Archibald Malmaison Page 5

  IV.

  Malmaison House was partly destroyed by fire a number of years ago, [3] andtwo years later the portion still standing was taken down to make way forthe proposed branch of the London and South-Coast Railway. The branch isstill unbuilt, but only some heaps of grass-grown rubbish remain to markthe site of the venerable edifice. But at the period of which I am nowwriting it was an imposing pile of gray-stone, standing on a slightelevation, with a sloping lawn in front, and many large trees surroundingit. The centre and the right wing were of Elizabethan date; the left wingwas constructed by Sir Christopher Wren, or by some architect of hisschool, and, though outwardly corresponding with the rest of the building,was interiorly both more commodious and less massive. The walls of the oldpart were in some places over four feet in thickness, and even thepartitions between the rooms were two feet of solid masonry. Many of therooms were hung with tapestry; and in taking down the house several traceswere discovered of secret passages hollowed out within the wallsthemselves, and communicating by means of sliding panels from room toroom. The plan of the building comprised two floors and an attic; but theattic was not coextensive with the lower areas; and there was often adifference of level between the apartments on the latter floors of fromone to four steps. An irregular corridor on the first floor, badlylighted, and in some places perfectly dark, extended from the centre intothe right wing, affording entrance to the rooms front and back.

  At the end of the right wing was situated the east chamber, of whichmention has already been made. Originally, the only access to it was byway of a larger chamber adjoining, which, again, could only be enteredthrough the dark corridor. This was the condition of things at the time ofthe famous magic disappearance of Sir Charles Malmaison, in 1745. But, atthe beginning of the present century, a door was cut through the outsidewall, whence a covered flight of stone steps led down into an enclosedcourtyard. The room was thus rendered independent, so to speak, of therest of the house. The occupant might lock the door communicating with theadjoining chamber, and go and come by the other as he pleased. As for thecourtyard, part of it had formerly been used as a stable, with stalls forthree horses; these were now transferred to the other end of the mansion,though the stable, of course, remained; and it was necessary to go throughthe stable in order to get to the covered flight of steps.

  It may be remembered that Archibald, in what we may term his soporificperiod, had manifested a strong, although entirely irrational, repugnanceto this east chamber. Perhaps he had been conscious of presences therewhich were imperceptible to normal and healthy senses! Be that as it may,he got bravely over his folly afterward, and in his twelfth year (histhird, Sir Clarence would have called it) he permanently took up hisquarters there, and would admit no "women" except as a special favor. Inthose days, when people were still, more or less, prone to superstition,it was not every boy who would have enjoyed the sensation of spending hisnights in so isolated a situation; for the right wing was almost entirelyunoccupied on this floor. But Archibald appears to have been singularlyfree from fear, whether of the natural or of the supernatural. Hecollected together all his boyish _penates_--his gun, his sword, hisfishing-rods, and his riding-whips, and arranged them about the walls. Heswept down the cobwebs from windows and ceiling; turned out of doors a lotof miscellaneous lumber that had insensibly collected there during thelast half century; lugged in a few comfortable broad-bottomed chairs andstanch old tables; set up a bookshelf containing Walton's "CompleteAngler," "Dialogues of Devils," "Arabian Nights," Miss Burney's "Evelina,"and other equally fashionable and ingenious works; kindled a great fire onthe broad hearth; and, upon the whole, rendered the aspect of things morecomfortable than would have been anticipated. The room itself was long,narrow, and comparatively low; the latticed windows were sunk several feetinto the massive walls; lengths of brownish-green and yellow tapestry,none the fresher for its two centuries and more of existence, stillprotested against the modern heresy of wallpaper; and in a panel-frameover the fireplace was seen the portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of theJacobite baronet. It was a half-length, in officer's uniform; one handholding the hilt of a sword against the breast, while the forefinger ofthe other hand pointed diagonally downward, as much as to say, "I vanishedin that direction!" The fireplace, it should be noted, was built on theside of the room opposite to the windows; that is to say, in one of thepartition walls. And what was on the other side of this partition? Not thelarge chamber opening into the corridor--that lay at right angles to theeast chamber, along the southern front of the wing. Not the corridoreither, though it ran for some distance parallel to the east chamber, andhad a door on the east side. But this door led into a great dark closet,as big as an ordinary room, and used as a receptacle for rubbish. Was itthe dark closet, then, that adjoined the east chamber on the other side ofthe partition? No, once more. Had a window been opened through the closetwall, it would have looked--not into Archibald's room, but--into a narrowblind court or well, entirely enclosed between four stone walls, and of noapparent use, save as a somewhat clumsy architectural expedient. There wasno present way of getting into this well, or even of looking into it,unless one had been at the pains to mount on the roof of the house andpeer down. As a matter of fact, its existence was only made known by thereports of an occasional workman engaged in renewing the tiles, or mendinga decayed chimney. An accurate survey of the building would, of course,have revealed it at once; but nothing of the kind had been thought ofwithin the memory of man. Such a survey would also have revealed what noone in the least suspected, but which was, nevertheless, a fact ofstartling significance--namely, that the blind court was, at least,fifteen feet shorter, and twenty-five feet narrower, _than it ought tohave been_!

  Archibald was as far from suspecting it as anybody; indeed, he most likelynever troubled his head about builders' plans in his life. But he thoughta great deal of his great-grandfather's portrait; and since it was soplaced as to be in view of the most comfortable chair before the fire, hespent many hours of every week gazing at it. What was Sir Charles pointingat with that left forefinger? And what meant that peculiarly intent andslightly frowning glance which the painted eyes forever bent upon his own?Archibald probably had a few of Mrs. Radcliffe's romances along with theother valuable books on his shelves, and he may have cherished a notionthat a treasure, or an important secret of some sort, was concealed in thevicinity. Following down the direction of the pointing finger, he foundthat it intersected the floor at a spot about five feet to the right ofthe side of the fireplace. The floor of the chamber was of solid oakplanking, blackened by age; and it appeared to be no less solid at thispoint than at any other. Nevertheless, he thought it would be good fun,and at all events would do no harm, to cut a hole there, and see what wasunderneath. Accordingly, he quietly procured a saw and a hammer andchisel, and one day, when the family were away from home, he lockedhimself into his room, and went to work. The job was not an easy one, thetough oak wood being almost enough to turn the edge of his chisel, andthere being no purchase at all for the saw. After quarter of an hour'schipping and hammering, with very little result, he paused to rest. Theboard at which he had been working, and which met the wall at rightangles, was very short, not more than eighteen inches long, indeed, beinginserted merely to fill up the gap caused by a deficiency in length of theplank of which it was the continuation. Between the two adjoining ends wasa crack of some width, and into that crack did Archibald idly stick hischisel. It seemed to him that the crack widened, so that he was able topress the blade of the chisel down to its thickest part. He now worked iteagerly backward and forward, and, to his delight, the crack rapidlywidened still further; in fact, the short board was sliding backunderneath the wainscot. A small oblong cavity was thus revealed, intowhich the young discoverer glowered with beating heart and vastanticipations.

  What he found could scarcely be said to do those anticipations justice; itwas neither a casket of precious stones, nor a document establishing thefamily right of ownership of the whole county of Sus
sex. It was nothingmore than a tarnished rod of silver, about nine inches in length, andtwisted into an irregular sort of corkscrew shape. One end terminated in abroad flat button; the other in a blunted point. There was nothing else inthe hole--nothing to show what the rod was meant for, or why it was soingeniously hidden there. And yet, reflected Archibald, could it have beenso hidden, and its place of concealment so mysteriously indicated, withoutany ulterior purpose whatever? It was incredible! Why, the whole portraitwas evidently painted with no other object than that of indicating therod's whereabouts. Either, then, there was or had been something else inthe cavity in addition to the rod, or the rod was intended to be used insome way still unexplained. So much was beyond question.

  Thus cogitated Archibald--that is to say, thus he might have cogitated, forthere is no direct evidence of what passed through his mind. And, in thefirst place, he made an exhaustive examination of the cavity, andconvinced himself not only that there was nothing else except dust to begot out of it, but also that it opened into no other cavity which mightprove more fruitful. His next step was to study the silver rod, in thehope that scrutiny or inspiration might suggest to him what it was goodfor. His pains were rewarded by finding on the flat head the nearlyobliterated figures 3 and 5, inscribed one above the other, in the mannerof a vulgar fraction, thus, 3/5; and by the conviction that the spiralconformation of the rod was not the result of accident, as he had at firstsupposed, but had been communicated to it intentionally, for some purposeunknown. These conclusions naturally stimulated his curiosity more thanever, but nothing came of it. The boy was a clever boy, but he was not adetective trained in this species of research, and the problem was beyondhis ingenuity. He made every application of the figures 3 and 5 thatimagination could suggest; he took them in feet, in inches, in yards; headded them together, and he subtracted one from the other: all in vain.The only thing he did not do was to take any one else into his confidence;he said not a word about the affair even to Kate; being resolved that ifthere were a mystery, it should be revealed, at least in the firstinstance, to no one else besides himself. At length, after several daysspent in fruitless experiments and loss of temper, he returned the rod toits hiding-place, with the determination to give himself a rest forawhile, and see what time and accident would do for him. This plan, thoughundoubtedly prudent, seemed likely to effect no more than the others; andover a year passed away without the rod's being again disturbed. Bydegrees his thoughts ceased to dwell so persistently upon the unsolvedpuzzle, and other interests took possession of his mind. The tragedy ofhis aunt's death, his love for Kate, his studies, his prospects--a hundredthings gave him occupation, until the silver rod was half forgotten.

  In the latter part of 1813, however, he accidentally made a ratherremarkable discovery.