“Hadn’t we better speak to them?”
“By all means if you can do any good. You know them, I don’t.”
He climbed over the barricade and rapped at the door.
“Who is there?” he asked. “I am Boreski.” No reply was made, and he knocked and called again. “I don’t believe any one is in there,” he said to me in a whisper. “I can’t hear a sound.”
“Let’s hope they’ve gone then, but I doubt it,” I replied, and then as a suspicion flashed on me, I turned to Ivan. “What about the upper storey. Are there any ladders about the place long enough to reach it?”
“Yes, monsieur, at the stables.”
“That explains the silence then. Come with me quickly;” and climbing the barricade I rushed up, followed closely by Ivan. We were in the nick of time.
They had already planted a long ladder reaching to the window of one of the front rooms and three of them were more than half-way up. I threw the window open.
“Come, gentlemen, quicker please. You keep us waiting,” I called.
The result was almost comical. The man at the top muttered something to those below him, and in an instant all three went sliding helter-skelter to the ground, and picking themselves up scurried off in the darkness to cover.