“Let’s go on into the cellar proper and up into the house,” said the Captain, eager to continue his exploration.
But what he proposed was impossible, for they discovered that the end of the passage was blocked by a huge stone that had fallen out of the wall. It filled up the space from the floor to the low ceiling, all but a few inches at the top and a few inches at the one side, where an irregularity in its contour did not fit against the straight side of the wall. A very faint light from the cellar showed through these crevices, and a cold draught of air played like a thin stream down the backs of their necks.
“There doesn’t seem to be any way of getting out around that rock,” said the Captain. “Can you see any way?”
They all looked diligently for some way to get over, or around it, or through it, and soon admitted that it was impossible.
“How on earth did that fellow ever get in from this end?” asked Justice in perplexity. “There isn’t a ghost of a show of getting through.”
“He couldn’t have,” said Katherine decidedly, “unless he really was the devil, as Hercules believed.”
“Or unless the stone fell after he was in,” suggested the Captain.
“But if he came in this way and went out again, how does it happen that the door here was fastened on the other side?” asked Sahwah.
“I give it up,” said Justice. “I don’t believe he came in this way.”
“Maybe he didn’t come in through the secret passage at all,” said Slim. “Maybe he did come in through the upstairs window, as we thought at first.”