One of the other rooms was a bedroom, a sort of skeleton of one. There was some carpet on the floor, or what had been carpet. There was an iron bedstead, on which were the remains of what might have been a mattress. But there were no signs of sheets or blankets; I wondered if the rats had eaten them.
After what we had seen of the rest of the house, the third room, which was in front, was a surprise. It was a parlour; not the remnants of one, but an actual parlour. There was what seemed to be a pretty good carpet on the floor. There was a round table, with a tapestry cover. There were two easy chairs, four small ones, a couch. On the sideboard were plates and dishes, cups and saucers. On the stove, which was a small kitchener, was a kettle, two saucepans, and a frying pan, all of them in decent order. Although the usual shutters screened the window, the place was clean, comparatively speaking. And when I went to a cupboard which was in one corner, I found that in it there were coals and wood.
“It is not twenty years since this room was occupied, there’s that much certain; nor, from the look of it, should I say it was twenty hours. I should say there had been a fire in that stove this very day, and there’s water in the kettle now.”
“What’s this?”
Emily was holding out something which she had picked up from the floor. It was a woman’s bracelet, a gold bangle; though I had never seen one like it before. It was made of plain, flat gold, very narrow, twisted round and round; there was so much of it that, when it was in its place, it must have wound round the wearer’s arm, like a sort of serpent, from the wrist to the elbow. At one end of it was something, the very sight of which gave me quite a qualm.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BACK-DOOR KEY.
“Look!” I said. “Look!”
“Look at what? What’s the matter with you, Pollie? Why are you glaring at me like that?”
“Don’t you see what’s at the end of it?”
She turned the bangle over.