He withdrew his head and slipped his feet through instead. Then, twisting about with his back toward the inside, he pulled the upper part of his body through.
For a minute he stood near the opening, not knowing quite what to do next. He had a strange, uneasy feeling that somebody was watching him. Perhaps it would be better if he put the trap door back into place. Then if the man who made it should come by outside, he wouldn’t notice anything different and he’d go away.
But after he had the trap door back in its place, he was a little sorry that he’d done it. It was pitch-black in the room now. He felt in his pocket and found a package of book matches. He tore one loose and struck it. The flame seemed very feeble, but it gave him a few moments to look around the room. He noticed the papers scattered about the floor and saw that the filing cabinet near him had been emptied, and the drawers left leaning against the wall.
It was clear to the boy that someone had been searching through the papers of the old Rorth Glassworks.
When the match had burned out he wet his finger and cooled the hot end and dropped the match to the floor. He lit another and moved toward the fireplace. His foot brushed against something. Looking down, he discovered the stub of a candle and he stooped to pick it up.
The light from the candle gave him a better view of the room. Now he could see an old leather-upholstered chair, a brass spittoon, and a metal coat rack. Raising the candle, he saw above the mantelpiece a white-bearded man with a bald head, rimmed with tufts of fluffy hair. The man looked down at him with sharp, piercing, brown eyes from a massive oak picture frame.
Ronnie backed up a few steps and the eyes seemed to follow him as he moved. “Great-great-grandfather?” he asked, but when he heard the sound of his voice he grinned at his foolishness.
He lowered the candle hastily and thrust it inside the huge opening of the fireplace. A partially decomposed mouse lay just beneath the pair of beautifully molded andirons. Ronnie poked his head inside the fireplace and looked up. The light from the candle reached almost as high as the swifts’ nest. Sure, Ronnie told himself, a powerful flashlight shining up the chimney flues could have made the weird light they had seen several evenings before.
He heard the young swifts chirping in the nest overhead and saw a single yellow beak protruding over the edge for a second or two. “I’m not going to hurt you none,” he said, and then realized that the sound of his voice would frighten the young birds even more than the light.
Ronnie backed out of the fireplace and stood for a moment or two near the center of the room, undecided on what he would do next. He wished that he hadn’t come through the trap door, but had come around and opened the regular door with his key. Then he’d have more light and could inspect the building and its furnishings more carefully. Well, he’d have time to do that when Bill and he returned.