Widdershins | Page 5

as he went for a
two-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses....
In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one of
interest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands with
gentle glee.
"Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes,
nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, or I'm ... oho,

this is an adventure!"
On that wall of his sitting-room there were two windows (the third was
in another corner), and, beyond the open bedroom door, on the same
wall, was another. The seats of all had been painted, repainted, and
painted again; and Oleron's investigating finger had barely detected the
old nailheads beneath the paint. Under the ledge over which he stooped
an old keyhole also had been puttied up. Oleron took out his penknife.
He worked carefully for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen
for a hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat,
he started the whole lid slightly. Again using the penknife, he cut along
the hinged edge and outward along the ends; and then he fetched a
wedge and a wooden mallet.
"Now for our little mystery--" he said.
The sound of the mallet on the wedge seemed, in that sweet and pale
apartment, somehow a little brutal--nay, even shocking. The panelling
rang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like a sounding-board. The
whole house seemed to echo; from the roomy cellarage to the garrets
above a flock of echoes seemed to awake; and the sound got a little on
Oleron's nerves. All at once he paused, fetched a duster, and muffled
the mallet.... When the edge was sufficiently raised he put his fingers
under it and lifted. The paint flaked and starred a little; the rusty old
nails squeaked and grunted; and the lid came up, laying open the box
beneath. Oleron looked into it. Save for a couple of inches of scurf and
mould and old cobwebs it was empty.
"No treasure there," said Oleron, a little amused that he should have
fancied there might have been. "Romilly will still have to be out by the
autumn. Let's have a look at the others."
He turned to the second window.
The raising of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into the
afternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from the
second seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and

folded and furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object
into the kitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a duster to it.
It was some sort of a large bag, of an ancient frieze-like material, and
when unfolded it occupied the greater part of the small kitchen floor. In
shape it was an irregular, a very irregular, triangle, and it had a couple
of wide flaps, with the remains of straps and buckles. The patch that
had been uppermost in the folding was of a faded yellowish brown; but
the rest of it was of shades of crimson that varied according to the
exposure of the parts of it.
"Now whatever can that have been?" Oleron mused as he stood
surveying it.... "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for
today, I'm afraid--"
He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of the
kitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned to
the sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paper
his newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his
spare boots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids
again, amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the
hour to come when he should settle fairly down to his work again.
III
It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismiss
with a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning.
Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always been
more or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life, careless of
appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she ate biscuits
from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance of the
convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large,
showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist's
picked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements
and moist and explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of
the pool" (as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly
disguised puffs of drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the
greater part of her very varied wardrobe.