Chapter XIX: The Key to the Closet

Agnes was too late to see who it was at the foot of the front stairs. As she craned her head over the railing guarding the gallery above, the person with the candle went into the dining room.

This mysterious individual must have found the door open. There was no clicking of a latch down there. The figure had glided into the room with the candle, and was immediately out of sight.

"Just as silent as a ghost!" breathed Agnes. "Oh!"

She almost giggled aloud, for she remembered the time when--oh! so very long ago--the Corner House family had been troubled by a ghost in the garret--or, as Dot seemed determined to call it, "a goat."

Ghost or no ghost, Agnes felt that she had to see this thing through. Even a disembodied spirit had no right to go wandering about the old Corner House at night with a lighted bedroom candle in its hand.

She ran lightly downstairs, still sheltering the flame of her own candle with her hand. The dining room door had been pushed quietly to; but it was not latched.

Hiding her candle so that it should not shine through the crack of the door, Agnes pushed the portal open again with her free hand. There was a glimmer of light ahead.

The dining room was a large apartment. The candle in the hand of the unknown made only a blur of light at the far end of the room.

What was the bearer of the candle about? At first Agnes could not discover. The candle was near the door which opened into the hall near the side porch door. Through that hall one could easily reach the dark corner where Neale O'Neil had thrown his satchel when he arrived at the old Corner House that evening.

A number of thoughts were buzzing in Agnes Kenway's brain. In spite of herself she was unable to disconnect thought of Barnabetta Scruggs and the missing book of money and bonds. It might be that the circus girl had descended the stairs and, listening at the sitting room door while Neale was there, had heard what he said about the old book; and so slipped out and stolen the album either just before Neale flung himself out of the house, or just afterward. There would have been time to do so in either case.

If Barnabetta knew nothing about the missing album, why was she creeping about the house at this unearthly hour? The question seemed, to Agnes' mind, to be unanswerable save as the answer fitted the above probabilities.

"But I don't really know that this is Barnabetta," Agnes' excusing self objected.

She did not wish it to be the circus girl. As much as she desired to know what had become of the album, she did not wish to find it in Barnabetta Scruggs' possession.

The candle in the hand of the figure Agnes followed was suddenly raised higher. The Corner House girl jumped and almost uttered a sharp exclamation aloud. Why! Barnabetta was not as tall as that!

This ghostly visitor to the dining room was an adult. She saw its flowing robe now. The candle, held so high, threw the shadow of the head on the wall in sharp relief.

"Her hair's done up in a 'pug' behind," gasped Agnes. "Who can it be? Mrs. MacCall, or--or Aunt Sarah?"

The mysterious person was at the closet built into the brickwork of the chimney-piece, not at the hall door. That closet was a catch-all for all manner of odds and ends. There were shelves up high, as well as a deep bin underneath.

Agnes felt she must know who the person was who was rummaging in the closet, and what she was about. She softly extinguished her own candle, and set it down on the floor in the hall. Then she pushed the door open wider and ventured into the dining room.

"Aunt Sarah!"

Agnes did not utter this ejaculation aloud; but she was completely surprised.

The grim looking old woman was fumbling on the top shelf of the cupboard, and she was muttering to herself in a most exasperated tone.

"Those dratted young ones are into everything!" was Aunt Sarah's complaint. "A body can't find a thing put away as it should be."

She stepped back from the cupboard then. She closed the door with an angry snap, and then stood, meditating.

Agnes had darted around the big table and crouched down. Aunt Sarah half turned from the closet door; then she turned back again.

Was the old lady asleep or awake? Agnes did not know that Aunt Sarah ever walked in her sleep. But she knew that somnambulists did very strange things, and, of course, Aunt Sarah might be a sleep-walker.

Aunt Sarah Maltby proceeded to do a very strange thing now. There was a heavy brass key in the lock of the cupboard door. The old lady suddenly turned the key, locked the door, withdrew the key, and, clutching it tightly in her hand, marched back toward the front hall door.

It was just at this moment that Agnes Kenway was treated to a second surprise. She suddenly realized that there was a third person in the room!

It was because of no movement upon the part of the mysterious third person that Agnes made this exciting discovery. But she heard a quick sigh, or intake of breath, somewhere at the lower end of the room near the pantry door. She thought of Tom Jonah first of all; but then remembered that the old dog had gone out at bedtime and had not come in again.

Most exciting thoughts raced through Agnes Kenway's brain. She had followed Aunt Sarah downstairs and into the dining room. But had Aunt Sarah followed somebody else here, at midnight?

"What under the sun is going on?" was Agnes' muttered comment. "My goodness! I wish Ruth were here. Or Neale!"

The Corner House girl felt very much disturbed indeed. She did not believe in ghosts; but she did believe in burglars!

At that moment all thought of Barnabetta Scruggs went out of Agnes' troubled mind. Aunt Sarah passed out of the dining room door into the front hall and closed the door carefully behind her. This left the great room in perfect darkness.

Agnes was actually trembling with excitement and fear. She had not thought to be afraid at all until she heard that mysterious sigh. The fact that she had no means of identifying the midnight marauder increased her fright.

There it was again--a short intake of breath! Somebody was surely hiding at the lower end of the room. Agnes must have come into the room so quietly that the unknown person did not apprehend her presence.

Fearful as she was, Agnes did not move. If her presence was not already discovered she had no intention whatever of revealing it to the unknown.

There was suddenly a faint sound, as of a clumsily shod foot striking against one of the heavy chairs. Agnes could see nothing at first; but she seemed actually to feel the moving presence at the lower end of the room.

There are degrees of darkness just as there are of light. Something darker--or more solid--than the atmosphere of the dining room, passed across the line of Agnes' vision.

The moving figure approached the cupboard in the chimney-place. Agnes knew that the unknown person stood just where Aunt Sarah had stood shortly before.

A tentative hand shook the closet door gently. It rattled; but the old lock was a strong one. Nothing less than a crowbar or a burglar's jimmy could have forced that door.

Evidently the mysterious marauder was not armed with either of these implements. Agnes heard a sigh that was almost a sob! Then she knew that the disappointed unknown had turned hopelessly from the closet door.

Whatever it was this person wanted, Aunt Sarah had locked it up in the cupboard and carried away the key.

Agnes, crouching beyond the table, realized that the visitor glided to the door leading into the back hall. The door was opened. For a single instant the figure was partially revealed in outline to the girl's straining vision.

It was the figure of a man!

Then the door closed on its exit. Agnes sprang to her feet. Had the unknown one not closed the door, he must have heard her then, for Agnes was too excited by her last discovery to be at all careful.

"A man! A man in the house!" thought the terrified girl. And then, remarking a single peculiarity of the mysterious figure, she whispered: "Not a man, but a boy. Goodness! who can it be?"

Quick as a flash Agnes Kenway ran to the door leading into the front hall, by which she had entered. She opened it and slipped into the hall. Neglecting her candle which she had placed on the floor for safety, she crept back toward the darker end of the hall.

There was an "elbow" in the passage behind the front stairway and she could not see beyond this. But she heard a sound--the unmistakable sound of a bolt being drawn.

Was the mysterious visitor at the porch door? Was he leaving the house? And how had he got in?

Agnes waited breathlessly for some further noise. But there was none.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. The seconds were being ticked off in a ghostly fashion by the tall clock behind her.

Agnes crouched in the corner and trembled. Usually she was brave; but the experiences of the last half hour had gotten upon the girl's nerves.

At last she could remain quiet no longer. She stole to the rear of the dark hall--past the sitting room door and beyond leading into the dining room, and through which the boy had passed.

This end of the passage was comparatively narrow. Agnes could be sure that nobody was hiding here, for some light filtered down the back stairway from the floor above.

Before her was the door of the porch. She fumbled for the knob, and found it. She opened the door easily. This was the bolt she had heard drawn.

Here Agnes suffered the very worst scare of the whole adventure. Something cold and wet was thrust against her hand!

She almost screamed aloud. She _would_ have screamed, only the fright of it made her lose her voice. She swung there, clinging to the doorknob, about to fall fainting to the floor, when a bulky object pushed by her and she heard Tom Jonah's whine.

"Oh! You dear, old, foolish, mean, silly thing!" gasped Agnes. "_How_ you scared me. I'll never forgive you, Tom Jonah! But I'm so glad it's only you."

This she whispered, while she hugged the shaggy dog. Tom Jonah had evidently found it too cold for comfort outside the house, and hearing her at the door had come to beg entrance for the night.

She let him into the kitchen and then, as she went back to the door, she was suddenly smitten with this thought:

"If that boy went out of that door, Tom Jonah must have known him!"

The old dog had known him so well that he made no objection to his being about the old Corner House. There was but one boy in the world whom Tom Jonah would allow to do such a thing. That was Neale O'Neil.

The thought gave Agnes Kenway a feeling of dire dismay. She could not understand it. She could not believe it.

Yet she was sure the boy had gone out by this door. But how he had first got into the house was a mystery beyond her divination.

At once she shot the bolt again. Once out, the youthful marauder, whoever he was, should stay out, as far as this particular means of entrance was concerned.

"It couldn't be a real burglar," murmured Agnes, quiveringly. "Oh, Neale! I wouldn't have thought it of you!

"And Aunt Sarah must have scared him when he was at that closet. But, goodness me! what would Neale O'Neil want in that old closet? Nothing there much but medicines on the top shelf and old books and papers. I--don't see--

"_Could_ it be a really, truly burglar, after all? Not one like Dot's plumber, but a real one? And why didn't Tom Jonah bark? Oh, goodness! suppose he hasn't gone out after all?

"Oh! I want to go to bed and cover my head up with blankets!" gasped Agnes. "I want to tell Ruth--but I daren't! Maybe I ought to call everybody and make a search for the burglar. But suppose it _should_ be Neale?"

So she stole up to bed, shaking with nervous dread, yet feeling as though she ought, somehow, to be congratulated. Yet when she had slipped off her robe and was in bed again, two separate and important thoughts assailed her:

Had Barnabetta Scruggs been out of her room? And what had Aunt Sarah Maltby done with the key to the dining room closet?