“But the panel moved,” cried Denis, “and I heard a sound.”
“Impossible, sir,” said the woman.
“Then what does this mean?” said the King, taking up the scrap of paper.
The woman took it, looked at it blankly, and passed it back.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It is a foreign tongue.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the King. “This is strange, madam. That paper lay beneath my plate, and some one must have been watching us at our meal.”
“No, my lord,” said the woman; “it is impossible. Nobody could have been there. If anyone has dared—” She said no more, but angrily thrust the panel back into its place and turned the oaken rose, which gave a snap as of a bolt shooting into its socket, and then, raising her hand to the diagonal corner, she turned a fellow ornament in the oaken carving, to produce another sound as of a second bolt being shot.
“There,” she cried, “it is quite fast now. One minute, and I will return.”
She hurried out of the room, and the next minute they heard the sounds of knuckles rapping the panel on the other side and directly after the loud closing and locking of a door.
A few moments later, as the party stood there waiting, the woman was back at their side, to lay a large key upon the table, looking flushed and angry.