He pointed to one side of the opening, where part of the supporting mechanism was now visible.

“They worked that.  It is all simple enough on this side of the trap; the puzzle is about the other.  How did they manage to have all this mechanism put in without rousing any one’s attention?  And why so much trouble?”

“Some time I will tell you,” I replied, putting my foot on the step.  “O girls!” I exclaimed, as two screams rang out above and two agitated faces peered down upon us.  “I’ve had an accident and a great adventure, but I’ve solved the mystery of the ghost.  It was just one of the two poor old ladies next door.  They used to come up through this trap.  Where is Mrs. Packard?”

They were too speechless with wonder to answer me.  I had to reach up my arms twice before either of them would lend me a helping hand.  But when I was once up and Mr. Steele after me, the questions they asked came so thick and fast that I almost choked in my endeavor to answer them and to get away.  Nixon appeared in the middle of it, and, congratulating myself that Mr. Steele had been able to slip away to the study while I was talking to the girls, I went over the whole story again for his benefit, after which I stopped abruptly and asked again where Mrs. Packard was.

Nixon, with a face as black as the passage from which I had just escaped, muttered some words about queer doings for respectable people, but said nothing about his mistress unless the few words he added to his final lament about the cabinet contained some allusion to her fondness for the articles it held.  We could all see that they had suffered greatly from their fall.  Annoyed at his manner, which was that of a man personally aggrieved, I turned to Ellen.  “You have just been up-stairs,” I said.  “Is Mrs. Packard still in the nursery?”

“She was, but not more than five minutes ago she slipped down-stairs and went out.  It was just before the noise you made falling down into this hole.”

Out!  I was sorry; I wanted to disburden myself at once.

“Well, leave everything as it is,” I commanded, despite the rebellion in Nixon’s eye.  “I will wait in the reception-room till she returns and then tell her at once.  She can blame nobody but me, if she is displeased at what she sees.”

Nixon grumbled something and moved off.  The girls, full of talk, ran up-stairs to have it out in the nursery with Letty, and I went toward the front.  How long I should have to stay there before Mrs. Packard’s return I did not know.  She might stay away an hour and she might stay away all day.  I could simply wait.  But it was a happy waiting.  I should see a renewal of joy in her and a bounding hope for the future when once I told any tale.  It was enough to keep me quiet for the three long hours I sat there with my face to the window, watching for the first sight of her figure on the crossing leading into our street.