“Where is your master?” asked Michael in Dutch.
The man shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied, but instinctively he looked up to the ceiling.
“Show me the way.”
They went back to the hall, up the broad stairway on to the first floor. Along a corridor, hung with swords, as was its fellow below, he reached another open door—the great dance hall where Gregory Penne had held revel that evening. There was nobody in sight, and Michael came out into the hall. As he did so, he was aware of a frantic tapping at one of the doors in the corridor. The key was in the lock: he turned it and flung the door wide open, and Stella Mendoza, white as death, staggered out.
“Where is Adele?” she gasped.
“I want to ask you that,” said Michael sternly. “Where is she?”
The girl shook her head helplessly, strove to speak, and then collapsed in a swoon.
He did not wait for her to recover, but continued his search. From room to room he went, but there was no sign of Adele or the brutal owner of Griff Towers. He searched the library again, and passed through into the little drawing-room, where a table was laid for two. The cloth was wet with spilt wine; one glass was half empty—but the two for whom the table was laid had vanished. They must have gone out of the front door—whither?
He was standing tense, his mind concentrated upon a problem that was more vital to him than life itself, when he heard a sound that came from the direction of Bhag’s den. And then there appeared in the doorway the monstrous ape himself. He was bleeding from a wound in the shoulder; the blood fell drip-drip-drip as he stood, clutching in his two great hands something that seemed like a bundle of rags. As Michael looked, the room rocked before his eyes.