narrow, and comparatively low; the latticed windows were sunk several feet
into the massive walls; lengths of brownish-green and yellow tapestry,
none the fresher for its two centuries and more of existence, still
protested against the modern heresy of wallpaper; and in a panel-frame
over the fireplace was seen the portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of the
Jacobite baronet. It was a half-length, in officer's uniform; one hand
holding the hilt of a sword against the breast, while the forefinger of
the other hand pointed diagonally downward, as much as to say, "I vanished
in that direction!" The fireplace, it should be noted, was built on the
side of the room opposite to the windows; that is to say, in one of the
partition walls. And what was on the other side of this partition? Not the
large chamber opening into the corridor--that lay at right angles to the
east chamber, along the southern front of the wing. Not the corridor
either, though it ran for some distance parallel to the east chamber, and
had a door on the east side. But this door led into a great dark closet,
as big as an ordinary room, and used as a receptacle for rubbish. Was it
the dark closet, then, that adjoined the east chamber on the other side of
the partition? No, once more. Had a window been opened through the closet
wall, it would have looked--not into Archibald's room, but--into a narrow
blind court or well, entirely enclosed between four stone walls, and of no
apparent use, save as a somewhat clumsy architectural expedient. There was
no present way of getting into this well, or even of looking into it,
unless one had been at the pains to mount on the roof of the house and
peer down. As a matter of fact, its existence was only made known by the
reports of an occasional workman engaged in renewing the tiles, or mending
a decayed chimney. An accurate survey of the building would, of course,
have revealed it at once; but nothing of the kind had been thought of
within the memory of man. Such a survey would also have revealed what no
one in the least suspected, but which was, nevertheless, a fact of
startling significance--namely, that the blind court was, at least,