spite of him. His heart was racked by the odious thought, yet he could not dismiss it. He followed Mr. Wincher to inspect the back part of the house in a very absent-minded condition; but the practical side of his character soon got the upper hand as the investigation proceeded, and he was alert to make any discovery that might be made from the position of doors and windows.

In his evening walks with Lucille in the barren old garden he had always come out of the house by a glass door opening out of a long-disused back parlour, in which there were only a few wooden cases, which might for aught Lucius knew be full or empty. Jacob Wincher now led him into the kitchen, a spacious chamber, with a barn-like roof open to the rafters, showing the massive timbers with which the house was built. From the kitchen they descended three shallow steps into a vault-like scullery, out of which, ghastly in their dark emptiness, opened various cellars. Lucius peered into one of them, and saw that a flight of steep stairs led down into a black abyss.

‘Bring a light,’ he said; ‘the man may be hiding in one of these cellars. We’d better explore them all. But first let us lock the doors, and cut off his chances of escape.’

He suited the action to the word, and locked the door leading to the kitchen, and thence to the interior of the house.

‘Where do you and your wife sleep?’ he asked Mr. Wincher.

‘In a little room off the kitchen. It was built for a storeroom, I believe, and there’s shelves all round. My good lady keeps our Sunday clothes on them, and our little bit of tea and sugar and such-like, for we board ourselves.’

‘One would think you must hear any one passing through the kitchen at night, when the house is quiet,’ said Lucius meditatively.

‘I don’t feel so sure of that, sir. We’re pretty hard sleepers both of us; we’re on the trot all day, you see, and are very near worn out by the time we get to bed.’

‘Strange,’ said Lucius. ‘I should have thought you must have heard footsteps in the next room to that you sleep in.’

Jacob Wincher made no farther attempt to justify his hard sleeping, but led the way to the boothouse, a small and darksome chamber, chiefly tenanted by members of the beetle tribe, who apparently found sufficient aliment in the loose plaster that fell from the mildew-stained walls. Thence they proceeded to the brewery, which was almost as large as the kitchen, and boasted a huge copper, and a still huger chimney-shaft open to the sky. There were three doors in this place—one narrow and low, opening to an obscure corner of the garden; a second belonging to a spacious cupboard, which may have been used for wood in days gone by; and the third a mysterious little door in an angle.

‘What does that belong to?’ asked Lucius, pointing to this unknown door, after examining the one leading to the garden, which was securely locked and barred, and, according to Mr. Wincher’s account, was very rarely unfastened. ‘That door yonder in the corner,’ he asked again, as the old man hesitated. ‘Where does that lead?’

‘I can’t say as I know very well,’ answered Jacob Wincher dubiously. ‘There’s a kind of a staircase leads up somewhere—to a loft, I suppose.’

‘Why, man alive,’ cried Lucius, ‘do you mean to tell me that you have lived all these years in this house and that there is a staircase in it which leads you don’t know where?’

‘You can’t hardly call it a staircase, sir,’ answered the other apologetically; ‘it’s very little more than a ladder.’

‘Ladder or staircase, you mean to say you don’t know where it leads?’

‘No, sir. I’m not particular strong in my legs, and there’s a great deal more room than we want in this house without poking into holes and corners; so I never troubled about it.’

‘Indeed, Mr. Wincher; now I am more curious than you, and I propose that before examining the cellars we find out where this staircase leads.’

‘I’m agreeable, sir.’

‘You talk about a loft; but the roof of this brewhouse shows that there can be nothing above it.’

‘Very true, sir.’

‘And the kitchen is built in the same way?’

‘Yes, sir. But there’s the boothouse. I took it for granted that staircase led to a loft or a garret over that.’

‘Can you see nothing from outside?’

‘Nothing, except the sloping roof.’

Lucius opened the door in the angle, and beheld a curious cramped little staircase, which, as Jacob Wincher had told him, was verily little better than a ladder. It was by no means an inviting staircase, bearing upon it the dust and cobwebs of ages, and leading to profound darkness. To the timid mind it was eminently suggestive of vermin and noxious insects. But Lucius, who was determined to discover the ins and outs of this curious old house, ascended the feeble creaking steps boldly enough.

The stairs were steep, but not many. On reaching the topmost, Lucius found himself, not in a room as he had expected, but in a passage so narrow that his coatsleeves brushed against the wall on either side. This passage was perfectly dark, and had a damp mouldy odour. It was low, for he could touch the roughly-plastered ceiling with his hand. He went on, treading cautiously, lest he should come to a gap in the rotten flooring, which might precipitate him incontinently to the lowest depth of some dark cellar. The passage was long; he stumbled presently against a step, mounted three or four stairs, and went on some few yards farther on the higher level, and then found himself at the foot of another staircase, which, unlike the one below, wound upwards in spiral fashion, and demanded extreme caution from the stranger who trod its precipitous steps.

This Lucius mounted slowly, feeling his way. After the first step or two he saw a faint glimmer of light, which seemed to creep in at some chink above. This got stronger as he ascended, and presently he perceived that it came from a crack in a panelled wall. Another step brought him to a small chamber, not much larger than a roomy closet. He felt the wall that faced him, and discovered bolts, which seemed to fasten a door, or it might be a sliding panel in the wall.

Scarcely had he done this when he was startled by a sound which was very familiar to him—Mr. Sivewright’s sharp short cough.

He drew back amazed. This secret staircase—or if not exactly a secret staircase, at least one which nobody had taken the trouble to explore—had led him directly to Mr. Sivewright’s room.

He waited for a few minutes, heard the old man sigh as he turned wearily in his bed, heard the crackle of a newspaper presently as he turned the leaf, and convinced himself of the fact that this closet communicated with Homer Sivewright’s room. Whether its existence were known to Mr. Sivewright or not was a question which he must settle for himself as best he might.

He went back as noiselessly as he had come, and found Jacob Wincher waiting in the brewhouse, patiently seated upon a three-legged stool.

‘Well, sir, you didn’t find much, I suppose, to compensate for having made such a figure of your coat with plaster and cobwebs—only rubbish and such-like, I suppose?’

‘My good Mr. Wincher, I found positively nothing,’ answered Lucius. ‘But I extended my knowledge of the topography of this queer old house, and in doing that recompensed myself for my trouble. Yes,’ he added, glancing disconsolately at his coat, ‘the whitewash has not improved my appearance; and the cost of a coat is still a matter of importance to me. Now for the cellars. You are sure all means of exit are cut off?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

‘Then we may find our thief snugly stowed away underground perhaps, with the booty upon him. Come along.’

They groped their way into the various cellars by the light of a candle, and examined their emptiness. Two out of the four had contained coals, but were now disused. The small quantities of coal which Mr. Sivewright afforded for his household were accommodated in a roomy closet in the kitchen. The remaining two had contained wine, and a regiment of empty bottles still remained, the fragile memorials of departed plenty. They found beetles and spiders in profusion, and crossed the pathway of a rat; but they discovered no trace of the thief.

This exploration and the previous conversation with Jacob Wincher occupied nearly two hours. Lucius left the house without again seeing Lucille. He would have been unable to account for his occupation during those two hours without giving her fresh cause for alarm. But before going he contrived to see Mrs. Wincher, and from that matron, now perfectly placable, he received the pleasing intelligence that Lucille was fast asleep on a sofa in the parlour.

‘I brought her in a ramshackle old sofy belonging to the bricklebrack,’ said Mrs. Wincher; ‘Lewis Katorse, my good gentleman calls it. And she laid down when I persuaded her, and went off just like a child that’s worn out with being on the trot all day. But she does look so sad and worried-like in her sleep, poor dear, it goes to my heart to see her.’

‘Sad and worried,’ thought Lucius; and he had added to her anxieties by arousing her childish fears of an unknown danger. And then at the very time when she was broken down altogether by trouble and grief, had taken it into his head to suspect her. He hated himself for those shameful doubts which had tortured him a little while before.

‘Come what may,’ he said to himself, ‘let events take what shape they will, I will never again suspect her. Though I had forged the chain of evidence link by link, and it led straight to her, I would believe that facts were lies rather than think her guilty.’