The Boy Scout Camera Club | Page 4

kindly come over here and sit down?" Ned asked.
The servant complied and the others gathered around him.
"Now," Jack began, "tell Ned what you just told me--about the man in the attic, and about the hole in the ceiling."
Every eye in the room was instantly turned toward the lofty ceiling, but nothing out of the ordinary was to be seen there.
"The hole he refers to," Jack, smiling, explained, "is not in sight. It is under the ornamental brass piece that circles the rod from which the chandelier hangs. It was made to listen at, and not to see through, I take it!"
"That makes a good starter," Ned smiled, "so go on."
"Half an hour ago," the servant began, "I was called to this floor by one of the maids, Mary Murphy it was, and she was that scared she looked like a bag of flour! She pointed to the staircase leading to the attic and asked me to go up there.
"So I says to her: 'Why do you want me to go up there? If there's a haunt there, or a burglar, or a man after one of the girls, why should I risk the precious neck of me, when it's the only one I've got, with no prospect of ever getting another in case this one was damaged beyond repair?' So she says to me, she says--"
"Never mind what she said," Ned interrupted, fearful of a long, involved dialogue between the two servants. "Tell me what you did."
"I went up the staircase, three steps at a jump, an' bumped the head of me on the edge of the door at the top of it. You can see the dent in my coco now!"
"And what did you find there?" asked Ned.
"There was a rug on the floor and a hole in the floor, and a twinkle of light shining into the attic from this room. Some one had been listening there!"
"You saw no one?"
"Never a soul! I'm that sorry I can't express it!"
"When were you in that attic before--the last time before to-night?"
"Late yesterday afternoon it was."
"Was there a rug in the middle of the floor at that time?" Ned went on.
"No more than there is a bold lion in the middle of this floor, sir."
"Well, what did you do after you got up there to-night?"
"I hunted around for the man who had been lying there listening to the talk in this room, but I didn't find him, sir."
"Did you ascertain where all the servants were at the time the listening must have been going on?" asked Jack, after a short pause.
"All but one," was the reply.
"And that one? Where is he now? That is, tell, if you know where he is?"
"I don't know, sir. He has left the house, I reckon--bag and baggage."
"Who was it?" demanded Jack, moving toward the door.
"Chang Chu, the Chink, may the Evil One get into his bed!"
"And then you came here and notified Jack?" asked Ned. "As soon as you learned that Chang Chu was not in the house?"
"Indeed I did--within a minute and a half."
"Where is this girl, Mary Murphy?" asked Ned, turning to Jack. "We must get hold of her right away. I want to hear her story of what she saw in the attic."
Jack went out of the room, but was back in a minute with the girl, a pretty, modest maid of about eighteen. She looked frightened at finding herself the center of interest, but was soon in the midst of her story.
"I went up to the attic to get a piece of cloth for a bandage, Sally having cut her hand with the bread knife. When I got to the door of that room I heard some one inside of it. I listened at the crack there is between the panel and the stile and heard footsteps, slow and soft like. I thought it was one of the maids, and opened the door quick, so as to give her a scare."
The girl paused and wiped her face with a white apron bordered with pink.
"Go on," Ned requested. "Tell us what you saw in the attic."
"It wasn't much, sir," was the agitated answer. "I saw just a flash of dark blue, coming at me like the lightning express, and then I was keeled over--just as if I had been a bag of meal, sir!"
"He bunted into you, did he?" asked Jack. "Who was it?"
"Indeed I don't know, sir," was the reply. "It was dim in the room, there being only the light from the hall as I opened the door. Then he came at me with such a bunt that it took the breath out of me body!"
"And what followed?" asked Ned.
"She wint down f'r the count!" chuckled the servant who had been first questioned.
"I did not!" was the indignant retort. "When