The Argosy — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

The Sapphire Cross. 187 adjoining sleeping apartment, and thence into the sitting-rooms. All these different divisions communicated with one another, and with the antechamber, around which they were indeed built, as around two sides of a square. “The kitchen and servants’ rooms—where are they?” asked Signor Renzo. “Upstairs,” said the porter, ‘‘in the mezzanino.” *¢ And how are they reached ? ” ‘Either by the common stairway of the palazzo, or by an inner flight leading from the box-room.” “And where is the box-room ?”’ “Next to the Countess’s bedroom. ‘The Signor Avvocato must have observed the little door in the wall ——” ‘“‘ Let me see the box-room, if you please,” said the Signor Avvocato, briskly. The little door in the wall required some slight exertion of force to open it, and creaked as it turned on its hinges. “Ah! it opens inwards,” remarked Signor Renzo. He cast a scrutinising glance round the box-room, which contained no poxes now, but a good deal of broken furniture, and was about as in- teresting as lumber deposits generally. Besides the door already mentioned, it had two larger exits. ‘‘One opens on the inner flight of stairs, I see,” said Signor Renzo. ‘‘ With what does the other communicate ? ” ‘With a landing on the common staircase,” said the porter. ‘Rather an unsafe arrangement, but a very usual one in these old houses,” reflected the lawyer. “That door was never used,” continued the porter. ‘As the Signor may observe, the keys hang on a nail on the wall.” Signor Renzo mounted the little stairway, and visited the kitchen and the servants’ rooms. ‘They had the usual appearance of such places, and offered nothing worthy of remark. “The cook was proved to have been in bed, I think, when the shot was fired?” said Signor Renzo, who was quite sure of the cir- cumstance, but wanted to make the porter talk. eS. that functionary replied, with an astute air. ‘* The cook often went to bed early. He was a little too fond of wine. And the man-servant, as the Signor Avvocato would also remember, was out. Not a shadow of suspicion could rest upon the poor domestics.” Not on themselves, perhaps: but could no hanger-on of theirs have been secreted in the house? That was the problem which Signor Renzo was now revolving. He returned to the box-room, and, pointing to the closed door, said : ‘Open that, please.” “Tt will not be easy,” said the porter. ‘‘We wanted to open it when the Signor Count came to look at the apartment, but the lock was so rusty the key would not turn. The Count himself at last lost CONnNICLOOKS.E® im