"Now, what the dickens...?" began Cleek, and stopped.
Dollops surveyed it with his head on one side.
"Seems ter me, sir," he began, after a pause, "that this yere's the genuyne article. One of them old passages what people like King Charles and Bloody Mary an' a few other of them celebrities you sees at Madame Tussord's any day in the week, used to 'ide in when things were a-gettin' too 'ot fer 'em. That's what this is."
"Your history's a bit rocky, but your ideas are all right," returned Cleek with a little smile, as he stood looking up at the square of black oak above them. "I believe you're right, Dollops. It must have given the later arrivals a big start in that tunnelling business, or else they've been at it, or both. There must be years' work in this system of passageways. It is marvellous. But if it's a genuine old secret passage, those stairs will probably lead up into a house, and—let's try 'em. If the house they lead into is the one I think it is.... Well, we'll be unravelling the rest of this riddle before the night is out!"
So saying, he fairly leapt up the little flight of stone stairs, and then let his fingers glide over the smooth polished face of the oak door, pushing, probing, pressing it, a frown puckering his brows.
"If this is a genuine old secret hiding-place," he remarked, "then according to all the rules of the game there ought to be some sort of a spring this side to open it, so that the hidden man might be able to get out again when he wanted to. But where? Faugh! My fingers must be losing their cunning, and—Ah, here it is! Bit of wood gives way here, Dollops. Just a gentle pressure, and—here we are!"
And here they were, indeed, for as he spoke, the door slid back into the flooring out of sight, and they found themselves looking up into a room which was lighted by a single gas-jet, which barely illumined it, but which, when Cleek poked his head up above the flooring and took a casual survey of the place proved to be no less a place than the back kitchen of Merriton Towers!
He brought his head down again with a jerk, touched the spring in the edge of oak-panelling at the left of him, and let the door swing back across the opening once more; and not till it had slipped into place with a little click did he turn upon Dollops.
"Merriton Towers!" he ejaculated finally. "Merriton Towers! Now, if young Merriton really is a party to this thing that is going on down here in the bowels of the earth, why—Dash it, it's going to prove an even worse case against him than we knew! A chap who plays an underhanded game like this doesn't mind what he walks over to attain his ends. But ... Merriton Towers...!"
He stopped speaking suddenly, sucked in his breath, his face turned very grim. Dollops broke the silence that fell, a tremour of excitement in his low-pitched voice.