“Next morning early I got in some workmen and took them down to the kitchen, direct to the corner where the door was through which the apparition vanished the previous night.
“Zounds, sir, there was no door there—only the white plastered wall. I was dumbfoundered. ‘Mrs Trombone,’ I said to the cook, ‘where the devil is that door gone?’”
“‘The door, sir,’ said the cook, ‘there ain’t no door there that I ever saw.’
“‘Trombone,’ I replied, ‘don’t tell falsehoods—you’re a fool.’
“I made the men set to work and tear down the plaster and stuff, and, egad, sir, in an hour we found the door—a thick oak, nail studded, iron clamped old door. It took some time to force it open, and then down three steps we found ourselves in a chamber with mighty thick walls and with a flagged floor, about six feet square, lit by a small slit of a window.
“‘Tear up the flags,’ I said.
“They did so, and there was only earth below.
“‘Dig down,’ I said, ‘dig like thunder,’
“In about an hour we came to a huge flag with a ring in it. Up it came, and below it was a dryly-built bottle-shaped well.
“We went down with lights. What do you think we found at the bottom of it?”