More fun than I have over this dreary job, anyhow.
But here comes Mr. Symon, who will show you over the old cellar
downstairs."
Mr. Symon, the official guardian and guide, was a young man,
prematurely gray, with a grave mouth which contrasted curiously with
a very small, dark mustache with waxed points, that seemed somehow,
separate from it, as if a black fly had settled on his face. He
spoke with the accent of Oxford and the permanent official, but in
as dead a fashion as the most indifferent hired guide. They
descended a dark stone staircase, at the floor of which Symon
pressed a button and a door opened on a dark room, or, rather, a
room which had an instant before been dark. For almost as the heavy
iron door swung open an almost blinding blaze of electric lights
filled the whole interior. The fitful enthusiasm of Stinks at once
caught fire, and he eagerly asked if the lights and the door worked
together.
"Yes, it's all one system," replied Symon. "It was all fitted up
for the day His Royal Highness deposited the thing here. You see,
it's locked up behind a glass case exactly as he left it."
A glance showed that the arrangements for guarding the treasure were
indeed as strong as they were simple. A single pane of glass cut off
one corner of the room, in an iron framework let into the rock walls
and the wooden roof above; there was now no possibility of reopening
the case without elaborate labor, except by breaking the glass,
which would probably arouse the night watchman who was always within
a few feet of it, even if he had fallen asleep.
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