Chapter 9

A FRESH DISCOVERY.

Saturday had come round again, and as the children started for school that morning not one of them guessed what an eventful day it was going to prove. Meeting in the road outside the Pines on their return, they passed together through the gate, and along the drive.

"Hooray!" exclaimed Guy, swinging his bundle of books round and round at the end of the strap. "No more work till Monday! I thought I should have been kept in for Cæsar to-day, but I just happened to get an easy bit with words I knew."

"It's a wonder you ever know anything," remarked Ida, who was rather fond of reproving other people. "You are always drawing, or cutting up pen-holders with your knife, or doing something of that kind, when you ought to be preparing your work. Elsie's getting just the same. She sat staring at the wall all yesterday evening, and the consequence was that this morning she got both lessons returned. She's getting such a little funk, too, that she won't go up to bed alone, but waits on the stairs till I come."

"Oh, what a cram!" exclaimed Elsie, rather feebly.

"It's not a cram," returned her sister. "You know it's perfectly true, and you look under the bed too, expecting to find a hidden robber, I suppose."

In a playful manner Brian caught hold of Elsie by the back of the neck, much in the same way as he might have done a small boy at the Grammar School, but with perhaps a lighter touch.

"Come, what's the matter with you?" he asked. "You never used to be afraid of the dark; you were as bold as brass. What have you done? Murdered somebody?"

"No," answered Elsie, laughing. "I'm only--only a bit silly."

She looked up with a smile as she spoke. No one ever doubted Brian's pluck, and the fact that he did not think her a coward encouraged Elsie to be brave. Brian knew that something really had frightened the child on the previous Thursday evening, but he had not mentioned the matter to any one except Mrs. Ormond, for which Elsie was in her heart devoutly thankful to him, as she knew what a "roasting" she would receive from Ida and Guy if once they got hold of the story.

But though Brian forbore to tell what he knew, or even to question her further, yet the incident had been constantly in his mind. He wondered greatly what could have been the cause of his cousin's alarm, and why she should refuse to explain this when hitherto he had always been in her confidence. On Friday, without saying anything to anybody, Brian made a careful examination of the tool-house, hoping to find some clue to the mystery; but his search proved fruitless.

There was nothing in the place calculated to alarm the most timorous of mortals; and as the boy glanced round he saw simply just what he had seen there many times before--the grindstone, Uncle Roger's box, some gardening tools, and sticks for rose-trees and other plants, a quantity of matting stuff which had been wrapped round some plants and shrubs when they came from a nursery, some old hampers, and a short wooden bench on which the new boy, Henry, cleaned the knives and boots. There was certainly nothing here to cause any one to drop a lamp and run screaming into the house.

Still, Brian was not satisfied. He was perhaps rather pleased to think that there was some mystery connected with the tool-house; it was like trying to solve a very interesting puzzle.

"If only I had a clever detective here, like Sherlock Holmes!" he said to himself. "I suppose he'd just look round and find some clue which would explain the whole matter. I must confess I can't see anything. Now _that's_ what began it all," he continued, as his eye rested on the grindstone. "I believe Elsie really did hear some one turning that stone, and it's my opinion that he, or she, whoever it might have been, was grinding the carving-knife; but there the story stops short, and doesn't seem to go any further. Besides, that doesn't explain what frightened Elsie the other evening. I wish she'd tell me, but I'm afraid she won't."

Brian went over and began carelessly working the grindstone with his left foot on the treadle. "I know what I'll do," he thought. "Each night I'll come out and tie the crank of this thing to the stand with a piece of thin black cotton; then I shall soon find out if any one comes and works here at night, for if they do, the thread will be broken in the morning."

Without saying anything to the others, he slipped out on Friday evening and set his trap; but when he went to examine it on the following morning the cotton was still unbroken, though it snapped at once the moment he pressed down the treadle. Nothing daunted by his failure, Brian made up his mind to try the same thing several nights running, and with this determination had hurried away to join his cousins as they started for school.

"Where's father?" inquired Ida, as the family assembled at the dinner-table.

"He's gone to Ashvale on business," answered Mrs. Ormond. "He won't be back before this evening."

"There's no football this afternoon, is there, Brian?" asked Guy.

"No practice game," was the answer. "There's a second-eleven match, but I don't think I shall go to the field. It's too cold to stand doing nothing."

"Then look here," continued Guy, "I'll tell you what well do; we'll make a target, and try my air-pistol. I know where there's a piece of board that'll do, and we can mark it out with rings and a bull's-eye with your compasses."

"By the way, Guy," said Mrs. Ormond suddenly, "I knew there was something I wanted to speak to you about. You remember the cork that was inside Uncle Roger's box? Well, I've found where it came from."

There was an exclamation of interest from the two girls as they raised their heads to listen.

"Have you, mother?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Ormond, with a half-smile on her face. "It came out of cook's methylated spirit bottle. You may remember that some little time ago she found it standing empty."

"But how could the cork have got into the box?" cried Ida.

"It seems to me," answered her mother, "that it must have been dropped by accident into the chest by the person who emptied the bottle, and therefore that same person must have been helping us when we opened the box."

"I know what you're driving at, mother," exclaimed Guy. "You think I used the spirit, and I've told you heaps of times I didn't. How does cook know it's the same cork? There may be hundreds of corks exactly the same size, and you couldn't tell one from another."

"There was no mistaking this one for another," was the answer. "It had once been stuck in a bottle of red ink, and the end was stained."

"Well, I don't know anything about it," said Guy. "Perhaps," he continued, struck with a bright idea--"perhaps father cribbed the spirit to fill that thing he lights his pipes and cigars with, and he may have dropped the cork into the box. You'd better ask him when he comes home."

There was a laugh, in which Mrs. Ormond joined. "I don't think your father is the culprit," she answered.--"Of course, if Guy says he hasn't touched the bottle, we must believe him.--Ida, did you or Elsie use the spirit for anything?"

Both girls shook their heads, and Brian also declared himself innocent.

"It's a rum thing how it came to be inside the chest," he remarked. "It's just like a conjuring trick."

"It certainly seems very funny," replied his aunt; "but, like most conjuring tricks, I dare say the explanation would be very simple if it were ever given."

Guy was impatient to test the power and accuracy of his birthday present. He painted a bull's-eye on a piece of board, with rings numbered 1, 2, 3, each about two inches wide, and then the question was to find a suitable place for practice.

"It's a beastly cold wind outside," he said; "I know what we'll do. We'll hang it up in the tool-house. Come on, Ida and Elsie; we'll all have a try."

The elder sister responded readily, but Elsie hung back, made some excuse, and went off in another direction.

"What a little noodle she's becoming!" remarked Ida to Brian, as Guy proceeded to hang up the target. "I believe, for some reason or other, she's taken it into her head to be afraid to go inside this tool-house. She won't go near it, not even in broad daylight."

"Let's go and bring her," suggested Guy.

"Oh, I shouldn't," answered Brian. "You'll never cure her that way. The best thing is to leave her alone, and take no notice. She'll get over it in time."

The air-pistol was great fun. Ida proved as good a shot as either of the boys, and it was difficult to decide which could lay claim to being the best marksman of the three.

"We'll have six shots each, firing in turn," said Guy. "Ida shall begin, and I'll put down the scores on this bit of paper."

The contest was an exciting one. Ida, unfortunately, missed the target twice, and so got behind the others, but Brian and Guy were so close together that it remained for the last shot to show which had won the first place. Brian fired, and the little steel dart struck close to the bull's-eye.

"Now, then!" cried Guy, reloading the pistol. "I must take extra good aim this time and get a bull. Oh, bother!"

He had been standing looking at the target as he spoke, and holding the pistol with the muzzle pointing upwards. Incautiously his finger had tightened on the trigger, with the result that the little weapon suddenly went off.

"O Guy, you should be more careful!" exclaimed Ida. "You might have hurt somebody."

"Hang it all!" muttered her brother. "Now I've lost the dart."

"There it is," said Brian--"straight over your head."

He pointed as he spoke to a little red tuft that showed the dart was firmly embedded in one of the beams which supported the roof.

"Good business!" cried Guy. "We'll soon have it down. Ida, drag over that old chest, and if Brian will stand on it with me hoisted on to his shoulders, I believe I can reach it right enough."

The experiment was tried, but the beam was still just out of reach of Guy's hand.

"I'll tell you what we can do," he said; "turn the chest up on end, and that'll make it higher."

As Guy moved the box into the required position there was an audible rustle and bump.

"Hullo, there's something inside!" he exclaimed.