"Stay where you are, Watkins," I commanded. "Let me have that torch, Nikka."
I turned it on the over-mantel. An efficient kit of burglar's tools reposed on the mantel-shelf under the carven group of dancing monks, ale-horns and tankards waving aloft. The figure in the middle of the group had a comically protruding belly that seemed to waggle as the light played on it. But what interested me was the small flexible saw that was still fixed in the base of the panel above the dancing monks.
"Do you see what our friends were up to?" I asked. "That fellow Toutou has a keen mind. He is somebody to be reckoned with. He saw what none of us saw, even after we had worked out the cipher."
"What did he see?" asked Nikka.
For answer I switched the light on to Lady Jane's verse:
Whenne thatte ye Pappist Churchmanne
Woudde seke Hys Soul's contente
He tookened up ye Wysshinge Stone
And trodde ye Prior's Vent.
"He saw that," I answered. "And he jumped to conclusions from it. He knew, as we knew, that there is something concealed in this house, probably in this room. And he thought that that verse would not have been placed just there unless there was a reason for it."
"By Jove, I believe he was right!" exclaimed Hugh.