THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA
bring with him the key of it, on the morning of the following day.
So they did meet there, Señor, and they went to the middle door—the one that had opened at a touch from the old woman's hand. But all around that door, as the notary bade Padre Lanchitas observe before they opened it, were unbroken cobwebs; and the keyhole was choked with the dust that had blown into it, little by little, in the years that had passed since it had known a key. And the other two doors of the house were just the same. However, Padre Lanchitas would not admit, even with that proof against him, that he was mistaken; and the notary, smiling at him but willing to satisfy him, picked out the dust from the keyhole and got the key into it and forced back hardly the rusty bolt of the lock—and together they went inside.
Coming from the bright sunshine into that dusky place—lighted only from the doorway, and the door but part way open because it was loose on its old hinges and stuck fast—they could see at first nothing more than that the room was empty and bare. What they did find, though—and the Padre well remembered
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