The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 386: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SUBTERRANEAN 300 premises; at the same time that they were not the men to be stayed in the process of their investigation by anything which might possibly be an artifice to divert them from the scent. The place which we have described as the scullery was reached; the detectives passed at once inte the front kitchen, but, as the reader may imagine, without discovering the object of their search. Cupboards were opened, nooks were pried into, but all in vain. They repassed into the scullery; the huge door communicating with the cellar was opened, the interior was inspected, but no Jack Smedley was there. The two officers exchanged quick glances, as much as to imply that the woman had spoken truthfully after all, and that their trouble was vainly taken. ‘Now, gentlemen,” said Bab, and it was a very anxious moment for the woman, but her inward feelings were not outwardly betrayed, “‘ you will perhaps come up to the parlour and have a nice drop of something warm? ”’ “In a minute, ma’am,”’ answered the tall detective. ‘But what the deuce does a bit of carpet mean in a place like this? ” He looked searchingly at the gold-beater’s wife as he spoke, and she steadily met that scrutinizing gaze. The next instant he kicked up the carpet with his foot, but the table stood so exactly over the outlines of the trap-door that the carpet was not dislodged sufficiently to reveal them. The keen experienced eye of the detective led to the fancy that he perceived something like a studied artifice in the arrange- ment of the kitchen utensils and crockery on the little deal table, and lifting it up, he removed it away from the middle of the scullery. At the same instant he glanced furtively toward the woman; it struck him that for a single moment there was the glitter of uneasiness in her eyes, but if so, that betrayal of her feeling was so transient it could not be re- garded as a positive certainty. However, the bit of carpet was now kicked completely away, and the outlines of the trap-door were revealed. “Ah, here is something, Tom,” said the tall detective, stamping with his feet above the mouth of the pit, so that the hollow sound thus produced confirmed the suspicion of the existence of a trap-door. The next instant it was raised, and at the same moment CORNICLOO© Ss (CO)