The butler, who was standing on the threshold with a branch of candles in his hand, stared at the wainscoting and said: “Where?”
“Here, behind the panel! I saw it close, I tell you! There’s a priest’s hole; we have him trapped!”
The butler looked a good deal astonished, and advancing further into the room said: “Since you know so much about this house, Mr Gregg, perhaps you know how to get into this priest’s hole you talk of?”
The valet shook his head, biting his nails. “No, we were too late. Only the master knows the catch to it. We must keep it covered.”
“It seems to me that there’s someone else as knows,” remarked the butler austerely. “I’m bound to say that I don’t understand what it is you’re playing at, Mr Gregg, with all this mysterious talk about housebreakers, and setting everyone on to keep watch like you have. Who’s behind the panel!”
Gregg answered evasively: “How should I know? But I saw a man disappear into the wall. We must get the Parish Constable up here to take him the instant the master gets back and opens the panel.”
“I presoom you know what you’re about, Mr Gregg,” said the butler in frigid tones. “If I were to pass an opinion I should say that it was more my place than yours to give orders here in the master’s absence. These goings-on are not at all what I have been accustomed to.”
“Never mind that!” said Gregg impatiently. “Send one of the stable-hands to fetch the Constable!”
“Stand where you be!” growled a voice from the window. “Drop that gun! I have you covered, and my pop’s liable to go off unaccountable sudden-like.”
The valet wheeled round, saw Mr Bundy, and jerked up his pistol hand. The two guns cracked almost as one, but in the uncertain light neither bullet found its mark. The butler gave a startled gasp, and nearly let the candles fall, and through the window scrambled a third man, who flung himself upon Bundy from the rear, panting: “Ah, would you, then!”