"Come on, Stone." I left the room with them.
"Curious!" he heard Mike say behind us.
"What is curious?" asked Oakes.
The smart hired man answered. "Mr. Clark, the air is good in here. Where does it come from?"
"I guess we have learned all we need this time, Mike," was the reply, and the gardener came out reluctantly.
Oakes had seen the door in the wall: it was all he wanted to know. He closed the outer entrance of the room, and called to Cook for hammer and nails. The man brought them quickly; then the leader took a board that was standing against the wall, and Mike and Cook nailed it across the door from frame to frame.
"Mr. Clark, ye will have the devil now, sorr," said Mike.
Oakes took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote "Clark" on one end of the board; then with a single movement continued his hand over its edge carefully, and on to the frame, where the line terminated in a second signature—"Clark."
"Anyone removing that board has got to put it back to match that line," said Oakes, "and that with a board is practically impossible where nailing has been done. Now for the exit that opens near the well."