Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

“But they could be used for prisoners.”

Ernest cheered up.

“If I was a prisoner, I could ’scape”, he said. He put his hand in a ring, which was much too big for him and for any grown-up too. Then he pulled and the ring came out of the wall.

Ernest tried to put it back.

Dick was tense, expecting tons of rock to fall on them.

No collapse happened.

“Be careful touching things,” he warned his friends. “We were lucky that time, but there might be deadly traps.”

He led the way up.

IV

DH

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The steps weren’t steep, but went up a long way. The tunnel had been hewn out of rock. New timbers, already bowed and near-cracking, showed where the passage had been shored after falls.

“We must be under the Priory,” he said.

They came to the top of the stairs, and a basement-looking room. Wooden crates were stacked.

“Cover your light,” said Dick.

Ernest yelped as he burned his hand.

“Carefully,” Dick added.

Ernest whimpered a bit.

“What do you suppose is in these?” asked Violet. “Contraband?”

“Instruments of evil?” prompted Ernest.

Dick held his candle close to a crate. The slats were spaced an inch or so apart. Inside were copies of Omphalos Diabolicus.

“Isn’t the point of smuggling to bring in things people want?” asked Violet. “I can’t imagine an illicit market for unreadable tracts.”

“There could be coded spy messages in the books,” Dick suggested hopefully.

“Even spies trained to resist torture in the dungeons of the Tsar wouldn’t be able to read through these to get any message,” said Violet. “My deduction is that these are here because Sellwood can’t get anybody to buy his boring old book.”

“Maybee he should change his name to Sellwords.”

Dick had the tiniest spasm of impatience. Here they were, in the lair of an undoubted villain, having penetrated secret defenses, and all they could do was make dubiously sarky remarks about his name.

“We should scout further,” he said. “Come on.”

He opened a door and found a gloomy passageway. The lack of windows suggested they were still underground. The walls were panelled, wood warped and stained by persistent damp.

The next room along had no door and was full of rubble. Dick thought the ceiling had fallen in, but Violet saw at once that detritus was broken-up fossils.

“Ammonites,” she said, “also brachiopods, nautiloids, crinoids, plagiostoma, coroniceras, gryphaea and calcirhynchia.”

She held up what looked like an ordinary stone.

“This could be the knee-bone of a scelidosaurus. One was discovered in Charmouth, in Liassic cliffs just like these. The first near-complete dinosaur fossil to come to light. This might have been another find as important. Sellwood is a vandal and a wrecker. He should be hit on the head with his own hammers.”

Dick patted Violet on the back, hoping she would cheer up.

“It’s only a knee,” said Ernest. “Nothing interesting about knees.”

“Some dinosaurs had brains in their knees. Extra brains to do the thinking for their legs. Imagine if you had brains in your knees.”

Ernest was impressed.

“If I’d found this, I wouldn’t have broken it,” said Violet. “I would have named it. Biolettosaurus, Violet’s Lizard.”

“Let’s try the next room,” said Dick.

“There might still be useful fragments.”

Reluctantly, Violet left the room of broken stone bones.

Next was a thick wooden door, with iron bands across it, and three heavy bolts. Though the bolts were oiled, it was a strain to pull them—Dick and Violet both struggled. The top and bottom bolts shifted, but the middle one wouldn’t move.

“Let me try,” said Ernest. “Please.”

They did, and he didn’t get anywhere.

Violet dipped back into the fossil room and returned with a chunk they used as a hammer. The third bolt shot open.

The banging and clanging sounded fearfully loud in the enclosed space.

They listened, but no one came. Maybee, Dick thought—recognizing the Ernestism—Sellwood was up in his tower, scanning the horizon for spy-signals, and his Brethren were taking afternoon naps.

The children stepped through the doorway, and the door swung slowly and heavily shut behind them.

This room was different again.

The floor and walls were solid slabs which looked as if they’d been in place a long time. The atmosphere was dank, slightly mouldy. A stone trough, like you see in stables, ran along one wall, fed by an old-fashioned pump. Dick cupped water in his hand and tasted it. There was a nasty, coppery sting, and he spat.

“It’s a dungeon,” said Ernest.

Violet held up her candle.

A winch-apparatus, with handles like a threshing machine, was fixed to the floor at the far side of the room, thick chain wrapped around the drum.

“Careful,” said Violet, gripping Dick’s arm.

Dick looked at his feet. He stood on the edge of a circular Hole, like a well. It was a dozen feet across, and uncovered.

“There should be a cap on this,” announced Dick. “To prevent accidents.”

“I doubt if Sellwood cares much about accidents befalling intruders.”

“You’re probably right, Vile. The man’s a complete rotter.”