"Is that
fastened up?"
"I don't know. Do you want to see what he has done?"
"I may as well." He had never had an opportunity before--Bourjac had
always been in there.
"No, it isn't locked," she said; "come on then! Wait till I have shut
it after us before you strike a match--Margot might see the light."
A rat darted across their feet as they lit the lamp, and he dropped the
matchbox. "Ugh!"
"The beastly things!" she shivered, "Make haste!"
On the floor stood a cabinet that was not unlike a gloomy wardrobe in
its outward aspect. Legrand examined it curiously.
"Too massive," he remarked. "It will cost a fortune for carriage--and
where are the columns I heard of?" He stepped inside and sounded the
walls. "Humph, of course I see his idea. The fake is a very old one,
but it is always effective." Really, he knew nothing about it, but as
he was a conjurer, she accepted him as an authority.
"Show me! Is there room for us both?" she said, getting in after him.
And as she got in, the door slammed.
Instantaneously they were in darkness, black as pitch, jammed close
together. Their four hands flew all over the door at once, but they
could touch no handle. The next moment, some revolving apparatus that
had been set in motion, flung them off their feet. Round and round it
swirled, striking against their bodies and their faces. They grovelled
to escape it, but in that awful darkness their efforts were futile;
they could not even see its shape.
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