The Riddle of the Night

by Thomas W. Hanshew

The General had done the thing well, at all events. The atmosphere of antiquity was very cleverly reproduced: walls, roof, floor—all had the appearance of not having been disturbed by the hand of any one for ages. Half-defaced armorial bearings, iron-studded doors, winding staircases, even a donjon keep.

This he came to realize when the sight of a rusted iron ring in the floor tempted him to pull up and lay back a slab of stone that appeared centuries old, and to expose in doing so a twisting flight of stone steps leading downward into the very depths of the earth.

Really, you know, the old chap had done it well. Cells down there, no doubt—cells and chains and all that sort of thing. Well, he had time to spare; he'd go down and have a look at those cells. And, leaving the stone trap-slab open, he went down the black stairway into the blacker depths below, flicking the light of his torch about and going from cell to cell. One might swear that the place was centuries old. Rusty old barred doors, rustier old chains hanging from rings in the walls. Nothing modern, nothing that looked as if it had known use or been disturbed for these hundreds of years; nothing that—— Hello! There was a break in the illusion, at all events: a garden spade, with fresh earth clinging to the blade of it, leaning against the wall. Fancy a man so careful of preserving an atmosphere of antiquity letting one of the gardeners leave—— No, b'gad! it hadn't been left merely by chance. It had been brought here for use, and was probably left for further use. There was a place over in that corner that most decidedly had been recently dug up.

He walked over to the place in question and directed the glow of the torch so that the circle of light fell full upon it. Somebody had been digging in the earthen floor of the cell, and had made an attempt to hide the fact by sprinkling bits of stone and plaster scraped from the walls over it. In the ordinary course of things, and with a light less powerful than this of the electric torch, the thing would have passed muster very well, and would, in all probability, have escaped observation. Now, asked Cleek of himself, what the dickens should any one wish to dig in this place for? And, having dug, why try to disguise the fact? Hum-m-m!

He switched round suddenly, walked to the place where the spade stood, in the angle of the wall opposite, took it up, and, returning, began to dig where the digging had been done before.

This he had to do in the darkness, for the moment his thumb was removed from the button of the torch the light went out. But, having once located the place, this was not difficult, for the earth, having once before been disturbed, yielded easily to the spade.

For five—possibly six—minutes he worked on, shovelling out the loose earth and tossing it aside unseen; then, of a sudden, the spade encountered something which, though soft and yielding, would not allow the blade to penetrate it at all, press his foot down as hard as he might. If Cleek knew anything at all, he knew that that betokened a fabric of some sort, and knew, too, that he had got to the bottom of the original excavation.

He laid aside the spade, and the electric torch spat its light into the hole.

Clothing at the bottom of it—buried clothing!

He stooped and pulled it to the surface, letting the articles thus unearthed drop one by one from his fingers. A cap, a pair of trousers, a coat with a badge on it, a stick with a loop of leather by which to carry it, a belt, and a number on that belt.