“No wonder no one ever got wise to this,” said he. “It opens right under that big rock that hangs over the water; and the water runs directly underneath. They must have had some little time getting the man of the chair in, unless they have a boat.”
After they had looked about interestedly for a while, they left the tunnel, and closed the massive stone door. Ashton-Kirk then picked up the wheel tracks with the torch rays, and this time he followed them in the opposite direction.
“Trying to find out what the crippled party was up to,” Bat told himself. “Well, it must have been something important, seeing as he went to such a lot of trouble to get here.”
Here and there went the special detective, his keen eyes following the wheel marks. Alva, so it seemed, had been rolled to all parts of the vaults, and the track was, to Scanlon’s notion, hopelessly tangled. But Ashton-Kirk seemed to see much that was interesting and of consequence; at length, however, he straightened up, stretched the tightness which the stooping posture had produced out of his back and shoulders, and smiled at his companion in a way that spoke of much satisfaction.
“Our friends were here quite recently,” he said. “In fact, I will venture to say that they were here last night, and, perhaps, upon each of the preceding nights. All the indications speak of acute interest—and failure.”
“Failure!” said Scanlon. “In what?”
Ashton-Kirk smiled once more.
“In what they came for,” said he. “And—having failed—they will come again.”
His interest in the vaults seemed to have exhausted itself; and so he ascended to the first floor with Bat at his heels. After making the door fast, the big man asked:
“Well, where do we give the next look? In the room where the tapestries are?”