At the cemetery, Lewis and Tarby find a mausoleum: "a heavy chain held the doors together, and it was fastened by a large, heart-shaped padlock (The House with a Clock in its Walls, 85)." Later, after Lewis recited the incantation, “the iron doors jolted, as if they had been struck a blow from inside. The chain rattled, and there was a clunk on the pavement. The padlock had fallen off (87).”
Mr. Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement.Later, on a return visit, Mr. Wraxall realized his error:
'I must have been wrong,' he writes, 'in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count's sarcophagus was unfastened; I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened.
After completing his research, Mr. Wraxall prepares to leave but not before paying one visit to the tomb and contemplating the long-dead count:
It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. 'You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus,' he was saying, 'but for all that I should like to see you, or, rather——'
'Just at that instant,' he says, 'I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment.
One wonders if the count's family bothered with heart-shaped locks. A cute touch, had they been, though.
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