Chapter XIX: Dot’s Discovery

Beyond a low moan and a gasp Ruth uttered no sound when she saw her dearest friend, Luke Shepard, fall in the dimly lighted cellar, struck down, as he was, by the hand of some one unknown. She and Neale darted forward at the same time to go to the rescue.

It was after this first involuntary rush to help Luke that Neale bethought himself that caution might be needed, so he put out a hand to hold Ruth back and said:

“Maybe we’d better wait a moment.”

“Wait? And with Luke hurt? No, never!” cried Ruth. She would have proceeded alone to the spot where Luke was stretched out insensible but that Neale, resolving to fling caution to the winds, hastened ahead of her.

There was no sound in the cellar now save the noise made by Ruth and Neale, and they saw no dim forms flitting about. Luke was lying alone, strangely and ominously quiet.

Outside the rain was still pelting down, though the lightning and thunder was less, but the storm was keeping up.

“Luke! Luke!” called Neale, as he neared the prostrate body of the young collegian. “Are you much hurt?”

There was no answer, but in the kitchen over his head Neale could hear Agnes, Nalbro and Hal moving about uneasily as they caught the sound of his voice.

“Some one struck him with a club,” murmured Ruth. “Did you see it, Neale?”

“Yes, I saw. We must try to catch the man who did it. He’ll try to get out the rear door, I think.”

“Oh, if he does, we——”

“Let him go!” broke in Neale. “We’ve got to look after Luke.”

By this time those waiting in the kitchen had sensed that something was wrong, for Hal called:

“What’s going on down there? Want any help? We heard a cry——”

“Yes, you’d better come down,” answered Neale. “Just you, Hal. Leave the girls up there. Luke’s been hurt and——”

“We won’t stay up here!” cried Nalbro. “We’re all coming down.”

“You’ll only be in the way!” snapped back Neale, speaking more sharply than he intended to, as he wanted to impress the girls. “We have to carry Luke up the stairs. Don’t crowd down. Come on, Hal!”

By this time Neale and Ruth had reached Luke’s side. The flashlight he carried was still glowing on the cellar floor at his side. By the gleam of this, and by the glimmer of his own torch, Neale saw that Luke bore no apparent injury.

“Luke, old man, do you know us?” called Neale, bending over the form of his friend and gently shaking him. “We’re here with you—Ruth and Neale.”

Ruth had taken Luke’s listless head into her lap, and was smoothing back the hair from the forehead. Then a big bruise was visible.

“That’s where he was hit,” she whispered.

“Yes,” assented Neale.

By this time Hal had reached the scene and he and Neale lifted Luke up, intending to carry him to the kitchen. But now he opened his eyes and said weakly:

“I’m all right. Just a bit stunned—for a—minute. Did you—get—those—fellows?”

“What fellows?” asked Hal quickly, looking about the cellar.

“Some man with a club struck Luke down,” explained Neale. “We just saw it—that’s all.”

Luke’s brain, momentarily stunned by the blow, was rapidly clearing. He was firmer on his feet.

“See that those fellows don’t get out!” he gasped. “Guard the back door, boys, and then telephone for the police!”

“We’re going to take care of you first!” insisted Neale. “We’ll get you upstairs and then we’ll look after these fellows. I fancy they have gotten away, anyhow. They wouldn’t stay after striking you.”

This seemed to be the case, for when Luke had been assisted upstairs and when Neale and Hal, with Uncle Rufus’ help, had made an investigation in the cellar no trace of the man who had struck the collegian could be found.

“He must have slipped around past us and gotten out of the back door when Ruth and I were going to Luke,” said Neale.

Luke was found not to be badly hurt. He had received only a glancing blow on the side of the head with a wooden club. Had the full force of the blow fallen, serious consequences might have resulted. But, as it was, the blow had little more than a temporary stunning effect.

“Though I expect you’ll have a fierce headache in the morning,” prophesied Neale.

“If it isn’t anything worse than that I ought to be thankful,” Luke remarked.

“Tell us all about it,” suggested Hal.

But before this there had been the suggestion on the part of the girls that the police be sent for, and an effort had been made to communicate with police headquarters. However, the telephone seemed to be out of order, only a strange crackling and buzzing sound resulting when the receiver was taken down. Then Luke had said:

“Don’t call in the police!”

“Why not?” asked Hal.

“Because it will only bring unpleasant notoriety to the Corner House. Let’s solve this mystery ourselves.”

“It’s a mystery all right!” declared Neale.

“Yes,” gravely assented Luke, “it is a mystery. The police couldn’t get here now in time to do anything, and what evidence is left we can look at as well as they. Since the telephone doesn’t work don’t bother with the police.”

“I could go out and telephone,” offered Neale.

“No, let it go. In the morning we’ll take a look ourselves,” decided Ruth.

And so it was arranged. Then, after some witch-hazel had been rubbed by Ruth on the bump on Luke’s head, he told his story:

“You know the first part of it as well as I do,” he said to his friends gathered around him at this midnight session in the Corner House. “I was going along carefully, looking for any sign of intruders, when, all at once, I saw what I thought was a shadow moving.

“It was near one of the brick pillars that hold the floor beams, and I know now the shadow must have been caused by a man who was hiding behind this pillar, though I didn’t realize this at the time.

“I kept on going. Then I saw another flashlight—I mean another than yours and mine, Neale—and a moment later I saw a club raised in the air. Before I could think that it was raised to come down on my head it came down, and I don’t remember anything more except that it got black all of a sudden.”

“Did you think you were struck by lightning?” asked Hal.

“I don’t know what I did think. But what did you and Ruth see, Neale?”

“Not much more than you did, old man. We saw the shadow of the club and a man’s arm raised to strike you. But before we could do a thing—or even call out a warning—it was all over.”

“The question—or at least one of them—” said Hal, “is what became of the man or men who attacked Luke? Where did they go?”

“They must have slipped past Ruth and me and gotten out the rear outside cellar door,” suggested Neale.

“I’m sure no one passed us,” asserted Ruth.

“Then the only other way they could have gotten out would be to have come up into the kitchen,” declared Neale.

“And I know they didn’t do that!” said Agnes.

“Is there any entrance to your cellar that isn’t much used—a side door or anything?” asked Luke, turning to Ruth.

“None that I know of,” she answered. “Perhaps Uncle Rufus might know.”

“’Deed, missie, I doan know ob any,” declared the colored man. “De back do’ an’ de one from de kitchen—das all.”

“Well, we’ll look into it in the morning,” murmured Luke, wearily passing his hand over his head, which was now aching severely.

“You must get right to bed,” declared Ruth. “Indeed, I’m not sure but what I’d better send for Dr. Forsyth.”

“No, don’t,” begged Luke. “I’ll be all right in the morning.”

“It seems silly, I suppose, but I’m almost afraid to go to bed,” said Nalbro, with a little shiver.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Ruth. “All danger is over now, even danger from the storm. And we have the boys here.”

“We’ll stay up on guard,” offered Hal.

“There will be no need,” decided Ruth.

“But with the telephone out of order—” began Nalbro.

“Perhaps it’s all right now,” suggested Neale. “I’ll try it.”

Somewhat to the surprise of all of them, Central answered promptly, asking Neale “what number?”

“I just wanted to see if the machine would go,” he explained, talking rather as if it were an automobile instead of a telephone. “It was out of order a little while ago,” he added.

“Yes, a number were, on account of the storm,” the operator explained.

“Well, with the telephone in order we can go to bed, I guess,” Agnes remarked. “Though I would like to know who rang our front doorbell and ran away.”

“Perhaps the lightning did that, too,” said Luke, with a somewhat wan smile.

“Maybe,” agreed Ruth. “And now don’t talk any more, Luke; get up to bed. Uncle Rufus will help you.”

“Oh, I’m not as much knocked out as all that, Ruth.”

But he was weaker than he thought and staggered a bit as he started for the stairs, so he was rather glad of the assisting arm of the old colored servant.

Gradually the wonted silence of the night settled over the Corner House and there was peace and quietness following the outburst of the storm and the other disturbances. But to Ruth, sleepless for a long time, it seemed that some strange mystery overshadowed the old mansion which overlooked the Milton Parade Ground.

In the morning Luke was almost himself again, and soon after breakfast he proposed an examination of the cellar. Sammy and the younger girls were told only as much of the affairs of the night before as would explain why the others were so interested in searching the basement.

“Are you looking for the treasure?” asked Dot.

“No, just for traces of two tramps who got in here during the storm last night, my dear,” explained Ruth.

“We’ll help,” offered Tess, and at intervals the younger Corner House girls poked into the dark corners of the cellar.

The investigations of any of them amounted to nothing. Beyond a few places where the dirt cellar bottom appeared to have been dug up—and it was not certain but what Sammy and the little girls had done this—there was nothing unusual to be seen.

“Not even a secret door,” lamented Neale, who rather hoped to find this.

“I guess the man who struck Luke was just a tramp who came into the cellar to get out of the rain,” suggested Hal. “And when he thought he was going to be caught he struck out and ran.”

It seemed this explanation was the only one that would hold.

“But there is still Hop Wong to be accounted for,” observed Agnes.

“He’s a faker, pure and simple,” declared Luke.

“Maybe—and maybe not,” returned the flyaway sister glibly.

At this moment Dot, who had persuaded Sammy to let her take the precious cigar-box lantern, went into a far and dark corner of the cellar to make further search. Suddenly an excited cry came from her.

“Oh, I’ve found something! I’ve found it! Come quick! Look!” shrieked the littlest Corner House girl.