The Black Patch

by Fergus Hume

"But a light. Oh"--she caught sight of a candle on the table--"here is one. You lead, Vivian."

With the lighted candle the pair went down into the unwholesome passage. It descended by means of the steps for some distance, and then there was a trend to the right. The passage was perfectly straight, and had been dug out of the soft earth. Part of it was roofed with brick, but the whole was much dilapidated, and showed signs of collapse. Vivian, seeing this, and fearing a fall of earth, wished the girl to return, but this she refused to do. "I want to see where it leads to," she said. "Go on, Vivian."

Thus urged, he cautiously felt his way by the feeble glimmer of the candle. In a shorter time than either expected, they came to a second flight of steps, and scrambled upward. The steps ended at a kind of trap-door. Vivian placed his shoulder beneath this, and with a vigorous push, forced it outward and upward. The next moment he had leaped lightly on to the surface of the earth, and found himself in the wood, just outside the walls of The Camp.

"Oh," said Beatrice, when she was assisted out of the bole, and began to recognise her surroundings, "Durban said that the exit was within The Camp."

"Ah," replied Vivian, with much significance, "Durban has told another lie. He is not to be trusted, Beatrice."

"I am certain he is, although appearances are against him," declared the girl impetuously. "He is cautious in speaking even to me, as he fears the vengeance of the Gang. Close the trap-door, Vivian. See!" she added, when he did this, "the surface is masked with moss."

And so it was. The wood was ingeniously covered with ragged moss; and when the trap was down and a few leaves fell on the moss, no one could have told that a passage lay underneath. It was a most clever arrangement, and doubtless had been often used by the scoundrelly gang of which Alpenny, undoubtedly, had been a prominent member. The respectable clients, however, who had come to borrow money and be swindled by the old rascal, had always entered by the great gates, or, if they wished for especial privacy, by the smaller one.

"What a dangerous lot of people I have lived amongst," said Beatrice, who was rather pale when they reclosed the door of the counting-house and left The Camp.

"Undoubtedly," assented Vivian rather grimly; "it is a mercy that the police never came down here. You might have been implicated."

"I can see that, and for the same reason I refuse to believe that Durban is mixed up with these rascalities. He served Mr. Alpenny for my sake, and for my sake he held his tongue about the roguery which he must have known went on. But I do not believe that he took any part in the same, Vivian."