"Has it a window?"
"Yes, but a window useless to you if you attempt parley from without the house. It is the oldest part of the Manor; a dead-wall has been built up flat in front of the window-bars."
"Is the cell upon a passage, then?"
"No; it opens from a larger chamber, my lord—the East Room we call it—and that East Room is the only access to it; and the captain has already said that one or two of his party must sleep in the East Room, if only for the sake of form——"
Lord Geoffry interrupted Gilbert decisively. "I want, then, a suit of Neil's or Angus' clothes—their worst. When you return below offer Jermain a servant to relieve his men of this same formal guard-duty. 'Tis ten to one that this thoughtless, half-drunken young soldier jumps at your proposal. If I am once stationed before the door of that strong-room, depend upon it I can find a way to learn all that its inmate has to tell. Those brutes will not waken, once sound asleep, though I blew a trumpet over them."
Boyd stared, bewildered, at this audacious scheme. "He will lock the cell's door, my lord; keep the key himself or give it to one of his men. Such a plan is folly."
"He must not keep the key; or, if he do, it must be got again. It can be, if you do not spare your whiskey."
"And do you, then, suppose," asked Gilbert impatiently, and staggered by such persistency, "do you suppose that Jermain will say 'yes' to this offer? He is innocent of suspicions, my lord. But he is not a fool."
"If he say 'no,' well and good. Then will I go down to the room as I am dressed this minute, and while they sleep; or we will devise other means to do what must be done. Bring first the suit—the clothes—I beg. Boyd, be not so fearful."
In spite of his determination not to assist his guest in such an extraordinary attempt, the arguments of Sir Geoffry faced the bewildered Master quite down. Particularly was Boyd impressed with Sir Geoffry's strange insistence that "the prisoner might have that to utter which could be said best or only to him."