Without hesitation, Bhag stooped and lifted the limp man in his arms, and Michael guided him to the stairway and led him up the stairs.
The house was full of police, who gaped at the sight of the great ape and his burden.
“Take him upstairs and put him on the bed,” ordered Michael.
Knebworth had already taken the girl off in his car to Chichester, for she had shown signs of reviving, and he wanted to get her away from that house of the dead before she fully recovered.
Michael went down into the cave again and joined the inspector. Together they made a brief tour. The headless figures in the niches told their own story. Farther on, Michael came to the bigger cavern, with its floor littered with bones.
“Here is confirmation of the old legend,” he said in a hushed voice, and pointed. “These are the bones of those warriors and squires who were trapped in the cave by a landslide. You can see the horses’ skeletons quite plainly.”
How had Adele got into the cave? He was not long before he found the slide down which she had tumbled.
“Another mystery is explained,” he said. “Griff Tower was obviously built by the Romans to prevent cattle and men from falling through into the cave. Incidentally, it has served as an excellent ventilator, and I have no doubt the old man had this way prepared, both as a hiding-place for the people he had killed and as a way of escape.”
He saw a candle-lantern and matches that the girl had missed, and this he regarded as conclusive proof that his view was right.
They came back to the guillotine with its ghastly burden, and Michael stood in silence for a long time, looking at the still figure stretched on the platform, its hands still clutching the sides.