THE IRON BOX
There was no need for silence now. The boys heard a stumble as though someone had crashed over some obstruction. The door behind them was flung open. Swift feet pursued them.
"Hope the door's open!" gasped Porky, as he ran fleetly on up the uneven, winding passage.
In the office above there had been an anxious period. Two members of a staff, even though they are only boys, cannot disappear as though the earth had swallowed them without a suspicion of foul play. When General Pershing received the report, he at once sent couriers and scouts to every station where the boys might have gone. On being questioned, the sentries one and all declared that the two boys had not been seen outside of the building. This resulted in a combing out of every cranny that could possibly hold a boy alive or dead.
The hours dragged on. There was a continual passing to and fro for hours until at last there seemed to be absolutely nothing more to do until morning. The tired staff threw themselves into the office chairs, while the General, at the typewriter, commenced a letter. Out of respect to him, there was a complete silence in the room.
On and on clicked the typewriter while the waiting men dozed or smoked or thought of home.
"What's that?" said one of them suddenly, listening intently.
The General stopped writing and looked at the speaker.
"What's what?" questioned a captain, frowning.
"That tapping," said the first speaker. "Sounds like code."
"You have been asleep," said the captain, grinning.
"I hear it," said the General.
There was a general gathering up of forces, as the whole room tried to place the faint, monotonous tapping.
"The call for help!" said the first speaker triumphantly. "I knew I heard it. The code is my native language almost. It sounds as though some one was calling from below the floor."
"Send an answer, Lieutenant Reed!" ordered the General.
The young officer obeyed, while his hearers listened breathlessly. Tap-tap went the spurred heel, dash and dot, dash and dot in many combinations.
The reply followed swiftly. The Lieutenant, rather pale, turned to the General. "It's the boys!" he reported. "They are together, in a closed chamber,—a dungeon, I take it—right below us. They are in danger. Don't say what. Something about spies and dynamite. Want help instantly."
"How?" asked the General
"There's a secret door in the oak panel in the hall. They gave directions for opening it."
"Go at once, six of you—you six nearest the door!" The officers designated rose.
"Rush!" said Lieutenant Reed crisply. For the moment he was in command. He alone knew how to open the panel. They hurried outside, where Reed felt swiftly but carefully in the place described by Porky. Twice he went over the heavy carving, pushing here and there unavailingly. Then without a sound the secret door opened and before any one could enter the passage that yawned in inky blackness before them, there was a rush of running feet and the two boys, carrying Beany's coat between them, bolted into the hall. Porky made a motion for silence, and listened.
There was no sound.
"Somebody chased us!" he panted. "Somebody was close behind us in the dark!"
"Men?" asked an officer in an excited whisper.
Porky wanted to say "No, sir, rabbits!" but he knew that every one felt nervous and edgy and, besides, he did not want to be disrespectful to the officer who had spoken.
"They came in through the other door," he said. "A door at the other end of the passage that is on the other side of the two big rooms down below there."
"Let's go down," said one of the men, loosening his revolver.
"Please don't try it!" begged Beany. "We could never get down without light and then they would have the drop on us. It's no use now. Besides, they could go out of that outside door without the least trouble after they had shot us all up."
"The kid is right," said Lieutenant Reed. "He knows how the land lies down there. Come up to the General, boys, and make a report. He will tell us what he wants done."
Sliding the panel shut, the Lieutenant called a guard and, leaving the hallway patrolled by a couple of stalwart Americans, the group surrounding the two boys entered the office and saluted the General.
General Pershing bent his serious, keen gaze on the boys, then a bright, sudden smile lighted the strong, handsome face that had grown sad and still in the troubled, anxious months at the front.
"Always up to something, boys," he said. "Well, your friend the Colonel warned me how it would be. Now suppose you tell me all about it."
Beany with a sigh of relief lifted his blouse and deposited it on the table. It struck the surface with a clank and as he pulled the cloth away a regular flood of gold pieces covered the papers where the General had been writing.
"Part of the story, sir," said Beany. And then talking together, or taking turns, as the spirit moved them, the boys pieced out the account of their adventures. The part that Beany kept harking back to was the presence of the prisoners in the big room. He described carefully and accurately the appearance of the young soldier and told as well as he could about the limp, unconscious girl who had been carried out into the dark garden. Beany shuddered as he spoke.
"I am sure the girl was dead, sir. She laid there for hours, I guess, and she never moved at all, never batted an eyelash. And she was white.... I never saw anybody so white. It was as though all her blood had been drained out of her."
"Was she wounded?" asked the General.
"She must have been, sir," answered Beany. "I saw blood, just a little of it running down her wrist under her sleeve. She had nice clothes on, and I had a hunch all the time that I ought to know who she was; but I couldn't tell. Wish we knew what they did with them. When it comes light, General, I can show you just where the door is. I am sure I know where it opens."
"It is light now," said the General, pointing to the window. Every one looked. Sure enough, the whole sky was a mass of pale gold and pink and greenish blue, as lovely and soft and joyous as though the distant rumble of the big guns was not shaking the casement as they spoke. It was light; morning had come.
The General ordered coffee and rolls and insisted on both boys eating something. They were tired and heavy eyed but excited at the thought of unraveling perhaps a little more of the mystery of the past night.
When at last the General dismissed them with a few terse orders, they sped ahead of their escort through the silent garden, fearless and curious and unconscious of the careful marksmen who followed, protecting each foot of their advance.
Beany had spoken the truth. With the sureness of a young hound he took his way through a wilderness of stones and bricks and beams and plaster through the tangled, torn old garden, and round to a spot marked by what seemed to be a clump of dense bushes like low growing lilacs. Approaching this, Beany parted the branches and peered in. Then he drew back with a cry of horror.
"Look!" he whispered.
It was indeed the ambush set over the outside entrance to the dungeons. Down in the depths of the hole that yawned under the encircling bushes something was tumbled in a pitiful, distorted heap. Eagerly a half dozen men leaped down and with careful hands straightened out the two forms lying in the bloody ooze. One after the other they were lifted to the surface.
The man was quite dead but the girl still lived, though breathing feebly.
Placing her on an improvised stretcher, a couple of the men hurried away with her to the hospital while a couple more knelt beside the dead boy and searched carefully through his torn and blood-stained clothing for papers, letters—anything that could be used as clues to his identity. There was not a scrap left to guide them. The young officer's pockets had been turned inside out. Even the hems in his tunic and breeches had been slit and the soles had been torn from his shoes. If there had been papers of any sort secreted about him, they were gone—carried away by the ruthless hands that had slain him.
Leaving a guard beside the body, the others leaped boldly into the shallow pit and lifted the heavy bar which held the massive nail-studded oaken door. It opened inward, and Beany led the way through the passage into the chamber where he had sat bound, gagged and waiting for the relentless hands of the clock to reach the moment of his doom. He showed the device, and then, lighting the stubs of candles, they went into the inner room. The dungeons were dark as midnight, even in the clear morning light.
A careful search was made of the rooms. They stamped on the floors, rapped on the walls with pistol butts, ripped up the silken covers and the thick mattresses, but found nothing. The men finally stopped their search, and gathered in a group around the massive table. Beany, sitting on the edge of the table, jounced up and down and thought that he had never seen a piece of furniture quite so solid. He took out a penknife and tried to whittle the edge but the keen blade scarcely made an impression on the ironwood seasoned for ages. Porky, watching his brother, listened to the conversation.
"Somewhere down here there is a hiding place for papers or money, or perhaps both," said one of the officers, a keen-faced, thoughtful man, studying the room as he could see it in the flickering light of the two candles which, now burned down to the merest stubs, afforded a dim, uncertain light.
"We have given it a pretty thorough combing over," said another officer, frowning.
"I can't help it," stubbornly answered the other. "It is in just such places as this where valuable secrets are often hidden."
"What about the dynamite?" demanded some one else. "It does not seem as though they would hide anything of any value to themselves in a spot that they were willing to blow up."
"A bomb that size would not have wrecked this room. Did you notice the thickness of the walls?"
The talk went on while Beany whittled and pried away industriously at the table edge. He found a crack in the wood and pried his knife blade into that. The blade entered in a tantalizing manner, slipped smoothly along, then struck metal. Beany pushed. Porky, who was watching, came closer and peered down the crack. Beany pushed harder, pushed as hard as he could, and suddenly felt himself flung off the table as the big top flew up and hurled him aside.
Powerful springs had opened the two heavy slabs of oak that formed the table. Two pieces now stood open like a pair of doors and within lay a long, flat box which completely filled the space. The box was of iron, heavily barred and padlocked. Four soldiers pried it from its place and, escorted by the whole party, it was carried to General Pershing, still working at his desk.
Once more the boys had unearthed a mystery.