5 The Cellar

Chapter 5 The Cellar Standing there, Watson, I felt a bitter chill of disappointment. It seemed I'd made an error in my calculations. The worn flagstones beneath my feet were firmly cemented together without a crack or a crevice to be seen. They didn't look as if they'd been moved in centuries. Brunton had not been here. I tapped on the floor with my stick and it sounded solid. Then Musgrave, who had by now begun to understand what I was up to, snatched the paper from my hands and pointed at two words from the ritual: "'And under'!" he cried. "Holmes, you forgot the 'and under'!" I hadn't forgotten these words, but I thought they meant we'd have to dig. Now I comprehended their true meaning. "Is there a cellar under here?" I asked. "Yes," he said, "and it's one of the oldest parts of the house. It's down here, through this door."

My companion struck a match, and we descended a winding stone stairway. At the bottom, he lit a large lantern that stood on a barrel in the corner. As we looked around us, it was immediately obvious that we'd reached the end of our journey, and we weren't the only people to have visited this place recently. The cellar had been used to store chopped wood. To judge from the mess and sawdust, the pieces of wood must have once littered the floor, but they were now piled up at the sides, leaving a

clear space in the middle. In this space lay a huge, heavy flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the middle. Attached by a knot to this ring was a brown scarf. "By Jove!" cried Musgrave. "That's Brunton's scarf! I've seen him wear it. What was the villain doing down here?" "If we can lift that flagstone, we may find out," I said. While I pulled on Brunton's scarf, Musgrave went down on his knees to try and lift the slab with his hands, but it proved too heavy for us. At my suggestion, Musgrave summoned a footman to lend a hand. Between the three of us, after much effort, we were able to raise the stone and drag it clear.

A black hole yawned beneath us. We kneeled at its edge. Then Musgrave lowered the lantern and we peered inside. What we saw was a small chamber about seven feet deep, with four walls, each about four feet wide. Against one wall was a wooden box bound in brass. The box's lid was open, and it had an old-fashioned key in its lock. The box was very old and covered with a thick layer of dust. Worms had eaten through the wood, and fungus grew inside it. Apart from

several rusty old coins lying at the bottom, the box was empty. At that moment, however, Musgrave and I paid no attention to the box, because we were both staring at the figure beside it. It was a man dressed in a black suit. He was seated on the floor in front of the box with his forehead resting on its edge and his arms and legs thrown out to either side of it. We couldn't see his face, but Musgrave immediately recognized him from his powerful

build, his clothing, and his hair. "It's Brunton," he murmured.