He was on the steps already, but I had no desire to argue with him. I was as ripe for a risk as Delavoye, as anxious to escape after the one we had already run. The trap-door went up slowly, pushing something over it into a kind of tent.
"It's only the rug," purred Delavoye. "I heard him take it up—thank God—as well as put it down again. Now hold the candle; now the trap-door, till I hold it up for you."
And we squirmed up into a vast apartment, not only empty as predicted, but left in darkness made visible by the solitary light we carried now. The little stray flame was mirrored in a floor like black ice, then caught the sheen of the tumbled rug that Delavoye would stay to smooth, then twinkled in the diamond panes of bookcases like church windows, flickered over a high altar of a mantelpiece, and finally displayed our stealthy selves in the window by which we left the house.
"Thank God!" said Delavoye as he shut it down again. "That's something like a breath of air!"
"Hush!" I whispered with my back to him.
"What is it?"
"I thought I heard shouts of laughter."
"You're right. There they go again! I believe we've struck a heavy entertainment."
In a dell behind the house, a spreading cedar caught the light of windows that we could not see. Delavoye crept to the intermediate angle, turned round, and beckoned in silhouette against the tree.
"High jinks and junketings!" he chuckled when I joined him. "The old bloke must be away. Shall we risk a peep?"