Witness to the Deed Part 57

"Pick," said the man, swinging his bag down on to the floor and opening it by drawing out the hammer.

There was a faint jingle as the bag was opened, and its owner looked up in a protesting way.

"Can't work if you make a Jacky Lantern game of it, matey. I want to see."

The light of the lantern was directed into the bag, revealing a stock, a box of centre bits, a keyhole saw, and a couple of bunches of attenuated keys, some of which were merely a steel wire turned at right angles at the end.

"Nice, respectable looking character this, gentlemen," said the sergeant dryly. "Supposed to be an honest man; but if a 'tec' got hold of him with a bag like that he'd have to say a great deal before anyone would believe him. That one do, my lad?"

"No, too big," said the workman huskily, and he began to whistle softly as he coolly selected another hook-like skeleton key from his bunch; while Guest stood watching the pair with a strange feeling of nervousness increasing upon him, caused partly by the weird aspect of the scene, with all in darkness save the round patch of light on the old drab-painted oaken door, in which glow the fingers of the workman were busily engaged, as if they were part of some goblin performance, and were quite distinct from any body to which they should have belonged.

He began wondering, too, whether there really was any cause for their operations--whether poor old Brettison really did lie dead in the dusty room beyond the double doors which held them at bay--dust to dust, the mortal frame of the gentle old naturalist slowly decaying into the atoms by which he was surrounded; and whether it was not something like sacrilege to interfere with so peaceful a repose.

And all the time the little steel pick was probing about among the wards of the lock with a curious clicking sound, above which Guest could hear the intermittent, harsh breathing of his friend, who watched the illuminated door with a stern, fixed gaze.

The second pick was after a time withdrawn.

"No good?" said the sergeant.

"Not a bit," growled the man, and he held his bunch of keys up to the gla.s.s of the bull's-eye lantern.

"Don't worry, old chap," said the sergeant. Then, turning to Guest:

"Look a nice, respectable lot, we do, sir," he said. "If one of your neighbours was to see us he'd be slipping off to fetch all the police he could find, to see what we were about."

"Wish you'd hold that there light still," growled his follower. "Who's to find a pick with your bobbing it about like that?"

"All right. Don't get s.h.i.+rty, my lad;" and then, as a fresh pick was selected, and the man began operating again, the sergeant placed his hand beside his mouth, after directing the light full on the keyhole, and whispered to Guest:

"I'm afraid you're right, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"What you thought, sir. There's somebody lying in there, sure as sure, or my mate here wouldn't turn like he has."

"Oh, nonsense!" whispered Guest uneasily.

"No, sir; it's right enough. He's like a good dog; has a kind of feeling when there's something wrong."

"There you go again," growled the operator. "Keyhole ain't on the ceiling, mate, nor yet on the floor."

"Oh, all right."

"But it ain't all right. I've got only two hands, or I'd hold the blessed bulls-eye myself."

"There you are, then; will that do?"

"Do? Why, of course it will," growled the fellow. "I don't ask much.

If you can't hold a lantern, let one of the gentlemen."

"Something's rusty," said the sergeant.

"No, it ain't that," said the man, taking the remark literally. "Look's 'ily enough, but it's such a rum un--sort of a double trouble back-fall.

I don't know what people are about, inventing such stupid locks.

'Patent,' they calls 'em, and what for? Only to give a man more trouble. All locks can be opened, if you give your mind to it, whether you've got a key or no. It's only a case of patience. That's got him!"

he said exultantly, and a thrill ran through Guest. "No, it ain't; that blessed tumbler's gone down again. But, as I was a-saying," he continued, as he resumed his operations, "a man who knows his business can open a lock sooner or later, so why ain't they all made simple and ha' done with it?"

"If talking would pick a lock," said the sergeant jocularly, "that one would have flown open by now."

"And if chucking the light of a bull's-eye everywheres but how a man wants it would ha' done it, we should ha' been inside ten minutes ago.

Like to have a try yourself, pardner?"

"No, no; go on," said the sergeant sternly; and the man sighed and selected a fresh pick, one so slight and small that it seemed to be too fragile for the purpose, as it flashed in the light while being inserted.

Then ensued a few minutes of clicking and scratching before there came a faint click, and a sigh of satisfaction from the workman.

"There you are!" he said, as he drew the door toward him, the paint cracking where it had stuck, and a faint creak coming from one hinge, while there floated out toward them a puff of dense, thick air, suggestive of an ancient sarcophagus and the dust of ages and decay.

Then there was a sharp, scampering noise, and, as Stratton stood peering forward into the dark room, where a faint halo of light spread like a nimbus about the head of a portrait on the further wall, the workman said, half nervously, half as if to keep up his courage:

"Rats!"

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

A SEARCH FOR THE HORROR.

The sound ceased on the instant as its cause pa.s.sed through some hole in the panelling, and Stratton uttered a low gasping sigh, and caught hold of Guest's arm with a grip which felt as if it was the grasp of a skeleton.

"Are you faint?" whispered the young barrister. "Let me take you back to your room."

"If the gentleman feels queer, sir, he'd better not go on with it," said the sergeant, also in a low voice, as if impressed by the place. "He isn't used to it; we are."

"Yes," said the workman. "Not our first case, eh, pardner?"

But even he spoke below his breath.

"No, I'll stay," said Stratton more firmly. "I have been ill, officer, and it has left me weak."

"Then don't try it, sir. You can leave it to us."

"Go on," said Stratton, after drawing a long, gasping breath; "I am quite right now."

"Spoken like an Englishman, sir," said the sergeant. "Party's likeness, gents?" he said, as the light shone full on the oil-painting across the room; the face of the grey, benevolent-looking man seeming to gaze at them reproachfully.

"Yes, my old friend's portrait," said Stratton, with a sigh.