“SSH! MOVE SOFTLY OR SOMEONE WILL HEAR US!” Lisette nodded as Cherry noiselessly opened the infirmary door and peered out. The corridor was empty and quiet. It was eleven at night, and everyone was in bed. Lisette and Cherry were presumed to be in bed, too, but this was their first chance, since the emergency of last week, to search for the cupboard niche. According to the journal, though the great-grandfather was maddeningly cryptic, the concealed cupboard was located somewhere in whichever had been his former room. They decided to tap the walls of the infirmary first, as long as they were in there.
“Wish we knew which room used to be Pierre’s,” Lisette fretted. “I tried in a roundabout way to ask Mrs. Harrison”—Cherry fleetingly wondered why Mrs. Harrison should be expected to know such a thing—“because she—ah—saw this house when she was a little girl,” Lisette explained. “She said that she didn’t exactly remember. It seemed to her that Great-grandfather had occupied different rooms at different times, as his family grew larger or smaller. So that was no help.”
“We’ll just have to find out on our own,” Cherry agreed.
Both girls were padding around softly in slippered feet, with only the night light burning. They wore night clothes, in case any faculty member should suddenly come in, and they also wore warm sweaters. As Cherry remarked, these mid-October nights were chilly, and one loud sneeze would be enough to betray them if the rain and wind should cease.
“Anything over there?”
Lisette was on tiptoe beside the left end of the fireplace, cautiously tapping the wall. “Nothing here. I’ll try the whole area, though.”
“I’ll try the right end of the fireplace,” Cherry whispered. She knew medicine cupboards generally used to be built at the left end, but you never could tell.
Both girls tapped, listening with ears against the papered wall and tapped again. They did not hear the hollow sound or faint echo for which they were alert. The whole fireplace wall was solid.
“The cupboard just isn’t near the fireplace,” Lisette sighed.
“Don’t be discouraged. The room is big but not so enormous that we can’t cover every inch.”
“Where shall we try next?”
“Hmm. With everyone asleep, it’s a good chance to try the corridor. The remodeling may have cut off a corner of this room.”
With their hearts in their mouths, Cherry and Lisette slipped soundlessly into the hall. Here was a small area of wall between infirmary and faculty sitting room which intrigued Cherry. They tapped it, at eye level, then higher—no point trying lower—when a footstep made them whirl around.
“Hide!” Cherry hissed, and shoved Lisette through the nearest door. It led into the darkened, empty faculty room.
Here came, of all people, Sibyl leaning on the cane which she had used since her fall. She swished along in a negligee, looking sleepy and cross.
“Aren’t you feeling well, Sibyl? Can I do something for you?”
“You’ve already done plenty for me, scaring Freddie away. Oh, I didn’t mean that! No, I’m all right, Miss Cherry. What’s that funny noise I heard?”
“What noise?”
“Like someone knocking. Moving around, inside the walls, maybe. They say these old houses are full of ghosts.”
Sibyl shivered, but Cherry grinned.
“Old houses are full of loose floor boards and crumbly plaster. It’s windy tonight and the house creaks, that’s all. Go back to bed, Sibyl, there’s a dear.”
“Are you sure that’s all?” Sibyl said suspiciously. She pushed her red-gold hair out of her eyes and yawned. “Oh, well, the ghosts can have this wretched old place. I don’t care.”
She limped back to her room and shut her door noisily enough to waken the entire second floor. Cherry held her breath. Two, three minutes went by, but nothing happened. She poked her head inside the faculty room and made out Lisette’s dark tumbled hair and pale face.
“Sibyl thinks we’re ghosts.”
“Well, we’re looking for a ghostly kind of thing, aren’t we?”
After another half hour of quietly sounding the infirmary walls, Cherry declared under her breath: “I think a ghost would be easier to find than this cupboard. Shall we try another room next?”
Lisette was discouraged, too. She said, “Let’s sit down and rest for a few minutes, and try to think.” They had been listening for a telltale sound, searching for the cupboard whose keyhole the doll’s key might be presumed to fit. So far they had found nothing.
“Wouldn’t Mrs. Harrison be astonished if she happened to walk in right now,” Cherry mused.
“Don’t say such things!” Lisette frowned. “She’d be angry. If she ever learns what we’re up to, she’ll forbid it.”
The girl’s vehemence surprised Cherry. “You’re awfully positive about what Mrs. Harrison’s attitude would be,” she said, mildly inquiring. But Lisette shrugged. If she knew something further, she was not telling.
Cherry bypassed the matter, for the time being, and concentrated on where the cupboard might be concealed. Suddenly an idea occurred to her.
“Listen! I just remembered something. Don’t know why I forgot about it all this time. Right after I came here, I think the very first evening after supper, when we were in the garden, I happened to look up and noticed a special kind of window.”
She described to Lisette the diamond shaped window of stained glass, with panes of various colors. Since the house had several windows of stained glass here and there, Lisette could not place that particular window.
“As best I can remember,” Cherry said, “it should be in the infirmary, on the side wall somewhere between the fireplace and the supply closet.”
They glanced at that side of the room. On either side of the fireplace were ordinary plate glass windows, with blinds. The long, narrow supply closet, placed at a right angle to the fireplace wall, ran about eight feet but had no window. Where was the missing window?
“I could swear I saw that window in about this location,” Cherry said.
“Would it be in the faculty room?”
“I’ll go see,” and Cherry rose, though she did not much like venturing into the corridor where she might be noticed. However, she took her flashlight and went next door to the faculty sitting room.
“No such window in there,” she reported back to Lisette.
“And that room is right next to the infirmary,” Lisette said. “No hallway in between the two rooms. You know what, Cherry? I think the window may be located farther down.”
“There’s only one thing to do. That’s for me to go down to the garden tomorrow and have another look. Unless—Does the journal say anything about a window?”
Lisette could not recall any reference. She leafed through its faded pages but shook her head.
“Nothing about any window. Wait, though. Here’s a passage which has always puzzled me. But it’s about—how to translate la cloison? Cubbyhole, I guess, or cubicle. Possibly Pierre meant storage space.”
“Cubbyhole where?” Cherry pricked up her ears.
“Seems to refer to the staircase.”
“The big main stairway?”
Lisette nodded.
“But the journal locates the cupboard in a master bedroom. Nowhere near the staircase.”
“I told you I didn’t understand it, Cherry. Do you suppose he’s talking about two separate things?”
“If he is, and the cupboard is one thing, what’s the second thing? Anyway, the cupboard is the main object, isn’t it?”
They talked round and round the subject, but their reasoning was inconclusive. Talking did not help; what they had to do was search. It had grown too late to hunt any further. The storm was over, and the silence in the sleeping house was profound, so that their tapping would surely reach someone’s ears, and Sibyl was already alerted.
Lisette said good night, peered to see if the coast was clear, and fled silently to her room.
Next day it seemed to Cherry forever before she had a few free minutes to visit the garden. The right time came in midafternoon. Her chores were completed, and most of the girls were either out riding or on the hockey field. Cherry figured it was as good a time as any. She slipped downstairs and went out the side door past the conservatory and into the garden.
Standing where she had stood that first day at twilight, she looked up to the remembered spot and saw the diamond-shaped window! So she had not been mistaken about its location. It must be within or almost within the boundary of the infirmary, because Cherry carefully counted and accounted for all the windows. This window seemed to be an extra one; she noted also that it seemed to be permanently closed, a window for light and decoration only.
There were the two tall plate glass windows with blinds, which flanked the infirmary fireplace. Next came the diamond shaped window. Then came the plate glass windows with chintz draperies, and that particular chintz hung in the faculty room. Therefore the diamond shaped window might be located somewhere between the infirmary and faculty room. But why hadn’t she and Lisette been able to find it?
“I think I have it!” Cherry exclaimed to herself. “I’m not going to waste time speculating, though. Lisette and I will test out my theory this very evening.”
On her way back into the house, Cherry looked in at the small conservatory. Now that she understood the flowers were to be used to compound a perfume, she was doubly interested to see what Lisette had transplanted. The young girl had given over most of the conservatory’s space to the great grandfather’s delicate, pungent spray called silver lace and to three varieties of roses—Provence, fawn, and China rose. A few other varieties of blossoms thrived here as well.
“I’m lingering too long downstairs,” Cherry realized. Yet she could not resist stopping a few more seconds to breathe in the delicious fragrance of the roses and the silver spray.
The happy memory of a recent afternoon returned to her, as she started on her way back upstairs. Dr. Alan had taken her and Lisette for a drive in the beautiful weather, and the two girls had steered the conversation around to local gardens. Because the silver spray was rare, Lisette discussed visiting neighbors’ gardens in search of more of this flower. Alan had no idea why the two girls were so interested in flowers and gardens, but, having lived here all his life, he drove them to the minister’s garden. There they saw a little silver lace bush. The Reverend Mr. Dixon, Alan had said, was about the only person he knew of who still fancied it and cultivated it. Lisette was all for ringing the doorbell and begging for a promise of some in season, but Alan gave her fair warning. The minister was a man of formidable attainment and, as Dr. Dixon was retired, he did not look kindly on casual visitors. So the three young people had driven past. All of this flashed through Cherry’s mind in an instant as she ran up the stairs.
“We’ll find some more silver lace somewhere, yet,” she thought blithely. “It’s only a question of patience and—”
The wide-open infirmary door gave her a jolt. Usually it stood ajar. She hurried in to find Mrs. Harrison standing in the deserted infirmary, extremely annoyed.
“Where have you been, Miss Ames? What are you thinking of, to leave the infirmary unattended and no one notified to relieve you?”
Oh, dear! Mrs. Harrison had called her Miss Ames—a bad sign. She could not very well tell the headmistress the inexcusable truth.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harrison. I went downstairs for a few minutes.”
“For twenty minutes, because I have been waiting here for twenty minutes. Couldn’t you have sent someone on your errand? And why is there not an essential remedy like aspirin in this medicine chest?”
Only then did Cherry notice that the medicine chest stood open and that Mrs. Harrison had removed several bottles in her fruitless search for aspirin.
“No aspirin? But I thought—” Cherry searched frantically through the medicine chest and did find the aspirin. Apparently Mrs. Harrison had a bad headache and apparently it had caused her to overlook the right bottle.
“I’m extremely sorry you had to wait, Mrs. Harrison. Here you are,” she added, giving her a tablet and a tumbler of water. “Is there anything further I can do for you?”
Mrs. Harrison swallowed the aspirin and said severely, “What you can do for me, Miss Ames, is stay on duty and not go wandering off. I expect you to behave more responsibly than the schoolgirls, you know.”
Cherry bit her lip. If only she could tell the headmistress why she had run down to the garden, surely Mrs. Harrison would understand. But Lisette thought not. Well, she was bound by her promise not to tell, and as a result Mrs. Harrison thought the nurse had been negligent.
“Why, oh, why, have I such a talent for getting into trouble with the powers-that-be?” Cherry wondered. She watched Mrs. Harrison’s straight, retreating back. “Now that she has an eye on me, more or less, all I need is to be discovered doing some midnight prowling. Then I’ll really be in trouble.”
She and Lisette would have to be very careful from now on. If they were caught, they both might be sent home. Cherry told the girl so that evening when they met after dinner.
“Perhaps,” said Cherry, “we ought to drop our search altogether for a few days. At least until Mrs. Harrison is feeling better and in a good humor again.”
“No, Cherry, no! The search can’t wait. We’ve got to go right ahead this evening.”
“Well, I do have a fresh idea about that diamond-shaped window—”
Cherry waited to tell Lisette in the comparative privacy of the infirmary at nine o’clock. “Lights out” was at ten, so they had only an hour. Cherry had rearranged the medicine chest and put it in apple pie order earlier in the evening. She felt she had earned the right to spend time now to talk with Lisette.
“About the window—I checked from the garden and you’ll be amazed where I suspect it is,” Cherry said.
“Don’t keep me waiting like this!”
“I think the missing window is in the supply closet.”
“Hmm. Frankly, Cherry, I don’t understand. Maybe I’m not as quick as you are—anyway, I’m not as old as you are.”
Cherry laughed and linked her arm through Lisette’s.
“It’s simple, my dear Watson. I mean, it’s elementary. Follow closely. The journal says, doesn’t it, that on the day your great-grandfather was away from the chateau, some place in his room was plastered over? Let’s assume for the moment that the infirmary was his room, since it’s the biggest bedroom in the house. Now, then! You and I have been looking for his medicine cupboard, knowing it was plastered over. We’ve been searching for a small area, but we could be wrong.”
“I can’t follow you, my dear Sherlock Holmes.”
“Listen. Couldn’t a whole end of the closet have been plastered over?”
“But why would anyone want to plaster over an inside wall of the closet?” Lisette objected.
“To clean up and modernize, to cover an old, cracked wall. Didn’t Pierre’s son and daughter in law have the plastering and papering done in order to improve the house?”
“Yes,” Lisette said. “There’s a good chance that during this decorating and modernizing they put a brand new bathroom in the chateau, with a new medicine cabinet and all.”
“So that an old fashioned cupboard niche in a closet wouldn’t be needed any longer,” Cherry pointed out.
A light dawned in Lisette’s eyes.
“That’s right. But how about the window? You think it’s at the end of the supply closet, and that end of the closet—”
“—has been sealed off. Plastered over. And I think your great grandfather’s medicine cupboard is—”
“—in the portion of the closet which is sealed off! Cherry, you’re terrific!”
“We hope. Let’s test it out!”
Both girls rushed to the eight foot long closet, went in, and, facing toward the garden, tapped on what was presumably the outside wall of the house. But instead of the solid sound they were used to hearing, back came a hollow echo. Cherry also thought she heard a faint tinkle, like the movement of crumbs of plaster. A false wall—
“That’s the place!” Lisette shouted, then held both hands over her mouth.
“It may be the place,” Cherry said coolly. Her heart was thumping, though. “A simple test is to measure.”
She measured the outside wall of the closet: it was eight feet long. She measured the inside wall of the closet: it was seven feet three inches long. Nine inches were unaccounted for, and that was sufficient space to accommodate the door of a wall niche.
But how were they to penetrate to the other side of the plaster barrier? It would mean chiseling or removing that plaster.
“Dr. Alan!” Cherry exclaimed. “He said to let him do any heavy work for me. And removing plaster certainly is heavy work!”