“No, sir, and there’s Gregg laying like one dead. There was a great many of them. We did what we could, but the candlestick was shot over, and in the dark they got away. It was the one in the panelling Gregg set such store by catching, so I’ve left one of the stable lads there to keep watch. In the library, sir.”
“It seems to me you have conducted yourselves like a set of idiots!” said Sir Tristram angrily, and walked into the library.
The candelabra had been picked up from the wreckage on the floor, and the candles, most of them broken off short by their fall, had been relit. The valet’s inanimate form was stretched on a couch, and the young groom, looking bruised and dishevelled but still remarkably pugnacious, was standing in the middle of the room, his serious grey eyes fixed on the wainscoting. He touched his forelock to Sir Tristram, but did not move from his commanding position.
Shield went over to look at the valet, who was breathing stertorously. “Knocked out,” he said. “You’d better carry him up to his bed. Where’s this precious panel you talk of?”
“It’s here, sir,” answered the groom. “I’m a-watching of it. Only let the cove come out, that’s all I ask!”
“I’ll keep an eye on that,” replied Sir Tristram. “You take this fellow’s legs, and help Jenkyns carry him up to his room. Get water and vinegar, and see what you can do to bring him round. Gently, now!”
Under his authoritative instructions the groom and the butler lifted Gregg from the couch, and bore him tenderly from the room. No sooner had they started to mount the stairs than Sir Tristram closed the library door and called softly: “Ludovic! All’s clear: come out!”
“Happen he’s suffocated inside that hole,” remarked Mr Bundy’s fatalistic voice from the window.
“Nonsense, there must be enough air! Where’s the catch that opens the panel?”
Bundy, leaning his head and shoulders in at the window indicated the portion of the frieze where it might be found.