Without a word, Luc looped the strap over his left shoulder and, holding the lamp in his right hand, led the way. They made three or four turns down similar passages before coming to a larger, higher one. It was hard work and they paused several times. Thomas wasn’t sure of the distance, but he thought they must have walked nearly three hundred yards.

“Are you sure people don’t come in here?” he asked.

“They can’t. I’ve explored it all. This part of the old mines has been sealed off for decades. The little landslide behind my house opened the only way in.”

“Then why are we going so far?”

“You’ll see.”

At last they came to a high chamber, almost like a cave.

“This is it,” said Luc. They put the body down. Then he raised the lamp high. And Thomas let out a cry of fear.

For they weren’t alone.

All around the walls, the skeletons lay. Some of them were propped almost in a sitting position, staring at them in their tattered clothes, as though at some final supper in the dark.

“Do you know who they are?” asked Luc.

“No.”

“At the end of the Commune, forty years ago, there was the famous last fight of the Communards at Père Lachaise. But before that, a party of Communards at Montmartre retreated into the gypsum mines. And instead of going in to finish them off, the army dynamited the entrance of the mine. They knew there was no way out of this section. I found other skeletons in the passages, but I think these fellows made a compact and decided to shoot themselves all together.” He turned to the corpse of the girl. “Help me get her clothes off, then we’ll drag her over to the wall.”

It wasn’t pleasant work, but they did it. At one moment, Thomas gave a little gasp, and Luc said, “What?” and Thomas said, “Nothing.” When they had her propped naked against the wall, Luc carefully removed the tattered remains of a Communard’s coat and wrapped it around her.

“In a year or two, she’ll be a skeleton like the rest of them.”

“If anyone ever examines the shed …”

“I thought of that. I can cover the side of the hill up again. Close the entrance. It should be all right.”

Thomas frowned.

“Just one thing I don’t understand. Why did you ever make the arrangement with the shed and the tunnel in the first place?”

Luc paused.

“I thought it would be a good place to hide things. That is, if I ever wanted to.”

“Oh,” said Thomas.

When they got back into the house, Luc said that Thomas should go.

“I’ll be lighting a fire in the grate tonight,” he explained. “Got to burn the clothes and the tablecloths. Then I’ll check the carpet. You need to be well away before I start.”