‘Thank you, I’ll bide where I am,’ she said. ‘I know what I’m up to, which is more than you do, I reckon, trapezing round with a pair of gorbies.’
Campion touched the girl’s arm.
‘Come,’ he said softly. ‘I thought I heard someone. I’ll go first, then you follow me.’
He stepped up on the stone hob as he spoke, and then swung his leg over the brick back of the grate which they now saw was little over three feet high, and disappeared out of sight. Meggie followed him, and Abbershaw sprang after her. Within three minutes they had emerged into the boxroom and Campion raised the lid of the chest in the far corner.
Meggie suffered herself to be led down the dusty passage, Campion in front of her, and Abbershaw behind.
As they went, they heard the cracked voice of Mrs Meade chanting vigorously to herself:
‘While the wicked are confounded
Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,
Call me with Thy saints surrounded.
Ah-ha-Ha-ha-men.’
CHAPTER XVIII
Mr Kennedy’s Council
When Albert Campion and his two refugees crawled out at the far end of the passage, they found the cupboard door open and the entire crowd assembled in the bedroom without, waiting for them. Anne Edgeware threw herself across the room towards Meggie with a little squeaky cry that was part sympathy, part relief. Prenderby’s little Jeanne had not been a reassuring companion.
The strain of the last twenty-four hours had told upon them all. The atmosphere in the wide, old-fashioned room was electric, and Campion’s somewhat foolish voice and fatuous expression struck an incongruous note.