“Come on,” Ricky pulled at Val’s sleeve, “let’s explore.”
He looked at his black hands. “I would suggest some soap and water, several brooms, and some dusting cloths if we’re going to do it right. Better make a regular house-cleaning party of it.”
“Goodness, what have I strayed into?” Charity Biglow stood in the lower hall staring at the younger Ralestones as they came through from the kitchen. They had both changed into their oldest and least respectable clothes. Ricky, in fact, was wearing a pair of Val’s slacks and one of Rupert’s shirts, and they were burdened with a broom which was long past its youth, several smaller brushes, and a great bundle of floor-cloths.
“We’ve found a secret room—” began Ricky.
“As one door has been in plain sight since the building of this house, it could hardly be called a secret room,” Val objected.
“Well, we didn’t know it was there until Satan found the back entrance for us. And now we’re going to clean it out. It’s full of furniture and boxes and things.”
“Don’t!” Charity held up a paint-streaked hand. “You will have me drooling in a moment. I don’t suppose you could use another assistant? After all, it was my cat who found it for you. If you can provide me with a set of those weird coverings which seem to be your house-cleaning uniforms, I would just love to wield a broom in your company.”
“The more the merrier,” laughed Ricky. “I think Val has another pair of slacks—”
“That’s right, dispose of my wardrobe before my face,” he commented, balancing his load more carefully in preparation for climbing the stairs. “Only spare my white flannels, please. I’m saving those for the occasion when I can play the country gentleman in style.”
Upstairs he braced open the hall door of the storage-room. The open windows had cleared the air within but they were too high and too small to admit enough light to reach the far corners. It would be best, they decided, to carry each box and piece of furniture to the hall for examination. With the zeal of treasure hunters they set to work.
Some time later, when Val was coaxing the second box through the door, they were interrupted.
“And just what is going on here?” Rupert stood at the end of the hall.
“Oh,” Ricky smiled sweetly, “did we really disturb you?”
“Well, I did think that there was a troop of elephants doing tap dancing up here. But that isn’t the point—just what are you doing?”
“Cleaning house.” Ricky flicked a gray rag in his direction freeing a cloud of dust. “Don’t you think it needs it?”
Rupert sneezed. “It seems so. But why—? Miss Biglow!”
Charity, extremely dirty—she had apparently run dusty hands across her forehead several times—had come to the door of the storage-room. At the sight of Rupert she flushed and made a hurried attempt at smoothing her hair.
“I—” she began, when Ricky interrupted her.
“Charity is helping us, which is more than we can say of you. Go back to your old den and hibernate. And then you can’t look down that long nose of yours when we turn up the papers that’ll save us from the poorhouse.”
“That’s telling him,” Val murmured approvingly as he fanned himself with one of the cleaner cloths. “But perhaps we had better explain. You see, Satan went hunting and found work for idle hands,” and he told the tale of the sliding panel behind the bed.
When he had finished, Rupert laughed. “So you are still determined on treasure hunting, are you? Well, if it will keep you out of mischief, go to it.”
“Rupert,” Ricky faced him squarely, “don’t be utterly insufferable. If you had one drop of hot blood in you, you’d be just as thrilled as we are. Just because you’ve been around and around the world until you got dizzy or something, you needn’t stand there with that ‘See-the-little-children-play’ smirk on your face. You don’t really care whether we lose Pirate’s Haven or not, do you?”
Rupert straightened and the color crept up across his high cheek-bones. His mouth opened and then he closed it again without speaking the words he had intended, closed with a firmness which tightened his lips into a straight line.
“Don’t stand there and glower at me,” Ricky went on. “Why don’t you say what you were going to? I’m just about tired of this world-weary attitude—”
“Ricky!” Val clapped his black hand over her mouth and turned to Charity. “Please excuse the fireworks. They are not usual, I assure you.”
“Let me go!” Ricky twisted out of his grip. “I don’t care if Charity does hear. She ought to know what we’re really like!”
“Speak for yourself, my pet.” The red had faded from Rupert’s face. “You do have a nice little habit of speaking your mind, don’t you? But on this occasion I believe you’re at least eight-tenths right. I have been neglecting my opportunities. Suppose you let me get at that box, Val. And look here, if you are going to unpack these, why not move them down to the end of the hall and turn them out on a sheet?”
Charity and Ricky suddenly disappeared back into the room and were very busy whenever Rupert crossed their line of vision, but Val was heartily glad of his brother’s help in lifting and pulling.
“Better not try to take this bedstead and stuff out,” Rupert advised when they had the three boxes out in the hall. “We have no need for it now, anyway.”
“I believe—yes, it is! A real Sergnoret piece!” Charity was industriously rubbing away at the head of the bed. Rupert knelt down beside her.
“And just what is a Sergnoret piece?”
“A collector’s item nowadays. François Sergnoret was one of the greatest cabinet-makers of New Orleans. See that ‘S’—that’s the way he always signed his work.”
“Treasure trove!” cried Ricky. “I wonder how much it’s worth?”
“Exactly nothing to us.” Rupert was running his hands across the mahogany. “We couldn’t sell anything from this house until the title is cleared.”
As Val moved around to the opposite side to see better, his foot struck against something on the floor. He stooped and picked up a box with a slanting cover, the whole black and smooth with age and the rubbing of countless hands.
“What’s this?” He had crossed to the door and was examining his find in the light.
Rupert’s hand fell upon his shoulder. “Val, be careful of that. Charity, he’s got something here!” He pulled her up beside him, not noting in his excitement that he had broken out of the formal shell which seemed to wall him in whenever she was around.
“A Bible box! And an authentic one, too!” She drew her fingers down the slope of the lid.
“And just what is it?” Val asked for the second time.
“These boxes were used in the seventeenth century for writing-desks and later to keep the large family Bibles in. But this is the first one I’ve ever seen outside of a museum. What’s this on the lid?” She traced a worn outline. Val studied the design.
“Why, it’s Joe! You know, that grinning skull we have stuck up all over the place to bolster up our superiority complex. That proves that this is ours, all right.”
“Perhaps—”