Nan darted behind this screen of boxes, the doll in her arms. She slipped on something in the dark passage and was flung with considerable force against the plank partition. To her amazement and alarm, a narrow section of the partition moved out, dropping downward and outward from the top, as though it were hinged at the bottom.
This narrow door was weighted, so it could not fall abruptly. Nan was flung sprawling upon it, and lay there with her doll, as the shutter dropped quietly to a horizontal position.
She knew she lay over some deep cistern, or the like, and that the plank door bridged it. It was pitch-dark behind the partition and a sour, damp smell, like the odor of an old brewing cellar, rose to her nostrils. Nan Sherwood, startled as she was, uttered no outcry.
As Nan lay on the secret drawbridge, she heard a stealthy footstep on the cement floor of the trunk-room. The step was light, and, plainly, there was but one person approaching. It must be one of the girls. Certainly it could not be Mrs. Cupp, for she was heavy-footed. Nan wished she had not been so foolish as to run, for she was really frightened because of her position over the old cistern. If the intruder was only one of the other girls, coming to open a trunk, she could easily have hidden the doll behind the boxes and waited until the girl had gone up stairs again before putting Beautiful Beulah properly away in her nest.
In a few minutes Nan sat up and began to creep off the dropped door. As her weight was gradually removed from it, the weights began to raise the door into its usual position. There must have been some secret fastening to hold the door shut, that was broken when Nan's weight was cast against the plank wall.
Her fall had been just at the right place to start the door swinging downward. Now, when she carefully stepped away from the partition, having risen to her full height, the secret door swung up and closed tightly. She could not feel its edge on either side with her fingers.
But that was not what she was most interested in just then. The secret door puzzled her, but the step in the cellar impressed Nan as being of more importance. She peered around the tiers of boxes to see the other girl.