CHAPTER XX
About all we could do now until Jethro was safe in bed was to sit aroundand wish he'd go early. If I was going to pick out the worst job in theworld, it would be a waiting job. I don't know why it is, but whenyou're waiting time goes along about a dozen times as slow as it doesany other time. If it hadn't been for Mark Tidd and his make-believes Iguess I'd have gone plumb crazy.
"Say," says I, after a while, "I know there's some sort of a mysteryabout Rock, but what d'you s'pect it is? From them photographs you wasso glad to find I guessed maybe you figgered he was Mr. Wigglesworth'sson."
"Shucks!" says he. "And you mustn't speak about the young Duke as Rock.'Tain't respectful. Earl Wigglesworth's son! Shucks! Anybody could seethat b-baby in the photographs was a girl. Besides, didn't thisp-prisoner Pekoe say he was a son of the man called the Big Duke, that'soff huntin' for the Holy Grail or s-s-somethin' in far countries?"
"Sure," says I, "so he did."
We didn't say anything for a spell, and then I asked: "If the young Dukehain't a son of Earl Wigglesworth's, why was he fetched here? Whatint'rest did the Earl Wigglesworth have in him, anyhow?"
"That," says Mark, "is exactly what we got to f-f-find out. Hain't yous-satisfied with havin' a dandy mystery? Want to spoil it by s-s-solvin'it without any trouble? What good's a m-m-mystery unless it'smysterious?" says he.
That did sound reasonable.
"S'posin'," says Mark, "that the young Duke wasn't jest the Duke, butwas entitled to be somethin' more. Maybe king or some job like that. Ands'posin', while his father, the Big Duke, was off c-c-chasin' this HolyGrail, that enemies s-stole him away, and there wasn't any way top-prove he was the rightful king. See? And s'posin' this EarlWigglesworth he had somethin' to prove it by, but didn't dare to b-burnit up or any thin'. And when he come to die he r-r-repented his baddeeds. And then he wrote that p-p-paper showin' where the p-papers toprove the Duke was entitled to be king was hid. That's how I f-f-figgerit. Now, we faithful retainers of the Duke has got to r-recover thempapers and fix it so's the Duke comes into what's rightfully hisn.Hain't that about it?"
"Shouldn't be s'prised," says I. "But seems to me like the Big Duke wasmighty careless to go off chasin' that Grail, whatever _that_ is, andleave his son layin' around loose for anybody to steal."
"These here chivalrous knights," says Mark, "was always doin' themfoolish things. If they hadn't," says he, "there wouldn't have been anys-s-stories. Seems l-like every knight was a l-little crazy. All I everread about did things that was so silly you'd lick a p-puppy for notknowin' better than they did."
"What's this Grail you was talkin' about?"
"It's a cup," says Mark, "and I guess it's a magic cup or somethin',near's I kin judge. It's got a way of wanderin' around all by itself andhidin' away. Feller named Galahad up and f-found it once. His dad's namewas Launcelot, and he was the biggest knight that ever was."
"What did this Galy-had do with it?" says I.
"Oh," says Mark, "I calc'late he just _f-found_ it--and let it go att-t-that. Just like a knight. Spend a year l-lookin' for a thing, andwhen he f-finds it, instead of takin' it home to put on the what-not andshow to folks, he jest says, 'I spy,' and gallops off again."
"Looks silly," says I.
"Was s-silly," says he.
"Say," says I, after thinking the thing over a while, "it just come intomy head that us fellers was pokin' our heads into somethin' that didn'tconcern us. What we monkeyin' with this mystery for, anyhow?"
"Binney," says Mark, "you s'prise me. Hain't we newspaper men? Well!Hain't it the b-business of newspaper men to git the news?"
"You bet," says I.
"And won't the answer to this m-mystery be the b-biggest news everp-printed in a Wicksville paper?"
"Guess so," says I.
"That's why we're after it," says he. "Besides," he says, "the youngDuke's in t-trouble, and a feller that won't help another feller outwhen he's in t-trouble hain't much good."
Well, _that_ was so.
Pretty soon it commenced to get dark, and from then the time went slowerand slower. Neither of us had a watch, so we couldn't tell what time itwas, and we decided to go up on top of the tower to listen if we couldhear the town clock in Wicksville. We kept on listening a long time, andthen it struck. Eight o'clock, it said, and I would have been willing tobet a minute before that it was ten at least.
"If you wait l-l-long enough," says Mark, with a grin, "any l-length oftime passes by."
I hadn't ever thought of that before, but you could see right off thatit was so. Mark was always discovering new things.
That's how it happened now. We kept on waiting, and after a couple ofyears the town clock struck ten. Then we waited what we judged was ahalf an hour.
"Jethro ought to be in b-bed now," says Mark.
"If he's ever goin'," says I.
"T-take off your shoes," says Mark, which we both did, and crept downthe attic stairs as quiet as a couple of cats. We opened the door intothe second-floor hall pretty cautious, and listened. There wasn't asound. Then we sneaked along the hall to the top of the stairs, andstill we didn't hear a thing. I kept wishing we could hear a good,snorting snore, and then we'd be sure Jethro was out of the way.
After a minute we went down the first-floor stairs, and was just at thebottom and turning toward the back of the house when the front-door bellrang. I 'most jumped out of my skin. We stood stalk still a second, andthen we heard a sound in a room at the left like somebody getting up outof a chair.
"Quick!" says Mark, and he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into alittle sort of cubbyhole under the stairs.
And then out came Jethro, as big as life and natural enough to scare thelife out of me. He marched right past us so close we could have touchedhim, and went to the door.
Well, sir, when we heard the man's voice that he let in you could havebought _me_ for a peanut shuck. It was the Man With the Black Gloves.Mark pinched my arm.
Right then I says to myself that being a newspaper man was all right--ifyou kept on being one all in a healthy piece--but as for me, I'd ratherbe something else and safe in bed.
Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves went right past us and into thelibrary, where they lighted the lamp and left the doors open. The lightshone right out into the hall, and they sat down facing the door,looking right out in our direction. We couldn't have moved out of thatcubby-hole an inch without being seen. It was a dandy place to be, Idon't think!
The worst of it was they talked low so we couldn't hear a word theysaid, until at last the Man With the Black Gloves sort of raised hisvoice, angry-like, and says:
"We got to get that kid out of here. Right away."
That was all we heard, but Mark laid his fingers on my hand and pressed.I knew what he meant all right. What he meant was it was lucky we heard_that_, and we'd have to get awful busy awful quick.
After a while we made out another thing he said, which was, "The kid'sfather's dead. Central America. Months ago. No danger from him."
Well, we had later news about Big Rock than that. Then Jethro says:"This Pekoe don't know anythin'. There's nothin' he can tell the boy."
"But he can snoop around and get suspicious," says the Man With theBlack Gloves, "and he's no man to fool with--not if he's been a partnerof Big Rock Armitage."
"He wasn't sich a tough proposition to handle," says Jethro. "I done italone."
"Huh!" says the Man.
"We might go and see what we kin git out of him," says Jethro.
"All right," says the Man, and up they got and went tramping up thestairs right over our heads.
"N-n-now," whispered Mark, and out he ducked and headed for the back ofthe house. I was right on his heels, you can bet, and if the hall hadbeen wide enough I'll bet I'd have beat him. I was anxious enough to getsomewheres else than where I was. Any change looked like a bigimprovement to me.
We got into the kitchen, and because we didn't know the house very wellinside, which Mark said was
our fault and we ought to suffer for it, wehad to prowl around a lot to find the cellar door. That took some time,because it was dark and we dassent make a light, and there were a dozendoors out of that big kitchen, and we had to open every one; we openedslow and cautious so it wouldn't squeak or anything.
At last we found steps going down. It was as black down there as a lumpof charcoal, darker even than it was in the kitchen. But we had to go itblind. One step, two steps, we went, and then Mark Tidd says somethingstartled-like, and all at once I heard the loudest, clangiest, bangiestkind of a noise and then another. Right in front of us! I like to havejumped clean out of my stockings.
_Bang! Bang-bang! Clangety-dang-whang-bang!_ something went, rolling andbumping downstairs ahead of us.
"What's that?" says I.
"It l-l-looks," says Mark, "like our f-finish." That was him all over.He could joke even when we were in a fix like that, and keep as cool asif nothing had happened at all.
"Did you kick somethin' over?" says I.
"Oh no," says he. "It j-just went for an evenin' stroll all by itself.Calc'late it was the sheet-iron wash-tub settin' here g-gossipin' withthe boiler," says he.
"And Jethro'll be here in a second gossipin' with us," says I.
We lighted a match then. It was time to hustle about as fast as we couldhustle, and you can't do that when it's so dark you can't pinch your ownnose and feel it, even if you could find your nose to pinch.
When the light flared up we found we were half-way down the stairs, andthat the stairs went between two brick walls and didn't go right intothe big cellar, but into a kind of little hall, and that there was adoor about six feet from the bottom step. That led into the cellar.
We scooted for the door.
"G-good heavy door," says Mark. "Slam her s-shut."
I did, not worrying much about noise now, and then we both lightedmatches to see what chances was standing around offering themselves to acouple of boys who wished they was off in Africa or at the North Poleinstead of in Mr. Wigglesworth's cellar.
The room we were in was a big one, the whole width of the house. Towardthe front of the house was a brick wall, with doors in it that led toother parts of the cellar. The door we came through was the only oneinto the room from the back.
"B-b-barricade the door," says Mark, and we set to work piling thingsagainst it. There were quite a few heavy things there, which was ourfirst piece of luck that night, and the way we pulled and hauled andjerked them in front of that door would have done your heart good. Inthree minutes it would have taken an elephant to push it open.
"There," says Mark, "n-now we got to see if there's another stairwaydown here."
We scurried into the other parts of the cellar, but there wasn't anotherstairs. Anybody that got us now would have to come the way we did, orthrough a window, and the cellar windows were little, narrow ones thatneither Jethro nor the Man With the Black Gloves could have got throughto save their lives.
We were safe for a while, anyhow.
"Here's a lamp," says I; "let's light her up. Somehow I feel easier inmy mind when it hain't pitch dark."
"Go ahead," says Mark, so I lighted up, and just then somebody camepounding down the stairs and stumbled over the tin things that had givenus away, and banged against the door.
Of course the door wouldn't open.
"Somebody in here," yelled Jethro. "They got the door fastened."
"Bust it," says the Man With the Black Gloves.
Jethro tried that, but we didn't worry much, knowing what was againstit.
"Can't budge it," says he.
There wasn't a sound for a minute. Then the Man called out:
"Hey, inside there! Who are you and what d'you want?"
Mark pinched my arm and motioned to keep still.
"Come out of there," says Jethro, and I felt like giggling. Not that Iwasn't afraid. Whee! I should say I was afraid. The chills that wasrunning up and down my back was enough to freeze my spine into anicicle.
"They can't g-get at us," says Mark. "Let's use what t-time we got tosee if we can trace out the rest of Mr. Wigglesworth's writin'. The lastpart of it says, 'In. Down.' We're _that_ all right. Then it says, 'Whatcolor is a brick? Investigate.' That comes next. What color _is_ abrick, Binney?"
"Brick color," says I.
"No?" says he. "G'wan! I thought it was the color of a orange blossom."
"Red, then," says I. "Most of 'em is."
"This cellar's b-built of red brick," says he.
"Sure," says I.
"Then," says he, "it's safe to s-s-say this s-secret's got somethin' todo with these bricks here."
"Yes," says I.
"Git the lamp," says he, which I did. We felt all over for loose bricksand things like that. Sort of figgered we'd find a hiding-placesomewheres, but we didn't, and all the time Jethro and the Man weredoing their best to get the door open.
"Hustle," says I.
"What's the use?" says he. "We can't git out any more 'n they kin gitin."
Pretty soon Mark says, "Color's got some-thin' to do with it, too.Bricks and color," says he.
He grabbed the lamp and went all around the room. All at once he stoppedand called soft to me. "Binney!"
"Yes," says I.
"Look," says he.
I looked where he was pointing, and up toward the top of the wall was abrick that wasn't brick color! It was a pale-complected brick--almostwhite.
"What color is a brick?" says Mark, and heaved a big sigh of relief.
"Kin you reach it?" says I.
"No," says he. "Here, step on my back."
He stooped over, and I stepped where he told me. It was like standing ona platform to speak a piece, his back was so broad. I thought a littleof the feller in the _Arabian Nights_ that got off on an island andbuilt a fire, and then the island dived, because it was a whale. OnlyMark didn't dive.
I reached up and fumbled with the brick. It was wedged pretty tight, butit wasn't plastered. I got a holt of the edge with my nails and wiggledand monkeyed with it, till it came out, and then I shoved my arm backinto the hole that was left--and my fingers touched something that feltlike a big envelope full of something. I hauled it out and jumped down.
"There," says I, "we got somethin', but much good it's likely to do us."
Mark was almost jumping up and down he was so tickled. He held theenvelope up to the light, and read on it, "Take this envelope to LawyerJones or some other trustworthy lawyer."
"Jest what I'd 'a' done, anyhow," says he.
Then he stuffed the paper inside of his shirt, and stuck his fingers inhis mouth and whistled three times. When Jethro and the Man heard thatthey stopped working at the door, but when nothing else happened theywent at it again.
We waited, too. Quite a while went past, and the only thing we heard wasJethro and the Man.
"Can't be Plunk and Tallow has deserted us," says I.
"N-n-never," says Mark--and just then we heard an awful kicking andpounding on the front door, and jangling of the bell in the kitchen, andthe fellers' voices hollering, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" as tight as theycould.
"Good kids," says Mark. "Git ready, Binney." Ready was somethin' I'dbeen for several hours.
Mark Tidd, Editor Page 20
