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