The private hall behind the registration booths was stripped of every pretense of comfort. The velvet curtains, the lavender scent, and the polished oak wainscoting vanished within three strides. Here, the walls were built of rough, uncoursed limestone covered in flaking lime whitewash that smelled of damp chalk and wet cellar mold. Overhead, low-output copper lanterns hung in protective wire baskets. It burned with dim, sputtering green flames that cast long, sickly shadows across the flat stone slabs.
The floor was made of heavy, unpolished slate flags, unevenly laid and slick with water drops that trickled down the cold walls. Every ten paces, a cast-iron floor grating was set into the stone, covered with a punched holes in lid through which the smell of stale sewer water and warm machine oil rose in faint, warm drafts. Along the ceiling ran a pair of heavy lead-sheathed cables, supported by iron bridle brackets every six feet, their thick black casings sweating with cold moisture.
Along the right side of the passage, eight heavy iron doors stood flush with the stonework, each corresponding to one of the private booths on the public side. In the center of each door was a watching peep-window. A twelve-inch square of thick, dark plate glass set into a riveted iron frame. Above each window, a small brass number was screwed into the steel plate, numbered One through Eight from the public entrance toward the record vaults.
