d to a lock.

He passed the light round the edges of the drawer. If there was no lock
to fasten it why had he been unable to open it? He took out his penknife
and tried to push the blade into the surrounding space. It would not
penetrate, and he saw that there was no space, but merely a cut half
an inch deep in the wood. There was no drawer. What seemed a drawer was
merely a blind panel.

Inspector Willis grew more and more interested. He could not see why all
that space should be wasted, as it was clear from the way in which the
wardrobe was finished that economy in construction had not been the
motive.

Once again he opened the door of the upper portion, and putting his head
inside passed the beam of the lamp over the floor. This time he gave a
little snort of triumph. The floor did not fit tight to the sides. All
round was a space of some eighth of an inch.

"The trap-door at last," he muttered, as he began to feel about for some
hidden spring. At last, pressing down on one end of the floor, he found
that it sank and the other end rose in the air, revealing a square
of inky blackness out of which poured a stream of cold, damp air, and
through which he could hear, with the echoing sound peculiar to vaults,
the splashing and churning of the sea.

His torch revealed a flight of steps leading down into the darkness.
Having examined the pivoted floor to make sure there was no secret catch
which could fasten and imprison him below, he stepped on to the ladder
and began to descend. Then the significance of the mortice lock in the
wardrobe door occurred to him, and he stopped, drew the door to behind
him, and with his wire locked it. Descending farther he allowed the
floor to drop gently into place above his head, thus leaving no trace of
his passage.

He had by this time reached the ground, and he stood flashing his torch
about on his surroundings. He was in a cellar, so low in the roof that
except immediately beneath the stairs he could not stand upright. It was
square, some twelve feet either way, and from it issued two passages,
one apparently running down under the wharf, the other at right angles
and some two feet lower in level, leading as if towards the distillery.
Down the center of this latter ran a tiny tramway of about a foot gauge,
on which stood three kegs on four-wheeled frames. In the upper side
of each keg was fixed a tun-dish, to the under side a stop-cock. Two
insulated wires came down through the c