He was shaking yet. "I ought to kill you," said he. "But I didn't do it. Look here, show me a way down and I'll let you off. You're used to this work, ain't you?"
"How did you come up?" I asked, innocently enough.
"By the Lord, if you ask questions, I'll strangle you! You were in the room with—with it! I saw you: I'll swear I saw you. Get me down out of this, and hide—get on board some ship, and clear. See? If you breathe a word that you've seen me, I'll cut your heart out. You understand me?"
I hadn't a doubt then that he was guilty. His fear was too craven. "There's a warehouse at the end here," said I, and led the way to it. But when we reached it, its roof rose in a sharp slope from the low parapet guarding the leads where we stood.
"But I don't see," he objected; "and, anyway, I can't manage that."
I pointed to a louver skylight half-way up the roof. "We can prise that open, or break it. It's easy enough to reach," I assured him.
He was extraordinarily clumsy on the slates, but obeyed my instructions like a child. I wrenched at the wooden louvers.
"Got a knife?" I asked.
He produced one—an ugly-looking weapon, but clean. By good luck, we did not need it; for as he passed it to me, the louver at which I was tugging broke and came away in my hand. We easily loosened another and, squeezing through, dropped into the loft upon a sliding pile of grain.
The loft was dark enough; but a glimmer of light shone through the chinks of a door at the far end. Unbolting it, we looked down, from the height of thirty feet or so, into a deserted lane. Or rather I looked down: for while I fumbled with the bolts Master Archie had banged his head into something hard, and dropped, rubbing the hurt and cursing.