The downstairs parlour.

One by one the girls descended the stairs behind the kitchen.

"It's dark!" Erica said when she reached halfway.

Sam continued to the bottom and scrabbled about. "Can't find a switch down here," she said. "Suki, do you see a switch back up near the top?"

Suki looked about and found an old-fashioned push-button switch set low down near the top of the flight. She pushed, pushed harder, then leaned on it. With a heavy "click!" the switch closed, and dusty yellowed bulbs lit at the top and bottom of the stairs. A hall led off from the bottom of the stairs.

Sam coughed. "First door here must be the boiler," she said, looking at an inspector's notice affixed to the door.

"Right enough," Allison said. "Me mum and I had to nurse a boiler one winter. Nasty old kettle." Allison opened the door. "Eh, this one isn't so bad, looks almost new," she said.

Erica laughed. "You know your boilers, then," she said.

Cathy was next to arrive. "This place is so weird," she said.

"That's because it's older than anywhere you've ever been," said Anita to the big American girl.

"Hey, that's not fair," Cathy said, tossing her golden hair. "I'm a history student. I've been to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. And Grand Central Station."

Jo chuckled. Sam and Eric laughed. Allison giggled. Anita blinked, expecting that Cathy would be a little more with-it.

"This basement here's older than Grand Central Station, dear," Erica said.

"Or the Empire State Building," chimed in Samantha.

Cathy hiccuped. "Okay, like, you girls press three glasses of this jungle juice stuff on me and then rank on me 'cause I start getting mixed up. That's not very nice," she complained.

Jo called from the back, "You're running with the big girls now, Cathy!"

Allison looked at the next door. It had a dark grey, almost smooth surface and a thick metal handle. She ran her hand over the door. "Lead sheets?" she said. It opened with a little effort into a narrow, dark corridor. "This goes toward the river."

The girls clustered around. Without a light, they couldn't see more than a few steps.

"She's right," said Jo. "There's a moist draft that started when you opened the door."

Erica opened another door. "This one is full of boxes," she said.

Cathy skipped ahead to try the last door. This was a dark wood door with crisply done woodwork, albeit a little warped. She turned the cut-glass knob and it fell off in her hand. Startled, she stepped backward, tripped, and landed on her bum. "Oof!"

"That tears it," said Allison. "How we going to get in now?"

Samantha and Erica got down and helped Cathy up. Their eyes met, twinkling a bit as they looked at each other over Cathy's generous bosom, which they each managed to touch as they were lifting up the big American girl.

"Thanks guys!" Cathy said. She stepped forward and looked at the door. "Hey, it's locked, but look," she said, pointing at the frame. "It's half warped out of the latch." Cathy leaned her shoulder into the door and shoved a couple of times. The door flew open and Cathy landed on her face in the room. She scrambled to her feet.

Erica found a light switch and snapped it on.

The girls surveyed a room full of furniture, carpets, and pictures on the wall -- all covered with sheets and dropcloths, dusty and yellowed. Light came from an electric chandelier over a sheet-draped table. Bits and pieces of the furniture still exposed showed glimpses of dark wood legs, brass ornamentation, and soft, glove-leather pads.

Cathy marched up to the fireplace and took the sheet off the decoration above it.

"Oh my God," Cathy said. "Maybe this WAS a brothel!"

Above the fireplace hung a large oval mirror, framed by languid, nude gilded nymphs attending a sleeping Diana, her bow and arrows put aside.

The other girls, less Suki and Jo, pressed forward for a closer look. In one corner, a deer fled from a pack of foaming-mouthed hounds, while in another corner, the figure of a shepherd slept under a crescent moon, smiling in his dreams.

Eric said, "Doesn't that Endymion look kind of girlish?"

"Yeh, I see what you mean," said Sam. "Even the way that cloak is draped, it could be a girl."

"Except for the outline of his prick there," Allison said, pointing. "Must be a nice dream."

"Fake!" cried Erica.

"It's just tied on," Sam said. "See that line there?" she said, pointing. "That's not a fold in the cloak, that's what's holding it."

Allison giggled. "You're joking," she said.

Sam and Eric looked at one another.
"I'm not joking, Sam, are you joking?"
"No, Eric, are you?" Sam replied.

The looked at Allison and solemnly shook their heads no.

Allison laughed harder and leaned against a chair for support.

The girls poked about, lifting cloths, giggling, and calling out when they found something risqué.

"Cards!"

"Cigarettes!"

"Brandy!"

"Paregoric!"

"Please, what is Paregoric?" asked Suki.

"They used to give it to babies to make them sleep," Eric said.

"Don't tease Suki, Eric," Samantha said. "It's opium drops."

"Well, people did use it for that," Erica said.

Jo sniffed the air. "I could swear there's a hint of hashish coming from somewhere," she said.

"Save some for us!" several girls chorused.

Cathy opened a cabinet to reveal several shelves of leather-bound books. She pulled one out. "Schoolgirl Scandals?" she said, reading the gold-stamped title.

"Who's it by?" Erica asked.

Cathy squinted and read off the author's name.

"That's famous!" Erica crowed.

"More like infamous," Samantha said. "Practically founded the modern genre."

"Huh? What's it about?" Cathy asked.

Anita opened a tooled-leather valise and inspected the contents. "Hey, have a look at THIS!" she called out to the group.