They went down a few steps and entered a square room, whose two windows opened upon the courtyard.

A faint light stole through the dirty panes and hung wanly under the low ceiling.

In pigeonholes and shelves, which filled the whole place up, lay a collection of the most varied kind of bric-a-brac.

Indeed, it suggested an old-clothes shop in the Rue de Lappe in process of selling off, so indescribable was the hotchpotch of plates, gilt pasteboard cups, old red umbrellas, Italian jars, clocks in all styles, platters and inkpots, firearms and squirts, which lay chipped and broken and in unrecognizable heaps under a layer of dust an inch deep.

An unendurable odor of old iron, rags and damp cardboard emanated from the various piles, where the debris of forgotten dramas had been collecting for half a century.
"Come in," Bordenave repeated.