New Nick Carter Weekly, No. 8 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Vong a 4 NEW NICK CARTER WEEKLY. fied himself that there was a hollow place at about the middle. ‘“'That’s where that door opens,’’ he said to himself. ‘‘Now, if I’m right, I must be careful to open that door by the spring and not break it open.”’ His thought was that the conspirators had used that secret well and door as a means of escape. - It was only suspicion on his part, but he knew that intelligent crooks are gen- erally very careful in the way they fix up such)matters. He feared that if he should burst in the wall at the spot where the secret door was he would ruin the mechanism so that his further progress would be obstructed. Accordingly he began to search along the wall for the spring by which the se- eret door-shad been opened. It was growing dark then, and inside the house it was too dark to see clearly. Accordingly he lighted-a candle. - With thisin his hand he approached the wall, when right on a level with his face he saw a spot upon the pattern of the wall paper that seemed suggestive. He set down the candle and put his. thuinb hard upon that spot. Nothing happened, and for a moment he stood there wondering whether that spot might be placed there for the very purpose of deceiving an investigator. He tried to s¢ée whether there were any other spots upon the wall paper near this that could conceal the spring. ‘‘Sometimes,’’ he said to himself, ‘‘they make a spot like that and then put their hand a certain number of inches to the tight or left, as the case may be, to find the real spring.’’ He experimented on this line, touch- ing the wall in various places without re- sults... & : At last, with some impatience, he stepped close to the wall and placed his thumb hard once more upon the spot he had first seen. Then, to his surprise and satisfaction, the panel door opened. _ He at once realized a part of the secret that had escaped him before. : The spot on the wall covered the real spring, but it was so fixed that it would not work unless a similar spring in the floor were pressed. | a ss It was a bre ton. The The first time he touched the spot he|had been tly by violence, : ee 3 2 ae ee Ye Se Ce BE gs i gern ge - ET : 3 es me - : ae th oats Saar ge - _ ee 7 Sa we « a LA 2 > | = = - Ee ee ee : micbooks.com — : y 5 — nteto (ie - Se AS a ee _*. r. f ie x =r ba 3. \ PS BF : x ri ae Sa eR a ia a. or or 2S aes oe eile =. Se. Se See. had not happened to stand so that his feet pressed the floor spring. The second time both were pressed together, with the result that the wall-opened. ‘‘Now then,’’ thought Trim, ‘‘I must go carefully.’’ He picked up his candle again and _ cautiously approached the open door. Arrived at the edge, he stopped in amazement. Instead of the open well that he had seen when his highness opened the door, there was an ordinary floor such as would be seen in any closet. Trim knelt down and pressed his hands upon it. It did notyield. Then he tried his whole weight upon it. It was appar- ently as solid as any other part of the floor. He stepped back into the middle of the room and thoughtfully sat down in tlie chair from which he had watched his highness open and close the door. Sitting in the chair, he could plainly see the floor within the opening. ‘“‘Now, then,’’ he concluded, ‘‘there’s a meaning in that, and I’ve got to find out what it is. ‘“When-I looked in there before I could not see any floor. ‘Now I can see one. ‘‘t reckon that means that Schruggs and his highness are either concealed be- low that floor or have made their way from the house by means of a passage un- der it. ‘The question is, would it do to smash that floor open with an ax or will it be better to work it by the secret spring, provided there is one?’’ , CHAPTER I. A TURN IN THE PASSAGE. Trim knelt upon the floor and moved his candle about from side to side, look-— ing for any sign of a spring. 3 It struck him that as the spring that worked the panel door.was so easily found, it would be probable that the arrange- ment for the trap would be quite as plain. He found nothing on the floor that it | seemed worth while to experiment with, — but he found something else that inter- ested him so much that he gave search for the secret spring to exa up his _