When they reached the lower floor, Ashton-Kirk said to Campe:
“Please call your man. We’ll need him.”
“Wait!” Mr. Scanlon held out one large protesting hand. “What do you want him to do?”
“We are going into the cellars. I think it best that some one be left to watch the hall thereabouts, and the cellar stairs.”
Bat nodded.
“Thought it was something like that,” said he. “And that’s why I wanted to know. Now I want to say this. Kretz may be all right; then, again, he may not be.”
Campe gazed at the speaker astonished.
“I should as soon distrust myself as Kretz,” said he. “I’ve known him for years, and he is in every way worthy of confidence.”
“May be so,” admitted Bat. “May be so. But things break the other way sometimes, you know. So let’s be sure.” He looked at the others inquiringly. “How about that day when we were shot at in the cellar?” said he. “How did the lamp come to smash? It happened, remember, before a shot was fired.”
Ashton-Kirk smiled.