Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/73

Rh “Why, it’s beetles.”

She picked up her skirts, she gave a scream, and back she scurried into the passage. I am not fond of the creatures; I never met anyone who was; but I am not afraid of them, and I was not going to let them drive me out of my own kitchen.

“There’s one thing wanted, and that’s light and fresh air. Only let me get those shutters down, and the window open, and then we’ll see. I should say from the smell of the place that there has never been any proper ventilation since the house was built.”

But it was easier said than done. Those shutters would not come down. How to begin to get them down was more than I could understand. To my astonishment, when I rapped them with my knuckles, they rang.

“I do believe,” I said, “they’re made of iron—they’re a metal of some kind. They seem to have been built into the solid wall, as if they had never intended them to be moved. No wonder the place smells like a vault, and beetles, and other nice things, flourish, if they’re fixtures.”

A scullery led out of the kitchen. It was in the same state. One crunched blackbeetles at every step. There was a shutter before the window, which had evidently never been meant to be taken down. Where, apparently, there had been a door leading into a backyard or something, was a sheet of solid metal. No one was going to get out that way in a hurry; or in either.

“But what can be the meaning of it all?” I cried. “There must be an object in all this display of plate armour, or whatever it is. The place is fortified as if it were meant to stand a siege. I shall begin to wonder if there isn’t a treasure hidden somewhere in the house; a great store of gold and precious stones, and that Uncle Benjamin made up his mind that at any rate thieves should not break through and steal.”