“Faint away!” retorted old Duffham.
“I’ll be shot if it would not send some people into a faint! That Gibbon woman has just said that no cries were to be heard last night.”
“Well?”
“Well, there were cries; plenty of them. And awful cries they were. I, and Johnny, and Mrs. Frank Radcliffe—yes, she was with us—stood in that precious field listening to them till our blood ran cold. You heard them, you know, on Saturday night.”
“Well?” repeated Duffham, staring at Tod.
“Look here. We have found it out—and have come over to tell you—and to ask you what can be done,” went on Tod earnestly, jumping off the counter and putting his back against the door to make sure of no interruption. “The cries come from Frank Radcliffe. He is not dead.”
“What?” shouted Duffham, who had turned to face Tod and stood in the middle of the oil-cloth, wondering whether Tod was demented.
“Frank is no more dead than I am. I’d lay my life upon it. Stephen Radcliffe has got him shut up in the tower; and the piteous cries are his—crying for release.”
“Bless my heart and mind!” exclaimed Duffham, backing right against the big scales. “Frank Radcliffe alive and shut up in the tower! But there’s no way to the tower. He could not be got into it.”
“I don’t care. I know he is there. That huzzy, now gone out, does well to say no cries were abroad last night; her business is to throw people off the scent. But I tell you, Duffham, the cries never were so loud or so piteous, and I heard what they said as distinctly as you can hear me speak now. ‘Help! Frank Radcliffe! Help!’ they said. And I swear the voice was Frank’s own.”