The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

of the stairs Satan sat, his eyes upon the landing windows. Val reached out his hands for him, but in that single instant Satan was gone. A black tail disappeared around the door of the Jackson room.
    “Oh, dear, I hope he isn’t going to get on that bed.” Ricky opened the door wider. “No, there he goes under instead of on it. Can you see him, Val?”
    Her brother crouched and lifted the edge of the brocaded cover which swept to the floor. To Val’s surprise a thin line of light showed along the wall at the head of the bed.
    “Ricky, look behind the head of the bed! Is it fast against the wall?”
    She started to the tall canopied head and pulled the faded fabrics away from the paneling. “No, there’s about two feet here at the bottom. It doesn’t show because the canopy covers it. And, Val, there’s an opening here! Satan’s trying to get through!”
    “We need a flashlight.”
    “I’ll get Rupert’s. Val, promise not to go in—if it is a door—until I come back!”
    “Of course; but hurry.”
    The flashlight revealed a wide panel which slid upward. Time and damp had warped the wood so that it no longer fitted snugly to the floor as the builder had intended. But the same warping made the door defy their efforts to raise it any higher. At last, by prying and pounding, they got it up perhaps a yard from the floor. Satan slipped through and they followed on hands and knees.
    They crawled into a small room lighted by two round windows set like eyes in the side wall. More than three-quarters of the space was filled with furniture and boxes wrapped in tarred canvas. The choking dust and general mustiness of the long-closed apartment drove Val to investigate the window fastenings and throw them open to the morning air.
    “There must be another door somewhere,” he said, calling Ricky away from a box where she was picking at the knotted rope which bound it. “All these things couldn’t have been brought through that hole behind the bed.”
    “Here it is,” she said a moment later, pointing to an oblong set flush with the wall. “It’s bolted on this side.”
    “Let me open it and see where we are.” Val fumbled at the rusty latch, but he had to use an iron poker from a discarded fire stand in the corner before he could hammer it back. Again the door resisted their efforts to push it open until Val flung his full weight against it. With a snapping report it swung open and he sprawled forward into the short hall which had once led into the garden wing, an ell of the house destroyed by roving British raiders during the days of 1815. The only wholly wooden portion of the house, it had been burnt and never rebuilt.
    “Come on,” Ricky pulled at Val’s sleeve, “let’s explore.”
    He looked at his black hands. “I would suggest some soap and water, several brooms, and some dusting cloths if we’re going to do it right. Better make a regular house-cleaning party of it.”
    “Goodness, what have I strayed into?” Charity Biglow stood in the lower hall staring at the younger Ralestones as they came through from the kitchen. They had both changed into their oldest and least respectable clothes. Ricky, in fact, was wearing a pair of Val’s slacks and one of Rupert’s shirts, and they were burdened with a broom which was long past its youth, several smaller brushes, and a great bundle of floor-cloths.
    “We’ve found a secret room—” began Ricky.
    “As one door has been in plain sight since the building of this house, it could hardly be called a secret room,” Val objected.
    “Well, we didn’t know it was there until Satan found the back entrance for us. And now we’re going to clean it out. It’s full of furniture and boxes and things.”
    “Don’t!” Charity held up a paint-streaked hand. “You will have me drooling in a moment. I don’t suppose you could use another assistant? After all, it was my cat who found it for you. If you can provide me with a set of those weird coverings which seem to be your house-cleaning uniforms, I would just love to wield a broom in your company.”
    “The more the merrier,” laughed Ricky. “I think Val has another pair of slacks—”
    “That’s right, dispose of my wardrobe before my face,” he commented, balancing his load more carefully in preparation for climbing the stairs. “Only spare my white flannels, please. I’m saving those for the occasion when I can play the country gentleman in style.”
    Upstairs he braced open the