“I will speak to you at once,” promised Mrs. Kretz, intent upon the blue stocking.
In the hall, outside the kitchen door, Bat Scanlon’s manner changed. Bulky as he was and with forty years resting upon him, he was still a well-conditioned athlete. Slower than he was at twenty, he was supple enough when he set himself to it; and now he moved down the hall swiftly and with the lightness of a boy.
No one was in sight; the first door he came to stood open; it was a sort of storage room for the servants, and no one was there. The next door led to the vaults under the castle; this was closed. But a turn of the knob showed that it was not locked.
“The soft one oozed in by this route,” thought Bat, as he closed the door. “And some thoughtful friend prepared the way for him, for witness the fact that there are bolts on the door, as well as a lock.”
Silently he rebolted the door; with some slivers of wood from the storage room, pointed with his pocket-knife, he so jammed the bolts that it would be no easy task to shoot them back.
“In this way,” murmured Bat, putting away the knife, “I place some small impediment in the path of the soft party should he desire to back out of the premises in a hurry.”
Quietly the big man went through the lower floor; each room was visited and examined narrowly. But he found no one; there were no traces of any one. At the foot of the stairs he paused; from above came the voice of Campe, and in it there was lightness and ease.
“The billiard ball is also merrily clicking,” said Mr. Scanlon. “Evidently he is still engaged with the golden-haired Helen, and she is making him forget his troubles.” He began quietly to ascend the stairs. “But it might pay him to keep an eye open; for who knows when her ambition might break out afresh, and she might take another swing at him with the sword.”
As his head appeared above the landing, he came in sight of the billiard room door. This was open and a stream of light flowed out into the hall. Standing flat against the wall, his back to the staircase, and peering around the door-frame into the billiard room was the soft-looking man.
Gently Mr. Scanlon advanced; quietly he touched the man upon the shoulder; then, as the head turned, skilfully he chipped him upon the jaw. The body buckled, and crumpled into a soft mass in Scanlon’s arms. Lowering it to the floor the big man stepped into the doorway. In the billiard room were Campe and Miss Hohenlo.