“I hope,” said she, “that you are not one of those who believe that all the power has gone out of the race—that those of old times could do more than those of to-day.” She took the great weapon in her hands and raised it aloft with ease. “See, even a woman could use it,” she said.
And then with a smile she lowered the weapon and Campe replaced it upon the wall.
“I don’t think,” said the young man, “there’s anything else of interest.”
But Miss Knowles held up a protesting finger.
“The vaults!” she said. “No one could say he had seen a castle without visiting those parts of it that are underground.”
But Campe did not at all take to the suggestion.
“They are damp and gloomy,” he said. “We seldom go into them.” He turned to Ashton-Kirk. “However, if you care to see them, I’ll be only too glad.”
“If it is no trouble,” said the crime specialist, his singular eyes upon the beautiful face of Miss Knowles, “I’d be pleased to explore them.”
With Kretz carrying a lamp, the three men descended into the regions beneath Schwartzberg. The damp from the near-by river had stained the walls and the stones of the pavement, the heavy arches hung with growths of fungus. The place was vast and gloomy; the radius of the lamp was small and beyond it the shadows thickened away into absolute blackness. The whole progress through the place seemed a bore to Scanlon.
“Cellars,” commented he, “are fine places to keep coal in. Men who believe in encouraging industry have also been known to store wine in their cellars, so that the spiders could have something to spin their nets around. But for the purposes of exercise or for mild morning strolls they have their drawbacks. As for myself, I should prefer——”