The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty — Read

In the Bogey Hole rats scurried about, careless of the sentry who tramped up and down, from end to end of the long stone passage, with his rubber-heeled boots sounding loudly in the cavernous silence. Drops of water gathered slowly on the stone ceilings and then fell with soft, empty splashes to the stone floors. Except for the scurrying of the rats, the falling of the water and the footfalls of the sentry, there was silence.

The Bogey Hole, in which the Revolutionary Organization were about to hold their inquiry into the cause of the death of Francis Joseph McPhillip, had once been the wine cellars of a nobleman. Above it the ruins of the house still remained. But everybody had long since forgotten the name of the owner in the district. The hallway of the house was choked with rubbish. The two top stories had fallen in. Only a few rooms remained in a crumbling state. Children played in them and parties of men played cards for money there on Sundays. That's all. But the wine cellars underneath were often used by the Revolutionary Organization as a meeting-place and for other purposes.