"Be blind no longer!" said Platzoff, taking off the handkerchief and
handing it to Ducie, with a smile. A few seconds elapsed before the
latter could discern anything clearly. Then he saw that he was in a
small vaulted chamber about seven feet in height, with a flagged floor,
but without furniture of any kind save a small table of black oak on
which Platzoff's lamp was now burning. The atmosphere of this dungeon
had struck him with a sudden chill as he went in. At each end was a
door, both of iron. The one that had opened to admit them was set in the
thick masonry of the wall; the one at the opposite end seemed built into
the solid rock.
"Before we go any farther," said Platzoff, "I may as well explain to you
how it happens that a respectable old country house like Bon Repos has
such a suspicious-looking hiding-place about its premises. You must know
that I bought the house, many years ago, of the last representative of
an old North-country family. He was a bachelor, and in him the family
died out. Three years after I had come to reside here the old man, at
that time on his death-bed, sent me a letter and a key.
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