There was no way of telling if the cold merciless voice behind the blinding lights was speaking truth or no, but in the circumstances it was impossible not to regard it.
The little party stood there, hands raised above their heads; then hurrying footsteps echoed down the stone corridor behind them and their erstwhile prisoners surrounded them.
The German had lied when he spoke of his assistant, then. The man must have slipped into the house by the other door and released the men in the brewhouse.
‘You will now go up to a room on the top floor to which my men will lead you. Anyone who makes the least attempt to escape will be shot instantly. By “shot” I mean shot dead.’
The voice of Benjamin Dawlish came clearly to them from behind the wall of light. The icy tonelessness which had made the voice so terrible on the first hearing was still there and Abbershaw had a vision of the expressionless face behind it, heavy and without life, like a mask.
The spirit of the little group was momentarily broken. They had made their attempt and failed in the very moment when their success seemed assured.
Again unarmed, they were forced back into the house and placed in a room on the top floor at the far end of the long gallery where Albert Campion had had his fight with the butler. It was a long narrow room, oak-panelled, but without a fire-place, and lighted only from a single narrow iron-barred window.
Even as Abbershaw entered it, a feeling of misgiving overcame him. Other rooms had possibilities of escape; this held none.
It was completely empty, and the door was of treble oak, iron-studded. It had doubtless been used at one time as a private chapel, possibly in those times when it was wisest to hold certain religious ceremonies behind barred doors.
The only light came from a hurricane lantern which one of the men had brought up with him. He set it on the floor now so that the room was striped with grotesque shadows. The prisoners were herded down to the end of the room, two men keeping them covered the whole time.