But his searchings after light on this subject were cut off short by the sound of softly speaking voices creeping to him through that grilled door, and coming from some long distance away within it. He darted back against the wall and, groping with his hands, found a cupboard door ajar, slipped into it, and drew himself up taut against the inner wall, and waited for that which might come to pass, every nerve a-tremble, his eyes fixed upon the crack of the door, which at present showed black as a pocket.
The soft voices continued—men's voices, too, and one with the changing inflections of the foreigner.
"Blinkin' German!" thought Dollops excitedly. "Or a Chink! Don't know the difference between their parley-vous meself, but it's orl alike wiv foreigners. But the other 'un—'e's English orl right. Never 'eard 'is voice before, that's certain! Gawd! they're comin' out now, an' I prays 'eaven they ain't a jossin' ter fetch nuffin' from this 'ere cupboard, or little Dollops's number'll be up with a vengeance! I don't fancy bein' done in by a blinkin' pigtail, neither! Nah!—then! Keep still, Dollops, me boy, and stop yer tremblin'. You'll 'ave the 'ouse a-shakin' in a minit, an' they'll fink it's a earfquake instead of a boy-quake—strite they will!"
Having wrestled himself into some sort of quiet of heart and brain, Dollops continued to lie in wait until the strangers had come out through the grilled door, and stood a moment with the candle between them, talking in low tones, and glancing occasionally up the flight of stairs by which he had only just descended. One of them had his back to him, but the other's face was in full view. It was a dark, swarthy-skinned face, with black eyes and crisp black moustache curling upon the upper lip, the slim nose and aquiline features revealing to the watching lad the very evident fact that here was a genuine Italian.
And the other? He'd seen that tweed coat before, surely—but where? Where? He racked his brains to think. Somewhere that tweed coat had crossed his vision once before during that day, and in some unaccountable manner it was associated in his mind with Sir Ross Duggan himself....
The men moved quietly, blew out the candle, and then opened the door opposite and began to climb up the stone stairway into the fresh air, creeping about like mice.
Meanwhile Dollops, afraid no longer, and all his being afire to get to his master with news of this new development—and so make up for his slowness this afternoon, when the lady had so successfully given him the slip right here within his reach—stood stock-still, raking every corner of that fertile young brain of his for the clue which eluded him.
And then—quite suddenly—he knew.