For a full ten minutes they paused listening for sounds of breathing in the pitch darkness. But there were none, only the beating of their own hearts.
Then, with Charlie’s whispered consent, Max pressed the button of the pocket-lamp, and it shed a streak of light across to the opposite wall of the big apartment.
What was revealed held them aghast and amazed.
“This is indeed strange?” gasped Charlie. “What can it be?”
Max was turning the light from side to side of the room, examining every corner.
What they saw had held them both speechless.
Charlie saw an electric switch near his hand, and touched it. In an instant the great room was flooded with light, revealing a scene, curious, unusual, extraordinary.
There was no thick carpet or upholstered furniture; no painted ceiling or pictures upon the walls; no cabinet or bric-à-brac, or grand piano, or palms, or anything connected with drawing-room furniture.
Instead, the two intruders found themselves inside a peasant’s cottage in some far-off country—a house, it seemed, with quaint furniture painted and carved. Before them was an old-fashioned oak press, black with smoke and age, and along the wall a row of shining cooking utensils of copper. In the centre was a long old table, with big high-backed wooden chairs; at the side a high brick stove.
The men stepped within and gazed around, bewildered.