“Why, I should judge that the door had just closed upon the departure of the prince.”
“A hundred years ago,” answered Tamworth.
“And—” began his companion.
“Has remained vacant until I entered as its occupant.”
“Why this long disuse?”
“It is in a retired wing of the building. Only two keepers have had charge since the Crown parted with its title. The first, from what may have been an over-refined reverence for royalty, held this apartment locked and almost secret. His successor found no use for it until I solicited lodgment. He gave me possession five years since.”
“It is a wonder that the tapestries have not been removed,” said Marlowe, looking in admiration at one end of the room where hung two magnificent fabrics, still displaying in enduring colors scenes from the Apocalypse. They were drawn back from the middle line of the alcove before which they hung; and, in the recess thus disclosed, the outlines of a bed, with gorgeous canopy overhanging it, could be seen. Other textiles of equally antique manufacture, at many points detached from the fastenings, hung here and there against the walls. Separate pieces of Oriental carpet lay over some spaces of the floor. The furniture was dark as ebony. A lamp of brass, with four projecting wings and blackened chains, suspended from the center of the ceiling. The deep and wide chimney-place was fit for a fire great enough to warm the banqueting hall of a castle. Its mantel was supported by elaborately carved columns standing half out from the front of the chimney-wall.
“And where does that stairway lead?” asked Marlowe, pointing at a dark opening in the floor beside one wall. It was guarded by a brass railing raised waist-high on a closely set balustrade, and at its foot could be seen a solid door held shut by an iron bar across its face.
“To an underground passageway.”
“For escape?”