“Please don’t!”
“I brought a chisel—”
“Stop! No wonder she was queer.”
“Who?”
“Mattie.”
“Oh, yes, she was queer all right. But then, she always was. You don’t want me to open it?”
It struck me that there was a great deal of the inquisitive little boy left in the old judge, but I did not have the courage to gratify him.
“Let’s go,” I answered. “I’ve seen everything I need.”
It was at this precise moment that I caught sight of a small coffin. It did not lie in state on the stone shelves on each side of the vault, but was pushed back into a dark corner.
“What’s that?” I asked sharply.