“A piano too,” said Dick. “But where’s the chest?”
The small party crowded into the room. A heavy odor assailed their nostrils. The place was stuffy and close. The blinds, which hung over the closed windows, shut out most of the light. Not until these blinds were raised and a window or two flung up, did any of the party do more than to give the room a curious inspection.
“According to Meade,” Rand spoke calmly, “the chest ought to be somewhere in this room.”
No chest was visible. Eyes darted here and there, questioningly. Wyatt, Sandy and Dick hurried into the adjoining room to continue the search there. Corporal Rand sat down, while Toma still remained in almost the identical position he had taken up when he had first entered the house.
At one side of the room a heavy fur overcoat lay in a wrinkled heap upon the floor. Four feet above it, a long wooden peg projected from the scored surface of a log. The inference was that the coat had slipped off the peg at some time or other and that Dewberry, either through oversight or neglect, had failed to hang it back in its accustomed place.
For a short space the young Indian gazed at the garment and then at the peg. His eyes lit perceptibly. Something told him that the overcoat had not fallen to the floor from that sturdy peg, and, besides, there was a suspicious bulge—something underneath. With an amused chuckle, he darted forward and lifted up the coat. The chuckle died in his throat. He stepped back.
The chest was there!
Corporal Rand’s sharp exclamation drew the others quickly. They were crowded around him and Toma, looking down with bated breath at an iron box, covered with fantastic scrolls and figures, embellished and ornamented with metal rosettes and a fret-work of bronze. Neither Dick nor Sandy had ever seen anything quite like it. It was not an ordinary chest. It looked old—hundreds of years old—yet it was neither battered nor broken, nor in any way scarred or defaced. Beautiful though it was, its beauty produced a strange effect upon them. A malevolent influence seemed to emanate there.
Two feet high, three feet in length, approximately twenty in breadth—the iron box stood there and seemed to defy them. Its workmanship was superb. Dick guessed that it was of foreign origin, probably Oriental. He shivered a little as Wyatt gave the key-ring to Corporal Rand and motioned to him to stoop down and open the chest.
Rand’s fingers fumbled with the ring. A hollow scraping sound followed the insertion of the key, and, having turned it, the cover—fitted with a hidden, powerful spring—sprang open so quickly that its outer edge caught the policeman on the point of the chin and threw him back amongst his astonished companions.