absurdity in being baffled, but Peter couldn't find the spring. He
thumped and sounded, he listened and measured again; he inspected
every joint and crevice, with the effect of becoming surer still of
the existence of a chamber and of making up his mind that his
davenport was a rarity. Not only was there a compartment between the
two backs, but there was distinctly something IN the compartment!
Perhaps it was a lost manuscript--a nice, safe, old-fashioned story
that Mr. Locket wouldn't object to. Peter returned to the charge,
for it had occurred to him that he had perhaps not sufficiently
visited the small drawers, of which, in two vertical rows, there were
six in number, of different sizes, inserted sideways into that
portion of the structure which formed part of the support of the
desk. He took them out again and examined more minutely the
condition of their sockets, with the happy result of discovering at
last, in the place into which the third on the left-hand row was
fitted, a small sliding panel. Behind the panel was a spring, like a
flat button, which yielded with a click when he pressed it and which
instantly produced a loosening of one of the pieces of the shelf
forming the highest part of the davenport--pieces adjusted to each
other with the most deceptive closeness.

This particular piece proved to be, in its turn, a sliding panel,
which, when pushed, revealed the existence of a smaller receptacle, a
narrow, oblong box, in the false back. Its capacity was limited, but
if it couldn't hold many things it might hold precious ones. Baron,
in presence of the ingenuity with which it had been dissimulated,
immediately felt that, but for the odd chance of little Sidney
Ryves's having hammered on the outside at the moment he himself
happened to have his head in the desk, he might have remained for
years without suspicion of it. This apparently would have been a