Ernest Hornung - Witching Hill

"There are two things I must tell you for your comfort," said the incorrigible Uvo as we lifted one Dutch chair from the hole it covered like a hatchway, but left the other pressed down over the heap of earth. "In the first place, both my mother and sister have front rooms, so they won't hear or bother about us again. The other thing's only that I've been back to the Free Library in what the simple inhabitants still insist on calling the Village, and had another look into those annals of old Witching Hill. I can find no mention whatever of any subterranean passage. I shouldn't wonder if good Sir Chris had never heard of it in his life. In that case we shall rush in where neither man nor beast has trodden for a hundred and fifty years."

We lit our candles down the shaft, and then I drew the Dutch chair over the hole again on Delavoye's suggestion; he was certainly full of resource, and I was only too glad to play the practical man with my reach and strength. If he had been less impetuous and headstrong, we should have made a strong pair of adventurers. In the tunnel he would go first, for instance, much against my wish; but, as he put it, if the foul air knocked him down I could carry him out under one arm, whereas he would have to leave me to die in my tracks. So he chattered as we crept on and on, flinging monstrous shadows into the arch behind us, and lighting up every patch of filth ahead; for the long-drawn vault was bearded with stalactites of crusted slime; but no living creature fled before us; we alone breathed the impure air, encouraged by our candles, which lit us far beyond the place where my match had been extinguished and deeper and deeper yet without a flicker.

Then in the same second they both went out, at a point where the overhead excrescences made it difficult to stand upright. And there we were, like motes in a tube of lamp-black; for it was a darkness as palpable as fog. But my leader had a reassuring explanation on the tip of his sanguine tongue.

"It's because we stooped down," said he. "Strike a match on the roof if it's dry enough. There! What did I tell you? The dregs of the air settle down like other dregs. Hold on a bit! I believe we're under the house, and that's why the arch is dry."

We continued our advance with instinctive stealth, now blackening the roof with our candles as we went, and soon and sure enough the old tube ended in a wad of brick and timber.

In the brickwork was a recessed square, shrouded in cobwebs which perished at a sweep of Delavoye's candle; a wooden shutter closed the aperture, and I had just a glimpse of an oval knob, green with verdigris, when my companion gave it a twist and the shutter sprang open at the base. I held it up while he crept through with his candle, and then I followed him with mine into the queerest chamber I had ever seen.

It was some fifteen feet square, with a rough parquet floor and panelled walls and ceiling. All the woodwork seemed to me old oak, and reflected our naked lights on every side in a way that bespoke attention; and there was a tell-tale set of folding steps under an ominous square in the ceiling, but no visible break in the four walls, nor yet another piece of movable furniture. In one corner, however, stood a great stack of cigar boxes whose agreeable aroma was musk and frankincense after the penetrating humours of the tunnel. This much we had noted when we made our first startling discovery. The panel by which we had entered had shut again behind us; the noise it must have made had escaped us in our excitement; there was nothing to show which panel it had been – no semblance of a knob on this side – and soon we were not even agreed as to the wall.

Uvo Delavoye had enough to say at most moments, but now he was a man of action only, and I copied his proceedings without a word. Panel after panel he rapped and sounded like any doctor, even through his fingers to make less noise! I took the next wall, and it was I who first detected a hollow note. I whispered my suspicion; he joined me, and was convinced; so there we stood cheek by jowl, each with a guttering candle in one hand, while the other felt the panel and pressed the knots. And a knot it was that yielded under my companion's thumb. But the panel that opened inwards was not our panel at all; instead of our earthy tunnel, we looked into a shallow cupboard, with a little old dirty bundle lying alone in the dust of ages. Delavoye picked it up gingerly, but at once I saw him weighing his handful in surprise, and with one accord we sat down to examine it, sticking our candles on the floor between us in their own grease.

"Lace," muttered Uvo, "and something in it."

The outer folds came to shreds in his fingers; a little deeper the lace grew firmer, and presently he was paying it out to me in fragile hanks. I believe it was a single flounce, though yards in length. Delavoye afterwards looked up the subject, characteristically, and declared it Point de Venise; from what I can remember of its exquisite workmanship, in monogram, coronet, and imperial emblems, I can believe with him that the diamond buckle to which he came at last was less precious than its wrapping. But by that time we were not thinking of their value; we were screwing up our faces over a dark coagulation which caused the last yard or so to break off in bits.

"Lace and blood and diamonds!" said Delavoye, bending over the relics in grim absorption. "Could the priceless old sinner have left us a more delightful legacy?"

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked rather nervously at that. They had not been left to us. They ought surely to be delivered to their rightful owner.

"But who does own them?" asked Delavoye. "Is it the worthy plutocrat who's bought the show and all that in it is, or is it my own venerable kith and kin? They wouldn't thank us for taking these rather dirty coals to Newcastle. They might refuse delivery, or this old boy might claim his mining rights, and where should we come in then? No, Gillon, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but as a twig of the old tree I mean to take the law into my own hands" – I held my breath – "and put these things back exactly where we found them. Then we'll leave everything in plumb order, and finish up by filling in that hole in our lawn – if ever we get out of this one."

But small doubt on the point was implied in his buoyant tone; the way through the panel just broached argued a similar catch in the one we sought; meanwhile we closed up the other with much relief on my side and an honest groan from Delavoye. It was sufficiently obvious that Sir Christopher Stainsby had discovered neither the secret subway nor the secret repository which we had penetrated by pure chance; on the other hand, he made use of the chamber leading to both as a cigar cellar, and had it kept in better order than such a purpose required. Sooner or later somebody would touch a spring, and one discovery would lead to another. So we consoled each other as we resumed our search, almost forgetting that we ourselves might be discovered first.

It was in a providential pause, broken only to my ear by our quiet movements, that Delavoye dabbed a quick hand on my candle and doused his own against the wall. Without a whisper he drew me downward, and there we cowered in throbbing darkness, but still not a sound that I could hear outside my skin. Then the floor above opened a lighted mouth with a gilded roof; black legs swung before our noses, found the step-ladder and came running down. The cigars were on the opposite side. The man knew all about them, found the right box without a light, and turned to go running up.

Now he must see us, as we saw him and his smooth, smug, flunkey's face to the whites of its upturned eyes! My fists were clenched – and often I wonder what I meant to do. What I did was to fall forward upon oozing palms as the trap-door was let down with a bang.