The Mystery of the Fiery Eye, стр. 15

“Let’s get out of here!” Pete whispered and yanked at the knob of the door behind them.

He was too anxious. At his sudden yank, the knob came away in his hand. The voices and light came closer, and Pete’s frantically clutching fingers found nothing to grasp.

They were trapped in the wine cellar!

11

“We know you’re there!”

THE VOICES came closer. Footsteps stopped just outside the wine cellar door. A flashlight made a gleam of light in the darkness beyond the door.

“We’ve already searched the wine cellar,” said a deep voice. “No use going in there.”

“We’ve searched the whole house,” another, rougher voice said disgustedly. “We’ve spent a half hour on this cellar alone. Jackson, if you’re holding out on us — ”

“I’m not, I swear I’m not!” said a high-pitched, old man’s voice. “If it’s in this house we’d have found it. I tell you there aren’t any hiding places I didn’t know about. After all, I was Mr. Weston’s — I mean Mr. August’s butler for twenty years.”

Jackson! Pete felt Jupiter stiffen. Mr. Dwiggins had said a couple named Jackson had been Gus’s great-uncle’s only servants.

“You’d better be sure, Jackson,” said the first voice. “We aren’t playing a game for marbles. This is big money and you’ll get your share when we find the Eye.”

“I’ve told you everything I know, really I have!” Mr. Jackson said pleadingly. “He must have hidden it somewhere when Agnes and I were out of the house. I’m not sure he trusted us at the end — although we served him faithfully all those years. He began to act a little odd, as if he felt he was being spied on.”

“He was smart, he didn’t trust anybody. Not with a stone like the Eye to hide,” the second, rough voice said. “I wish I could figure what he meant by planting that phoney stone inside the head of Augustus, though.”

The boys were listening with eager interest, almost forgetting their perilous position. If the speakers knew about the fake Fiery Eye, that must mean they were accomplices of either Black Moustache or Three-Dots. The next words cleared up this question for them.

“Poor Hugo! When that guy with those three dots finished with him, Hugo didn’t feel so hot,” the rough voice said, and chuckled.

At the tone and the laugh Pete felt chills go down his spine. He remembered that gleaming sword blade and the red stain that had come off it.

“Never mind Hugo,” said the deep voice. “Why was a fake ruby inside the head of Augustus? Only to throw a false trail, I bet. I think the ruby is hidden right here in this house.”

“If it is, gentlemen, you’ll have to tear the whole house down to find it,” Mr. Jackson said. “I swear to you I have no more ideas of where to look. Please let me go back to my wife in San Francisco. I’ve done all I could, really I have.”

“We’ll think about it,” said the rough voice. “Maybe we’ll let you go. The person I wish I had my hands on is that fat smarty at the junkyard! I’ve asked around about him and they say that kid has brains like a computer, even if he does look stupid. I’ll bet a red nickel he knows a lot more than he’s telling.”

“Well, there’s no way we can get at him,” Deep Voice said. “Or maybe there is. Come on, let’s go upstairs and figure our next move.”

“What about the secret staircase and the little room?” asked Rough Voice. “We ought to search those again. They must mean something.”

“Too obvious,” Deep Voice said. “Like Jackson told us, it used to be just an ordinary stairway down to the wine cellar from the library. Right, Jackson?”

“Yes, indeed,” Mr. Jackson said. “Twenty years ago Mr. August put in the bookshelves and just for fun he made them into a secret door for the stairway. But he only used it to go to his wine cellar at night. He always said that as a boy in England he dreamed of living in a big house with a secret staircase.”

“There you are,” said Deep Voice. “Let’s get back upstairs. This dark cellar makes me feel gloomy.”

The light moved away. In a moment the three boys heard footsteps going up wooden stairs. Then a door slammed shut. They were alone again in the cellar.

“Whew!” Pete said. “I thought they had us. They sounded like tough customers.”

“My word!” Gus exclaimed. “Did you hear how that one just laughed when he talked about what Three-Dots did to his companion?”

“What do you say, Jupe — who were they?” Pete asked. “Jupe — are you in a trance or something?”

Jupe came to himself with a live jolt.

“I was thinking,” he said. “The two men must have learned about The Fiery Eye from Mr. Jackson, and are making Mr. Jackson help them try to get it before Three-Dots does.”

Pete nodded. “But how are we getting out of here? We’re trapped.”

“I think it will be safest to wait until they leave. Let’s find the cellar door, though, and be ready to make a break for freedom at the first possible moment.”

With Jupe leading the way, they emerged into a big square cellar with low beams overhead. There were no windows. Down at one end was a big oil tank for the oil-burning furnace next to it. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see.

There was, however, a flight of wooden steps leading up to a door, and they tiptoed up them. Jupe cautiously tried the doorknob. The knob turned, but the door refused to open. Jupe rattled it slightly, then drew back.

“It’s bolted on the other side,” he said. “We’re locked in.”

For a moment they were all silent. If they were locked in the cellar, and the men above went away and left them there, who knew when someone else would come? It might be days — maybe not until the workmen came to tear the house down.

Jupiter broke the silence.

“There’s the door to the secret staircase,” he said.

“But the knob fell off on the other side,” Gus objected. “I heard it fall. That door won’t open, will it, Pete?”

“Not for me it won’t.”

“Perhaps it will open for me,” Jupe said.

They followed Jupe back into the wine cellar. Pete held the light trained on the spot where the missing doorknob should have been. Jupe got out his Swiss knife, his pride and joy. He opened one blade, which was a small screwdriver.

“When a knob is missing from an ordinary door, a screwdriver will often turn the latch,” Jupe remarked. He pushed the end of the screwdriver into the hole where the shaft of the doorknob should have gone. The edges of the blade caught the four-sided piece of metal inside. Jupiter turned, the tongue of the lock moved, and the door swung open.

“It’s a very simple trick, but it’s handy to know in emergencies,” Jupe said as he emerged into the tiny space at the bottom of the secret stairway.

He had no sooner stepped outside the door than a flashlight beam blazed down the stairs. It illuminated Jupiter so brilliantly that he blinked his eyes, unable to see a thing.

“All right,” Deep Voice boomed down at them. “We knew you kids were there. We saw your bicycles just now. So come on up, and come quietly, if you know what’s good for you!”