He was watching us all intently while
Dallas pointed out to me the cause of the excitement. From the
main floor of the furnace room, a flight of stone steps
surmounted by an arch led into the coal cellar, beneath the
street. The coal cellar was of brick, with a cement floor, and in
the left wall there gaped an opening about three feet by three,
leading into a cavernous void, perfectly black--evidently a
similar vault belonging to the next house.
The whole place was ghostly, full of shadows, shivery with
possibilities. It was Mr. Harbison finally who took Jim's candle
and crawled through the aperture. We waited in dead silence,
listening to his feet crunching over the coal beyond, watching
the faint yellow light that came through the ragged opening in
the wall. Then he came back and called through to us.
"Place is locked, over here," he said. "Heavy oak door at the
head of the steps. Whoever made that opening has done a
prodigious amount of labor for nothing."
The weapon, a crowbar, lay on the ground beside the bricks, and
he picked it up and balanced it on his hand. Dallas' florid face
was almost comical in his bewilderment; as for Jimmy--he slammed
a piece of slag at the furnace and walked away. At the door he
turned around.
"Why don't you accuse me of it?" he asked bitterly.
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