“Have who?” Everyone look around startled. It was Nan’s voice!
James Blake went over to her side. “Then you found it, lass! You found it!” His voice rang out through the Hall. “I might have known you would find it!” In his joy, he forgot completely that the assembled crowd didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Found what?” Dr. Prescott asked the question everyone had on his tongue.
“The passage, the secret passage from the old gatehouse to the castle here,” he answered. “Only a few know of its existence. Evidently my brother here has forgotten. How did you find it, lass?”
“I scarcely know,” Nan admitted. “When I found myself locked up, I tried all sorts of ways of getting out without any success at all. I was standing on a chair and trying to climb to that window high above——”
“But that’s impossible, lass,” James Blake interrupted.
“I know,” Nan agreed, “but I was so anxious to get out of there that nothing seemed impossible. Climbing up as I did, I felt closer to the outside anyway. I thought, too, that there was a slight chance of my getting hold of those rough stones that the walls are made of in such a way that I could climb up to the window.
“I couldn’t, of course, but in trying, my foot slipped into a nick of some kind in the wall. I pressed down hard on it, hoping to boost myself up. I couldn’t. I slipped. I fell. When I picked myself up, I saw that a sliding panel on the opposite wall had moved to one side leaving a great opening.
“I went through. It closed then. I walked on through the dark, and after what seemed ages, I came to the end. I groped around, knowing that there had to be something to make another panel move. Finally, I found it.”
“That you did, lass,” James Blake was beaming on her now, “and there’s not another in England or Scotland or America either that would have found the same. I am proud of you, so proud of you that I’d like to have you stay here always. But that’s not to be. Already there are things afoot that require your presence and the presence of your friends in London.”